coming back to the Waag i found the printout of Fear and Money in Dubai by Mike Davis on my table (placed there by the invaluable Patrice). the article turns out to be an excellent piece about the state of affairs in dubai:
On the rim of the war zone, a new Mecca of conspicuous consumption and economic crime, under the iron rule of Sheikh al-Maktoum. Skyscrapers half a mile high, artificial archipelagoes, fantasy theme parks—and the indentured Asian labour force that sustains them. [...]
Welcome to a strange paradise. But where are you? Is this a new Margaret Atwood novel, Philip K. Dick’s unpublished sequel to Blade Runner or Donald Trump on acid? No. It is the Persian Gulf city-state of Dubai in 2010. After Shanghai (current population 15 million), Dubai (current population 1.5 million) is the planet’s biggest building site: an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption and what the locals boast as ’supreme lifestyles’. Despite its blast-furnace climate (on typical 120° summer days, the swankier hotels refrigerate their swimming pools) and edge-of-the-war-zone location, Dubai confidently predicts that its enchanted forest of 600 skyscrapers and malls will attract 15 million overseas visitors a year by 2010, three times as many as New York City. Emirates Airlines has placed a staggering $37-billion order for new Boeings and Airbuses to fly these tourists in and out of Dubai’s new global air hub, the vast Jebel Ali airport. Indeed, thanks to a dying planet’s terminal addiction to Arabian oil, this former fishing village and smugglers’ cove proposes to become one of the world capitals of the 21st century. Favouring diamonds over rhinestones, Dubai has already surpassed that other desert arcade of capitalist desire, Las Vegas, both in sheer scale of spectacle and the profligate consumption of water and power.
Dozens of outlandish mega-projects—including the artificial ‘island world’ (where Rod Stewart has reportedly spent $33 million to buy ‘Britain’), the earth’s tallest building (Burj Dubai, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), the underwater luxury hotel, the carnivorous dinosaurs, the domed ski resort and the hyper-mall—are already under construction or about to leave the drawing board. The 7-star hotel, the spinnaker-shaped Burj Al-Arab—looking much like the set of a James Bond film—is already world-famous for its $5,000 per-night rooms with 100-mile views and an exclusive clientele of Arab royalty, English rock stars and Russian billionaires. And the dinosaurs, according to the finance director of the Natural History Museum, ‘will have the full stamp of authority of the Museum in London, and will demonstrate that education and science can be fun’; and profitable, since the ‘only way into the dinosaur park will be through the shopping mall’. [...]
read the full article here.
December 16th, 2006
so i have been trying to buy a dvd copy of the latest james bond movie all along my trip. finally managed to score a decent copy with proper english sound in Shenzhen (china) yesterday. in total i bought 4 different discs which gives a nice little insight in the dynamics of movie piracy in asia:
25/11 Dubai, Karama market: got a 4-1 dvd with three other crap movies on it in a upstairs room behind one of the numerous fake brand clothing shops in the Karama Market Shopping Complex. Paid 20 Dirham, to the guy who claimed that he had seen it the other night and that image and sound quality were ‘good’. turned out to be really crappy image quality (blurry 320*240 pix) and the sound was distorted and out of sync. the seller claimed he got his DVDs supplied form Malaysia.
28/11 Delhi, Palika Bazaar: got the same 4-1 DVD with the same unwatchable video and audio files on it from one of the many stalls in the palika underground shopping complex for 200 rupees.
08/12 Temple Street Night Market, Hong Kong: got a single movie DVD from a market stall on the Temple Street Night Market. According to the cover it is a region-code less English language version with English, Chinese and simplified Chinese subtitles. The person i bought it form for 20 Hong Kong Dollars claimed that he had seen it the night before and that audio and video were fine. Turns out that audio and video are good quality, except that the audio is in russian (so is the DVD menu) and that there are no english subtitles. the disc also contains a muted and inaudible english sound track.
09/12 DVD shop near the Shenzhen railway station, China: Nobody claimed anything, because nobody spoke english. bought a single movie DVD for 10 yuan in a shop near the railway station. The back cover contains a senseless machine translation which seems to refer to the movie, plus the credits for the latest ‘harry potter’ movie. The disc label looks professional but there is the same russian language menu as before. however this time there is actually an audible english soundtrack which runs in sync with the images (except for 4 minutes in the second half where it runs out of sync).
Paul Keller
December 14th, 2006
Last month the ALF’s Lawrence Laing posted a diary entry by Franz Kafka to the commons-law list in the introduction to his posting he writes:
Kafka, the patron saint of delirium undoubtedly served as the inspiration of Deleuze and Guattari, when they characterized capitalism as a very special delirium. They in turn repaid their debt, by re reading Kafka against the usual grain which portrays Kafka as the existential self loathing neurotic. They would argue that we have never given enough due to delirium, which lies at the heart of desire.
Sebastian Luetgert recently pointed me out to an absolutely fascinating diary entry by Kafka that enables us to think through the idea of the delirium of intellectual property. The entry brilliantly combines The Trial and myriad tales of plagiarism to produce an uncanny parable of property and personhood.
Franz Kafka, Diary Entry 28 February, 1912
Sunday morning, while washing, it occurs to him that he hadn’t seen the Tagblatt yet. He opens it by chance just at the first page of the magazine section. The title of the first essay, ‘The Child as Creator,’ strikes him. He reads the first few lines‹and begins to cry with joy. It is his essay, word for word his essay. So for the first time he is in print, he runs to his mother and tells her. What joy! The old woman, she has diabetes and is divorced from his father, who, by the way, is in the right, is so proud. One son is already a virtuoso, now the other is becoming an author!
After the first excitement he thinks the matter over. How did the essay get into the paper? Without his consent? Without the name of the author? Without his being paid a fee? This is really a breach of faith, a fraud. This Mrs. Durège is really a devil. And women have no souls, says Mohammed (often repeated). It’s really easy to see how the plagiarism came about. Here was a beautiful essay, it’s not easy to come across one like it. So Mrs. D. therefore went to the Tagblatt, sat down with one of the editors, both of them overjoyed, and now they begin to rewrite it. Of course, it had to be rewritten, for in the first place the plagiarism should not be obvious at first sight and in the second place the thirty-two-page essay was too long for the paper.
(more…)
December 7th, 2006
we had mentioned Dubai (as ‘the city of other peoples dreams‘) on this blog back in march of this year. on my current trip to Sarai (to attend the sensor-census-censor symposium) i had the opportunity to spend one day in Dubai to witness how this ‘city of other peoples dreams’ is being constructed. i have posted some pictures to the ‘dubai construction‘ set of my flickr account:
[from the description]: i took these photographs during a stopover in dubai on the 25th of november 2006. they are taken on various construction sites in the dubai marina area that this located about 25 kilometers south from the old city centre in the vicinity of the palm jumeirah artificial island. most of the construction workers pictured here apporached me by themselfes and asked me to take a picture of them. for more information on the situation of migrant construction workers in the U.A.E see the Human Rights Watch report ‘Building Towers, Cheating Workers‘. some more background on the insanity going on in Dubai can be found in the essay Dubai: self-help for those you wanted to build a 21st century city by Shumon Basar
the last article has a number of accompanying pictures. this one is my absolute favorite. pretty much sums up the hubris of the place in one sentence:
paul keller
Technorati Tags: construction, dubai, urban
December 2nd, 2006
pictures from the submidalogia#2 conference which took place from october 12 to 15 in olinda, Pernambuco (a written report is upcoming):
picture by ronaldo eli
picture by klara brunet
picture by klara brunet
picture by klara brunet
picture by ronaldo eli
picture by klara brunet
picture by ronaldo eli
many more pictures on flickr.com. video clips are available at estudiolivre.org (in Portuguese, also includes a report in Portuguese).
October 26th, 2006
submidalogia is conference/event on the social, cultural and political possibilities of the digital media in brazil. last year the Waag Sarai exchange platform helped with getting the first edition on track (here is a report of submidalogia01 which took place in Campinas, Sao Paulo). submialogia02 will take place from october 12 to october 15 in olinda in the northern brazilian state of Pernambuco. here is a short fragment from the invitation:
The first Submidialogy conference, that took place in Campinas – SP, in October 2005, was derived of cooperation between India, Netherlands and diverse Brazilian groups. It was a joining of independent projects, the third sector, governmental, artistic and experimental to an international network of collaborators, searching above all to bring these different experiences to acknowledge each other. This year, it becomes an open festival, with lectures, production laboratories, fm radio broadcast, television, the Internet and the delicious chat with cachaça among @ll submiditics.
Submidialogy will aggregate talks, production and collaborative learning, as well as music, free radio, vj and independent media. These are some of the typical “tastes” that could be appreciated – without moderation – during the second edition of the conference.
Another characteristic of this festival is to investigate the social, cultural and political possibilities of the digital media, besides fomenting the dialogue (in)existent between theory – the scope of ideas, and the practices – the scope of actions.
Subjects as much as formats are still under construction, but are located in the inter-sections of culture, communication, resistance, re-signification, media, technology, art and tactics. In the construction page and by the dicussion list, you can take part of it. We invite you to help to organize this subversion and thus to share our ideas in different contexts and times, aiming future perspective, exchange of experiences, concepts, critical production and, maost of all, fun!
Don’t be shy to forward this invitation to other people that would possibly be interested.
October 2nd, 2006
We are happy to announce the print and web publication of Sarai Reader 06 : ‘Turbulence’. This year, the Sarai Reader 06 is one of the participating publications of the Documenta 12 Magazines Project.
TURBULENCE (from the introduction):
If there was ever to be a ‘weather report’ for our times, an audit of the climate in which we have grown accustomed to live, it would use the word ‘turbulence’ often. Turbulence is a practice for and of a time that has no name. This book, embodying that practice, is an eclectic index of an uncertain age.The Sarai Reader 6 uses ‘Turbulence’ as a conceptual vantage point to interrogate all that is in the throes of terminal crisis, and to invoke all that is as yet unborn. It seeks to examine ‘turbulence’ as a global phenomenon, unbounded by the arbitrary lines that denote national and state boundaries in a ‘political’ map of the world. Sarai Reader 6 surveys areas of low and high pressure in politics, economy and culture that transcend borders, investigates the flow of information and processes between downstream and upstream sites in societies and cultures globally, witnesses surges and waves in ideas and practices in contemporary art, culture and discourse as they crash against the shorelines of many dispersed locations.
How do we anticipate, recover from and remember moments of sudden transformation? How do we look at the debris of the past and brace ourselves for the whirlwind coming our way from the future? How do we deal with the simultaneous pressures of knowing too much or the anxiety of knowing too little about the world? How do we cope intellectually with the sudden dissolution of established ways of knowing and doing things? What does it mean to know and experience the pull of undercurrents – in society, politics, the economy? How do cities deal with the accumulation of complex infrastructural uncertainty? What happens when urban chaos strikes back at urban planning?How can we map the subterranean tectonic shifts and displacements that occur in culture and intellectual life? What are the histories of anxiety, exhilaration, dread, panic, ecstasy, disorientation and boredom like. How can we begin to narrate these histories? What does it take from us to tell stories, read poetry, make images and record experiences in the wake of turbulence?
We would welcome responses, reviews and critiques of the publication, and discussions based on its contents. If you would like to write a review of the book, and wish to obtain a review copy, do write to publications@sarai.net, mentioning details of the publication where the review will appear, and when it is likely to be published. The contents of the book may also be translated into other languages, and published elsewhere. We, and the authors, would like to be informed.
Editors for Reader 06: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi, Ravi Sundaram, Awadhendra Sharan + Geert Lovink
Published by the Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of DevelopingSocieties, Delhi, 2006 [cc]Produced and Designed at the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi ISBN 81-901429-7-6608 pages, 14.5cm X 21cmPaperback: Rs. 350, US $ 20, € 20
The reader editorial collective
September 20th, 2006
Early in 2001 the Sarai new media center opened in Delhi, India. Soon, Sarai became famous for its high quality work and critical engagements. I have been involved with Sarai since its inception in 1998. Around the opening of Sarai in early 2001 I wrote a chapter in Dark Fiber about its founding and first programs. As of 2006 Sarai has gone through a phase of spectacular growth, expanding to 120 people who are part of their network of employees and fellows. Most of them are not working in the Sarai building or even in Delhi. This chapter is no means a comprehensive overview of Sarai’s activities as there is simply too much going on. I am emphasizing new media related research, knowing that Sarai’s agenda is much broader than that. I’ll discuss my own limited selection of projects and in the last part will also focus on the international dimension of Sarai’s work.
This report is in three sections. First, I will describe my visit to Sarai in late 2002. In the second part I report about the new projects and developments I witnessed in late 2004. In the last part, written around mid 2006, I will focus on the international aspect of Sarai’s work. To date, many artists from overseas have done residencies at Sarai. What was their experience and how do Sarai members deal with this growing number of travelers? I will also talk about the Dutch-Indian exchange program between Sarai and the new media center, Waag Society in Amsterdam, which secured the initial funding for Sarai, and are partnering with Sarai in this program. In 2004 this program opened and became a ‘platform’ with initiatives in Bangalore, Brazil and Beirut. As is so often the case with new media projects, internationalization happened at an incredible pace. Sarai has developed partnerships, in the cities of Hamburg, Liverpool, Vienna and others. Sarai is not only receiving many guests from overseas, but also has an impressive international presence, not just in India and South Asia, or the West, but all around the globe.
(more…)
September 20th, 2006
The BBC is currently doing a rather interesting live conversation with a a panel of inhabitants of the south lebanese village of Al-Khiam (which is notorious for the torture prison the israeli supported SLA did run there from 1985 to 2000). the villagers are answering questions that can be posed to them via the BBC-news website.
while the BBC website claims that the conversation is live, at least the questions seem to be relayed to the panelists very selectively and all of them are subject to moderation before they appear on the website: at the time of writing 11 questions had been answered by while 259 had been posted by readers.
most of the submitted questions (and for sure those recommended by other readers) seem to be intended to provoke the panelists into anti-hezbollah statements claiming that israeli conduct during the war was somehow morally superior to the conduct of Hezbollah. however this does not keep the panelists from praising the ‘Islamic Resistance’ and the furthest they go in criticizing them is the – now familiar – ‘bad timing’ argument (that hezbullah should not have captured israelis at the beginning of the tourist season).
all in all it is encouraging to see a big broadcaster to experiment in this way with the possibilities offered by mobile internet access and it actually seems to allow these villagers to directly engage with a public that has a highly filtered perception of what has happened in south Lebanon in the last couple of weeks.
Paul Keller
Technorati Tags: bbc, beirut, hezbollah, lebanon, media, war
August 23rd, 2006
On August 12th artists and activists gathered for a live audio/video streaming transmission from Waag Society in Amsterdam, in direct connection with Beirut and surrounding localities. The event was initiated by Streamtime, a web support campaign for Iraqi bloggers.
The Global Web Jam bought together live interviews and conversations, video clips, cartoons and blog blurbs, soundscapes, DJs and VJs, a lively mix of information, art, protest, party and reflection. We featured the voices, images stories, reports and initiatives from Lebanon and beyond, with participation of activists, artists, bloggers, journalists, musicians and many others.
The complete recording of the 4-hour webcast is now available for download from the website in four parts (requires quicktime player to play).
With the participation of and contributions by: Tarek Atoui (Beirut), Charbel Haber (Beirut), Raed Yassin (Beirut), Mazen Kerbaj (Beirut), Ghassan Salhab (Beirut), Ghassan Halwani (Beirut), Eliane Raheb (Beirut), Beirut DC, Jim Quilty (Beirut), Peter Speetjens (Beirut), Sonya Knox (Beirut), Rasha Salti (Beirut), Raed from de Prague (Beirut), Sharif Sehnaoui (Beirut), Nathalie Fallaha (Beirut/Amsterdam), Joseph el-Ara (Beirut), Anna Trechsel (Damascus), Wlaad el 7ara (Nazareth), Arjan Al Fassed (Amsterdam), Karim Knio (Amsterdam), Nomad (Istanbul), Walid el-Solh + Aino Setala (Rotterdam),Chalaan Charif (Amsterdam), KonfusedIrakiKid (Amman), Ali Hazza (Baghdad), Joe Hiscott (US), Melinda Rackham (AUS), and others.
This Global Web Jam was an initiative of Jo van der Spek, Geert Lovink and Cecile Landman (from Streamtime), Nat Muller, Paul Keller and Denis Jaromil Rojo in Amsterdam; and Tarek Atoui and Rawya el-Chab in Beirut.
This project received support by Waag Society, Novib (Dutch Oxfam) and X-Y Solidarity Fund.
Paul Keller
Technorati Tags: beirut, blogs, lebanon, war, webcast
August 21st, 2006
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