media, information, the contemporary

Tag: Data


  • Lives of Data: Essays on Computational Cultures from India

    We are excited to announce the publication of “Lives of Data: Essays on Computational Cultures from India” with the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. It is available for download in ePub and PDF formats, and for print-on-demand orders: https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/lives-of-data-essays-on-computational-cultures-from-india/ Lives of Data emerged from research projects and workshops at the Sarai programme, Centre for the…

  • Call for Abstracts – Lives of Data Workshop

    The Sarai Programme invites submission of abstracts for the ‘Lives of Data’ workshop. Besides academic researchers, we strongly encourage media, design and software practitioners to apply for the workshop. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words, and should be sent to dak@sarai.net by 15 September, 2016, with the subject heading ‘Proposal for the Lives of Data Workshop.’ Authors of the selected abstracts will be notified by 01 October, 2016. The workshop will be held on 06-07 January, 2017 at Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi…

  • The Case of the Missing Data

    In the previous post, I broadly discussed the primary findings from the five pilot interviews I conducted – issues related to data, and contextualisation of models. Here, I take the case study of Vinay’s team to examine the issue of data, and its implications for practice, in greater detail. Vinay is a professor of civil engineering from a reputed university in Bangalore, whose group works on transportation simulation and policies. I examine the process by which Vinay and his group overcome the lack of access to data, and the resulting practices that emerge. In this project, I use the lens of practice, borrowing concepts of Communities of Practice, and technology enactment – and in this post I lay the foundations of the same.

  • HillHacks Pre-Event – Saturday, 30 April

    The Sarai Programme is excited to host the Delhi pre-event of HillHacks on Saturday, 30 April, 2016.

    The pre-event will be a relaxed combination of demonstrations and discussions of all things relates to hacking, making, and living in a technology-mediated world. There will be two thematic sessions focused on Art/Design/Technology and Mapping respectively.

    To RSVP, please send an email to

  • Call for Proposals: Short Term Research Projects in Social and Digital Media 2016

    The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, invites proposals from individuals for research projects on contemporary social and digital media, its ecologies and histories. Selected research proposals will be supported with a short-term grant for six months, and the researchers will present their studies in a workshop at Sarai-CSDS at the…

  • OpenDataCamp Delhi – November 22

    The Sarai Programme, CSDS will be hosting DataMeet’s OpenDataCamp Delhi, a one day un-conference, on Sunday, November 22, 2015. DataMeet organised the first OpenDataCamp in Delhi last year to create a discussion and sharing space for people involved in opening up and working with government and non-government data. This year’s Camp will focus on advancing these…

  • Processing

    Deconstructing Black-Boxes: Notes from the Field

    This post contains a detailed summary of the secondary research component and an early stage analysis of the three interviews that were completed as a part of the primary research component of this project. Two of these Interviews were conducted with data scientists working with large scale public data. The third Interview was with an Image processing expert now active in the field of data sciences… The Interface as discussed collects the user data actively (through forms/text boxes, affordances) and passively (tags tracing user footprint on the site)… Data is far from being structured; it contains a lot of noise. It gets generated in high volumes and does not leant itself easily to analysis.