Milindo Taid - Part 7

Victoria University of Wellington PhD Scholarships, New Zealand. 2015

Jul 25

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, is offering doctoral (PhD) scholarships for international students in any discipline (including disciplines in the School of English, Film, Theatre, and Media Studies, School of Design, and School of Social and Cultural Studies). A total of 35 scholarships are available and awarded strictly on the basis of academic merit. Applicants must be graduates of any university within or outside of New Zealand who intend to enroll full time for a Doctorate (PhD) at Victoria University of Wellington or who have commenced their doctoral study at Victoria University of Wellington.

Doug Menuez: Documenting Silicon Valley 1985-2000

Jul 11

A remarkable, yet ‘quiet’ revolution was unfolding in the mid 80s in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA – a singular era that would radically change communications, cultures and ways of being in the connected, wired (and wireless) world. By then, I was just beginning to enjoy my computer classes in school, cracking acronyms like RAM and ROM and keying away in the BASIC language. On the other side of the planet, over a period of fifteen years, American photographer Doug Menuez stepped into the ideas rooms, work-spaces, group meetings, pep-talks, lunch and launch huddles inhabited by late twentieth century technology tribesmen and tribeswomen, who cumulatively, in their own ways, wanted to change the world. And, they did. In training his lenses on the likes of Steve Jobs at NeXT, John Sculley at Apple, John Warnock at Adobe, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove at Intel, Bill Joy at Sun Microsystems, Bill Gates at Microsoft, and Marc Andreessen at Netscape (among many others), Munuez remained an observant, insightful and privileged witness to a very significant period in human technological, design and engineering innovation, and mapped the key architects and soldiers who laid the foundations of what will be later dubbed ‘Silicon Valley‘. In recognizing the archival importance of his project, Stanford University Library acquired his images ten years ago. Take a look.

Jafar Panahi: Badkonake Sefid (The White Balloon). 1995

Jun 27

Emerging out of the shadows of the much venerated Abbas Kiarostami, Iranian director Jafar Panahi‘s emphatic debut feature won him many accolades over the years, and deservedly so. A collaboration of scriptwriter Kiarostami and writer-director Panahi, ‘Badkonake Sefid‘ (The White Balloon, 1995) holds on dearly to the cinematic realism of Panahi’s larger oeuvre, along with the mise-en-scene sensibilities central to a certain tendency in the Iranian ‘new wave’ cinema. In telling the story of a 7 year old girl’s (Razieh) longing for ownership of a chubby gold fish around the Iranian New Year, Panahi masterfully controls his material, absorbing the audience entirely into his heroine’s delicate, innocent, enquiring world, playing it out on the often unkind streets of Tehran. With the narrative hinged around the loss (and subsequent regaining) of the means of purchase of an object of desire, Panahi chooses to bring a cinematic style of subtlety and remarkable human detail. Watch. Read More…

The Ramsey Lewis Trio: The ‘In’ Crowd. 1965

Jun 05

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Ramsey Lewis: Piano | Eldee Young: Bass, Cello | Issac “Red” Holt: Drums. Recorded live at the ‘Bohemian Caverns’, Washington, D.C., USA

DALeast: Urban Mural Revival

May 25

Wuhan, China born contemporary artist DALeast emerged out of the graffiti crews a decade ago from the streets of Beijing, China. As a young student of sculpture at the Fine Art Institute in his hometown Wuhan, he became increasingly disenchanted and demoralized by the ‘dead’ curricula and teaching, and opted to drop out of art college. A decade later he finds himself to be one of the key visual voices sparking a renewed interest in the possibilities of the urban mural. Shying away from labels and bracketing of his work, he is comfortable in finding creative energy and expression on the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico as much as he is at home in showcasing his work at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York, USA. Best known for his ‘Creature‘ series, he travels much of the world seeking out public walls and surfaces to spray unleash his animals on. He is a true ‘auteur’, with a body of work that is distinctly identifiable not only by the characteristics of line quality but also with obsessive themes. I find his work extremely dynamic and energetic, with visible sculptural roots, and his reiteration of liberation, breaking away, human-animal calls for contemplation and reflection. Take a look.

Albert Camus: The Madness of Sincerity

Apr 29

Like most, my introduction to Albert Camus many years back was via the translated ‘L’Étranger‘ (The Stranger/The Outsider.1942). At that time, and probably more so on re-reads, it became less a parable of the absurd and the existential, and more of a beautiful, fully realized, hallucinatory depiction of living in that heat soaked, summer crazed place. ‘Meursault’, the anarchistic anti-hero, had and still has huge appeal, and is afflicted by what Camus called ‘the madness of sincerity’, a character distinguished by never wanting to say more than he feels. Camus remains one of the most influential writers of the last century, yet the man himself was somewhat of an enigma. In trying to put together the Camus puzzle in 1997, Phares & Balises, the BBC & ARTE came together to actualize this bio-film on Camus, by way of attempting to retrace his life, work and travels. The five women in Camus’ life (who were closest to him) take us on a journey through his times and their recollections interweave through the three chapters Camus himself outlined as the signposts of his literary intentions – the Absurd, Revolt and Happiness. Read More…

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland: Postgraduate Research Studentships. 2014

Apr 01

Trinity College Dublin is offering postgraduate research studentships for international students. These postgraduate studentships are available to new entrants as well as continuing students on the full-time Ph.D. register for entry in September 2014 and/or March 2015. The postgraduate studentships aim to support and develop gifted research students across all the Faculties, Schools and Departments (including all schools of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) at the Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. The studentships are awarded competitively, completely on academic merit.

Designs of the Year 2014: Product Design Nominees

Mar 26

‘Designs of the Year‘ is the London, UK located Design Museum‘s exhibition of the most innovative, intriguing and original international design across the seven categories of Product, Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphic and Transport design. Although global in spirit, I do sense a Euro-Western Europe slant in the list of nominees across the categories. Starting today (26th of March, 2014), voting opens as part of the social jury process in selecting the winners of round one, across the seven categories for the final exhibition. These are the nominees for Product Design for the year 2014. Take a look.

Anand Patwardhan: Jai Bhim Comrade. 2011

Mar 03

I first saw and heard Dalit poet and activist, the late Mr. Vilas Ghogre in Patwardhan‘s early ‘cityscape’ “Mumbai, Hamara Shahar / Bombay, Our City” (1985), many years back. The power of Vilas Ghogre’s words and melody stayed with me for a long time only to be rekindled by Patwardhan’s latest ‘Jai Bhim Comrade‘, an elaborate three hour ‘docu-treatise’ of the caste question in contemporary India, ‘narratively’ hinged around the singular brutal instance of state oppression as experienced via the mass slaying of Dalit residents of Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar colony by police forces in Mumbai, India, on the 11th of July, 1997. Crafted over a decade, ‘Jai Bhim Comrade’ is an important addition to Patwardhan’s complete oeuvre of conscientious cinema, where he traces the meandering, complex intermixes of opportunistic politics, resistance and activism, subaltern rationalism, identity and religiosity, movements for humanitarianism and justice in thwarting divisive, violent, repressive social tendencies. In mapping the narrative through Vilas Ghogre’s martyrdom; Bhai Sangare, the outspoken, fiery Dalit leader, succumbing to burns while burning copies of the Manu Smruti; and the new and emerging cultural activism of Dalit consciousness as exemplified by groups like the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), ‘Jai Bhim Comrade’ elaborates an India that never finds voice in the dominant, vaccuous pop-commercialism of the mainstream media. Watch.