S writes – “Master weavers did pick up this technology…true, it was more for furnishing products, especially when markets opened out….but I again come back to narayanpet, where master weavers have framelooms, and are making sareees on it. It does have a clear product identity (unlike a more universal fursnishing fabric), but I think what matters is the existence of a market niche or demand which drives entrepreneurs to exploit the potential (of higher productivity) in frameloom technology. But if we go back in time to consider its introduction, then it was definitely an agenda of modernization and not market demand.”

Okay – so here I am a (not seasoned and quite ruptured and awkward) consumer of saris.. a consumer of fabric…

asking if the apparel shapes me or I shape the apparel?

if I wear a sari – where must I loose weight? if I wear jeans where must I loose weight?

Did the loom make the sari or the sari make the loom?

what kinds of looms allowed what kinds of saris (we know that as they exist looms are structured around the sari concept so it is difficult to adjust them to work with fabric for other garments etc)

how did the loom shape fashion and convention

and how does our distance from the loom in the market “freeze” notions of sari as tradition – even while it is a living shifting fashion/style practice in everyday life -

as also does bollywood and tollywood (and the fashion industry internal to India) shape the notion of the correct or chic way to wear a sari …

or dupatta…

What I write below may make absolutely no sense – but I have to insert this in the conversation – will elaborate later:

I am designing and producing saris on an online 3d social and technologically mediated environment (called secondlife) where people buy and sell clothes etc. – I have several stalls and shops and a studio there where I make these saris and sell. However different consumers respond differently to my way of designing saris (using handloom textures bought mostly from Dastkar Andhra). Some of them have museumized the notion of sari as traditional indian wear in a very particular way – and they have developed “traditions” of what it means to design and create a sari in secondlife – so they have begun to lay down the rules on what layers a sari must contain (and yet each of the sari sellers on secondlife makes them differently – some have bollywood style transparent flowy “fabric” others have pleats attached and so on) so when I adapt and shift the notion it is to experiment with how I can shift the fashion of sari wearing in that environment through providing a slightly different product – but also because of how I use the technologies that help produce these “saris” – such as digital imaging software, digital cameras and the actual building in secondlife after the raw “fabric” has been created offline and imported in….

of course there is the whole other aspect of the sari consumer on secondlife who is part of the Gor…and I dont what practices of sari designing that privileges…

Depending on who the consumer is and their prior experience with saris on secondlife I get different kinds of responses about how a “real” sari should be designed on secondlife and what sorts of practices secondlifers are used to and have come to expect in a sari.

Thus my virtual “loom” (a combination of a situated social panopticon and the digital technologies used to construct the product) shapes my particular style of sari (shall we call it “rad Zabibha pEta cheera”?;-)) – and also my offline practice and experience with sari wearing shapes the way I visualize saris – but some of the people setting the precedent for the “Tradition” of sari making may have actually never worn a sari in their life…

which version of sari is tradition and which authentic – and why

so to get back to the master weavers and niche markets – markets are formed in interaction with what the weaver can produce – that was when loom was the only technology that produced the cloth for the sari….

producer and consumer

who’s producing who (what?)

who’s consuming who (what?)
which object stares back?

cyberdiva.org » Use of Secondlife in WS780/COMS780 Feminist Research Methods (summer 2007

“that one Crazy outfit!” to quote K.K.

Pants and Scarf made with textures made from from DAMA handlooms.

Nirma Designs is selling rad Zabibha’s creations.

Audio: An Anthropologist Goes Native in a Virtual World – Chronicle.com

to find out more about what it means to “quilt conceptually” according to rad Zabibha (born in 2006) and Cyb Tabla (born in 2004)

go to http://slurl.com/secondlife/Brouwer/172/149/42

work in-progress – always

considering also linking to Diva’s earlier moo projects – at least those that are still accessible

SLumming » community, discussion and building for dialogue on SL

Sample image of an RL Maidaan

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/India/photo701549.htm

The archives aren’t updated yet – but when they do you can find the discussion…

Meanwhile – cutting and pasting a part of my most recent post to invite anyone in-world to IM me to be a part of the group I am forming.

THIS discussion is to me about SL education and how we as educators can use these tools (if we must) responsibly and to explore if this medium is indeed enhancing or hampering our ability to pedagogically negotiate the complexities of representational practices world wide. When are we as educators part of the solution and when do we become part of the problem?

I am starting a group on SL on the politics of representation and pedagogy – anyone interested should IM me inworld – rad Zabibha.

This fall I teach a course on Pedagogy at the grad level and hope to have them participate in an SL based assignment that will include this group and discussions with them. Therefore the group is about more than “SLED” – it is about Pedagogy and representational practices.