[Reader-list] Pad.ma Newsletter 2

Wed May 26 22:09:45 IST 2010

Pad.ma Newsletter 2  

http://pad.ma/newsletter

In April, Pad.ma conducted a two-week workshop in Beirut titled 'Don't Wait for the Archive: Archiving Practices and Futures of the Image'. This workshop, more a time for production than an "event", had two threads: one was inviting people to contribute materials to Pad.ma, and the second was a conceptual stream that worked through general questions around the archive, with readings from anArchive Readerwe had put together.  

Beirut has a vibrant and colourful recent history around the archive. This includes the tradition of films and publications by the The Atlas Group /Walid Raad, Akram Zataari, independent archive-institutions such as the Arab Image Foundation, the Arab Images Foundation,  UMAM and numerous others, and a competitive economic and cultural currency of the archive within the region. In this context, Pad.ma offered new tools and provocations, suggesting another type of archival space. In turn Beirut, as Pad.ma's first serious international engagement, threw us new challenges and broadened the scope of our engagement with the archive.  

We would like to thank here the many participants of the workshop whose materials are in Pad.ma, and those who contributed to the workshop through texts, interventions, films, and conversations. Thanks also to Ashkal Alwan, the HomeWorks V team, and the Bohen Foundation and to everyone who hosted us at Sanayeh house, with special thanks to Mansour Aziz and Ghassan Maasri. 

In this newsletter, we present materials produced during the Beirut workshop as well as the text '10 Theses on the Archive'. The theses are a set of propositions made by us towards the future of the archive, presented at a colloquium at Home Works V, after the workshop. 

Also in this newsletter is a large collection of videos by the India Theatre Forum, which documents presentations and discussions about the diversity of Indian theatre at the 'Not the Drama Seminar' (2008). Two new video sets concern the law, human rights and post-26/11 legislation. There is video documentation from 'To See is To Change', a two-day event in which a ‘parallax view’ of the ‘40 years of German Video Art’ collection is presented by  artists, curators and critics in Mumbai. Other contributions include footage from Shaina Anand's Khirkeeyaan project, which 'short-circuits' local media networks, and footage from Steal This Film II, a key film on intellectual property.          

As always, we welcome your contributions (video, text or thoughts) to this growing, and now, international collection of materials. 
Send us your feedback at pad.ma at pad.ma.

<<TEXT>> 
10 Theses on the Archive:

1. Don’t wait for the archive
2. Archives are not reducible to the particular forms that they take
3. The direction of archiving will be outward, not inward
4. The archive is not a scene of redemption
5. The archive deals not only with the remnant but also with the reserve
6. Historians have merely interpreted the archive. The point however is to feel it.
7. The image is not just the visible, the text is not just the sayable
8. The past of the exhibition threatens the future of the archive
9. Archives are governed by the laws of Intellectual Propriety as opposed to Property
10. Time is not outside of the archive: it is in it

Full text at http://pad.ma/texts/10_Theses_on_the_Archive.html
by Ashok Sukumaran, Lawrence Liang and Sebastian Lütgert

<<VIDEO>>
Pad.ma user guide: http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/HowTo
(A link with /info, will take you to the info page of the video. Click on the thumbnail preview or the “Editor” button to view the video timeline and player.)

Cinemayat
Video footage from Aita el Cha'b, a town in South Lebanon that was heavily damaged in the 2006 war, has been annotated, transcribed and translated by Nadine Bekdache, Abir Saksouk, Mariam Balhas and others from the Cinemayat collective. Some of this material is about the time that Nadine and Abir spent in the camp, living and working there and their involvement in local politics and social life. A glimpse into 48 hours in Aita el Cha'b can be found here (http://pad.ma/Vt3ssyix/info). There is also extensive documentation of several municipality meetings including one on the reconstruction of the historic core (http://pad.ma/Vgorpc3e/info). The vivid and almost distorted images captured on a VHS tape made before 2006, also gives an idea of Aita el Cha’b before the war broke out (http://pad.ma/Vi31n1mi/info). Much of this material is currently only available in Arabic. The Cinemayat group is continuing to publish their archives, which include videos
 relating to post-war reconstruction in Aita and Siddiqine, as well as material from Nahr el Bared, a camp that was laid siege by the Lebanese army in 2007.

Askhal Alwan : The Home Works Collection
This collection begins with lectures by Adonis, Samia Mehrez and Abbas Baydoun from Home Works I and II.
Adonis is one of the principal figures of poetry in Lebanon and the Arab world. He co-founded and edited Sh'ir, and later Muwaqaf, both progressive journals of poetry and politics, and has numerous published collections of poetry and writings. This lecture was a controversial moment in the history of modern Beirut. It explores the meaning of the word city in its modern usage and asks what it means to live in one. http://pad.ma/Vgd76grd/info
Samia Mehrez teaches Arabic Literature at the American University in Cairo. In her lecture/paper she presents a critical reading of the Egyptian TV series 'Hajj Metwalli's Family' that was shown on a number of Arab local and satellite channels during the month of Ramadan (from November until December) 2001. http://pad.ma/Vhqz2pn8/info
Abbas Baydoun is a poet, and writes literary and art criticism. He edits the cultural supplement of the daily Al-Safir in Beirut. In his lecture, Baydoun talks about transitions from modernity to post-modernity, their difficulties and post-modernity's leap which disconnects it from cultural memory. http://pad.ma/Vgdhcue4/info

98 Weeks Magazines project
In her video on marginalia, Mirene Arsanios captures on video the ephemeral scribbles of words and thoughts, and underlined sentences in magazines such as Muwaqaf and Al-Hilal. http://pad.ma/Vfrbgdjr/info . These magazines are part of an ongoing research collection at 98 weeks. 

We Began By Measuring Distance
Video artist Basma Al Sharif shares on Pad.ma her short film We Began by Measuring Distance and the archive of found footage that she sourced and used in the film. The footage is from the artist's personal archives shot in a Chicago aquarium and other places, news agency footage, and footage from the Operation Cast Lead attacks on Gaza in 2008-09. For the film, see: http://pad.ma/Vu1jb3fm/infoFor the footage: http://pad.ma/Vg82jtyz 

House is Black (Khaneh Siah Ast)
House is Black is a landmark essay film by Forugh Farrokhzad, one of Iran’s most venerated modern poets, a woman who died young and whose writing had a profound impact on Iranian culture. Omar Dewachi takes us through this film, which he uses often in his own teaching to talk about trauma and modes of experiencing and expressing it. http://pad.ma/Vsbonbvz/info

Shadi Ibrahim on his practice of photography.
Shadi Ibrahim is one of the photographers who runs a photo-studio in Burj al-Shamali camp. In the course of Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh's 9-year project in the camp, she interviewed him on his photographic practice and what his images meant in the social life of the camp. The interview generates a set of complicated questions around identity, religion, gender and representation. Through the interview, she also has an opportunity to reflect on her own relation to images and the social relations they engender, over a long time.  http://pad.ma/Vuh7chty/info/

Yes 
A one-sided love story set in the popular Hamra street in Beirut. Back in 2004, Hamra street was becoming like an abandoned walkway after the closure of several cafes, especially the infamous Modca Cafe. http://pad.ma/Vg8imjcd/info

India Theatre Forum
Organised fifty years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar brought together theatre practitioners, researchers and critics from all across the country to Ninasam in March 2008. The seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today and attempted to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its diversity. The idea for the India Theatre Forum, a networked support and exchange platform for theatre, was seeded at this key gathering. This collection of 33 videos documents the presentations, conversations, heated debates and Q&As. http://www.pad.ma/find?l=L1z  

Steal This Footage
Steal This Film II tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. It is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its theft, downloading, distribution and screening, and have made available the entire film and footage on their website and Pirate Bay for download, in HDV format. Some interviews from the film can be seen here: http://pad.ma/find?l=L1v  

Khirkeeyaan
The seven episodes of this artwork from 2006 were born out of seven sets of installations of security cameras and cableTV wiring in Khirkee Extension, Delhi during a residency by Shaina Anand at Khoj.  "The surprising thing was not that such communication was possible, but that this combination of surveillance equipment, household televisions and neighbours produced such an easy fit, such a ludic inversion of its technical and social context. Khirkee Extension is fractured by all sorts of lines: caste, religion, money, new and old settlers from different regions.  Khirkeeyan’s traversal of this terrain, its conversations, enter directly into a space produced by the non-overlap of land-based politics, and communication networks."  http://pad.ma/find?l=L1t

Human Rights: Strategic Responses
'Human Rights Priorities in Contemporary India: Strategic Responses', a consultation organised by the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, attempted a critical understanding of the state of human rights in India. Invited speakers included Utsa Patanaik, Veena Gowda, Mihir Desai and Sumathi, among others. Day one of the conference can be seen here:http://pad.ma/find?l=L1u 

To See is to Change
Over two days in November 2008, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts presented a reworking of the 40 Years of German Video Art, a collection being circulated by the Goethe Institute. These respondents brought to the archive their own preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and that it can be re-produced as a history of encounter and entanglement between geographies, schools of thought, technologies, and art forms. The presentations and discussions can be found here: http://pad.ma/find?l=L1x 

People's Panchayats Against Stigma and 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. Twenty new videos have been added to this vast and growing collection: http://pad.ma/find?l=L1j  

Terrorised by Legislation?
A few months after the November 2009 terror strikes in Mumbai, concerned people came together to question the state's draconian anti-terror laws. Lawyer and human rights activist Vrinda Grover and filmmaker Saeed Mirza presented their opinions at a discussion chaired by Mihir Desai. http://pad.ma/Vsme1x9e/info
Meanwhile, the deputy mayor of London, a US Dept. of Homeland Security advisor, a former member of NATO Security, and several counter-terrorism experts (including a former NSG commando), media persons like Gerson DaCunha and Barkha Dutt, and people from the business community and security industry, met in the quickly renovated chambers of the Regal Room in The Trident to discuss terrorism, surveillance, National ID Cards, higher spending on security and tighter centralisation of information gathering networks. http://pad.ma/find?l=Lt  We welcome further annotations on these videos. 

<PAD.MAFELLOWSHIPS>
Pad.ma recently offered writing fellowships to Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh, Simpreet Singh and Taha Mehmood. Ghosh will be writing on the bar dancing ban, through Pad.ma. Simpreet Singh, will be annotating the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan's video archive. Taha Mehmood will work with video material from CCTV control rooms in Manchester.     
_________________________________

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 and similar video sites, the focus here is on annotation, cross-linking, downloading and the reuse of video material for research, pedagogy and reference. For more, seehttp://pad.ma/about. 

This newsletter was put together by Subuhi Jiwani. It will henceforth be bi-monthly. Write to us at pad.ma at pad.ma. 