The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Encyclopedia
Sarai is a programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
(CSDS), Delhi
. CSDS is an independent social science and humanities research centre, with traditions of dissent and a commitment to public intellectual commitment going back four decades.
, a Delhi based group of media practitioners, documentarists, artists and writers. Sarai's mission is to act as a platform for discursive and creative collaboration between theorists, researchers, practitioners and artists actively engaged in reflecting on contemporary urban spaces and cultures in South Asia.
Sarai’s areas of interests include media research and theory, the urban experience in South Asia: history, environment, culture, architecture and politics, new and established media practices, media history, cinema, contemporary art, digital culture, the history and politics of technology, visual/technological cultures, free and open source software, social usage of software, the politics of information and communication, online communities and web-based practices.
What does Sarai
The word sarai
, or caravansarai, common to many Central Asian and Indian languages, refers to the shelters for travellers, sometimes large and extravagant, often modest and improvised, that traditionally dotted the cities and highways of that part of the world, facilitating travel, pilgrimage, commerce and adventure but also enabling the creation of rich, hybrid languages and cultures and the exchange of stories, concepts and ideas across large distances.
The Sarai programme at CSDS quotes this history of exchange and intersecting journeys to function, variously, as a research centre focusing on urban space, media practices, the politics of information, contemporary culture and the knowledge commons as well as a publishing and translation programme, cafe, modest screening space and archive, a venue for workshops, meetings and conferences, software laboratory and as an atelier for contemporary and digital & art design. Sarai is striking for its networked structure and the innovative and diverse content that it produces. Sarai also functions, through its annual programme of independent and associate fellowships and student stipends as a support structure for many different kinds of independent research and creative activities all over India.
in collaboration with Indlinux
. Sarai works bilingually, in English and Hindustani, and regularly produces books, including the critically acclaimed Sarai Reader series in English and the Deewan-e-Sarai and Media Nagar series in Hindi/Hindustani. Mailing lists hosted by Sarai, particularly the Reader List (in English) and the Deewan List (in Hindi/Hindustani) are very active spaces for debate, discussion and critical public discourse.
The Sarai programme's close relationship to the city is evident in the activities of its research clusters, which attend, in different ways, to the ongoing transformation of the urban fabric of Delhi, the everyday realities of media and information processes in the city and especially through the activities of the Cybermohalla project
" (literally, 'Cyber-Neighbourhood') refers to a network of media laboratories established by Sarai in working class neighbourhoods of Delhi (in collaboration with 'Ankur' an NGO active in the field of alternative pedagogy). The young practitioners who are associated with the Cybermohalla process write, conduct oral history investigations, document neighbourhoods and lives with digital image and sound technologies and interpret the urban condition with imagination, humour and a sharp critical edge. The collaboration between people working at Sarai, Ankur and ensembles of young writers, artists and thinkers associated with the Cybermohalla processes have led to the production of an impressive array of books, exhibitions, installations and sound works.
A new interdisciplinary ethic of practice has become much more significant as a result of Sarai's activities. There has been a modest increase in the level of publicly available support for independent artistic and research projects through fellowhsips, as the Sarai fellowships model has found takers in the case of other initiatives and organizations working within the South Asian context. Further, the support extended by Sarai through fellowships, residencies to practitioners and the work of the Sarai Media Lab have both brought forth dividends in terms of an increased international visibility for contemporary art from South Asia, as well as the emergence (within the Indian context) of new forms such as the graphic novel, media installations, sound art, tactical media forms, and collaborations between artists, media practitioners and software programmers. Initial criticism of Sarai's activities focused on its attention towards technology and urban issues, which were considered by some to be too 'elitist' in a developing country like India. Over time, this has given way to a more balanced assessment of the Sarai programmes strengths and weaknesses.
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies is an Indian social sciences and humanities research institute. It was founded in 1963 by Rajni Kothari and is largely founded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research...
(CSDS), Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
. CSDS is an independent social science and humanities research centre, with traditions of dissent and a commitment to public intellectual commitment going back four decades.
History and Mission
The Sarai Programme at CSDS was initiated in 2000 by a group consisting of the Ravi S. Vasudevan and Ravi Sundaram (both fellows at CSDS) and the members of the Raqs Media CollectiveRaqs Media Collective
Raqs Media Collective is a group of three media practitioners - Jeebesh Bagchi , Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta - based in New Delhi...
, a Delhi based group of media practitioners, documentarists, artists and writers. Sarai's mission is to act as a platform for discursive and creative collaboration between theorists, researchers, practitioners and artists actively engaged in reflecting on contemporary urban spaces and cultures in South Asia.
Sarai’s areas of interests include media research and theory, the urban experience in South Asia: history, environment, culture, architecture and politics, new and established media practices, media history, cinema, contemporary art, digital culture, the history and politics of technology, visual/technological cultures, free and open source software, social usage of software, the politics of information and communication, online communities and web-based practices.
What does SaraiSarai-Places:*Saraj , an historic estate in Resen built by Ahmed Niyazi Bey*Bal-Sarai, a village in Amritsar District of Punjab, India*Sarai , the capital city of the Golden Horde*Saraj municipality, a municipality in Greater Skopje, Republic of Macedonia...
mean?
The word saraiSarai
-Places:*Saraj , an historic estate in Resen built by Ahmed Niyazi Bey*Bal-Sarai, a village in Amritsar District of Punjab, India*Sarai , the capital city of the Golden Horde*Saraj municipality, a municipality in Greater Skopje, Republic of Macedonia...
, or caravansarai, common to many Central Asian and Indian languages, refers to the shelters for travellers, sometimes large and extravagant, often modest and improvised, that traditionally dotted the cities and highways of that part of the world, facilitating travel, pilgrimage, commerce and adventure but also enabling the creation of rich, hybrid languages and cultures and the exchange of stories, concepts and ideas across large distances.
The Sarai programme at CSDS quotes this history of exchange and intersecting journeys to function, variously, as a research centre focusing on urban space, media practices, the politics of information, contemporary culture and the knowledge commons as well as a publishing and translation programme, cafe, modest screening space and archive, a venue for workshops, meetings and conferences, software laboratory and as an atelier for contemporary and digital & art design. Sarai is striking for its networked structure and the innovative and diverse content that it produces. Sarai also functions, through its annual programme of independent and associate fellowships and student stipends as a support structure for many different kinds of independent research and creative activities all over India.
Sarai: Activities and Processes
Through its institutional partnerships, the research fellowships it provides each year, its residencies for visiting artists, researchers and programmers and many informal collaborations, Sarai has developed a large network that allows it to accumulate a range of knowledge and opinion from across the world and to make it available in many forms. Sarai is especially noteworthy for its support for a free and open source ethic (both in terms of culture generally, as well as in terms of software - as exemplified in projects such as Opus, Apna Opus and Newsrack. Sarai has contributed substantially to the localization of free software in Indian languages, and has worked actively on projects such as BolnagriBolnagri
BolNagri is a phonetic input method for unicode fonts in Devanagari in Linux and other platforms using xkb, the input library for the X Window System.It is developed in collaboration with IndLinux at The Sarai Programme at CSDS....
in collaboration with Indlinux
IndLinux
Indlinux is a project that attempts to localise tools used under Linux and other free software environments into all Indian languages. Indlinux is a combination of the words India and Linux.- Languages :...
. Sarai works bilingually, in English and Hindustani, and regularly produces books, including the critically acclaimed Sarai Reader series in English and the Deewan-e-Sarai and Media Nagar series in Hindi/Hindustani. Mailing lists hosted by Sarai, particularly the Reader List (in English) and the Deewan List (in Hindi/Hindustani) are very active spaces for debate, discussion and critical public discourse.
Networks and Local Presence
Sarai has collaborated on several processes with the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore, Waag Society in Amsterdam, t0 Institute for new culture technologies in Vienna, and has active links with organizations and initiatives in São Paulo, Beirut, Bandung, Mexico City, Kolkata and Mumbai.Sarai has also been featured, for instance, as a collaborator in Documenta 11 and the Documenta 12 Magazine Project. However, despite these links it remains strongly located and embedded in the city of Delhi, evoking, by its hospitality to dissent, debate and new ideas and practices, the history and culture of the many sarais that dotted medieval Delhi (and whose traces are still apparent in many place names in Delhi).The Sarai programme's close relationship to the city is evident in the activities of its research clusters, which attend, in different ways, to the ongoing transformation of the urban fabric of Delhi, the everyday realities of media and information processes in the city and especially through the activities of the Cybermohalla project
Cybermohalla
"CybermohallaCybermohalla
CyberMohalla is a collaborative initiative of The Sarai Programme at CSDS and Ankur, a Delhi based NGO for the creation of nodes of popular digital culture in Delhi....
" (literally, 'Cyber-Neighbourhood') refers to a network of media laboratories established by Sarai in working class neighbourhoods of Delhi (in collaboration with 'Ankur' an NGO active in the field of alternative pedagogy). The young practitioners who are associated with the Cybermohalla process write, conduct oral history investigations, document neighbourhoods and lives with digital image and sound technologies and interpret the urban condition with imagination, humour and a sharp critical edge. The collaboration between people working at Sarai, Ankur and ensembles of young writers, artists and thinkers associated with the Cybermohalla processes have led to the production of an impressive array of books, exhibitions, installations and sound works.
The Impact of Sarai
Sarai's Impact on the intellectual and creative scene, especially in India, has been both deep and sustained. Issues such as the 'Public Domain', Intellectual Property and its Critics', 'Technology and its Cultures', 'Politics of Information', 'Surveillance and Censorship' and the transformation of urban spaces, which were either marginal or low on the agenda of discourse in the intellectual milieu have become fairly significant as a result of work at Sarai. Sarai's commitment to FLOSS (free, libre and open source software) has led to a wider public acceptance of alternatives to rigid intellectual property as the only model for cultural production, at least in India.A new interdisciplinary ethic of practice has become much more significant as a result of Sarai's activities. There has been a modest increase in the level of publicly available support for independent artistic and research projects through fellowhsips, as the Sarai fellowships model has found takers in the case of other initiatives and organizations working within the South Asian context. Further, the support extended by Sarai through fellowships, residencies to practitioners and the work of the Sarai Media Lab have both brought forth dividends in terms of an increased international visibility for contemporary art from South Asia, as well as the emergence (within the Indian context) of new forms such as the graphic novel, media installations, sound art, tactical media forms, and collaborations between artists, media practitioners and software programmers. Initial criticism of Sarai's activities focused on its attention towards technology and urban issues, which were considered by some to be too 'elitist' in a developing country like India. Over time, this has given way to a more balanced assessment of the Sarai programmes strengths and weaknesses.