[Reader-list] Pad.ma Newsletter 1

[shaina a]

Hello readers,
Pad.ma has just begun a series of monthly postings. We're posting the
newsletter to the reader list because we feel its content will be of
interest to many readers. Happy viewing. We look forward to feedback and to
the beginning of a dialogue on interpretative archives and archiving
practices.

Warmth,
Shaina Anand

*Pad.ma Newsletter I
*http://pad.ma/newsletter


 Pad.ma’s monthly newsletter contains information about new contributions to
the archive (videos and writing), featured videos lists, announcements,
Pad.ma projects and events, etc. This month, we bring you eight new video
collections (55 new videos), a public call for Pad.ma fellowships, some
highlights from the archive, and a new and updated ‘How to use Pad.ma’
guide.


 For Pad.ma, this is the beginning of a new phase of content development*. *It
is also in anticipation of a new software framework and interface (expected
in summer 2010), which will make working with Pad.ma easier and more
rewarding. Meanwhile, we welcome your contributions (video, text or
thoughts) to this growing public collection of material.


 Pad.ma is an interpretative web-based video archive, which works primarily
with footage and not finished films. Pad.ma creates access to material which
is easily lost in editing processes, in the filmmaking economy, and in
changes of scale brought about by digital technology. Unlike Youtube, the
focus here is on annotation, cross-linking, downloading and the reuse of
video material for pedagogy, research and reference. For more, see
http://pad.ma/about.


 *>>> What’s new <<<
*


**

> *Theatre Jam
* In October 2009, Maraa, a media collective from Bangalore, did a 31-day
marathon of performances in public spaces, in an effort to reclaim them for
artistic expression. Theatre workshops, photography exhibitions and poetry
readings took place in parks, markets and cafés. An on-going series that
begins to document Maraa’s interventions in the city.
http://pad.ma/find?l=L1i


 *> Politics of Change
*Annemie Maes, an artist and researcher from Brussels, started the Politics
of Change project when she visited Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajasthan, in
2008. Maes was struck by the similarity between the bottom-up approach of
the solar engineering programme for rural Rajasthani women and her own
artistic practice at Okno, an organisation that works on collective
technological research projects. Maes has uploaded to Pad.ma her film *
Mahila*, video questionnaires from PoC workshops, and interviews with
Rajasthani and African solar engineers, and friends and colleagues from
Brussels.
http://pad.ma/find?l=L1e


 *> People’s Panchayats against Homophobia
*Action Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India,
organised People’s Panchayats on stigma and homophobia in Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Delhi in early 2009. Forefronted were the
voices of survivors and resistors from sexual minority communities. Point of
View, Mumbai, documented these panchayats: depositions, testimonies,
audience responses, and the jury’s ‘verdict’ at the end. A large and growing
collection of voices.
http://pad.ma/find?l=L1j


 *> Lectures from CSCS, Bangalore
*Lectures from the ‘Culture and Democracy’ course at the Centre for the
Study of Society and Culture (CSCS), Bangalore. These lectures were recorded
in 2007 and invited speakers included Ashish Rajadhyaksha, M. Madhava
Prasad, S. V. Srinivas, Sitharamam Kakarala and Vivek Dhareshwar. Welcome to
the online, annotation-friendly classroom. Stay logged in for future
classes.


 Currently published:
M. Madhava Prasad’s ‘Enthusiasm and Indian Politics: Problems in the
Analysis of Aural Culture’
http://pad.ma/Vedx0jjp/info
Ashish Rajadhyaksha’s ‘Cinematic Governance’
http://pad.ma/Ve2iazfj/info


 *> Motornama Roshanara
*Rides through the industrial district around Roshanara Road, Delhi. Tours
on cycle rickshaws with rickshaw wallahs as narrators and guides. Narratives
of automation, pollution, labour and the closure of famed repair industries.
All this across a landscape characterised by lost middle-class confidence,
new migrants, old machines, bodily risk and emerging eco-politics in the
city of Delhi.  A project by Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran, as part of
48deg. C, Delhi, 2009.
http://pad.ma/Vhmchrdp/info


 *> Al Jaar Qabla al Daar (The Neighbour before the house)
*A series of video probes into the landscape of East Jerusalem. Shot with a
security camera, these videos attempt to overflow the instrumental aspects
of surveillance imaging. Looking from one’s home, obsessively or longingly,
becomes a way of narrating over the architecture of a city in conflict. A
continuing project by CAMP. This is footage from one location in Jerusalem.
More from other neighbourhoods coming soon.
http://pad.ma/Vs7c6mni


 *> Wharfage
*Wharfage is another on-going CAMP project, which, in 2009, looked closely
at Sharjah port from where a large number of wooden boats or dhows leave for
Somalia. This movement of goods and sailors maps out a landscape of new and
used objects, labour, Asian and African migration and oversized dhows now
being built in Gujarat. Hakimuddin Liliyawala spent time on Sharjah creek,
documenting the loading and unloading of the dhows, and wrote over these
images. Nida Ghouse and Radhamohini Prasad did a follow-up visit to Jam
Salaya, to meet sailor friends they had made in Sharjah.
http://pad.ma/find?l=L1d


 *> Pad.ma Meta
*On February 16, 2009, Pad.ma was launched as a public website. We had a
day-long event in which people who have been engaging with Pad.ma, made
presentations about their use of the archive. Presenters included Sanjay
Kak, Agaaz, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, Ayisha Abraham, Sadanand Menon,
and Priya Sen, among others. This collection has videos of these
presentations and documentation of other Pad.ma events.
http://pad.ma/find?l=L1m
For a report on the Pad.ma 2009 event, see:
http://camputer.org/event.php?this=padma09&tab=optBtn2



*>>> Pad.ma Highlight <<<*


**

Pad.ma’s commitment to making video footage publicly available has motivated
us to recirculate material under fair use. Contributors have uploaded clips
from Hindi films to Pad.ma and more importantly, annotated them critically.
This has created a innovative space for film studies on the web, where ideas
and timelines can come together. Some examples:


 *> Queering Bollywood*
A selection of some coded queer moments in seemingly mainstream and
heteronormative Indian films. A collection of queer readings of such
moments. And a database of video clips, film titles and articles on queer
representations in cinema. This video selection, put together by Namita
Malhotra, has clips from films like *Sholay*, *Sadak*, *Utsav*, *Silsila*and
*Mera Naam Joker*. User contributions to this database are invited. Write to
pad.ma at pad.ma <padma at pad.ma>
http://pad.ma/find?l=L10


 *> Cinematic Cities and Citizenship
*Cinema constructs national consciousness: citizens and denizens, centres
and margins. Cinema archives the urban: planners and gangsters, ambivalent
modernities and urban villages. And cinema opens a virtual window to the
world. All for eight rupees – at least it did till some time ago. A virtual
tour of the city and the citizen in cinema with Lawrence Liang.
http://pad.ma/find?l=L1h


 > *The sex worker in Bollywood*

These clips from films like *Amar Prem*, *Umrao Jaan* and *Mandi* as well as
the more recent *Julie*, *Chameli* and *Sadak*, explore the popular concern
with and presence of the sex worker in many Hindi film genres (commercial,
art house, historical and B-grade). The depictions traverse a range of
characters, including gharwalis and pimps to name a few.
http://pad.ma/find?l=L1q


 *>>> Announcements <<<*


**

*> Fellowships*

Pad.ma invites applications for fellowships from individuals and
organisations interested in
   > contributing footage from a film or research project
   > annotating and researching material already in Pad.ma
   > experimenting with new ways of interpreting and using videos in the
archive
Fellows will be offered honorariums and interested persons can write to
pad.ma at pad.ma <padma at pad.ma>


 *> Pad.ma @ Home Works , Beirut*

Pad.ma will conduct a two week workshop and day-long colloquium at Home
Works V in Beirut, Lebanon, from April 12-25, 2010. Titled ‘Don’t Wait for
the Archive: Archiving practices and futures of the image’, this
workshop/colloquium seeks to discuss the archive as neither a fixed concept
nor as unbounded potential, but as a concrete set of negotiations, costs,
transactions, tools and imaginations that constitute it. A key question will
be: Is there something, in the density of our contemporary experiences in
Bombay, Bangalore, Beirut or on the internet, that can lead to a shared
theory of the archive, which goes beyond its dominant canons? For more, see
http://www.ashkalalwan.org/


 *> Technical Tips for Pad.ma
*Feeling daunted by the Pad.ma interface? Can’t figure out how to browse,
search, upload or download videos, transcribe or annotate? Or why you just
can’t open Pad.ma in Internet Explorer? Fret not. The up-to-date ‘How to Use
Pad.ma’ guide is here: http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/HowTo


 * *

This newsletter was compiled by Pad.ma’s Content Coordinator, Subuhi Jiwani,
with the support of Zinnia Ambaripadwala, Pad.ma's Technical Coordinator.
Send your feedback and comments to subuhi at pad.ma or pad.ma at pad.ma<padma at pad.ma>



The Pad.ma project was initiated in 2008 by Oil21 from Berlin, the
Alternative Law Forum from Bangalore, Majlis, Point of View and
Chitrakarkhana/CAMP, Mumbai.



To receive the Pad.ma newsletter, send a mail to
padma-announce-subscribe at pad.ma
To unsubscribe from this list, send a mail to
padma-announce-unsubscribe at pad.ma