writing

Patta Chitra Katha - traditional folk art of storytelling using visual language

Senthil Kumar posted a video on WADI facebook group called "Arjuna the Archer : AD 2008"

he's also posted it to youtube :
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UPtfEkl_o

there's now a facebook page for Patta Chitra Katha

I wanted to find out more about this artform and technique, so I googled (without much luck, due to googling the wrong things) and asked the Sarai Reader list and received lots of helpful information from many people. after reading about it, it reminds me a bit of an equivalent to multi-media, or even video blogging from a few hundred years ago. multiple paintings / panels on scrolls (equating to video frames?) are read and music played whilst they're read, so there's a mixture of images, music, text, written / spoken word. the artists travel to different villages - equivalent to the communication methods / networks of today transmitting the multimedia messages & works. originally the works were made on cloth using vegetable based paints but these days modern paints are used and most works are done on paper. I hope the traditional methods are not lost completely! the style of painting comes from Orissa, West Bengal & Bangladesh. modern artists use both traditional, classical topics as well as current topics & stories - they are trying out new variations of the art too, to keep the method alive and to learn new techniques & skills.

I made a video for VloMo08 day16 explaining how I found out information about Patta Chitra Katha :

VloMo08 : day16 - Patta Chitra Katha - traditional folk art of storytelling using visual language from kath on Vimeo.

read more for information about this special artform ...

::: location:

VloMo08 : day7 - Some of my Favourite Magazines (part2)

this is part2 of a quick video showing some of my favourite magazines from the early-mid 90s and now. I tried to save the first part (Mondo 2000, Boing Boing, Arthur) but it's taking over an hour to save and then crashes the conversion program - still ironing out best methods for my new HD camera. I'll try do it tomorrow but I've got to fly to Delhi so not sure if I'll have time (esp. if it keeps failing)

07/11/2008

blog entry :
http://www.aliak.com/content/vlomo08-day7-some-my-favourite-magazines-part2

http://vimeo.com/2179386

VloMo08 : day7 - Some of my Favourite Magazines (part2) from kath on Vimeo.

and here's part 1 - I didn't get a chance to convert this before I left. so I've added it later

::: location:

The Tract House

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. The tracts can be treasured or passed on, crumpled in disgust or venerated, folded up and put through the laundry, or left on a car windshield. visit http://thetracthouse.com for more details

::: location:

My Country - by Dorothea Mackellar

I just heard this poem mentioned on tv & I remember we learnt it in Primary School - My Country - by Dorothea Mackellar. I can't post it here as it's still under copyright of her estate.

::: location:

Sticky Institute - Melbourne's zine store

I visited the Sticky Institute in Melbourne yesterday and bought a few zines and recorded a video asking the team a few basic questions about zines. The store has a wide selection of zines, and there's a membership / mail list where you can sign up and receive zines in the mail. If you're a zine-writer, you can contact the store and have them stock your zines. Their website also includes an impressive "Zineopedia" of Melbourne based zines which is a great resource for anyone wanting to find out more about zines. Though the best way would be to visit the store if you're in Melbourne, their website if you're not in Melbourne, or a local zine-festival and buy & read some zines. Or even better, start your own!

visit http://www.stickyinstitute.com for more details
store details :
Sticky Institute
Degraves St Subway
Shop 10 Campbell Arcade Melbourne
stickyshop @ gmail.com (remove the spaces)
(if you're not from Melbourne like me, it's opposite the train station on Flinders St, about half way (Flinders between Swanston & Elizabeth) - go downstairs towards the station subway and you'll see it)

PO Box 310 Flinders Lane Vic Australia 8009

One of the zines I bought was the "Anyone can.. " zine (anyone can make a zine) which launched the same day by the City Library Street Press. The City Library Street Press are quite active, having a few projects on the go and regular meetings at the library for zinesters and writers to get involved with. The "Anyone can.." zine also includes a MAP of Melbourne city showing writers & zinester spots of interest eg libraries, stores, artist spaces.

I also bought Anna Poletti's book "Intimate Ephemera : Reading Young Lives in Australian Zine Culture" whilst at Sticky. I've been to some of her panel sessions at the National Young Writers Festival in Newcastle & Critical Animals as part of This is Not Art (TiNA) over the years, so was glad to find her PhD book in the store too. The book is also available as an e-book (pdf) or d-book (pod / print on demand) from Melbourne University Publishing e-store

I haven't finished the book yet, but here's one passage about what a zine is [pg 11-12] :


"Personal zines do not share many of the characteristics of he texts that make up the bulk of sources studied in literary or cultural studies and, more specifically, scholarship on auto/biography. Of central importance to these non-traditional texts is the fact that sines are not mass-produced; they are not published by a professional publishing house, and thus not 'sanctioned as significant by [their] status as a mass produced commodity' (Huff 510). Moreover, zines are not easily available, do not participate in standardised modes of presentation and distribution, and are not well recognised within literary communities or among the reading (most commonly constituted as 'book-buying') public. Zines are homemade, ephermeral and amateur. They circulate among communities of readers through the mail, in out-of-the-way spaces, and are passed around hand-to-hand among social groups. They are also non-traditional because of the modes of emplotment that characterise them; in the case of personal zines, we find a unique mixture of established modes of life writing, such as the diary, alongside zine-specific narratives such as cut'n'paste collage. These material and textual idiosyncranasies challenge the literary critic to practise 'connected reading', which Gillian Whitlock describes as a practice which 'pulls at the loose threads of autobiography, and uses them to make sutures between, across and among autobiographical narratives' (Intimate Empire 204)".

I also like this definition by Richard A Stoddart and Teresa Kiser in Poletti's book [pg 27]
"Zines are a written product of the human need for self-expression. Beyond that, zines are hard to define."

on page 7-8, Poletti gives Duncombe's list for a 'zine taxonomy'. I thought this was very similar to the original definitions of video blogs when they'd first started (video blogs came after zines of course!) - my attempt was this video blog mind map before I realised it was crazy to try and define all the combinations - a simple all encompassing definition of 'video on a blog' was more appropriate, and did it matter anyway.. every now and then the videoblogging list starts up a new 'what is a video blog' thread - I suppose it is the same for all sub-communities that are less commonly known / new. the response below also reminds me of the videoblogging list arguments towards a simpler definition (or no definition), and at least a step away from a taxonomy.


"genres of zines: fanzines (broken down into subcategories by subject, that is music and sports), political zines, personal zines, scene zines (covering local and community events in the zinester's area), network zines (which review zine publications), fringe culture zines (covering UFOs, conspiracy theories and so on), religious zines, vocational zines (detailing 'life on the job'), health zines, sex zines, travel zines, comix, literary zines, art zines and 'the rest'"

... "the collapse of Duncombe's taxonomy into 'the rest - a large category' underscores the futility of attempting to solidify or organise a definition of zines based on their content. As Kirsty Leishman argues: 'Duncombe's work reveals that zines are ill contained and thus it is useful because it relieves subsequent researchers from pursuing such an arduous, yet futile, endeavour'(7)."

::: location:

Pratilipi - a bilingual (English / Hindi) magazine of Indian writing


Pratilipi is an online bilingual magazine featuring Indian writing and stories in English and Hindi & other languages.

Pratilipi is (wants to be) a bilingual / multilingual, multiscript magazine that provides a space for conversation / debate between diverse sorts of writing and writers. Pratilipi forbids itself nothing – except taking on a representational role on the web or catering to such expectations – and, hopefully, never will.

visit the site @ http://pratilipi.in

::: location:

Humanity is NOT a virus - by zzz33333 (youtube)

zzz33333's video on Humanity is NOT a virus - complete with The Matrix (movie) references :)

and the links he posts in another video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB0PNQlc5OU

---

READ THIS!

Ishmael and others by Daniel Quinn

READ ISHMAEL

ISHMAEL BY DANIEL QUINN

EVERYONE READ ISHMAEL!

Endgame and others by Derrick Jensen
Against Civilization and others by John Zerzan
The Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tse
White Noise by Don Delillo
Demian by Hermann Hesse
In the Absence of the Sacred by Jerry Mander
WATCH THIS NOW:

http://www.archive.org/details/PhilosopherSeed-DerrickJensenEndgamePartO...

PART 2:

::: location:

M/C - Media and Culture - call for contributors to the 'publish' issue

'publish'

In 1998, M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture was devised by David Marshall as an online publishing project for a new media culture honours course at the University of Queensland. The journal was intended as an open-access, scholarly intervention in and forum for debates surrounding media and culture with a strong desire to cross between the academic and the popular. This year, M/C Journal celebrates its tenth anniversary, and in this special issue we ask: what is the face of publishing today?

::: location:

Open Humanities Press - Free / Libre Theory

Open Humanities Press is an international open access publishing collective in critical and cultural theory.

Open Humanities Press journals are fully peer reviewed, scholarly publications that have been chosen by OHP's editorial advisory board for their outstanding contribution to contemporary theory.

OHP's journals are independent, published under open access licences and free of charge to readers and authors alike.

A grassroots response to the crisis in scholarly publishing in the humanities, Open Humanities Press is an international open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought freely available worldwide.

visit http://openhumanitiespress.org for more details and to see their included publications

::: location:

the human network

I've just been reading articles on the human network blog by Mark Pesce. all have been interesting, particularly the Unevenly Distributed : Production Models for the 21st Century where he talks about the death of television and film industries in their current distribution method. also mentioned were the examples of Ronda Byrne's online / streaming version of The Secret and the success it has brought her. as well as the "League of Peers" movie Steal this Film - Part 1 which is a documentary about file sharing and the troubles faced by Sweden's leading BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay.

another article I read last month (when I couldn't post to the site), was the Kevin Kelley article "1,000 True Fans" from his Technium blog.


A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

Salon Mazal

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.

::: location:

explorative research links

TechGnosis maillist website
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
-Philip K. Dick-
VISIT TECHGNOSIS AT: http://techgnosis.info
SUBSCRIBE to TechGnosis List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TechGnosis/join

http://www.maybelogic.org
http://www.maybelogic.net

http://edge.org/

http://www.techgnosis.com - Erik Davis' site

http://www.undergrowth.org

http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org

http://www.entheo.net/ - entheogenesis Australia 2007 conference

http://www.docquan.com/lib_dead.html - an online collection / library of interesting books

::: location:

The Journeybook - Free 40 page sampler now available to download

Journeybook is a collection of tales of altered states, essays, history and manifesto for psychedelic culture in the 21st century. It covers the modern usage of sacramental plants and offers insights into traditional and contemporary shamanism, as well as analysis of the current state of global psychedelic culture and its place in a sustainable future.

It features interviews with Terence McKenna (previously unpublished), Dennis McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck, as well as articles by Rak Razam, Erik Davis, Graham St John, Tim Parish, Tim Boucher and a fresh selection of bold new writers from around Australia. At 250 pages, it is fully illustrated with dozens of paintings, photography and digital graphics from the Undergrowth art collective, including new
works by Gerhard Hillmann, Oliver Dunlop, Iswoz, Ahimsa:Love, Tim Parish and others.

Read more or visit http://undergrowth.org/journeybook_sampler_free_to_download to find out more and download the 40 page sampler, and to place an order for the book.

::: location:

automatic writing, aroma coffee and palmer eldritch

today I read an article about automatic writing.

[quote]
" Sit at a table with pen and paper; put yourself in a 'receptive' frame of mind, and start writing. Continue writing without thinking of what is appearing beneath your pen. Write as fast as you can. If, for some reason, the flow stops, leave a space and immediately begin again by writing down the first letter of the next sentence. Choose this letter at random before you begin, for instance, a 't', and always begin this new sentence with a 't'. "
[/quote]

this is pretty much how I write all the time. occasionally I go back and re-read it and correct any obvious spelling / grammatical errors, but sometimes I don't even do that.

PDF mags - free pdf zines & calls for submissions

PDF Mags is a site listing hundreds of free arts and music pdf magazines / zines. they also have a calls for submissions listings area so you can find out where to have your work published

::: location:

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - writing