For Members

When2Meets:

We'll meet three times throughout the next three months. At the 2-week (done), 1.5month (coming up), and 10-week marks. I'll link when2meet polls for these meetings here:

Meeting 2 (Mid project meeting): https://www.when2meet.com/?32221179-zpUTF

Past meetings:

Meeting 1 (Between Friday August 22 and Monday August 25): https://www.when2meet.com/?31623937-2cRRh (DONE)

Useful links:

Project plan and structure:

Phase 1: Seeding the commons

Each artist contributes a set of personal works (unfinished, polished, failed, loved, orphaned, digital, textual, visual, sonic) to a shared online drive.

There is no gatekeeping. All material is welcome.

All materials in the drive are treated as open to manipulation, recombination, and reinterpretation by others in the group.

Phase 2: Generative cycles

Every two weeks, each artist must contribute at least five new pieces derived in whole or part from materials in the commons.

New works can:

  • Integrate multiple existing pieces
  • Deconstruct and fragment earlier pieces
  • Translate across media (e.g., image to sound, poem to movement)
  • Introduce new material, provided it builds on or relates to the commons

Every new piece must be labeled on the shared google drive and spreadsheet using the following schema:

Schema: [Cycle Number]-[Artist_Name]-[Unique Piece ID]

Example: C3-Jane_Doe-1

A shared metadata spreadsheet will log:

  • Title/ID of each piece
  • Creator
  • Cycle
  • Parent pieces (with IDs)
  • Brief description or notes (optional)
  • Type/medium (optional)

Phase 3: Releasing the organism, and reflections

The spreadsheet will become a genealogy or kinship map, a record of how pieces evolve, combine, or give rise to others. This allows us to visualize the relational structure of the organism over time.

Periodic reflection (via video calls, voice notes, or written journals) will help us trace emergent themes, breakdowns, breakthroughs.

Licensing and ethics

All shared materials are considered to be under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license by default.

Artists must credit derivative works using the IDs of source pieces.

No one “owns” the final form; all contributions remain traceable but are shared.

Project timeline

Project start: Mon 11 Aug 2025

Project end: Tue 11 Nov 2025

Seeding the commons: Mon 11 Aug 2025 to Sun 24 Aug 2025

Project Cycles:

  • Cycle 1: Mon 25 Aug 2025 to Sun 7 Sep 2025
  • Cycle 2: Mon 8 Sep 2025 to Sun 21 Sep 2025
  • Cycle 3: Mon 22 Sep 2025 to Sun 5 Oct 2025
  • Cycle 4: Mon 6 Oct 2025 to Sun 19 Oct 2025

Releasing the organism, and reflections: Mon 20 Oct 2025 to Sun 2 Nov 2025 

Expectations from contributors:

This project is a collective act of artistic becoming. To cultivate a genuinely sympoietic art organism, each contributor agrees to engage with care, consistency, and curiosity. While this project resists rigid hierarchy and prescription, a shared rhythm and ethos is essential to its growth. The expectations below are not rules but invitations to hold space for the collective process, to show up for each other, and to let the organism evolve through our entangled efforts.

Engagement with the commons

Contribute generously to the shared repository in Phase 1: this can include sketches, abandoned fragments, complete pieces, notes, sounds, scans, photos, poetry, code, textures, anything you’re willing to offer to the collective pool.

Treat the commons as a living archive. You’re encouraged to explore, adapt, remix, or respond to others’ contributions with openness and respect.

Commitment to generative cycles

During each generative cycle (Phase 2), contribute a minimum of five new pieces derived in part or in full from the commons.

Label and log your work according to the agreed schema and metadata structure.

Consistency matters more than perfection. The goal is not to produce polished works, but to participate in an evolving process.

Process over product

Embrace experimentation, failure, divergence, and nonlinearity.

Share process notes, sketches, or fragments if they feel meaningful to you. The organism values traces of becoming as much as final outcomes.

Be willing to release authorship: once shared, your contributions become part of a collective body.

Care and reciprocity

Engage with the work of others in the spirit of dialogue, not extraction.

Acknowledge source materials in derivative works using the shared ID schema.

Offer constructive feedback when invited, but more importantly, stay attuned to how your participation nurtures (or neglects) the organism.

Reflection and presence

Take part in periodic reflections (group calls, voice notes, journal entries, etc.) as you’re able.

These are not evaluations, but spaces to surface patterns, insights, tensions, and emergent themes in the process.

Time and boundaries

We recognize that life is complex and energy fluctuates. If you anticipate periods of lower participation, communicate that with the group.

The strength of the organism lies in sustained, honest presence, not in overextension.

Ethical co-creation

Respect the licensing framework (CC BY-SA), and the relational ethics of this project.

If you introduce material from outside the commons, ensure it aligns with the licensing model and is clearly marked.

Assume shared responsibility for holding a space that is inclusive, non-extractive, and experimental.