“Mochilabs” presented by Zea and Araque

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Session Title:
  • Latin American Forum #2

Presentation Title:
  • Mochilabs

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Abstract:

  • Panel: Latin American Forum #2

    The concept Mochilab* was used by Juan Reyes during a discussion within a mailing list to refer to the possibility of avoiding establishing workspaces with big infrastructures, like the MIT Media Lab, in the Colombian context, instead he proposed the uses of movable labs with the size of a bag that can be installed at different geographical locations that responds to the actual needs of specific practices. The need to produce a new laboratory model that is adaptable to the local context was born from the imposibility of successfully building working and experimental spaces based on laboratory alien models like the MIT Media Lab. Although they are funded through public grants, very often these innitatives dooo not answer to the specific needs of the context where they are embeded. This condition has motivated the creation of a series of projects that can be grouped under the laboratory concept, because they are experimentation spaces that keep the relation among science, art and technology, but they are inspired by singular conditions of a community more than the ones of an institution. This aspect marks the difference from the traditional model that tied to big institutions like academies, goverments or companies. In this diverse spectrum, we can find Mochilabs -moveable labs- where a group of people pack part of their work space in the bag, so they could travel to a place that is normally far from the big cities to work with communities in a process that is highly framed by pedagogical practices, along with a collective creative process. The subjects and techniques of these labs vary, they can deal with subjects like critical cartography, audiovisual creation and technology appropriation.

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