theory:praxis in emerging digital technologies and cultures

November 5, 2008 at 3:27 pm · Filed under play

So its official now: we are currently working on a book for Routledge India where me and Soum (with guest star Angad Chowdhry) will co-write a chapter on the work we do.  While I really have no idea at this point how the chapter will be organized — I increasingly believe in improvisation and semi-random iteration when generating new ideas — momentary closure was nonetheless achieved on the note that had to be sent to the publishers.  Can we use genetic algorythms as new metaphors for thinking?  What is the use of literary narratives of time such as sideshadowing and foreshadowing for understanding the future of technological development?  Though perhaps a bit academically dry for my tastes, I thought I’d like to share these here.

Theory:Praxis in Emerging Digital Technologies and Cultures in India
Angad Chowdhry | Soumyadeep Paul | Matti Pohjonen

Emerging digital technologies and cultures pose many challenges for traditional research.  For one, the classical academic method is based on a reflexive and critical distance from your object of study. But how do you research something that does not allows the luxury of distance because of the sheer speed of change that is taking place? The moment you slow it down for dissection, it has already changed, moved on to become something else.  Secondly, how do you research something that does not even perhaps exist in the traditional sense but is rather always-already one step in the future: a project under construction, a vision, an idea being developed?  What methods are best suited for such an amorphous and fleeting object of research? What theories are best suited to understand the complex narratives of time, change and becoming presupposed by contemporary digital technologies and cultures?

This chapter will look at emerging digital technologies and cultures in India — mobile phones, MMS, MMORPG, social networks, hacker culture, virtual realities — and the problems, challenges and opportunities these place for research today. It will argue for practice-based research as one possible methodology for better understanding these digital technologies and cultures today. Using examples of the three authors actively involved in working digital technologies and cultures in India, the chapter will look at some of the theoretical and practical problems that get raised when the boundaries between research and practice are blurred and the roles between the academic and professional often reversed?  What might be
the benefits and risks of such an approach?  What new ways of thinking and insights might these experiments engender?

The book itself, tentatively titled “Indian Mass Media and the Politics of Change” will look at the recent changes in Indian media from a various perspectives and will combine some academic biggies (Laura Mulvey, Mark Hobart, Annabelle Sreberny) and some young gun researchers.  I will be also co-writing the theoretical introduction to the book on the theoretical complexity of understanding change in media and technology as well as co-editing the book so – I guess – I get to write and edit myself and go properly schizo?  The book description goes as follows:

Indian Mass Media and the Politics of Change: Concept Note – Draft 0.1.

Rhetoric about India’s rapid economic growth and burgeoning middle classes suggests something new and significant is taking place. Something is changing, we are told: India is shining, the elephant is rising and the 21st century will be Indian.

Arguably, one key loci where such re-imaginings of India’s contested future take place is in its mass media. Yet much of the analysis on contemporary India has overlooked the complex role media has in articulating India’s economic and cultural landscape. The proposed book “Indian Mass Media and Politics of Change” aims to be an intervention towards empirically-driven yet theoretically-nuanced analysis of the politics of change taking place daily across the cinema halls, TV screens, newspapers and computer monitors in India today.

But what do we mean by change? French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once remarked that research should look at two things. The first is that the abstract does not explain anything but it instead must be explained; the second is that the aim of research is not to rediscover the eternal or the universal but instead is to find the conditions under which something new is produced (ie how things change). Similarly, the aim of the book is to provide a systematic analysis of the broader issues that underlie this abstract and often muddled notion of change.  What do these articulations tell us about the broader questions of tradition and modernity played out in the media in India today? How can it help us understand the problems of history, teleology and how the future is talked about? And how are these articulations of change ultimately implicated in wider political projects of development and progress?

The different chapters of the book provide snapshots from Indian media today where the articulations of change are refracted in myriad and different ways. By doing so, it provides the opening towards a more systematic analysis of the role the mass media has today, both in India and globally, in articulating the politics of change: this elusive boundary between the past, the fleeting present and the constantly re-imagined horizon of our open futures.

In any case, this can potentially be rather interesting because quite a lot of the work we do at BCG works at the boundary, the breach between different discplines and technologies — the transversal movement between academic research, artistic experimentation, old and new media, tactical technology and commercial design and development work, I suppose, is where the goodies and candies can increasingly be found.

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the pirates and their loot!

November 3, 2008 at 9:52 pm · Filed under design

Amongst the most insane places to visit in Mumbai is Chorbazar (or, ‘thieves’ market’), where you could purchase everything from parts of dismantled ships, to statues stolen from dilapidated monuments, from original hand-sketched posters of extremely old bollywood films, to books and magazines that date back to early 1900s.

This image was taken in an anonymous warehouse that you had to enter through a backdoor…

The ‘loot’ comes from everywhere, each store has its own network spread across the country and outside (you would find stuff from Sri Lanka, parts of Africa…)…

Obviously, photography is not allowed. However, a few gentle words helped break into their world.

As I started digging into the history of the place, I found that the Wikipedia entry about the place itself had been hijacked! An excerpt below :-

Chor Bazaar is an area in South Mumbai famous for its second-hand goods. Although the name Chor means “thief” in Hindi. This area can be considered one of the tourist attractions of Mumbai (Bombay). It is a basically an “organized” flea market, where one has to rumage through junk and hopefully find treasures. The reason it is know as “thief’s market”, is because it assumed that goods sold there are stolen. Chor Bazaar if off the beaten path, but everyone knows about it.

In addition, the name Chor Bazaar was adopted by an Indie Indian Fused tshirt label based out of Brooklyn, NY with roots in, India. link title

Our designs are meant not just to be “cool” but to evoke memories of experiencing India, the India that our parents were raised in and the one that exists today. Both are far different but both are still very Indian.

Our mission is to expand the Indian-fusion art form to another realm. Most have experienced this, “fusion”, in music and literature but have hardly seen this transpire into urban apparel. We utilize the medium of our graphic t-shirts to assist in creating an identity that stems farther than mainstream’s portrayal of Indian culture.

Dang!

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uncanny valley: the prototyping machines

October 25, 2008 at 3:20 pm · Filed under design

Whenever I have had some time in the past months away from the more classical research-oriented work, I have been catching up with some of the latest developments in Machinima and other virtual reality and/or game-engine methods for art and design.  While for some more purists, this admittedly sounds geeky and probably as exciting as a can of tuna, I have found that there is quite a lot that can be done and said using these “machines.”  With the usual reservations, of course.

The primary problem I have with more classical animation, drawing and painting (and 3D) is that it is very time-consuming.  Being sometimes peripatetically cross-displine and cross-media, I am interested in doing things in almost every possible format that I get my hands on.  But, say, if I wanted to create a digital character with some facial expressions and mix it with some photography or video to get some idea across, doing these with the old ways would take days to complete.  A simple expressive character, in the end, is rather difficult and laborious to create properly and with style.

Now take a game engine such as Spore.  What these virtual reality and/or game engines allow one to do is quickly create a prototype of some idea or another — develop an “element” that can be used to explore an idea at its initial stages.  It is not perfect by any means; you do not get full control of what you get.  You get instead a rather rich set of parameters to play around with but this is still not the quasi-complete freedom you get with doing things analogically. However, what you do is get possibilities do things that would not have been available before unless you wanted to spend days and days creating every little element yourself from beginning.

So a part of the Uncanny Valley experiment is to develop a workflow that allows the quick production of such “mixules” and / or sketches that can be later worked with to develop more complete projects and designs.  I have played around with Spore mostly here as its the most recent of these games but will probably do my rounds around Sims, Second Life etc and whatever will be useful.  Each of these sketches have taken — on average — about 30 minutes to complete.  Most of that to try to work shadows etc (though in some pictures I have not spend enough time on this admittedly…)

The theory here could perhaps broadly be said a play around “locative media” and “ubiquituos computing” where the overlap of virtual and non-virtual reality is predicted to be the next evolution of the Internet. I am especially interested in conceptualizing the blurry notion of reality between the virtual and non-virtual as an experiment in both content and form.  Something close to evolutionary art but not quite.  I will do a series based on this eventually when the idea crystallizes but meanwhile just working out some of the techniques here — also thinking how some of these engines could be perhaps used to do short videos etc.

I will also post a tutorial up soon about how such “rapid prototyping machines” can be used …

[Tools used: Pentax K20D, Spore, Photoshop Cs3, San Miquel]

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initial experiments with Olympus E520

October 23, 2008 at 11:37 pm · Filed under design

After my entire camera kit was stolen in Shanghai from a famous live jazz club there (situated, of course, in the middle of the french expat community), I was waiting for the next purchase. Wanted something that is light enough to fit with my travel gear, and yet offered near-pro capabilities… and most importantly, doesn’t give me a heart attack if stolen, lost, damaged again (yes, I have heard of insurance… thank you… but the hassle… the hassle…). So, finally have settled for a Olympus E520 for the meantime, until the DSLR market stabilizes with the next upcoming series of 20 MP+ cams, post-summer next year perhaps? Can’t be that far, since Canon pretty much opened up the market there with their new Canon EOS 5D Mark II (brilliant… absolutely brilliant! — check out the video here). I mean, ISO 25,000 capabilities + HD Video capture…?!!!

However, Olympus E520 serves my purpose for the moment – inbuilt image stabilization + four-thirds mount tremendously expands the line-up of lens that it can handle. The kit lens is one of the best in the range, and I love the controls (over my previous Nikon series of cams).

These are very first HDR experiments (literally amongst the first twenty photographs captured with the cam). Both have been shot near fountain, VT station, Mumbai. Yet to work on the style, as these are just thematic samples at the moment.

An another…

My friend / bcg partner Matti has perfected his approach (his kit: Pentax K20D) with HDR and has done an outstanding series on Mumbai, where is signature style is very visible. Check it out here.

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