My latest Film Review:
http://leonardo.info/reviews/dec2008/ahmed_dust.html

Nameera

What a joke! when we reached Manzar Akbar Hall at the Arts Council today to check our wateen we found that there was construction going on over there!!

luckily the director was walking down the stairs that very moment I ran after him and asked what is going on we have an event tommorow?

they said they forgot about it and then tried to suggest another place for us
Now the discussion will be under the main auditorium in the theatre workshop, it was a real task getting wateen signals (there are none) under ground, so now we are hooking it up outside the auditorium and will take a cable or Amars wifi inside the basement to have our internet working for the skype part of our discussion with Rob Kranenburg

we need boards and ushers to redirect our guests!!
they need to refund half our money as they basement is cheaper than the hall we had booked

Cheers and hope it all goes well tommorow

Atteqa

on 4th Nov.Mauj had a very productive meeting with the director of the Goethe Institute, Dr.Markus Litz who was very attentive to us and our plans to Participate at transmediale in January 2009

A couple of days before this Mauj met at Gia to talk to Faisal Butt, an architect very interested in sustainable architecture with technology, Faisal joins Mauj!

On Nov 8th Mauj met Shakil Awan a professional digital animator who brought up very specific issues that CG people have with media people. Hope to hear more from him. Welcome to Mauj Shakil!

Mauj is now preparing for an event on 23rd nov at the Arts Council, Manzar Akbar Hall, informal but cool!!!

http://www.i-dat.org/

http://enter3.org/

http://lea.mit.edu/reviews/oct2008/aga_ars.html

http://lea.mit.edu/reviews/oct2008/aga_ars.html

A very pleasant Mauj meeting was held on the cool green lawns of the Indus Valley school of Art and Architecture after opening of the media art show sponsored by Vasl

We discussed Sharjah, a bit of Europe and most of Karachi
Trying to work out how this event organized by Mauj in November needs to be
Decided on a small informal event inviting the friends of Mauj
and having a very exciting interactive project related to computers, mobile phones, live feeds.....
will go on thursday to check out the venue at the Arts council

What a fabulous story about Mai Safoora near Safoora Goth by writer Abbas Jalbani in the Dawn Oct 6 edition, what fascinated me was the sculpture of the wine jug at Safoora Chowk, the online version does not have the picture unfortunately

http://www.dawn.com/2008/text/fea.htm#1

This is a must addition to the urban history of Karachi!

http://designcinema2008.org/

http://www.techneplatform.org/

http://www.a-m-b-e-r.net/

Peace

a word that we are vowing to use work towards in all our exchanges from now on

heres an image from the Dawn Newspaper September 22

http://www.dawn.com/2008/09/22/SlideShow/NIP04.htm

A terrible and unfortunate thing to happen. this is definitely going to affect a lot of cultural and sporting events scheduled all over Pakistan in the coming months in terms of overseas participation. Pakistanis die, Pakistanis get bad media publicity and Pakistanis suffer! but Pakistanis continue to keep their head above the water

Meeting onsite spelling out the details that needed to be filled into an extremely difficult application form, we divided the categories that each member would work on. then we posted it on google docs where each member was allowed to tweak it. what we didnt realise is that google docs messes up when more than one person edits at the same time. So yasir lost a lot of hours of work and so did Amar hours before the deadline date. Luckily Amar had backup. Moral of the story, find a new format to collaboratively edit text in and report the bug to google

a few net artworks on Rhizome.org pick-outs:

life-line:
http://texttrends.greyisgood.eu/

ellie's challenges:
http://www.ellieharrison.com/challenges/

a cuppa:
http://www.teablog.net/#blank

juicy:
http://www.jtwine.com/03niesatt.htm#draw

we met at the Sindhi Muslim location, we all agreed that the room we have for our space is a bit small but hope after some rearranging it will be enough to serve as a resource space and the occaisional meeting for the moment

it was a very good meeting we came up with really relevant topics related to a media art panel with a cinematic theme.The speakers we each suggested for the event were very exciting too, now comes the logistical part of trying to arrange it all if it happens!

we also are working on a media workshop where we incorporate film, music and computers into a schools academic curriculum under the topic of creative expression for 12 to 15 yr. olds.
Nameera who is already teaching Audiovisual Studies at the Karachi U. would do the film aspect
Leena Ahmed who is a degree holder in Eastern Classical Music would do the music part
I would do the computer based part

Interesting sound-related projects from the ISEA conference material that Atteqa had distributed:

http://www.sonicacts.com/wordpress/

http://www.andreapolli.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade

Some ideas for self-sustainability for MAUJ:

Various kinds of Classes/courses:
1) Filmmaking classes for kids and/or adults which Atteqa had suggested earlier

2) Vocational classes (carpentry, electronics, plumbing etc.)
These could be jigsaw-puzzled later with the arts (?)

any comments?

Mauj

based on the

wiki def for collective:

A collective is a group of people who share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project(s) to achieve a common objective. Collectives are also characterised by attempts to share and exercise political and social power and to make decisions on a consensus-driven and egalitarian basis. Collectives differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an economic benefit or saving (but can be that as well).

Collective for open culture, art and technology for empowering people
how?
using art and technology to empower people

from wiki:
Technology is a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment. In human society, it is a consequence of science and engineering, although several technological advances predate the two concepts.

based on collaborations structure open ended fluid

aims, objectives and long term goals

cultural and resource movement

membership and organisation

open organisation, anyone can join, who agrees with aims and objectives can join as a general member or atom, electron, mauj will comprise of a nucleas and a general membership

who can't join?

member until we find alternative word, component
cell

technology and culture

connected to other urban centres, global commons, interaction of people, classify technologies according to various areas biological, physics, technology

dialogic cultures
oral and visual ways of communicating

philosophy of technology

logistics

space

upload

Mauj met yesterday at t2f first to hammer out some points for our constitution, getting started on writing it and also discussed some other ideas on funding proposals, philosophy of technology, dialogics, space etc.

then we stayed on for the IUCN session in honour of Saneeya Hussein, Ameneh and Zuleikha, 3 environmental journalists who were being honoured for their contribution to environmental journalism in Pakistan. One of the things that struck me was that the other journalists present from the News etc. said that these 3 women who died really early due to various tragedies had a certain passion about their causes that they don't see in journalists any more.......I wonder why?

At Isea 2008 I was very fortunate to have a chat with

Ampat from the Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology http://www.srishti.ac.in/
many of their students are from abroad, we discussed the idea of collaborating in a seminar or some other project, I was struck by their advanced level of understanding of the concept of media art, we don't have that kind of institutional coherence at least in Karachi

Prayas Abhinav from Khoj http://prayas.in/
I was fascinated by one of his projects called the edible jacket on which he had literally grown food on a jacket bringing to life the concept of mobile food. Reminded me of Dec 27 riots when everything was shut down for 3 days. the jacket would have been very useful because according to Prayas you put the seeds in the night and by morning you have food to eat from the jacket!


Awadhendra from Sarai Media Lab http://www.sarai.net/
Awadhendra gave me many tips regarding the working of Sarai and how we could apply them to Mauj, one of the main ones being "remember that there are many publics you are dealing with not one".
Everyone is talking about their cybermohalla project, I think its worth discussion from our side as well, could something like this take place in Karachi or not?

We finally met after co-ordinating everyones schedules.
Updates on people and events from ISEA were interspersed with our previous discussions on Mauj and its plans, constitution, projects etc.
i had laid out on the table all the material that was collected from ISEA, a tangible representation of the event, very colourful!

Other action plan is now:

Amar starts the wiki on the Mauj constitution (so that we can explain to people who we are what we are doing as we are doing that a lot these days!) we all join it

The constitution becomes a base for our fund raising proposal

Amar starts writing about the mural project again on the wiki

I find out if we can join Kara with a media art panel

Yasir told us about the Digital Activists and what they are doing and about his travel plans

We discussed other issues which need to be on our blog like the panic theory and the crane effect introduced by Yasir and built upon by Amar

can we do anything about cyber porn that is originating from our region, how can we help those who are being exploited?

what do we do about space, buy, rent, borrow, we are building up a resource archive, where can we make it accessible to others?

Interesting idea

Quote from their ideas page: http://www.dictionaryofwar.org/en-dict/idea

"The aim of DICTIONARY OF WAR is to make the creation or revaluation of concepts transparent into more or less open processes in which we can and need to intervene"

“At least, when we create concepts, we are doing something.” The idea of DICTIONARY OF WAR, then, begins by referring to the theory of creating concepts proposed by Deleuze and Guattari: Concepts must be invented, created, produced; concepts refer to problems without which they would be meaningless. It is not about definitions, anecdotes, original opinions or entertainment, but rather about developing the tools with which to attain new ideas."

I like to think that I am also a conceptual artist thus my interest in the above lines....
Would anyone like to contribute to this dictionary?

Just returned from an exhilarating experience in Singapore. First i attended a summit on Media Art Policy and Practice organised by IFACCA and the Asea Europe foundation. Interacted intensively with media artists and curators from India, Hungary, Japan, Scotland, Netherlands, and many more. Its funny how even though we attach the country next to our name, most people now have mixed identities.
More details will follow in later posts

there was talk about Singapore being a dictatorship and questions regarding how appropriate it wast to hold a conference like this. But I enjoyed the fact that I could walk home alone at 12am and not worry at all or just hop on the public transport and not have my personal safety as the no. 1 issue on my mind all the time. And my question is would Europeans ever attend a conference in a country that is attempting to liberate itself and thus the center of controversy and chaos? There does need to be a structure in place when you organise a gathering of people and that was just overwhelming in Singapore.

My main reason for wanting to participate in Isea 2008 was because of Gunalan Nadarajan being part of the organizing committee. there was a mix of individuals I think it had to do with the fact also that Singapore is easy access for many regions. this time we had to do a 5 hr. flight and those from Europe were the ones doing the 18 hour + marathons. I enjoyed the sessions, was attracted to the artists presentations which I find better than the media art displayed at the museums actually! met and connected with very interesting people, it reminded me of college days back in Minnesota but the people here were professionals.

i was away and slow and scarce in response.

i have thought about the future a lot over the years. the nature of technology. histories, cultures and technologies.

for mauj i would be willing to chat with you guys about (and ideally also think with you guys about), the 'digital age' ... and then think of what we could say about Karachi life around us, while also thinking about the future .... :)

I could prepare a set of starting observations & arguments - a slide each - and take off on our own for each ...

I think if you guys are willing to follow some trains of thought (that i would present), i am sure it will stimulate us towards thinking about / getting down to (what i hope would be) some amazingly cool projects :)
so this is an invitation .....

not sure there is enough time before atteqa leaves, is there?
if not then after she comes back.

best

yasir

Hello Mauj,

I've been thinking about what my expectations from Mauj the New Media Lab are. I've come up with a few points for now:

-- Mauj would Experiment with new technology creatively.

-- Mauj would be a major platform for artistic, musical, scientific, social, socio-economic, technological collaborations amongst Pakistani and international individuals and/or labs.

-- Mauj would be a Resource Center for New Media technologies in Karachi.

-- Mauj would pay attention and give much importance to the 'process' (learning, building, artistic) as much as the 'end result'.

-- Mauj would do Socially Responsive as well as Socially Responsible Work.

-- Mauj would work towards a Pakistani Film Archive, with a Virtual Online component.

Are these too simplistic?

I'll keep adding to these as I come up with more...how about the others...?

All the Best,
Nameera

Have you guys heard of the Barefoot College?

http://www.barefootcollege.org/enroll1.htm

http://www.barefootcollege.org/newsletters/BarefootNewsletterJune2007.html

Defining the Third World Media Artist --by Atteqa Malik

[Update]

We're at this point deep in discussion with ourselves and with partners of Mauj about the modes and substance of Mauj activities.
Starting with 3 broad categories Mauj activities were thought to fall within:

[1] art projects
[2] socially engaged projects
[3] services

We have 2 partners with whom we are discussing consultancy/projects at the moment. One funder and many interested with whom we continue to interact. And friends who seem to be inspired on our idea. So [3] is relatively clear to us, but we still need to generate concrete ideas for [1] and [2]. Negotiations for Mauj the space are also on and may generate astring of usable places.

check our new group 'Mauj'
http://maujmedia.blogspot.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/video/2008/jul/02/greenaway.last.supper

Amar

I think what we could do is take a particular project/technology and build something around it. There are names for such things: 'intermediate technologies' (which may be lo-tech) and sometimes alternative technologies. There are some institutes working on these premises - we cd learn about how to get something off the ground from them. I know aga khan has introduced/replaced stoves in the noethern areas ...

Intermediate Technology Development Group (Small is Beautiful)
http://www.itdg.org/

Engineers Without Borders
http://www.ewb-international.org/

best

 

Here is an idea that I came up with in 2001. But I never had the CPU cycles to start it. The idea is a sub-set of the types of things we are thinking of doing under Mauj. I am posting this just as an aside, I dont think that we have to team right now to delve into something like this.

Also, somothing I learned much later on, and to my disappointment, that it is much easir to pruduce neat technological solutions than to change old habits, social norms or culture. In our culture people just dont use tech. solutions (even when they exist) to solve day to day problems. It takes a humungus amount of effort to change their habits, than the effort required to come up with tech. solutions.

The resistance to change is much higher in third-world cultures. Why? I can only guess, but can't offer a comprehensive thesis on this.

So, here it is... for reading's sake only.

==============================================

Awami Labs (theme paper) ..... by Amar Mahboob

The central idea of Awami Labs is to setup an organizational structure that is geared towards the improvisation and adaptation of modern science and technology so that the everyday life of lower class/poor citizens of Pakistan may become easier and less painful. The organization will comprise of a team of engineers and researchers who would design products (essentially low-tech in nature) that may be used by the people to overcome difficulties in basic life, and may even provide a means of livelihood.

This team of engineers will work in liaison with another team of field workers who would introduce these products to various communities and at the same time train them at using these products/ideas.

Some examples of the type of products that are in mind maybe:

- Solar water stills – these may be used to produce drinking water out of saline/polluted water.

- Low cost water purifiers.

- Solar water heaters and cookers.

- Utilization of farm waste for production of energy, e.g. Bio-gas, methanol etc.

- Low cost solar energy.

Salient features of the Organization:

- This organization will be registered as a trust, this is so that the original ideals and guidelines for setting up the organization may be protected.

- The aim of the organization would not be to itself go into commercial production of any of its products. It would rather that its products be mass produced by the communities themselves. This would create new means of livelihoods, as well as alleviate problems.

- The organization shall hold patents, copyrights and/or intellectual rights over the products it designs or produces. However it would not seek any royalty if

other parties were to mass produce its products. The patents would only be for the purposes of keeping other organizations from registering patents upon technology

produced by the Awami Labs and thereby stopping the general public from its benefits.

- The organization will be run professionally, having full-time staff being paid at prevalent market rates.

- The organization would receive grants, donations and community support for being able to carry out its work.

- The organization will also enter into consultancy services for private industry and business in helping them to adopt the technology developed by Awami Labs and to help these companies to mass produce this technology. However the total man-hours spent in consultancy shall not exceed 25% of the total man-hours spent in conducting research.

Organizational Structure:

The organization will have three functional divisions.

- A team of engineers responsible for developing the products.

- A team of field workers that will work with various communities in introducing the products, and making sure that the people are able to make the right use of the products.

- A management board that will be responsible for setting the direction of work of the organization. This board will comprise of full time management as well as engineers and field workers. It will also include people from academia and the industry, who will take part on a voluntary/invitation basis.

http://eenbee.typepad.com/visualdelight/2008/03/gif.html

What a relief! :))

should we keep this one for a few days and then change it if everyone still doesn't like it?

i think it has the boldness of a 'mauj', and reminds me of both a human iris and a black hole... cool! :)

so what are the orders re background?

Welcome aboard Amar!

Is'nt the background image a bit too explosive?

:-)

Testing 1 2 4

cool! :-)

the email to blog post is not working
would i send it to atteqa.mediamail.blogger.com?

yeah, the email to blog post didn't work with me either...nameera

good stuff Yasir!

email to blog post
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