Field Notes

Film City Arguably, the cinema has been the most important audio-visual form of the 20th century. Although it is periodically jeopardized by the emergence of newer technologies for the relaying of sounds and images, it still seems to hold a special place in the life of societies.more... Commodities and Markets The contemporary history of the new media dates back to the 1990's with the erosion of state monopoly over technology. Even as old monumental sites of technology (dams, steel mills) were fading as the only representations of technology and power, cities and towns were being transformed and connected by new networks. more... Popular Music Culture Technologies of reproduction have undergone a significant shift in the 1990's from the mechanical (cassette and VHS in the 1980's) to the recent shift to low cost digital forms. This shift has been the study of much of Sarai research in the past few years. Our research has sought to examine issues of circulation, conflict over property forms and non-legal reproduction, in short, the diversity and complexity of what has been referred to as the "continent of piracy". more... Cable TV Networks Amongst the many aspects of new media, the cable television industry also features as one. Away from the oppressive interference of the law and the state this industry was so far charting it's course according to the rules of the market and the logic of investment. Yet in the field of cable television and other such new media spaces there is a presence of rules and regulations and in specific contexts a notion of legality which regulates the everyday functioning of these “illegal processes”. more...