What Time Is It?
Technologies of Life in the Contemporary
14th, 15th and 16th December, 2017
Sarai-CSDS, Delhi and Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi
#whattimeisit
Have we finally entered the End of the End of History? (E-flux, Journal #57 – Sept 2014). Recent media technological transformations have thrown into confusion many existing political and social theories; art, media philosophy, politics, biology; in fact all ideas of life presented in the last century. Are these the jumbled signs of ‘our’ contemporaneity? The idea of the contemporary has been around for a few decades, seen variously as a period, a critical gesture, and a disciplinary frame for literature and art. We believe the time is right to revisit the idea of the contemporary from a different lens, outside the closeted frameworks of a Euro-American debate where contemporaneity appears as a unstable successor to modernity and postmodernity.
In the past decade we have seen the worldwide spread of media and information networks. Since value is now gained from experience, new corporations and political parties deploy strategies of agglomeration using digital media technologies. Growing computational grids inaugurate storage and surveillance technologies that are affecting fields like the environment, finance and law. Machine time disturbs historical continuity and sequence. Genetic engineering and life storage technologies disrupt the idea of the biological life span; media memory and recording technologies have already transformed the lives of mobile phone users in the world. Media-enabled populations in Asia, Africa and Latin America are now part of a new infrastructure of the senses.
Since 2000 digital infrastructures have produced a new generation of art and media practitioners. Like the West, capitalist enterprises in Asia, Africa and Latin America are facing new challenges and opportunities with informational networks. Like everywhere, such transformations have set in motion a sense of indetermination and flux, providing opportunities, shadow zones and critical discourses.
This conference seeks to explore experience from the vantage point of these media-informational transformations. We will be debating art practice, cultural theory, media aesthetics, social theory, forensics, urbanism, and the landscape of the political. Time horizons and its philosophies are a major concern of the conference, as we seek to displace the idea of the contemporary as (just) a ‘present’ without limits.
Conference Convenors: Ravi Sundaram, Ravi Vasudevan (Sarai-CSDS) + Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta)
Sarai-CSDS is a part of the Leverhulme International Network for Contemporary Studies (LINCS). This conference is supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi.
PROGRAMME
@ Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi Landscapes of the Digital 11:00 AM Tea 11:30 AM Introduction I Ravi Sundaram with Leverhulme Network Partners Introduction II Conference Conveners 12:00 Noon The “Smart” Mandate: Infrastructure, Responsive Environments, and “Preemptive Hope” Orit Halpern, Concordia University, Montreal Interlocutor: Ravi Sundaram, Sarai-CSDS, Delhi 1:00 PM Lunch 02:00 PM Video and Post-Cinema Mochu, Artist, Chennai Pallavi Paul, Artist, Delhi Lantian Xie, Artist, Dubai Interlocutor: Monica Narula, Raqs Media Collective, Delhi 3:30 PM Tea 4:00 PM The Missing Pistol: Notes on Impossible Museological Objects in Palestine Lara Khaldi, Curator, Jerusalem Interlocutor: Santhosh Sadanandan, School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University 5:00 PM AI is Full of Love: Human-Machine Libidinal Transference & the Automation of Love Mohammad Salemy, The New Centre for Research & Practice, New York Interlocutor: Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Raqs Media Collective, Delhi 6:00 PM Tea 6:30 PM Screening Liquid Traces: The Left-to-Die Boat Case, 17 min, 2014 Directed by Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani @ Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi Unstable Archives 10:00 AM Tea 10:30 AM Welcome Leonhard Emmerling, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi Introduction Conference Conveners 11:00 AM Technics and Forensics Susan Schuppli, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London Lorenzo Pezzani, Goldsmiths, University of London Interlocutor: Ravi Vasudevan, Sarai-CSDS, Delhi 12:30 PM After ‘Jukti, Takko ar Gappo’: Across the Burning Track Moinak Biswas, Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University Interlocutor: Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore 1:30 PM Lunch [contd…]Day One, 14th December, Thursday
Day Two, 15th December, Friday
@ Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi
2:30 PM Performance
Speech Acts for Two Screenings
Lantian Xie, Artist, Dubai
Interruption, Raqs Media Collective, Delhi
3:30 PM Tea
4:00 PM
The Archive Object
Michelle Wong, Researcher and Curator, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong
Venkat Srinivasan, Archivist and Scientist, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore
Sabih Ahmed, Archivist and Curator, Delhi
Interlocutor: Jeebesh Bagchi, Raqs Media Collective, Delhi
5:30 PM
Five Gardens
Introduction to the pavilion by Samir Raut, Architect, Mumbai
Interlocutor: Rupali Gupte, School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai
Sound Work in the pavilion by Ish S and DiFfuSed Beats
6:30 PM Public Lecture
Medium Design
Keller Easterling, School of Architecture, Yale University
@ Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi
Aesthetics and Politics
10:15 AM Tea
10:45 AM
Introduction
Conference Conveners
11:00 AM
Spectre of the Political
Ravi Vasudevan, Sarai-CSDS, Delhi
Prathama Banerjee, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Santhosh Sadanandan, School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University
Interlocutor: Shohini Ghosh, AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia
1:00 PM Lunch
2:00 PM Money, Media, Space
Aarti Sethi, Watson Institute, Brown University
Prasad Shetty, School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai
Liu Tian, Curator, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou
Interlocutor: Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
4:00 PM Tea
4:30 PM
Cinema as a Migratory Form
May Adadol Ingawanij, University of Westminster, London
Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore
Interlocutor: Ranjani Mazumdar, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Closing Note: Conference Conveners
6:30 PM Two Screen, Two Speaker Performance
The Return of Tipoo’s Tiger
Raqs Media Collective, Delhi
7:00 PM Tea
7:30 – 9:00 PM A Listening Experience
Time Horizons and Sonic Worlds
Berno Odo Polzer, Berliner Festspiele-MaerzMusik (Festival for Time Issues), Berlin
Introduced by Leonhard Emmerling, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi
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PDF version of the conference programme is available on this LINK.
Sarai is a programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. Sarai was initiated by Ravi Sundaram, Ravi Vasudevan, Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta in 2000.
Raqs Media Collective is a contemporary arts and curatorial practice based in Delhi.
The Leverhulme International Network for Contemporary Studies (LINCS) includes the University of Quebec at Montreal, Glasgow School of Art, University of Paris 8, Sarai-CSDS and University of St Andrews.
Public Transport Metro Stops:
Sarai-CSDS: Civil Lines
Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan: Barakhamba Road
For queries, write to us at: contemporaryconference2017@gmail.com