Author: Dipika Kohli

Dipika Kohli's 'wildly imaginative' juxtapositions yield a weekly zine, S P C, and regular real-life 'mini-theaters'. http://dipikakohli.com

Issue #85

Dipika Kohli

S P A C E | Battambang, ‘The Week the American Jumped Quarantine’ is a special issue from a team of friends of DK’s along with our founding members.

How people are coping with their situations where they are is one story, how we are finding out about things happening in the places where we have deep, dear ties, and reacting, together, in the cloud, is yet another. This is that jam.

Our conversations across the cloud centered on this remarkable piece of news:

A Cambodian-American woman ran away from a Center in Phnom Penh on the night of July 17, 2020 and was found by the police in a guesthouse in Kampong Cham on the evening of the 18th. July 2020. She arrived in Cambodia on July 15, 2020, on a flight with two US Embassy officials who were diagnosed with COVID-19 on July 16. The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health, confirmed that this was the first case of people fleeing from quarantine. KBN

-From Cambodia News English

More to say. Saying it.

The feature photographer this time is DK’s own Akira Morita.

Issue #85 is published today.

You can order it from our store, for USD 7.

Here’s a link.

http://gum.co/space-battambang-wtajq

Thanks! ;)

What DK does best is this

Dipika Kohli

I’m finally going to write about what I do for work.

It’s taken me a little while to figure out what I wanted to focus on, for 2020-2025. I have this five-year plan. They always ask you that in interviews, right? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I just went back and thought about all those five-year milestone moments, when I’d reflect, and find out what it is that the journeys have taught me. ‘Say Hello to DK,’ ‘Experiments in N+1’, ‘Practicing the Unknown, Uncertain and Different,’ and ‘Design + Discovery’ have, so far, been five-year blocked themes.

(See examples of projects completed in each of these phases, they’re listed towards the end of this page.)

I am focusing on the next five years on another theme, which I’ll talk about now. ‘Creativity + Innovation.’

Creativity + Innovation

Why this? These are just buzzwords, right? Actually we’ve come to a place where they can’t be, anymore.

This is why.

The rest of this post is at my personal site.

It’s this page: https://dipikakohli.com/what-i-do-best-is-this/

DK: “My community, these days, more than ever, is ‘Papers'”

Dipika Kohli

‘What is it that you do to stay motivated to keep writing, DK?’

I work with a small group of no more than 4 at a time in a project I love called ‘Interactive Papers.’ We are going to open a new circle in August.

Conversations take place each week with a fresh writing prompt that is based on earlier dialogues, and things people share, and research that I do, personally. It’s fun; a week at a time, asynchronously and in the cloud.

 

Staying focused

Sometimes I get distracted and start googling things like ‘how to write a novel’ and ‘tips’ and these listicles come up and all this ‘bestseller’ stuff and people tooting their horns without realizing that a new piece, something that is innovative, that hasn’t been seen before, but could cut a new cloth and shapeshift a different paradigm, is not the kind of thing you write to a template, or a formula. So I immediately back out of those pages and go back to my solid relationships, in the e-circles of email, S P A C E, zoom chats, Dropbox, and ‘Papers’.

Why? Because I just… disagree with the internet ‘besticle’ shite. I made up ‘besticle,’ but you see what I mean, right? More, better, more gooder money I am so cool and I wrote 5069 books already and they are all so popular and they have all changed everyone’s lives, like everyone. Getter richer. (That’s what it sounds like, to me, reading these ‘pieces.’) Where is the ‘back’ button? Out, out, out. I’m different I guess. I write because I actually like relationships, communication, and most importantly, communicating such that a relationship can flourish into a wildly pure aesthetic of a quality human connexion. I guess that’s lofty and idealistic. So?

That’s what I like.

So I write where I write. In ‘Papers.’ I like the interactive components, in our different technological spaces. It adapts based on the inputs, like a fuzzy logic machine. I really do have more to say about this, but I’ll save it for those who opt-in, via an application.

Applications are open now for an August circle of no more than 4, for ‘Papers.’ I’m currently accepting applications through the end of July.

See what it is, at this link for ‘Papers’.

 

Creativity vs. Design vs. Innovation

Dipika Kohli

Last night, I was reading a bunch of extraordinarily boring articles online, which made me very tired, and also, reminded me all over again that the internet contains a lot of junk, written by clickbait-seeking who-knows-who, and their poorly paid ‘gig economy’ freelancers who are ‘finding my creative outlet on the side.’ This is sad. And this, too, the feeling that you couldn’t find anything really good to read without being bombarded by popup ads (2000s) or advertorials masquerading as ‘This is my honest opinion’ affiliate-link people, made me feel like starting my own mini-magazine. Which has no endorsements, ads, or BS.

Such a dearth of real-world, real-time information that I could discover, on the spot, also made me feel like hosting parties to get people together and seeing what we could find out, in the real world dimension, too. So that’s part of why I began to convene people in very small circles, in my conversation parties. It used to be really large-scale, but I found out I prefer simplicity. Depth, substance, and progressions over time. With just a few. This is why I make a membership-based thing called S P A C E. It’s so that we—we as in me, and the people who, like me, want what I want, ie quality–could get to the work of talking about things in ways that don’t waste people’s time.

Curating as I go, I’m putting together an August series for Papers, which is going to be about innovation, not in the business-speak sense, but in the live-it-and-talk-from-experience-of-actually-trying-things kind.

It will be published in S P A C E. It’s a special edition of S P A C E. It’s members-only. Memberhip costs. You can find out more about how to become a member of  S P A C E at this crowdfunding  page, under ‘perks,’ see ‘Basic Membership.’

Here’s a link.

http://chuffed.org/project/spacethezine

Thanks,

DK

Access

Dipika Kohli

‘Why membership?’

To focus on deepening and cultivating a few choice relationships, we started the subscription service in 2019. The idea is to manage the flow of exchanges with just a very small set of people so we can deepen, and learn from, the conversations that emerge. Small circles. (No more than 4 per opening, seasonal opportunities). It’s think-y think-y but also light, and fun. Sometimes we have members-only opportunities to share about, too, like mini-teleconference calls in zoom meets, and other stuff that becomes interesting or useful to our members, a curated sharing by DK that is based on ongoing conversations.

Gain full access to DK’s protected-page posts and join our backchannel conversations. To do this, become a member. Membership is USD $10/week. This is how to sign up: Go to our crowdfunding page and select ‘Basic Membership’ for S P A C E, from the perks.

This week in S P A C E

Dipika Kohli

Even in a foreign country, DK does what DK does.

Gathering people, connecting them, conversing… Deeply, not trivially.

Two invitations are going out, for this week.

One in real life, one is virtual.

  • Monday. One, a conversation in real life about ‘ecosystems.’ It will be in Dalat, Vietnam. More is here.
  • Tuesday. Also, the ‘DK | Short course in Brand Identity Design’ starts on Tuesday. Learn more at this link.

 

Issue #83

Dipika Kohli

Starting next week in S P A C E, we are going to press ‘pause’ for a bit. I’ll be updating some issues like this one, Issue #83 is a re-work of an earlier one about our jaunt to the High Tatras in Slovakia. The Slovakia side of these mountains was much, much more interesting than the Poland side, gotta say. Quieter, more relaxed. I took a lot of pictures. Some of them are in this issue. And a story, too, ‘A Walk in the Sky.’

Issue #83

Meantime, DK is going to be doing some fundraising.

Help us continue the effort to make more and better S P A C E.

Make a donation or check out our’ perks’ at our crowdfunding page.

Here is a link..

http://chuffed.org/project/spacethezine

Thanks!

Ecosystems

Dipika Kohli

Today in real life.

I don’t know. It’s a long shot. But sometimes, remarkably, I actually do meet people through Eventbrite invites on the internet. One out of a hundred people I cross paths with are ‘my’ people. I think… I think I’m back ‘on’ with making invitations to this kind of maybe-you-can-just-show-up-and-meet-me jazz. Like ‘N‘. But… simpler. Way.

HT T. Thanks for that conversation, yesterday. Maybe see you at this?

You know the spot I’ll be at. The other details…

https://ecosystems-dalat.eventbrite.com