SARAI READER
Sarai began work in 2000 on issues of media, urban life, and the public domain, at a time when such issues were hardly on the horizon in India. In addition, Sarai brought together academics and practitioners in a new dialogue and collaboration. Sarai was initiated by Ravi Vasudevan, Ravi Sundaram , both faculty at CSDS; and the Raqs Media Collective (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula & Shuddhabrata Sengupta). Sarai’s early research foci on urbanization, media life, and information are now part of any serious thinking about the contemporary. Since its inception, Sarai has initiated research projects on media urbanism, Cybermohalla, critiques of intellectual property, free software, art practice and the public realm, language and the city, and many others.
It has supported unique independent fellowship programmes, and held a host of events including conferences, workshops, and performances. Like all experimental research initiatives in India, Sarai has seen cycles of expansion and contraction, involving the dispersion of some nodes and the emergence of new sites and publics. Sarai’s current projects address the larger themes of media archeology, infrastructure, data and law.
Sarai has generated regular publications. These include the widely circulated Sarai Reader series, graphic novels, the urban classic Trickster City, and researcher broadsheets. Practice based works have also emerged from Sarai’s fellowship projects and the Media Lab. The Sarai Reader book series has been widely recognized as a site for critical and creative thinking. Previous Readers include:
> Sarai Reader 01: The Public Domain
> Sarai Reader 02: The Cities of Everyday Life
> Sarai Reader 03: Shaping Technologies
> Sarai Reader 04: Crisis/Media
> Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts
> Sarai Reader 06: Turbulence
> Sarai Reader 07: Frontiers
> Sarai Reader 08: Fear
> Sarai Reader 09: Projections
QR code for this website, designed by Mami Mizushina,2021.
The crossword of terms from the lexicon for the digital commons is used as a graphic image at the start of the published text in the Sarai Reader 03 Shaping Technologies. The electronic embroidery of the grid was made digitally by James Hutchinson, University of Sunderland, UK, and the words were hand-stitched by students at the Berlin-Weissensee School of Art, Germany, facilitated by David Littler. In 2021 Mami Mizushina created a QR code for this website returning the image of the embroidery to the centre of the digital code.
Raqs Media Collective (2003) A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons, In: Sarai Reader 03 Shaping Technologies, ed Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi, Ravi Vasudevan, Ravi Sundaram, Geert Lovink. Sarai-CDS Delhi / WAAG Amesterdam. 2003. p357-365.