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The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study
Submitted by Thasnai Sethaseree

Organization: The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study
Address: Media Art & Design, CMU Art museum, Chiang Mai University
239 Nimmanhemin Rd., Suthep, Chiangmai 50202 Thailand
Telephone number: 66-084-6162566
Fax number: 66-053-400554
Email: thasnai@hotmail.com

Brief project summary:
The ideal body of this media research project by The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study has been set according to the lack of information materials and better understanding concerning sub-cultural practices situation in Thailand in the present time. It has become a believe for the project’s implement that this project will function as a knowledge capsule for that it can be used widely for further equal negotiation regarding liberation, equality, and justice in the age of information war. By surveying examples of political strategies through practices by sub-cultural people, this media research project has set the aim paving ways to effective social movements for Thai social activists, artists, and scholars. By this means, this project blurs the confined boundary of artistic practices and academic research.

Co-funding by Media Arts and Design (MAD), Chiang Mai University and Arts Network Asia (ANA)

Overall View of Conception
“Cities are places built to organize and control the lives and movements of their city subjects in the interests of the dominant. But within and against them, the various formations of the people construct their spaces by practices of living.” (John Fiske, 1992)

In the area of cultural studies, the tension of the two conflicting definition -- culture as a standard of excellence, and culture as a ‘whole way of life’ — has never been resolved. Years after years in the academic field, this tension seems to become even more complicated, and it seems as if we cannot leave one definition out without another.

Within a cultural space that consists of the diversity of livings of people from different ethnic background, classes, and social interests, we will never find a single collective ideology that all people have in common. There are always spaces of conflict and negotiation, and places of resistance and adaptation.
However, those allow the occurring of alternative spaces, which are, at least I believe, unnamed, and liminal. On one hand, these spaces belong to no one. There is no determinate occupancy of their function. On the other hand, the spaces are accessible to everyone--homogeneity within heterogeneity, and vise versa. To live a good life, and to take a good care of ecology of all things, I believe that we need those kinds of spaces, the liminal spaces.

Nevertheless, in a society there is always a structural ideology and dominant discourse of practice that never allows people easily to approach such the liminal spaces. In this respect, it becomes constraints, and dispositions to people, and they become antagonistic towards it, the mainstream society. People need to find ways around in their living, practices of everyday life to struggle against those constraints. As this, for some reason, people need to find their own ideological location, concept or style of living in the circuit of
that dominant ideology, so that they are able to find places to ensure their practices of living, and hopefully they can believe in their existence ‘at home’, and that can ensure them to believe that their existence also exists ‘out there’ among others. In this sense it is somehow referred as countercultures in the socio-cultural geography of the mainstream culture.

It is too sad to hear someone said that in the discourse of the dominant culture of practices, the relative field of power, the habitus of all capitals (i.e. education, culture, economics), people fight not to win, but to fight in another day, and they slightly see the light of a solution for that respect. Though, not much confidence to find such solution is provided before hand, and the road paved to a better destination is still rough, the practice of everyday life could have been a strategic anticipation that would allow all of us to carry on our will, persistence, and believe in the unsatisfactory environment of the world today.

“…ideology has very little to do with ‘consciousness’…it is profoundly unconscious…Ideology is indeed a system of representation, but in the majority of cases these representations have nothing to do with ‘consciousness’ they are usually images and occasionally concepts, but it is above all as structures that they impose on the vast majority of men, not via their ‘consciousness’. They are perceived – accepted – suffered cultural objects and they act functionally on men via a process that escapes them.” (Althusser, 1969)

Vast arguments on identities had never been brought to the light of critical discussions till the beginning of the 21st century. Globalization creates new options in identity construction so that many people are no longer feeling bound to one place, or one locality, but to the world as a whole and those universally values it determines. In this light, it seems that globalization produces not only the formation of an ideal geography of democratic values—in terms of economic, artistic, social and cultural practices—but it also brings into being vast arguments and questions on authentic cultural legacy in many societies implicitly addressed within (or perhaps at the edge) the sphere of the mainstream. Looking close enough in very thoughtful ways, we always find sub-circles, the alternative – in life practices, artistic ways of living -- residing within such a big circle of the mainstream.

However, what is enclosed within the globalization paradigm seems to gear down the continuity of living experiences of local people, which some how creates a new social condition where lives are not easy. They are facing much of psychological problem, economic difficulty, identity conflict, cultural nostalgia, for example. Some of them are able to achieve their materialistic goal. Some of them can reach a certain level of standard of living. But many of them still keep struggling to approach a dream. And, years passing by, many of them are losing what they use to have as an authentic tradition, and it seems as if they are in a dilemma where they don’t know what direction of live they need to go for, and they are also not certain where their lives root geographically and imaginationally, and for what reason. But they have to survive whether they have to maintain their living tradition, or keep living in the new world. Under this circumstance, they create invented communities that can hold together their cultural members in the new world. And, these invented communities create complicated networks of finances, religious identifications, cultural rituals, and political negotiations.

In the invented communities, which reside in the mainstream, dominant culture and ideology, there are activities, shared interests that connect the members of such and such communities to their networks. Theses activities can be found in the practices of everyday life.

My interest is focusing on the hidden aspect of some cultural identification of members of the invented communities living in this new world. The aspect of such invented communities can be explored and revealed in the universe of the symbolic system of the practices of everyday life. The practices of everyday life never happen in time and space with no intention, basic ideology, or theory of worldview, the believe that people from such and such cultural backgrounds bear in mind. In this case, members of invented communities in Chiang Mai city, Thailand practice their life by holding such the ideology whereas they are facing with the whole new environment that somehow doest not easily allow their practices to settle down; for example, some city regulation, law enforcement, and social manners of the new social
environment do not permit their life practices, ways of living they had done at home. Under this circumstance, it creates a condition that the people need to find ways around for spaces of their practices. And, sometimes it becomes a struggle to gain an access to those spaces.

However, with such constrained practices, it allows many creative possibilities to take place. Because things are not easy to them, the sub-cultural people in those invented communities make do, and make use with everything at hand. As this, for me, it becomes the aesthetic of living, the beauty of survival.

Research Project
To explore the practices of every day life of the sub-cultural people in Chiang Mai city, Thailand, I will do a research on some everyday activities, the activities that become meeting places of some interests of the members of communities as such. For this project, the field study will take place in Chiang Mai, the city which is very rich of the diversity of ethnicities.

This research field will explore some leisure interests of some ethic groups; i.e. some interests in fashion, technology, sport, that can be recognized in the non-mainstream recreation ; and for the narrower perspective, the research area will also touch upon some activities in the habitation ; i.e. gardening, herbal / seasoning using, space setting / arranging. In a broader sense, this research will explore ways of living, practices of every day life of people form various communities, and those practices can be found on the
street, human body, and in dressing, graphic design, a community based magazine, shop display, storefront, garden, house, kitchen, living room, work place, for instance.

Forms of Activities
This art project will take a form of the office of The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study by using methodology of field research processes. It is an art project based research office on ethnicity.

An art studio will be transformed to be the office of The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study that will provide space and all research facilities for young and professional researchers, artists, journalists, and cultural activists. This office space will function as a place that gathers
meeting activities of participants, information and documentation from the research field. In addition, all documentation and other relevant information form the research field, lectures and discussions taking place in the office will be accumulated and compiled as a documentation archive. And, this archive will be a documentation source that stimulate and generate further projects by means of artistic based non-theoretical approach, or theoretical based non-artistic avenue. Furthermore, because of the continuity of the situation at the office, the office will become an ongoing archive per se as it produces more activities. And, this will allow the development of the project in very close relation to the communities.

Because this is an art project, but taking a form of the Media Research Center which pays more attention on the Visualizing Culture, the tendency of the research strategy would rather prefer the visual language as a means of communication over to the textual tradition. The office should produce pictorial documentation, films, or interaction activities. However, some textual documentation will also be gathered if needed for greater understanding to the project. At the end of this project, the on going data documented will be on line distributed in a form of website.

During the twelve months of the grants period, this art studio based research office will produce forms of activity consist of the following;

- Field research
- Workshop / Informal Meeting
- Lecture / Discussion
- Project Exhibition
- Film Screening
- Website
- Documentation
- Interview
- Film series

In addition, besides the on going happening at the main research office, this project will be also exhibited as a show at two galleries – the first show, entitled “Not Even Pineapple” (mai pen sabparod) at Gallery Ver in Bangkok in March, 2009, and the second one, entitled “Salad is not a Thing” at Angkrit Galley in Chiang Rai in October, 2009. As for the two shows, the research crews and project volunteers will move to live and make some works at the two galleries for the exhibition period of one month for each show.

Research Activity Materializing
- The office of The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study located at Media Art and Design, CMU Art Museum, Chiang Mai University.
- On the website of the office of The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study
- Exhibitions at Gallery Ver, Bangkok, and Angkrit Gallery, Chiang Rai.

Research Goals & Objectives
It is the goal of this media research office to open up social dialogues where ideas of invented communities and ethnic diversity are taken into more serious considerations and action.

To achieve this goal this project has set the following as critical component objectives:
• To understand complicated predicaments involved problems about sub-cultures and invented communities in Thailand.
• To validate complexity of sub-culture problems rooted in multiple dimensions politically, economically, socially, and culturally.
• To learn alternative ways of thought regarding sub-cultural living conditions.
• To find possibilities of adaptation of such ideas that suite well other situations regarding alternative living conditions in Thailand.

Application advantages
• Having literature reviews and historical archives of knowledge, theories, and descriptions of counter practices concerning invented communities in Thailand.
• Having results of the media project distributed via The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study website and exhibition spaces.
• Having discussion meetings open to public, critiques, and opinions by academics invited.
• Gathering all discussions, opinions, and critiques for further public reporting through The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study website.

Research Designs, scope and methods
• Classifying and allocating research topics according to specialties of each academics and having a monthly works check up.
• Organizing monthly discussion meeting and inviting academics’ critiques.
• Evaluation for the project works improving after the sixth month of procedure.
• Preparing selected works in each allocated sections for online distribution after the ninth month.
• Organizing a final discussion open to public.
• Having final concluded reports distributed via The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study website.

Evaluation
• Feedback via The Center for Media Ethnography and Visualizing Culture Study interactive web board / open source archive responding
• On-going critics open to public by invited scholars after the sixth and ninth month

Objectives and Goals
I hope that this project will stimulate more understanding of the idea of sub-culture practices, ethnic diversity, and cultural difference. During the period of twelve months, the situations and activities happening at both the office and the gallery space should promote tremendous outcomes that encourage people to see things outside themselves and perceive the reality(s) of the world from different perspectives. In addition, this project should blur the boundary of the world of art and the academic field. Finally, I hope that we will be able to find the liminal space as stated at the beginning of this proposal.