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