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Our Own Space
An introduction to a locality lab, written by Neelofar (May 2004). Neelofar is a writer and practitioner with Cybermohalla since October 2001. She was the lab co-ordinator of the LNJP lab from 2004 to 2006.
The Compughar (Locality Lab) is our own space. We write and share our texts with one another. Conversations, through which we share our ways of thinking and experiences, help expand and deepen our thoughts. Apart from writing, we also do sound recording, digital and analogue photography, and make animations as well on Free Software Image Manipulation Tool, GIMP. We've also learnt a lot about how computers work. The Compughar is an open space. Rules and boundaries don't become binding or defining. Things are allowed to reveal and unravel slowly. If one were doing a computer course somewhere, or a sound recording course, a photography course, there would a strict definition of what comes in the purview of each. But that's not how it is here. It's not just the technical and skill-based that is important at the lab. How we can think through things is just as important. This affects our everyday lives as well. There are a thousand things to do here, and a million ways in which each can be done. Just the permutations and combinations of these means nothing becomes a habit, or too familiar. Compughar is a very special place, and in turn it makes each of us in it special. That's probably why every person who comes here feels s/he can bring in her/his creativity and special way of thinking into this space.
Newer people have joined the locality labs, both from within the locality and from neighbouring localities. This is a positive development. With the R&D Lab, the network expanded beyond the LNJP and Dakshinpuri labs in more ways than just nodal. It is the synergetic effect of the three nodes, along with Ankur and Sarai, that is encouraging, provoking and exciting.
How people perceived us within the locality also changed tremendously. Earlier we used to get ready for the day and come to the locality lab. But now, we go to newer places, we travel more, and our ideas and experiences have also expanded. Our lab is situated in our locality. This sets in specific dynamics and opens up newer possibilities for thinking, experimenting and engaging. We will now be working to create a certain recognition of the lab in the locality - as a space that inhabits ideas, and one that ideas ripple out of. Because our neighbourhood is the closest to us in proximity. And the most proximal relationships also holds in them a deeper sense and reality of distance. We've been working on creating forms that will help deepen the relationship of the lab with the locality, e.g. wall magazines, and now the locality public events . Our locality, i.e. the neighbourhood, is the link between the deepening and strengthening of the lab, and its extension and spread. The relationship between the lab and the neighbourhood must be strengthened.
Neelofar, LNJP, May 2004
Newer people have joined the locality labs, both from within the locality and from neighbouring localities. This is a positive development. With the R&D Lab, the network expanded beyond the LNJP and Dakshinpuri labs in more ways than just nodal. It is the synergetic effect of the three nodes, along with Ankur and Sarai, that is encouraging, provoking and exciting.
How people perceived us within the locality also changed tremendously. Earlier we used to get ready for the day and come to the locality lab. But now, we go to newer places, we travel more, and our ideas and experiences have also expanded. Our lab is situated in our locality. This sets in specific dynamics and opens up newer possibilities for thinking, experimenting and engaging. We will now be working to create a certain recognition of the lab in the locality - as a space that inhabits ideas, and one that ideas ripple out of. Because our neighbourhood is the closest to us in proximity. And the most proximal relationships also holds in them a deeper sense and reality of distance. We've been working on creating forms that will help deepen the relationship of the lab with the locality, e.g. wall magazines, and now the locality public events . Our locality, i.e. the neighbourhood, is the link between the deepening and strengthening of the lab, and its extension and spread. The relationship between the lab and the neighbourhood must be strengthened.
Neelofar, LNJP, May 2004