Introduction
Sarai Reader 03: Shaping Technologies sets out to ratchet our engagement with the contemporary moment a notch higher, in directions that are sober, exhilarating and discomfiting, all at once…
Shaping Technologies brings together a host of original writing and images on these and other themes by a collection of writers, theorists, critics, photographers, philosophers, engineers, activists, artists, media practitioners and programmers from all over the world. It also excavates and connects little known histories with our present reality, finding, for instance, in Rabindranath Tagore’s account of being airborne in 1934, an oblique way of reflecting on the consequences of aerial bombardment, the dehumanising mindset that implodes when the pious do battle, and the prospects of a war that threatens to break over Iraq, even as this book goes to press…
Production
Editorial Collective: Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Ravi Sundaram, Ravi S Vasudevan, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, and Awadhendra Sharan (Sarai); Geert Lovink and Marleen Stikker (Waag Society).
Design: Pradip Saha, Renu Iyer, and Monica Narula.
Read
The entire book can be accessed and downloaded from the Sarai archive.
Contents
LEVERAGES
The Possible Futures of Technology in China – Andrew Feenberg
Lowtech: Escape from the Tyranny of the Leading Edge – Simon Griffiths
E-Waste: Computers and Toxicity in India – Gopal Krishna
Governing Technology: The City in the Age of Environmental Crisis – Awadhendra Sharan
The Engineer in the Information Age – Arun Mehta
Resisting Technology: Regaining a Personal Ecology – Ravi Agarwal
Subterranean Labour – Srinivas Kuruganti
EXCAVATIONS
New Visual Technologies in the Bazaar: Reterritorialisation of the Sacred in Popular Print Culture – Kajri Jain
Taking Pictures: The Early Days of Photography in Bengal – Siddharth Ghosh (Translation by Debjani Sengupta)
The Home and Beyond: Domestic and Amateur Photography by Women in India (1930-1960) – Sabeena Gadihoke
Panchlight – Phanishwarnath Renu (Translation by Ravikant)
Airborne: (from “In Persia”) – Rabindranath Tagore (Translation by Debjani Sengupta)
Sadhanbabu’s Friends: Science Fiction in Bengal from 1882-1961 – Debjani Sengupta
Acoustic Excavations: Soundings in the Ranigumpha Caves – Uma Shankar
Old Scar – Shahid Datawala (photographs) and Parvati Sharma (text)
SCANS
Technologies of Self: Poverty and Health in an Urban Setting – Veena Das
Intensive Care – Sumit Ray
Stolen Rhetoric: The Appropriation of Choice by ART Industries – subRosa
Reproductive Technologies in India: Confronting Differences – Rupsa Mallik
Shaping Technology / Building Body(Nets) – Ana Viseu
Black Magic, Biotech & Dark Markets – Eugene Thacker
REGISTRATIONS
McLuhan’s Pendulum: Reading Dialectics of Technological Distance – Mike Hunter
Becoming Mobile: SMS and Portable Text – Suzy Small
Gadgetry and Subjectivity: The Making of the Tamil Brahmin Self – Uma Maheshwari Kalpagam
Excelsior 3000: Bowel Technology Project – Ian Haig
Disruptive IT in South India – Nimmi Rangaswamy
Call Centre Calling: Technology, Network and Location – Raqs Media Collective
DEVICES: CYBERMOHALLA DIARIES
Transformer, Clock, Telephone, Cable, Generator, Tubelight – Naseem Bano, Babli Rai, Mehrunnissa, Dhirender P. Singh, Yashoda Singh (Translations by Shveta)
Metro Nights – Monica Narula
IMAGINATIONS + AESTHETICS
Dreams of an (Un)Certain Future – Steve Dietz
Reading Technology: Curling up with a Good Information Appliance – Linda Carroli
On Software as Art – Andreas Broekmann
Waste Net, Want Not: Art and New Media in 90s Britain – Pauline van Mourik Broekman
Creative Encounters: The Art/Science of Collaboration – Amanda McDonald Crowley
Beyond the Apocalypse: An Unfinished Meditation on Ethics – Rana Dasgupta
The Typewriter of the Illiterate: Interview with János Sugár – Geert Lovink
The Way Home: Kattas as Navigation Aids – Bharti Kher
Pet Architecture: And how to Use it – Yoshiharu Tsukamoto
Colliding Soundscapes: Conversation with Hildegard Westerkamp – Lex Bhagat
ENCODE + DECODE
Beyond the Computer – Gabriel Pickard
APP.lying Software: A Reader-List Discussion – edit + design Are Flågan
“No Other Hand will Scratch My Back”: Interview with Arash Zeini – Ravikant
Indic, Especially Hindi, Computing: An Index of Choices – Ravikant
Jal Chitra: Water Map – Software for Rural Water Management – Vikram Vyas
The (Copylefted) Source Code for the Ethical Production of Information Freedom – Biella Coleman
The Ghost in the Machine: The Legal Capture of Technology – Lawrence Liang
PRACTICES + POLITICS
Technology, Trust and Terror – Langdon Winner
Social Sorting in the Early 21st Century: Video Surveillance and Governance – Volker Eick
Resistance is Futile: Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Big Media – Robert X. Cringely
The ‘Darknet’ & ‘Trusted Computing’ – Rana Dasgupta
Free as in Air: An Interview with Vortex – Saul Albert
The Language of Tactical Media – Joanne Richardson
Alternative Radio: A Personal Testimony – David Barsamian
ALT + OPTION
The Concise Lexicon: Of / For the Digital Commons – Raqs Media Collective
The Wireless Commons Manifesto
A Hacker Manifesto: Version 5.7 – McKenzie Wark