I am
P r o t o t y p e,
A tranquil web residency for casual investigations into how we (from people to plants) interface with our planetary computer.
Our technology has surpassed our comprehension of it.1
We're reasoning with anachronistic metaphors. (Digital) Design is mostly a paint-by-numbers affair. Silicon Valley's stigmergy has sapped us of our imagination. Milking dopamine is de rigeur. The Monoculture has emerged.
Yet it's not all bad: The memeplex has matured. Strange ideas keep sabotaging the status quo. There are still sublime oases' in cyberspace. You can even have fun, if you know where to look.
If you're interested in exploring how we got into this mess, coding your way out of it, engaging in platform dissent, making up words, or just coloring outside the lines, then: welcome. You're one of us.
Who can participate?
You. The strength of this project exists in plurality: many people with many ideas, experiences, thoughts and opinions. Everyone is welcome.
What can I create?
All interventions in the internet are valid. Any technical, socio-cultural, historical, geopolitical, ecological or anthropological cross section can be traversed. The canvas is intentionally broad. Have fun. Break preconceptions. Distort bias. Do your thing.
Your project could take the form of discordant interfaces• ethnographic studies• communications in compassion• critical essays on the status quo↗ • experiments in space and time • ritual design↗ • warping Identity • theatre • matter-of-fact monologues • hosting offline hangs at being online better↗ • creating new metaphors • burning A Pattern Language • throwing your phone out the window • walking↗ • or refining the art of Zuckerbergian Inquiry↗
How intensive is it?
Do you have 1 hour a week? Sure, the more time the better but I'm as flexible as you need me to be. My goal is to encourage you to explore a question. Travel as far as you can. Answers are unimportant.
How does it work?
- There are enough casual online communities in the world. Instead, I am a temporary structure to help you ask a question and discover where it takes you.
- ☇ I last for 3 months, then fade to black.
- ☇ Each week, we'll convene for a chill online hang to break bread, discuss our projects and share feedback.
- ☇ Between these hangs, we idle in the #prototype channel on the Learning Garden's↗ slack: a safe space for intermittent conversion and feedback.
- ☇ And every two weeks, we'll release a small update to our projects to help build momentum while softly encouraging accountability.
- ☇ At the end, we'll livestream our projects to a captive global audience
- 1. Each week we will meet for a chill online hang to share our progress, ask questions and seek feedback.
- 2. Intermittently, we can ask questions & seek/share feedback via the LG slack.
- 3. Every 2 weeks we will release a new piece of our project - either an updated version, a new aspect of the total project, the results of your research, a reading list or whatever most suits your endeavor.
- This is to ensure we build and sustain momentum, and remain accountable to ourselves & each other. After each release, we share our goal/plan for the next release in the following 2 weeks, and so on.
- *We encourage research and references be published on Are.na↗ An index channel will collate and organize everyone's contributions.
- NB: This is an experiment and all participants are welcome to propose changes. We want to keep this as flat & flexible as possible.
Why do you exist?
Many of us are agitating against our new normal.
We see the symptoms of our troubles everywhere: our shallow design discourse. The littany of derivative apps. Global attention farming. Cultural homogeneity. An extremist pragmatism that discourages poetics. And so on.
An accidental community has emerged to explore new alternatives: they just don't know it. This is an attempt to bring them together.
When does it start?
January 2019 → April.
How do I join?
- Just head on over to this Are.na channel↗ before January 7 2019 and add a text block with the following information:
- 1. The name of your project
- 2. A two sentence outline.
- 3. What you want to have at the end of the 3 months (a document, a functional prototype, a dysfunctional prototype, some complicated drawings on blue technical paper, etc.)
- 4. The email address you want the Learning Gardens slack invite to be sent to (if you're not a member already)