Neil Chowdhury

Hello Friends,

I’m giving up on this blog because it doesn’t allow comments….lame! Instead please go to my Blogger site http://neilchowdhury.blogspot.com/ where I will be posting new stuff!

The other day I got an email from a guy I didn’t know, Fabiano Busdraghi. Turns out that in addition to being a very interesting fine art photographer, Fabiano has a photo blog called Camera Obscura. He’d seen my work on Jorg Colberg’s photo blog, Conscientious Blog, where I was featured a few months back. Thanks Jorg! Camera Obscura distinguishes itself from most other photo blogs by publishing original in-depth articles by photographers about their work, rather than just the usual couple of jpegs and a link to the artist’s site. Fabiano asked me if I would write an article of a minimum of 1000 words about my photography, accompanied by images. I immediately agreed to do the project, but now I have no idea what to write! Hopefully writer’s block will go away soon, so I can have my work shown on another great photo blog!

I’m excited that my work is now on display at the Warehouse Gallery Windows Project. The installation consists of three large (11′×39″ ) backlit window banners visible from the street (best seen at night), and a 16 minute video rear projected inside the gallery. The video piece consists of over 5000 sequential still frames taken on my travels in India over the last 9 years, and a layered sound track of ambient street sounds and music that I’ve encountered in my journeys. The window banners contain a more “limited” selection of those images.

What should have been a simple project managed to turn into an epic struggle to meet the opening deadline when my computer (with the nearly completed work!) was stolen off a bus this summer in Costa Rica. Does anyone want to talk about the importance of backing up one’s digital work? The work that resulted in the aftermath turned out quite different than what I had originally envisioned & perhaps more conceptually unified. Anyhow, it’s on display until November 6. Hope you will get a chance to check it out. Feel free to drop me a line with any kind of feedback. I’m curious what people think, as this is very different than projects I’ve done in the past!

Government Takes On Journalism’s Next Chapter

This article in the New York Times today disturbed me on a number of levels. The old business model of journalism is dying due to the instant availability of free content on the internet, but what is the solution? Here government subsidy is being pitched as a possible alternative. Of course this raises huge questions. If the US Government pays for journalism, how do we avoid the obvious conflict of interest? If the government doesn’t want a story to get out, they can simply withhold funding from any news organization that dares to report it.

I would argue, however that this is already happening on a more subtle level. Big journalistic organizations have already consolidated ownership to a few huge corporations to which the government is beholden through campaign contributions and other influence. We haven’t had a truly free press in a long time. The current zombie press has no independence from it’s corporate masters. Do we really know what is happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico? What about the dozens of countries where the US is involved in covert military activities that we never even hear about?

Unfortunately, the great hope of optimists, the progressive movement, etc., so called “citizen journalism”, falls prey to ideological bias even more easily, as this phenomenon has no oversight and is responsible to nobody. In our so called “Age of Information”, the overwhelming stream of information to which we have become addicted contains an undifferentiated muddle of fact, fiction, and propaganda. The line between fact, opinion, and outright falsehood has become irrevocably blurred, or simply erased. This situation places on the individual the responsibility to distinguish the real from the spurious, but who has the time, knowledge, and perspective to sort through this overwhelming mess? At the end, we will all choose to believe whatever best suits our world view. Things are getting mighty blurry here at the back of Plato’s cave. Rather than a common agreement on the nature of history, current events and reality, it seems our society is splintering into loosely defined groups of individuals, all having their own take on what is really going on. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all, but isn’t a more or less common view of reality the foundation of culture, society, and nation-state? In the modern age, a free press in which we could all more or less believe has been instrumental in creating that common experience that forms our views & binds us as a people. Now the future of this institution is in grave doubt, the scary part is that nobody knows what will replace it.

Well, this is supposed to be a blog about photography, so I will end with the idea that the new context sensitive editing abilities of Photoshop CS 5 seem to me a perfect metaphor for the era in which we are now living. I can’t wait to get my hands on that so I can effortlessly make the world look the way I wish it was-just like the new journalism!

Not often am I blown away by a young photographer. This guy rules: http://jamesdodd.net/projects/. Check out his Olympic Dreams project.

So I got this email a couple weeks ago from Kristen Rudisill, a professor of cultural studies at Bowling Green State University. She asked me for a couple of prints to include in a symposium and art exhibition that she and Shaurya Kuma were curating called the Asian Popular Culture Symposium. This is to run from April 14-16 in conjunction with the Contemporary Indian Art Exhibition. I’m excited that my prints McIndia, and Another Man’s Treasure will be included in the show. I wish I could get to Ohio for the symposium, as it looks like it will be interesting. The schedule is below, just in case anyone reading this is a little closer to the heartland!

Asian Popular Culture Symposium

April 14-16, 2010

Bowen-Thompson Student Union
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio
FREE to all!

Wednesday, April 14
5:00-9:00 PM: Symposium Kickoff Event!
CLAZEL Theater, Downtown BG

Thursday, April 15
Room 207, BTSU
Popular Culture Colloquium Series, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
“Time Continuity in Japanese Animation: A Media Theory of Anime”
Speaker: Satomi Saito (German, Russian, and East Asian Languages, BGSU)

Room 316, BTSU
Opening Remarks, 1:00 – 1:15 PM
Kristen Rudisill and Jeremy Wallach (Symposium Co-Organizers)

Session One, 1:15 – 3:15 PM
“The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and New Directions in Asian Popular Culture Studies.”
Speaker: Ian Condry (Japanese Cultural Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Discussants: Larissa Heinrich (Comparative Literature, University of California San Diego), Jeffrey Brown (POPC)

Session Two, 3:30 – 5:30 PM
“Remixes in Urban North India: Toward a Postlinear Model of Musical Circulation and Hearing”
Speaker: Paul D. Greene (Ethnomusicology and Integrative Arts, Pennsylvania State University)
Discussants: Nilanjana Bhattacharyja (Music, Colorado College), Christopher Williams (Center for POPC Studies Fellow)

Friday, April 16
Room 314, BTSU

Session Three, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
“Peering Into Deep Waters: Exploring Both the Breadth and the Depth of a South Asian Folk Epic”
Speaker: Brenda Beck (Sophia Hilton Foundation, Ontario, Canada)
Discussants: Deeksha Nagar (Mathers Museum of World Cultures), Esther Clinton (POPC)

Session Four, 1:30 – 3:30 PM
“Theatrical Eugenics in Japan: Anthropometry and the Takarazuka Revue.”
Speaker: Jennifer Robertson (Anthropology, University of Michigan)
Discussants: Jennifer Prough (Humanities and East Asian Studies, Valparaiso University), Jack Santino (POPC)

Session Five: Panel Discussion, 4:00 – 6:00 PM
“The Future of Asian Popular Culture Studies”
Featured Participants: Peter Kvetko (Salem State College), Invited Symposium Speakers, Puja Batra-Wells and Nicholas Ware (POPC Department Graduate Students), Jeremy Wallach (moderator) and members of the BGSU Faculty

Performance/Film Screening, 7:30 – 11:00 PM, BTSU Theater
Featuring BGSU’s own G.A.M.E.; Others TBA.

EXHIBIT: Contemporary Indian Art
Shaurya Kumar and Kristen Rudisill, Curators
Thursday and Friday, Third Floor, BTSU

Sponsored by the Department of Popular Culture, Center for Popular Culture Studies, Department of Ethnic Studies, Department of Sociology, School of Art, Department of German, Russian and East Asian Languages, Department of English, Women’s Studies Program, Department of Musicology/Theory/Composition, Asian Studies Program, Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, Kala Fine Art, ECAP, and CLAZEL Entertainment.

Hope to see you at the opening!

EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ART OF THE DIASPORA

I’m excited that my work is going to be shown in the Erasing Borders 2010 exhibition.

This show will open at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey on April 2. The opening reception is the following Friday, April 9, 6-8pm.

The Exhibition will then travel to the Twelve Gates Gallery

305 Cherry St.,
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel:215 253 8578
Fax:215 238 9122
Email: info@twelvegatesgallery.com
Web: www.twelvegatesgallery.com

and then:

August 3 – 24

The Guild Art Gallery
45 west. 21st Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10010
Tel: 212-229-2110
Email: info@theguildny.com
Web: www.theguildny.com

Here are some links with more information:

Invitation
Schedule of Exhibitions
Participating Artists
Curator’s Statement

And here’s the work I will be showing:

Title: Street Barber, Mumbai
Medium: Digital Photograph, Digital Pigment Print
Dimension: 18×24″
Date: 2008

Title: Street Barber Boy’s Haircut in Fort Area, Mumbai
Medium: Digital Photograph, Digital Pigment Print
Dimension: 18×24″
Date: 2008

Title: Street Barber Shaving Customer in Fort Area, Mumbai
Medium: Digital Photograph, Digital Pigment Print
Dimension: 18×24″
Date: 2008

Title: Street Barber Shaving Customer in Fort Area, Mumbai
Medium: Digital Photograph, Digital Pigment Print
Dimension: 18×24″
Date: 2008