I went along to the Engage Media - Sydney screening in May 2009 and saw four Indonesian community-based films. It was amazing to hear of some of the collectives and community work going on there. Engage Media work tirelessly in documenting projects across Asia Pacific and have a large video library of films. Regular screenings are held to share the films with people in other communities. I asked Andy from Engage Media what the organisation was all about :

video @ http://aliak.blip.tv/file/2127156

Squat Space was born from the energy of artists and activists of the Broadway Squats.

The organisers cleared out an old locksmith shop and launched a dynamic art and event space in December 2000. The gallery played host to political film screenings, free dinners, durational performances, experimental sound nights, site-specific installations...

SquatSpace opposed the standard "pay-as-you-show" system used by many high-rent artist-run-galleries in Sydney. Exhibiting was free, with artists usually becoming involved in the life of the squatting community in some way.

some links to follow up - mostly relating to the books i've recently purchased here in india - an ongoing list

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Asmita
ASMITA (literally, identity) was established in 1988 as a non-profitable, non-political and non-governmental organization by a nucleus of young enthusiastic women journalists. Its general objective is to fulfill the existing gap in participation, representation and access to media of women. It is committed to find new ways and directions for women's progress. Its major aim is to produce various publications on women in the media. ASMITA is the one and only feminist alternative media organization in the country, and it functions as a pressure group for the advancement of women through media activism. ASMITA Women's Publishing House, Media and Resource Organization (in short, ASMITA) was established in 1988 as a non-profitable, non-political and non-governmental organization by a nucleus of young enthusiastic women journalists, and started to publish the first feminist magazine of Nepal. The magazine was named Asmita which means "dignity" and "identity". In fact, this was the first movement of the organization for Nepali women's human right and empowerment through media.

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Women's World of India
Women's WORLD (India) was set up in July 2002. It is part of Women's WORLD (International), a free speech network of feminist writers, which has ongoing projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. The primary aim of WW(I) is to provide a space for women writers in South Asia to analyse the circumstances in which women write, are published and read in this region, to identify the issues facing women writers here, and to develop a strategy for working on them at the national, regional and international levels.

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Blaft Publications
Blaft Publications is a new independent publishing house based in Chennai, India. Their releases so far include an anthology of Tamil pulp fiction, a translation of an experimental Tamil novel, a book of drawings, and a book of English short stories. However, in the future, Blaft has much wider goals. They are planning to eventually branch out into translations of fiction from other regional languages of South Asia, English fiction, comic books, graphic novels, children's books, non-fiction, textbooks, how-to-manuals, encyclopedias, and kitchen appliances.

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction
- selected & translated by Pritham Chakravarthy
- edited by Rakesh Khanna

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Feminist Fine Print
A moderately priced, handy new series that offers two, three or four core essays on a single issue, from a critical feminist perspective. The essays may be single-authored or have multiple authorship depending on the issue, its significance within India and South Asia, and its theoretical and political implications.
- http://www.womenunlimited.net/catalogue2.htm for list of book details currently available

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Zubaan Books
An imprint of Kali for women

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Women's resources in Delhi
- a list of organisations

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Yoda Press
YODA PRESS is an independent publishing venture based in New Delhi. With a view to developing dynamic non-fiction lists, both academic as well as popular, which can make available interactive spaces for further discussion, scholarship, and writing, this young venture is currently focusing its attention on areas like urban studies, sexuality and the body, gender, cinema, contemporary art and popular culture, and new perspectives in history. In doing so, the larger YODA PRESS list hopes to effectively capture the non-mainstream, alternative, yet critical reality of contemporary India. The Press invites feedback, constructive criticism, and the ever enriching exchange of ideas, which can often lead to a stunning new publication.

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Sarai
http://www.sarai.net/about-us/introducing-sarai/overview
Sarai researches the urban experience, the city, the publics and practice of (old & new) media, "information and society", free & open source software, language and digital cultures and the interface between urban transformation, contemporary culture, and development. Sarai research has flowed into conferences, books, articles, art Installations and even school textbooks. Our researchers Include scholars and practitioners. Sarai places a premium on the research process as a whole, rather than just the final outcome. This means that Sarai research material continually reaches the public domain through collaborative mailing lists, CD's, small essays, apart from conferences and research articles.

Sarai publishes books (The Sarai Readers, The Deewan-e-Sarai and the Series), pamphlets (The Media Nagar Series), broadsheets (Sarai.txt, Cybermohalla Broadsheets) and occasional publications ('By Lanes', 'The Book Box' etc.) on paper as well as on the web. All Sarai publications are copyleft and maybe freely downloaded for non commercial & edycational use from the Sarai website.

Sarai embodies a continuing engagement with creativity in urban neighbourhoods through the 'Cybermohalla' Project in collaboration with a 'Ankur' Society for Alternatives in Education, a Delhi based NGO with a proven track record of more than two decades of work in the field of critical pedagogy and community mobilization in poor neighbourhoods in the city.

Sarai supports a growing network of independent researchers, practitioners and students all over India through fellowships and stipends. Over the last five years we have supported more than 400 independent researchers from all over the country.Many of these come from small towns such in the hinterland and in spaces marked by conflict such as Jammu and Kashmir and the North East. Half the proposals that have been supported have been sent in by women, a significant proportion of supported candidates belong to ethnic and religious minorities and oppressed communities. All the proposals investigate areas that would find little or no support, either in academia, or in mainstream media, although several of the candidates have gone on to make further meaningful work in academia and the media, to a large measure due to the ground that they were able to cover in the course of the Sarai independent research proposal.

Sarai invites critical reflections on the nature of the contemporary moment, by holding regular screenings and discussion of curated programmes of fiction, documentary and experimental films and video, and by acting as a convivial context for online and offline conversations through discussions, mailing lists and blogs in English and Hindi at the Sarai space and on the Sarai website.

Sarai engages with the Hindi/Hindustani public domain through publications, translation, lists, web content, software localization, events and workshops.

Sarai organises events such as - conferences, seminars, workshops, summer schools, colloquia, colloquia and hosts occasional residencies around themes thatthemes that reflect the programme's intellectual and creative interests.

Sarai produces media (video, audio, print, web) and contemporary art works, CDs, radio and software. Works produced at the Sarai Media Lab have been exhibited in several international venues such as Documenta11, and the Venice, Liverpool and Taipei Biennales.

Sarai collaborates with organizations and initiatives locally, regionally and internationally/globally on events, processes, networks, projects and publications.

Sarai reaches out to students and faculty in colleges, institutes, university departments and student societies to organize talks, discussions, readings, screenings, screenings, informal interactions and conversations.

Sarai archives different facets of contemporary popular culture, urban space and media forms with a view to making information about them available to a wide public of researchers and practitioners.

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The Tract House is a "spread-the-word" project that debuted at the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore on May 31, 2008. The Tract House tracts were written by friends, neighbors, acquaintances, visitors to this website, and friends of friends. While most popular tracts are religious, The Tract House tracts can be nearly anything— manifestos, diatribes, stories, rants, poems, or lyrics. They can be about whatever the writer finds pressing, whether it be something personal, professional, political, domestic, local, or global. Gallery visitors are encouraged to peruse the many tracts and take home what they wish. Visitors of this website are encouraged to print the tracts on their home printers. It is hoped that the tracts will educate, activate, infuriate, obfuscate, titillate, inspire, upset, and irritate.

from The World Tree exhibition page on undergowth.org :

Protestors gather under the tree of life as bulldozers approach. Televisions vomit endless waterfalls of information. A disembodied totem of animal, vegetable and mineral world stares at you in profile. The city speaks in confusing angles where we lose perspective. The world tree is burning while man meditates under its shade.

"The World Tree" is an exhibition of new paintings by Melbourne artist Tim Parish, co-founder and art director of Undergrowth.org at Open Studio

The opening night will include music from Kafka and performance artist Si on Sunday the 15th of June at 7pm.

Details:

Opening Night:

7pm Sunday the 15th of June
with music by KAFKA
and spoken word performances by Si and Verbatim

Exhibition Dates:

15th - 29th June 2008

Address:

OPEN STUDIO (review)
204 High St, Northcote
(86 Tram Line opposite Northcote Town Hall)

visit http://undergrowth.org/theworldtree & http://undergrowth.org/user/verb for more details or to see samples of Tim Parish's work

or add the exhibition's event to your facebook event list : http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14691799635

here's a video from Propaganda & his friends - he's been in a couple of the online MLA courses I've done. I really like it - the message, the music, the whole thing!!

it's on http://postmoderntimes.com also - which is also a great video / online magazine

here's the blurb from youtube about it :

episode features four underground hip hop artists -- Naada, Propaganda Anonymous, 2HL, and iLL SpoKKinN -- and producer euphAmism in an animated music video packing lyrical and graphical punch in a call for global awakening.

Please go to www.iclips.net/2012 to see the rest of the episodes (more)

Video makers, media activists, software developers and artists from 15 countries across the Asia-Pacific will be gathering in Sukabumi, West Java from May 19-25 for an online video skills camp. The goal of the camp is to bring together open source software programmers, video makers and media activists to develop the strategic use of online video distribution for social justice and media democracy.

TX-AP is a joint initiative between media activists in Australia and Indonesia. It is organised collaboratively by EngageMedia (Australia), a video sharing website and free software development, training and networking project and Ruangrupa (Indonesia) a non-profit artist initiative supporting the development of art in the cultural context through events, exhibitions, research and documentation. 50 specially invited media activists and artists will be coming to Indonesia to attend the workshop and share their skills and ideas.

The camp will provide a unique opportunity for artists, video makers, software developers and activists to collaborate and share skills in a global context where on-line video communication skills have become an increasingly important strategy for activists.

Read more for details or visit http://transmission.cc/txap

The Actv website (actv.co.il) is an independent digital content library , offering video footage on a variety of subjects: Civil and Social issues including: human rights, animal rights, video activism, environmental issues etc; Cultural content e.g.: music videos, short movies, documentaries, independent VJ shows, theatre footage, animated shorts , dance, art, poetry readings and independent films.

Salon Mazal was established in 2001, in Tel Aviv, Israel, by a group of social-environmental activists. Salon Mazal is a non-for-profit registered charity that serves as an information distribution center for social, environmental and political change The place functions as a store (including books, magazines and fair-trade products), a lending library, an artist gallery, a vegetarian bar and a community center where movie screenings, lectures, workshops and meetings take place.

The place is run in line with anarchist ideology and values, which encourage an egalitarian, non-hierarchical community. Salon Mazal is run by a group of volunteers. Consensus decision-making is used to promote the expression of individual voices within the group in daily meetings.

The eighth edition of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition (RAT) conference, sponsored by the Institute for Anarchist Studies, once again aims to provide a participatory and scholarly space in which to reexamine, reinvigorate, and make relevant the social and political tradition of anarchism.

At previous conferences, presenters have proposed topics that ranged from the character of social change to the ongoing relevance of categories such as class, community, and labor; from the changing shape of the state and capital to emergent forms of both domination and resistance in a globalizing world; from the character of twenty-
first-century technology to the functions and potentials of anti-authoritarian art and propaganda; and from anarchism's relation to geopolitical concerns such as terrorism and war to its ability to grapple with issues of identity such as race, gender, and sexuality.

Read more for the Calls for Proposals or visit http://anarchiststudies.org/node/146 for more details. http://www.homemadejam.org/renew has archives of previous year's conferences.

Four Eyed Monsters + Caliblog have created a video on the Net Neutrality issue happening in the USA. let's hope the telco's plan to control the internet is squashed quickly and cleanly. pass on the movie - see below.

http://blip.tv/file/103105

Click To Play

There's so many crazy things in the papers here in Delhi, and then there's so many that don't make the papers or are buried so deeply that people probably don't find them. Luckily I came across the independent paper Tehelka whilst staying in the other hotel on my last trip. The articles in this paper were heart wrenching. Most of the time I kept thinking, what year is this? how can these things be happening in this day and age. Here's an example - this notice arrived via the sarai reader list (www.sarai.net)

For more details on Khairlanji issue please go through following web site.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main22.asp?filename=Ne111106Dalits_like.asp

The screening of the documentary film, The Last Valley will take place at the Capitol Theatre Melbourne, 113 Swanston St (Opposite Melbourne Town Hall) on Tuesday 14th November 2006 from 8pm. This is the only opportunity to see the film prior to the Victorian state election. ABC have yet to announce a screening date.

The film is about the collapse of the East Gippsland logging industry after 50 years of unsustainable logging and the consequences of that for the local communities and environment. The film includes the controversial attempt by the Victorian government to log the iconic Goolengook valley.

http://www.waitawhilefilms.com.au

click here or on the image to play the quicktime movie

this is one story of the history of modern Australia told in mural format. it's painted on the side of a freeway at the rear carpark of Toombul Shoppingtown in Brisbane, Australia.

music is "The Block" by Morganics featuring the Wilcannia Mob

This article is about MSF (Medecins Sans Frontiers aka Doctors Without Borders) claim that American drug manufacturer Abbott Laboratories are allegedly denying patients in Asia access to an improved version of the AIDS drugs lopinavir and ritonavir. These are apparently "important second-line drugs for people who have been on treatement for several years. The new version of the drug has advantages over the old version, including lower pill count, storage without refrigeration, and no dietary restrictions."

According to the article, apparently, it's not for sale as it wasn't registered in 'developing countries' and without being registered, it cannot be sold here. The old version of the drug is not even available in China (or the new version) because the drug company has not marketed to this country. Countries such as Thailand which also has high temperatures (30C most of the year) would also benefit from the new version of the drug. The old version of the drug is no longer available to the US market - MSF Thailand rep calls it a "second-best product" and I can understand his point. The drug company IS distributing the new version of the drug in Africa, but it seems that this only happened after a time consuming set of procedures were followed.

I took a look on the MSF website for more info and found a few articles here, here and here but I couldn't find specific information about it's release in India but there was an article about the drugs not being released in Thailand anytime soon so that's bad enough in itself. most of the MSF articles were about African countries. so perhaps India isn't counted as one of the 'developing countries'. still I think if the drugs were not available here and they obviously need to be, then they should be!

Over the last week there have been a couple of articles speaking about AIDS in India - one said that India has the largest population of people outside of Africa infected with HIV/AIDS. I read in one of the Sarai Readers that many people here have not even heard of AIDS so they are trying to educate more people. on the tv the other night was an ad for the Heroes Project in Delhi / India. from their media campaign page :

the UN AIDS website released a report - here's a media summary listing some numbers - http://www.unaids.org has the full report and more info.

from http://www.unaids.org/en/Regions_Countries/default.asp

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update 10/07/2006

ok, I don't feel as bad now about the decision making policy of the Times newspaper editors on what should be front page news. the front page of the Times International this morning had the article "Latest AIDS treatment is a daily pill" and spoke of the new drug being available in India shortly. I don't think it's the same as the one MSF are referring to, but hopefully it'll be of some help to the people here.

Dear Australian Members,

My apologies if this post seems out of place in this forum, but I think this is an important issue for all Australians. We have tried to reach as many people as possible in the short time that we have, and if you should agree with the message below and any of the information that the web links point you to, then we would be honoured to have you help us in this human endeavour.

The organizers and speakers at EGA believe that information about psychoactive plants and chemicals should be readily available. Also that only through creating such a space, where we can talk freely on such matters, can methods for harm reduction and the true benefits of such substance be explored. Entheogenesis Australis is a collection of thinkers from all walks of life, we come together to share knowledge about sacred plants, chemical alchemy and states of consciousness. We are coming to tune in to the Mother Earth and take her fight back out into the world. We want to share and explore experiences, trance and dance. it is about growth, for the mind and the land.

This experimental workshop is an invitation to those individuals who are interested in the trance dance experience as providing an opportunity for mind/body/spirit/soul development. EGA 2006 will be a unique opportunity for people who are experienced in the dance floor and consciousness development approach to try something new, different, fun and well focused, that is totally aimed at extending the boundaries of each participants current experiential and knowledge paradigms.

Read more for details or visit http://www.entheo.net

Combat Wombat are an outspoken troupe of hip hop punks mainly located in Melbourne. They've just released their second album "Unsound System". Armed with only samplers, mics and turntables, powered by solar energy and an uncompromising belief in Truth over Spin, these desert nomads are the real deal, creating an album that reflects the frontline activism they have become famous for. Unsound System is a bullet to the dark heart of the Australian psyche.

a summary of the Sarai Reader 04 paper called "The Revenge of Lowtech : Autolabs, Telecentros and Tactical Media in Sao Paulo" by Ricardo Rosas.

the freemind mind map tactical_media_in_Brazil.mm is attached - this contains html links or expand / collapse the xhtml version below

http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/ is the new Sarai Reader link - they've changed their website and all the links have changed

http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/04-crisis-media/55ricardo.pdf is the new link for the article

Finding my old bookmark files has made me nostalgic for the early computing days when everything was new and exciting and full of possibilities. One of my favourite magazines back in the early 90s was Mondo 2000. It was hard to get - only a few places in Brisbane stocked it, actually only two that I recall and even then it was occasional. By the time I got round to subscribing to the magazine it had finished being published and I lost my subscription renewal to the cause so to speak. At the time, it was cutting edge and the full gloss images and interviews with leading thinkers made it a great read. R.U. Sirius who was the editor of the mag has a podcast these days and can be found around mondoglobo.net. Here's a collection of links to mondo 2000 stuff:

mondo articles from the well (link updated : original link broken 25/09/2008 : http://www.well.com:70/1/Publications/MONDO )

The Spunk Library collects and distributes literature in electronic format, with an emphasis on anarchism and related issues. For a more complete description of what Spunk is about you can view the Spunk Manifesto.

Bitch | Feminist Response to Pop Culture is a print magazine devoted to incisive commentary on our media-driven world. We feature critiques of TV, movies, magazines, advertising, and more—plus interviews with and profiles of cool, smart women in all areas of pop culture.

Today I read "Grassroots - a field guide for feminist activism" by Jennifer Baumgardner & Amy Richards. It's a DIY feminist activism book that gives examples of how everyday women can perform activist activities without having to be too radical. Examples are from high school, university students, women at work and in their local communities. Baumgardner and Richards speak about and provide contact details for many organisations performing and supporting feminist activism projects. I've included some links in the feminism and activism links on this site if you are interested in finding out more, otherwise track down the book from your local bookstore..

The authors, who also co-wrote "Manifesta", define activism (page xix, Prologue) as:

KISSS - Kinship International Strategy on Surveillance and Suppression, is a touring exhibition of products, process and residues from the meta-performance project KISSS. A Conical Exchange Project with Elastic Residency (UK) : Responding to political, social and personal issues around surveillance and suppression, KISSS incorporates the individual and collaborative practices of artists, writers and curators. OPENING FRIDAY 28 from 6 - 8.30pm, KISSS will be held from OCTOBER 28 - NOVEMBER 13. A free forum will take place on Saturday 29 October with Joanna Callaghan & Deej Fabyc in collaboration with local artists. All welcome. Interested parties are invited to participate - please contact Conical at info@conical.org.au. Read more or visit http://www.elastic.org.uk or http://www.conical.org.au for more information