Thursday 14 January 2021
Thursday 24 October 2019
My Curriculum Vite ..
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME Rahat Saeed Khan
Yusufi
ADDRESS ‘Ashramshala’.
Panhale. Lanja,
Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. 416 701.
NATIONALITY Indian
CELL-PHONE 9960305867
E-MAIL
rahat.yusufi@gmail.com
BIRTH November 18,
1946, Lucknow, UP, India
CRAFT Film Making
ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS
B.Sc. University of Allahabad
M.A Aligarh Muslim University
DC (D) Film Institute, Pune
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
I have been an independent film maker since 1987, making films and
videos under the banner of Saramedia Consultants, Bangalore. I have
made approximately fifty documentary and short features. Most of the
more recent work has been rooted in progressive sociological insight
which is in the process of constant renewal. These films have been
done on live locations with non-professionals chosen from the field.
They have been produced in several Indian languages in various parts
of this Country. Having lived worked and travelled extensively in
various socio-linguistic & eco-regions have left me with a sort
of a mercenary feeling. I am, therefore, staying as Artist in
residence here, in a remote village in a school for tribal &
nomadic children, who are first generation schooled. During the past
five years or so of my stay here, I have received in-depth
perceptions of community coherence and produced over fifteen films in
DV format, that I can show to people of Konkan as a mirror unto their
own ‘human condition’.
RESPONSIBILITIES
To research, write scripts and proposals, visualise and direct
shootings, supervise editing and other studio and laboratory based
work. Nowadays I shoot with a good DV camera and edit on PC at my
rooms, in Panhale. Generate, sift and validate fresh ideas. Solicit
support and funding for a specific kind of work and look after
productions in all aspects till completion; then distribute DV copies
and exhibit from place to place, in Konkan region, South Maharashtra.
ACHIEVEMENTS
My materials are being used by a number of Voluntary Groups in West
Bengal, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and more recently, in
Karnataka. I have participated in screening sessions and seen the
enjoyment with which my films have been received by communities
concerned. They have proved to be good catalyser of discussions and
/ or introspection. I have several National and International awards
for cinematic excellence to my credit, apart from the love and joy of
sharing my work with people among whom I make my films. I have been
actively involved in social, cultural, and ecological movements in
India and have successfully articulated their ideals, debates and
struggles in film form.
- I was appointed Professor and Head of Department of Film Direction and Screen writing at the film and TV institute at Pune from June 1982 until June 1987.
RESPONSIBILITIES: Teaching and working with students for a three
year specialisation course.
ACHIEVEMENTS: This course of studies was re-instituted at my
joining. I was able, therefore, to restructure and update the
curriculum with current knowledge to make it challenging and
meaningful to the next generation of film makers. I was able to make
teaching methodology participatory in nature. For the first time in
the history of Film and TV Institute, I was able to take out groups
of students to make demonstration films, thereby bridging classroom
theory and field experience in practice.
- In charge of media production at the Centre for Development of Instructional Technology (CENDIT) at New Delhi from March 1980 until June 1982.
RESPONSIBILITIES: CENDIT initiated the idea of using video for
community conscientization. I designed and implemented the program
in a cluster of ten villages in the adjoining state of UP.
ACHIEVEMENTS: I was able to make participatory, process oriented
video films with active support of the communities, show them and
include feed back into further work to create a link and a web of
communication in the project area. I was able also to de-mystify
media for illiterate / semi-literate men and women of the community
and receive tremendous response in our conscientization program.
- Director at the Films Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, from March 1975 until 1980.
RESPONSIBILITIES: Researching, scripting and directing films for the
user ministries, mainly Defence and Agriculture. I also attempted
social subjects while in employment with the Government.
ACHIEVEMENTS: I was able to travel quite extensively throughout the
remote and distant parts of India. Camping and spending plenty of
time in different geo-political and eco-regions while on official
tours. I was able to create a stylistic difference in the set
pattern of documentary / training film of the Films Division. This
was recognised in the form of several international awards in
specialised film festivals.
- Collaboration with Mani Kaul on his feature film, ‘Uski Roti’ as assistant director.
RESPONSIBILITIES: To assist the director in all aspects of
conceptualising and operationalizing the experiment we were trying
out. Scripting and dialogue writing, improvising during shooting and
other post shooting work.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Though I cannot claim any individual achievement in
this case, I am proud to say that the film was a pioneering
experiment at the inception of the New Wave in India and the team
involved was making history
MISCELLANEOUS
- I am a founder member of the trust, Gokul Prakalpa Pratishthan (GPP), an NGO working in Konkan area of Southern Maharashtra. I have done several films with the folk forms of this region and on the efforts of our trust in conservation of local land and human resources.
- I have been a member of the Governing Council of Film and Television Institute, Pune.
- I have awards for cinematic excellence from Toronto, Karlovi Veri and Caracow. I also have two National Awards in 1991 for best film on environment. My films have been screened in the prestigious ‘Spectrum India’ section of MIFF, The Mumbai International Short Films Festival and equally prestigious ‘Indian Panorama’, during the International Film Festival of India 1997 at New Delhi and at the Beirut International Film Festival 1997.
- I have actively participated and conducted development workshops concerning media intervention, visual articulation and community media. I have written and presented papers and delivered lectures often with demonstrations, on Film aesthetics and use of Cinema as medium of communication for the alternative sector. I have helped create a new paradigm for development activism through the use of video among young filmmakers in India.
Friday 27 September 2019
I Met Satyajit Ray & Ritwik Da'
When I met Ritwik Da and Satyajit Ray ..
I have never actually craved meeting big shots; even as a kid I have
never enjoyed collecting autographs of Actors, Cricketers but still I
have bumped into many, mostly per chance. It was just one of those
days at The Film Institute that having got up late, around lunch
time, I was escalating down the road from Boy’s Hostel toward the
Canteen for some Puri Bhaji & Chai that I noticed, none other
than Satyajit Ray, in person emerge out of the corner Mutari, cross
over toward Studio #1 and walk up the side staircase doubtless
towards the guest rooms upstairs. I think he was on the first landing
when I caught his sight and greeted him from ground level, looking
up. He looked down upon me hesitating and halting his step so I said
that I am a resident student of Film Direction and would like to meet
him with some of my class fellows. He refused to meet us, point
blank, in a clipped, Oxonian accent resuming his ascent to the guest
room. (period) End of meeting ! Later, I was told there was a
convocation and he’d come as chief guest to distribute Diplomas.
That, I believe, was his one & only visit to the FTII.
Another fine morning, in the Canteen, I was finishing my Puri Bhaji &
double Chai when someone said, “Look ! That’s Ritwik Ghatak !
Sitting under the Wisdom Tree !” I looked out the window and saw an
old man in Kurta Pajama was indeed sitting crouched, knees level with
his chin, facing the main gate, smoking .. and I noticed the black
frame of his glasses in profile. He was just sitting alone, there was
no one else under the wisdom tree just at that moment. I couldn’t
believe my eyes; I thought, ‘Ritwik Ghatak ! Is that him?’ ...
but I got up at once, carried my half finished glass of tea to the
door of the Canteen and then across the road, looking at and
approaching the Man. He just kept staring right ahead, blankly as
though he was expecting someone. Placing my glass on the plinth I
said, “Namaskar Dada” with joined hands and sat down next to him.
His vibe was so close & cool, he almost felt like an old relative
of mine ! Soon someone brought him some Chai, Old Kokje, the
projectionist emerged from Main Theatre and said projection was ready
and we all drifted in. Dada still smoking and carrying his cup of tea
went straight down the isle to the middle seat in the front row, (my
seat!) and we looked at what he was watching, say reel #3 of
“Viridiana” ...
Later, we went to the Book Library at the rear of Studio # 1,
opposite the Sound Dept. He pulled out some twenty or thirty volumes
from many shelves and asked Madam to send them to his Guest Room. In
the evening when we went to see him there was a record player &
Western Classical music, many open, half read books scattered upon
the carpet and table, a bottle of wine from which he swigged without
offering a drop to anyone else ... and HE TALKED ! He rambled, he
kicked anyone who asked a stupid question and we sat upon the floor,
transfixed, just imbibing I know not what all that he spoke about
between swigs from his bottle of wine.
This went on till late, very late in the night. The next morning
getting up late as usual, when I twaddled down toward the canteen for
Puri Bhaji he was up there on the balcony ! A bottle of wine clutched
in one hand and a bidi stuck between his middle & fourth finger,
nearer the cleft. He was loudly showering his blessings upon passers
by. And then more films, marathon sessions; none of the films will
he watch completely; “THAKO !” He will shout over the projector
noise and sound track and we will all repeat the command till Kokje
will stop the projector. He will then demand to watch reel# so &
so from so & so movie !! While Kokje and the assistant from The
Archive, search and thread the new order, he will talk, talk like a
good Bengali, he will speak in English, standing facing us with his
bottle in his hand and his bum resting on the edge of the stage, the
screen behind his tall figure. He was a man with long limbs, like
Siddhartha, The Gautama Buddha.
This went on, day & night for a timeless period of time and one
fine morning there was no Dada upon the balcony, smoking &
drinking & cursing and blessing us all, those who were passing by
down below upon the central sloping street of the then Film
Institute.
Tuesday 16 July 2019
OPIUM OF THE MASSES
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA FOR PEOPLE CENTERED DEVELOPMENT
Caption: Opium of the Masses.
Speaker: Rahat YusufiNov.01.1999 ISI Bangalore
These are just ‘talking points’ for something akin to a workshop or a brain-storm; we must all contribute to illuminate the darkness of our time! To set the ball rolling, therefore, and since our theme allows, let us look at some theory first. Perhaps a brief sketch of history of use of media and then we come to present day situation, look upon shape of things to come, or how we can shape future with the use of media.
This last point requires some preparation on vision as well as possibilities offered by chosen medium, or combination used, what is called mixed-media or multi-media.
So we take some primary ‘key-words’ such as:
1/ What is a ‘medium’?
Money, the witch, roadways, railways, air & water ways; Print, Radio, Video, Telephony, pager, cell-phone, posters & hoardings, LCD / neon signs, net and the world wide web. We can make this list longer if we try. In a way, all these are instrumentalities, some one-way others two-way substances or vehicles through which an effect is transmitted / transported. The ‘medium’ is usually understood to be inert (like a truck, wheel barrow or a bullock-cart!). The active ingredient, usually language, images or coded effects or messages can be contained, stored, transported between those who ‘make’ & those who ‘receive’ / ‘access’ them. In this transaction, ‘meaning’ is said to be made, or it is supposed to emerge. We shall address the idea of meaning & meaning making a little later.
2/ What is communication?
These are just ‘talking points’ for something akin to a workshop or a brain-storm; we must all contribute to illuminate the darkness of our time! To set the ball rolling, therefore, and since our theme allows, let us look at some theory first. Perhaps a brief sketch of history of use of media and then we come to present day situation, look upon shape of things to come, or how we can shape future with the use of media.
This last point requires some preparation on vision as well as possibilities offered by chosen medium, or combination used, what is called mixed-media or multi-media.
So we take some primary ‘key-words’ such as:
1/ What is a ‘medium’?
Money, the witch, roadways, railways, air & water ways; Print, Radio, Video, Telephony, pager, cell-phone, posters & hoardings, LCD / neon signs, net and the world wide web. We can make this list longer if we try. In a way, all these are instrumentalities, some one-way others two-way substances or vehicles through which an effect is transmitted / transported. The ‘medium’ is usually understood to be inert (like a truck, wheel barrow or a bullock-cart!). The active ingredient, usually language, images or coded effects or messages can be contained, stored, transported between those who ‘make’ & those who ‘receive’ / ‘access’ them. In this transaction, ‘meaning’ is said to be made, or it is supposed to emerge. We shall address the idea of meaning & meaning making a little later.
2/ What is communication?
Associations that a word like this throws up are manifold. Let us put down some allied and root-words and look at their meaning; what follows is straight out of my dictionary:
* Commune` (as noun) in France means co-operation. A small territory with some form of self governance.
* Commune (as noun) in Communist Countries means an agricultural community; or a group of people living with common ownership.
* Commune (as verb) to feel as one with, be in close touch with, to share, give or receive.
* Communicate to have means of passage. To succeed in conveying one’s meaning to the other.
* Communism to hold all things in common.
* Community Common enjoyment of rights, beliefs, language etc.
* Com-mutual reciprocal
* Communication the process of achieving all this.
3/ Communication, by the looks of the meanings that we have gleaned from preceding exercise seems like it could and would flow freely, any which way in the community. With the advent of www & so on, notions of territoriality associated with communities are also fading. It would appear that there is potentially an endless, seamless, free-flow of ideas, images, dreams, opinions, stories, information, even myths & legends constantly sliding and forming, fading, emerging and shifting around in an ebb & flow which seems like a lot of fun, very robust, very invigorating and empowering indeed.
BUT, implicit in this schematic word image, even at this sage, we detect that there is an assumption of use & knowledge of English language, for instance, let us say as a unifying factor. What happens immediately is that all the rest of cultural and linguistic nuances are set aside, to be able to ‘get on with the net’ as they say.
THEN, there are service “providers” and a separate set of “consumers”. And why /& what ought the providers provide and what makes the consumers consume and pay for it?
SO, between the idea (conception) and the practice (execution), there is a major block (shadow) called the ‘interest”. In whose interest is it to practice the idea of communication?
4/ Let us examine cutting and building a new road. It will facilitate communication, they say, the builders. Now, first of all, whose interest or need activated the idea of the said road? Who decided which are the points and places that the road is connecting? The villages and people where the road will take up land will be compensated, but did they actually need the road, & do they really want compensation money? Do they want to go where the road is leading them?
To be sure, then, communication channels / net-works are designed, built and put in place for & by vested interests in society. This can be seen as ringing true even in case of making / receiving a phone-call. The ‘you-call-me / I call you’ scenario is all too familiar. The pager, for instance, has been always a top down one way tool & now passé. Now every body carries a cell-phone but the under-dog will always give you a missed-call!
5/ The media shell, therefore, may be value neutral by definition but its use is not so; is indeed manipulating opinion & manufacturing consent. The ‘form’ of a particular medium and ‘content’ it can communicate often contain a menu-driven, built-in, semblance of choice, which is not a real choice at all. It is virtual. It is possible, however, to use form & content of any medium either to achieve clarity or obscurity. It can be manipulated to mystify / de-mystify.
If they do it, it is propaganda
If we do it, it is education!
6/ Since we have come so far, I don’t see why we ought to go back into history of media, specially Film medium, because history of film is the history of its magnitudes and powers of manipulation. How documentary cinema altered the mind-set of an entire generation. How big, the ‘Big Grossers’ really were. The Imax. Dominant politics and profiteering economics, greed for power and mind management, history tells us, have been prime movers of media.
NOW, can we reverse or alter this trend? Do we want to? If yes, then how can ‘we’? First of all, do we wish to quantify ‘alternative media’ by the same measures the main-stream has? Can we present a viable choice to ‘end users’? (For the moment let us call them that).
At this point I have to take a side and count myself among “makers” of media’ I can now begin to shift the emphasis of this exercise from an objective perspective to a subjective one. That is that of a Film-maker.
7/ So, if I were a young woman, or man, fired by a passion for social change, revival, resurgence, revolution; and if I wanted to use the media; first of all I would have to choose one. If I wanted to be autonomous, I would choose the film medium. The ‘authorship school’ of film-making would suit me perfectly. I would imagine I was like Ruskin Bond, living and writing from Missouri and becoming famous all over the English speaking world.
BUT, am I ready for my social intervention? To create a rough & ready paradigm, I may choose to find ‘functionality’ by situating my attitude orthogonal to main-stream. My indicators, as to what I should do, would then spring from a series of observed characteristics of the main-stream media. Cinema, for example, would show up as:
8/ Some characteristics of main-stream cinema.
# powerful sensational dramatic
# mass media
# professional actors
# dialogue driven
# commentary based
# box-office oriented
* Commune` (as noun) in France means co-operation. A small territory with some form of self governance.
* Commune (as noun) in Communist Countries means an agricultural community; or a group of people living with common ownership.
* Commune (as verb) to feel as one with, be in close touch with, to share, give or receive.
* Communicate to have means of passage. To succeed in conveying one’s meaning to the other.
* Communism to hold all things in common.
* Community Common enjoyment of rights, beliefs, language etc.
* Com-mutual reciprocal
* Communication the process of achieving all this.
3/ Communication, by the looks of the meanings that we have gleaned from preceding exercise seems like it could and would flow freely, any which way in the community. With the advent of www & so on, notions of territoriality associated with communities are also fading. It would appear that there is potentially an endless, seamless, free-flow of ideas, images, dreams, opinions, stories, information, even myths & legends constantly sliding and forming, fading, emerging and shifting around in an ebb & flow which seems like a lot of fun, very robust, very invigorating and empowering indeed.
BUT, implicit in this schematic word image, even at this sage, we detect that there is an assumption of use & knowledge of English language, for instance, let us say as a unifying factor. What happens immediately is that all the rest of cultural and linguistic nuances are set aside, to be able to ‘get on with the net’ as they say.
THEN, there are service “providers” and a separate set of “consumers”. And why /& what ought the providers provide and what makes the consumers consume and pay for it?
SO, between the idea (conception) and the practice (execution), there is a major block (shadow) called the ‘interest”. In whose interest is it to practice the idea of communication?
4/ Let us examine cutting and building a new road. It will facilitate communication, they say, the builders. Now, first of all, whose interest or need activated the idea of the said road? Who decided which are the points and places that the road is connecting? The villages and people where the road will take up land will be compensated, but did they actually need the road, & do they really want compensation money? Do they want to go where the road is leading them?
To be sure, then, communication channels / net-works are designed, built and put in place for & by vested interests in society. This can be seen as ringing true even in case of making / receiving a phone-call. The ‘you-call-me / I call you’ scenario is all too familiar. The pager, for instance, has been always a top down one way tool & now passé. Now every body carries a cell-phone but the under-dog will always give you a missed-call!
5/ The media shell, therefore, may be value neutral by definition but its use is not so; is indeed manipulating opinion & manufacturing consent. The ‘form’ of a particular medium and ‘content’ it can communicate often contain a menu-driven, built-in, semblance of choice, which is not a real choice at all. It is virtual. It is possible, however, to use form & content of any medium either to achieve clarity or obscurity. It can be manipulated to mystify / de-mystify.
If they do it, it is propaganda
If we do it, it is education!
6/ Since we have come so far, I don’t see why we ought to go back into history of media, specially Film medium, because history of film is the history of its magnitudes and powers of manipulation. How documentary cinema altered the mind-set of an entire generation. How big, the ‘Big Grossers’ really were. The Imax. Dominant politics and profiteering economics, greed for power and mind management, history tells us, have been prime movers of media.
NOW, can we reverse or alter this trend? Do we want to? If yes, then how can ‘we’? First of all, do we wish to quantify ‘alternative media’ by the same measures the main-stream has? Can we present a viable choice to ‘end users’? (For the moment let us call them that).
At this point I have to take a side and count myself among “makers” of media’ I can now begin to shift the emphasis of this exercise from an objective perspective to a subjective one. That is that of a Film-maker.
7/ So, if I were a young woman, or man, fired by a passion for social change, revival, resurgence, revolution; and if I wanted to use the media; first of all I would have to choose one. If I wanted to be autonomous, I would choose the film medium. The ‘authorship school’ of film-making would suit me perfectly. I would imagine I was like Ruskin Bond, living and writing from Missouri and becoming famous all over the English speaking world.
BUT, am I ready for my social intervention? To create a rough & ready paradigm, I may choose to find ‘functionality’ by situating my attitude orthogonal to main-stream. My indicators, as to what I should do, would then spring from a series of observed characteristics of the main-stream media. Cinema, for example, would show up as:
8/ Some characteristics of main-stream cinema.
# powerful sensational dramatic
# mass media
# professional actors
# dialogue driven
# commentary based
# box-office oriented
# monolithic conception of ‘audience’
# riddled with obscene innuendos & overt violence. (we can increase the list)
9/ My antithetical schematic paradigm would then look somewhat like:
Mainstream
Magnitude 35mm. 70mm. Imax Surround Sound
Broadcast
Sensational
Dramatic
# riddled with obscene innuendos & overt violence. (we can increase the list)
9/ My antithetical schematic paradigm would then look somewhat like:
Mainstream
Magnitude 35mm. 70mm. Imax Surround Sound
Broadcast
Sensational
Dramatic
Escapist
Powerful (in itself)
Generalized as mass-medium
Dialogue driven &/or illustrating commentary text
Use professional actors and deep bass voices
Box-office return
Territorial audiences
Anybody paying is welcome
Alternative
DV. 16mm
Narrow-cast
Powerful (in itself)
Generalized as mass-medium
Dialogue driven &/or illustrating commentary text
Use professional actors and deep bass voices
Box-office return
Territorial audiences
Anybody paying is welcome
Alternative
DV. 16mm
Narrow-cast
Sensitive
Analytic
Confrontational
Empowering (the viewer)
Culture and Language specific
Visually oriented, resonating with sounds
Work with non-professionals & use location sync sound
Value for money
Viewers, select audience
I choose my viewers
Sub-Textual Values:
Mainstream: Morbid, violent, macho, full of song & dance signifying nothing, time-pass. Anaesthetizing.
Alternative: Educational, healthy, concerning quality of life. Transparent, democratic, secular, nurturing, peaceful, justiciable, significant, anesthetizing.
09/ Some of the properties of film medium, however, I shall not be able to escape while I develop my antithetical model of Alternative film-making. Those, such as, the quality of my craftsmanship, clarity of my conception, composition, structure, dynamics of Editing and use of Sound. My eye for the light, either available or artificial. Timing, perspective, magnification, control & use of color & contrast and of course, the quality of my observation. These I have to share, whether I like it or not. There is no alternative there, no choice. One can not avoid the climate and context in which one’s work would eventually be placed and received. Socially embodied norms and cliches. Attention spans. Stereotypical structures, stories, issues, acting and gender related attitudes. Our work will have to eventually co-exist with all this and more. Quantitatively, it is always going to be minimal, vernacular, inward looking.
10/ Media do not pro-actively do ‘development’. It merely helps to create a climate conducive to change. It can alter the ecology of mind; catalyze certain trends, attitudes and values among people affected by that climate. We live in a climate saturated with media; much of it might actually be canceling each other before hitting us; nevertheless, both as makers as well as users of media we have to be discreet, we have to know that it can merely indicate, it can not actually take aim, shoot to kill.
11/ Creativity, Quantification, Satisfaction:
Most media, I should imagine all media could be de-constructed in this way and open ended, informed choices can be made both by the ‘users’ and the ‘makers’. Life projects can be chalked out and often, this is how these vocations work best; even the commercial world is full of dedicated artists and craft-persons.
Creativity sets in, if we regard the process as, as important if not more precious & alive than the product; and again, merely because one is playing with the medium, as is not the real thing. It only looks like real but it is a re-presentation; it looks authentic but it is not a fact, it is like a dream. The experience of watching a movie, in a movie-hall, is like a dream. It is a catalyst. It exists in our imagination, our consciousness.
No box-office gross figure, no critical acclaim column length can match the satisfaction of watching the film you made, with the folk you made it with.
For our ‘model’ to be complete and be truly viable an ‘alternative’; Alternative Media must have, acquire or develop its own distribution & exhibition infrastructure. In time, it must aim to create a niche of viewer ship and must attract support from each socio-lingual and ecological region in the Country, wherever it is being received. Like other channels it must invite viewer’s participation. This alone would complete the ‘Cycle of Communication’... and create vital ‘feed-back-loops’ to nourish and enrich it. This is a lot of work, nearly three quarters of the entire enterprise; and how all that is to be accomplished; that is another story.
Caca1864.readings
Analytic
Confrontational
Empowering (the viewer)
Culture and Language specific
Visually oriented, resonating with sounds
Work with non-professionals & use location sync sound
Value for money
Viewers, select audience
I choose my viewers
Sub-Textual Values:
Mainstream: Morbid, violent, macho, full of song & dance signifying nothing, time-pass. Anaesthetizing.
Alternative: Educational, healthy, concerning quality of life. Transparent, democratic, secular, nurturing, peaceful, justiciable, significant, anesthetizing.
09/ Some of the properties of film medium, however, I shall not be able to escape while I develop my antithetical model of Alternative film-making. Those, such as, the quality of my craftsmanship, clarity of my conception, composition, structure, dynamics of Editing and use of Sound. My eye for the light, either available or artificial. Timing, perspective, magnification, control & use of color & contrast and of course, the quality of my observation. These I have to share, whether I like it or not. There is no alternative there, no choice. One can not avoid the climate and context in which one’s work would eventually be placed and received. Socially embodied norms and cliches. Attention spans. Stereotypical structures, stories, issues, acting and gender related attitudes. Our work will have to eventually co-exist with all this and more. Quantitatively, it is always going to be minimal, vernacular, inward looking.
10/ Media do not pro-actively do ‘development’. It merely helps to create a climate conducive to change. It can alter the ecology of mind; catalyze certain trends, attitudes and values among people affected by that climate. We live in a climate saturated with media; much of it might actually be canceling each other before hitting us; nevertheless, both as makers as well as users of media we have to be discreet, we have to know that it can merely indicate, it can not actually take aim, shoot to kill.
11/ Creativity, Quantification, Satisfaction:
Most media, I should imagine all media could be de-constructed in this way and open ended, informed choices can be made both by the ‘users’ and the ‘makers’. Life projects can be chalked out and often, this is how these vocations work best; even the commercial world is full of dedicated artists and craft-persons.
Creativity sets in, if we regard the process as, as important if not more precious & alive than the product; and again, merely because one is playing with the medium, as is not the real thing. It only looks like real but it is a re-presentation; it looks authentic but it is not a fact, it is like a dream. The experience of watching a movie, in a movie-hall, is like a dream. It is a catalyst. It exists in our imagination, our consciousness.
No box-office gross figure, no critical acclaim column length can match the satisfaction of watching the film you made, with the folk you made it with.
For our ‘model’ to be complete and be truly viable an ‘alternative’; Alternative Media must have, acquire or develop its own distribution & exhibition infrastructure. In time, it must aim to create a niche of viewer ship and must attract support from each socio-lingual and ecological region in the Country, wherever it is being received. Like other channels it must invite viewer’s participation. This alone would complete the ‘Cycle of Communication’... and create vital ‘feed-back-loops’ to nourish and enrich it. This is a lot of work, nearly three quarters of the entire enterprise; and how all that is to be accomplished; that is another story.
Caca1864.readings
Saturday 17 March 2018
A Complete Artist
LEAVE IT FOR IMAGINATION....some excerpts.
To my mind the rural ideal in art, philosophy & life, so deeply embedded in Chinese consciousness must be responsible for national and racial health today. Creators of Chinese pattern of life did more wisely than they knew in maintaining a balance between civilization and primitive habits of living. A sound instinct guided them to choose agricultural civilization, to hate mechanical ingenuity and love the simple ways of life; to invent comforts of life without being enslaved to them; and to preach from generation to generation in their poetry, painting & literature, ‘the return to the farm’. For, to be close to nature is to have physical & moral health. Man, in the country does not degenerate, only man in the city does. This aspect subtly but profoundly accounts for the long survival of Chinese civilization.
Chinese culture is one of the truly indigenous cultures of the World. Culture is a product of leisure and Chinese have had immense leisure of over three thousand years to cultivate it. In these three thousand un-interrupted years they have had plenty of time to drink tea and look at life quietly over their tea cups; and from gossip over tea cups they have boiled life down to its essence. And from this gossip & pondering came a great meaning. It came to be spoken of as ‘the Mirror’ which reflects human experience for the benefit of the present; which is like a gathering stream, un-interrupted, continuous. In this they crossed the threshold of all arts and entered the hall of the Art of Life itself; and Art & Life became one. They achieved that crown of culture, the art of living, which is the end of all human wisdom.
Calm & harmony distinguish Chinese Art. The Chinese Artist is a man who is at peace with Nature, who is free from shackles of society & from temptations of gold. Above all, his breast must brood no ill passion for a good artist must be a good man. He ‘chastens his heart’ and ‘broadens his spirit’ chiefly by travel & contemplation. The Chinese artist does not learn painting by going into a room and stripping a woman naked. It is strange that spiritual evolution goes with physical elevation upon this planet & life always looks different from an altitude of five thousand feet. Thus, from the god-like heights the artist surveys the world with a calm expansion of spirit and this Spirit goes into his painting. Like ‘the fool on the hill’ who sees ‘the world going by’.
It is this spirit of calm & harmony, this flavor of mountain air, always tinged with recluse’s passion for leisure & solitude which is seen in all forms of Chinese Art. It is not supremacy over nature but harmony with her that Calligraphy, Painting, Poetry & architecture all have in common with a way of life. And through it all pervades The Spirit of Man, happy with himself and his Universe; poor in possessions but rich in sentiments, discriminating in taste, experienced and full of worldly wisdom; and yet simple hearted, contented & wisely idle. In China, man knows a great deal about the Art of all arts, The Art of Living. A younger civilization may be keen on making progress, but an old civilization must have a different standard of values for it alone knows ‘the durable pleasures of life’ which are merely matters of senses; food, drink, house, garden, women & friendship. That is what life comes to in the end, in essence. Any Nation, therefore, that does not know how to eat and enjoy living is uncouth and un-civilized.
rahatavalokit
cacareadings#3102
To my mind the rural ideal in art, philosophy & life, so deeply embedded in Chinese consciousness must be responsible for national and racial health today. Creators of Chinese pattern of life did more wisely than they knew in maintaining a balance between civilization and primitive habits of living. A sound instinct guided them to choose agricultural civilization, to hate mechanical ingenuity and love the simple ways of life; to invent comforts of life without being enslaved to them; and to preach from generation to generation in their poetry, painting & literature, ‘the return to the farm’. For, to be close to nature is to have physical & moral health. Man, in the country does not degenerate, only man in the city does. This aspect subtly but profoundly accounts for the long survival of Chinese civilization.
Chinese culture is one of the truly indigenous cultures of the World. Culture is a product of leisure and Chinese have had immense leisure of over three thousand years to cultivate it. In these three thousand un-interrupted years they have had plenty of time to drink tea and look at life quietly over their tea cups; and from gossip over tea cups they have boiled life down to its essence. And from this gossip & pondering came a great meaning. It came to be spoken of as ‘the Mirror’ which reflects human experience for the benefit of the present; which is like a gathering stream, un-interrupted, continuous. In this they crossed the threshold of all arts and entered the hall of the Art of Life itself; and Art & Life became one. They achieved that crown of culture, the art of living, which is the end of all human wisdom.
Calm & harmony distinguish Chinese Art. The Chinese Artist is a man who is at peace with Nature, who is free from shackles of society & from temptations of gold. Above all, his breast must brood no ill passion for a good artist must be a good man. He ‘chastens his heart’ and ‘broadens his spirit’ chiefly by travel & contemplation. The Chinese artist does not learn painting by going into a room and stripping a woman naked. It is strange that spiritual evolution goes with physical elevation upon this planet & life always looks different from an altitude of five thousand feet. Thus, from the god-like heights the artist surveys the world with a calm expansion of spirit and this Spirit goes into his painting. Like ‘the fool on the hill’ who sees ‘the world going by’.
It is this spirit of calm & harmony, this flavor of mountain air, always tinged with recluse’s passion for leisure & solitude which is seen in all forms of Chinese Art. It is not supremacy over nature but harmony with her that Calligraphy, Painting, Poetry & architecture all have in common with a way of life. And through it all pervades The Spirit of Man, happy with himself and his Universe; poor in possessions but rich in sentiments, discriminating in taste, experienced and full of worldly wisdom; and yet simple hearted, contented & wisely idle. In China, man knows a great deal about the Art of all arts, The Art of Living. A younger civilization may be keen on making progress, but an old civilization must have a different standard of values for it alone knows ‘the durable pleasures of life’ which are merely matters of senses; food, drink, house, garden, women & friendship. That is what life comes to in the end, in essence. Any Nation, therefore, that does not know how to eat and enjoy living is uncouth and un-civilized.
rahatavalokit
cacareadings#3102
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