this is a summary of the project description and process of the media work done by Bharath Haridas

1. Diploma Doc
traverse
Bharath Haridas | Diploma project | 2010

2. Changing India
I was personally sceptical and worried
about the manner in which India is
changing as it is transforming into a
capitalist economy.
Development, modernization,
globalisation
Should we be concerned as to how
modernity is being assimilated and
expressed in the country?

3. A people or class which is
cut-off from its own past is
far less free to choose and
to act as a people or class
than one that has been able
to situate itself in history
John Berger

4. Where does one start looking for
emerging cultures and repercussions of
modernity in this country ?
There was definitely change in urban
environments does it represent
conditions of a majority of the nation?
This nation is a container of two very
contrasting worlds, the rural and highly
modernised cities,.
If these are forces which change rural
into urban where can one see the
process of change in between?
What or who is in transition?

5. What could possibly represent
that part of the nation in question?
Rural villages Developing small towns Metropolitan
Tier II and tier III cities
Most of the younger members between
the age of 19-35 had moved away to a
nearby city
Lots of interest is being shown in this
particular group
What are the conditions
of modernity among the
young emerging Indian
middle class?

6. The Inbetweens In Transition
Immigrants and small towns
microcosms
Representing the transitional
India
Emerging India

7. Understanding
Parallel processes
Immigrants Phenomenon of
Interviews in Kozhikode and modernity
Bangalore Theory and conceptual readings
Global / Local
Non - fiction and fiction
Small towns
Visual culture
Field studies Forms and mediums
Interviews of representation
School Children Works on similar premise
On the streets
Introspection Archiving
Me and modernity
Opinions feelings

8. Immigrants > Interview
Summary
1. There was realisation of their identity and
passion in the city
2. They expressed a nostalgic connection to
their hometown
3. Some of them expressed a contempt to what
modernity has become
4. They cant imagine going back to their
hometowns for good
5. Carriers of contrasting personalities and
beliefs
Aniruddha Abhyankar age 28 Venu Menon, age 40 Asha Nambiar: age 35
Designer, Activist Sales & Marketing Director Special Education

9. Small towns > visual culture
S. M Street, Kozhikode
Media Archive A media archive was setup so
that all my observations were
documented
A collection of images and Media Landscape
sounds from cable television
of popular programmes in the
neighbourhood

10. Small Town > Interviews
School Children
1. What is the current state of the quality of
education in these towns?
2. Doesn’t inequalities brought upon by family
backgrounds get levelled in the education
process?
3. There is an alarming interest and
obsession for spaces such as malls that have
come up.
4. Are new possibilities and career paths still
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kozhikode
a far away dream for them?
S.M Street
The young crowd here doesn’t want to go into
retail stores. They prefer the small shop, the
small talk, the small bills, the hunting around,
the credit.
Adel, age 38, S.M Street Shop owner

11. Phenomenon of
modernity
Theory and conceptual readings
Global / Local
Non - fiction and fiction
Emerging Youth Cultures in the Era of Mistaken Modernity
Globalization: Dipanker Gupta
TechnoCulture & TerrorCulture
Sam George Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in
Small Town India
Acceleration. Changes in the structure of Pankaj Mishra
time in modernity
Hartmut Rosa: Where the rain is born : writings about
kerala : Compiled by anita nair
The Moral Consequences of Economic
Growth
Benjamin M. Friedman
Conspicuous Consumption: The Theory of
the Leisure Class
Thorstein Veblen

12. Forms and mediums
of representation
Works on similar premise
Arthur Lipsett:
Very nice, Very nice
Free Fall (1964)
Louise Malle: God’s Country
Bob Ostertag: Sooner or Later(1991)
Arranging sound to create mood and
concept.
Love film: István Szabó
Imagery and editing for creating moods
of nostalgia . exploration of spaces.
recollection of memory

13. Emerging themes by combining
Identity
field studies and readings
Time
Social Mobility
Consumerism
Paradoxes or
coexistence
Nostalgia
Scepticism

14. How to communicate this complex and
layered situation?
Can I see them being embodied by
different character with their personal
stories?
I needed perspectives which were going
through a process of reflection or critical
analysis so that observations from the
inquiry is communicated
Using fiction and nonfiction

15. Anil > loses his job in dubai > Questions his sense of
comes to his hometown for
> critically analyses and belongingness and identity
a holiday after developing an
re-evalutes his feelings for his
aversion for city of dubai hometown and the country
Search for identity, rootlessness, aversion to capitalism, estrangement, hybrid,
critical perspective,
Appu
is fascinated by the new malls > thinks that he needs to spend > borrows money and gets
that have come up in his money to impress his friends into trouble
town
Consumerism, media influences , tech-culture
Rasheed
has started travelling to China
> feels he has become more > is caught by the new
to pick up cheaper versions strict customs laws
aware of the world and his
of branded clothes and security checkups,
standard of living has increased
remembers his simpler past
Social mobility, terror culture, pressures on informal trade practices, paradoxes and coexistence

16. Creating /Assembling
Video
Units
Arrangement
Expanding one story
Trunk and branches
The Karsakow System The modern condition as an
experience required multiple
mediums
It wasn’t conceived as one
linear story
How to arrange all the units
and narrate the story at the
same time?

17. Arranging video units one a page?
Choosing one perspective and
expanding it
Analysing and expanding the
media archive

18. Forms and mediums
of representation
Works on similar approach to
representation
Korsakow films
Peel
Films using arrangement of videos Surabhi Saraf
on a page.
Multi media approaches
jonathan Harris
whalehunt project

19. Trunk and
branches
Branches
The branches are the sequences or units
which digress from the main story that
represent
1. The various thoughts, internal musing,
opinions, recollection, dreams, and
Trunk Narrative associations of the character
Is the sequence of events the Or
character goes through. 2. Contextual and informative units that could
have been heard by the character or for the
sake of the viewer, to support any of the other
clips.

20. Form
Point Of View
What Could Establish Feelings
What Could Bring Out Thoughts And Opinions
Mapping A Mind And Experiences
What technology and tools would enable
me to achieve such an arrangement and
navigation of videos?

21. The korsakow system
Arrange videos on a page
Link videos in a nonlinear fashion
use text as when required on the page
Give output as web page
Linking of the video units
Multiple Videos on a page
Image and text
Challenges
Combination of linear and nonlinear
Tweaking the interface
Balancing character, feelings and context

22. Conclusive
Questions
Does this method of representation give insights into
these complex scenarios and psychological states
that are emerging in India?