The open-source paradigm is dependent on effective communication and collaboration. But in a world in which human engagement has become hyper-visualised, with photo-ops replacing meaningful discussion and curated digital identities acting as our online representatives, genuine collaboration is increasingly rare.
Hyper-visualisation has transformed how we engage with one another, how we make collective decisions and how we innovate collaboratively.
The Collaboratory is an experiment, a performance and a gathering, which challenges our collective ability to discuss, negotiate, collaborate and innovate, if our visual appearance is veiled and we let our mouths do the talking.
If nobody is watching us, how do we speak? What can we discuss? What ideas do we have?
Step inside the collaborative laboratory and let’s find out…
Honourable mention CHART 2018 (with Camille Filbien and Liv Lindtner Reese)
In a context as visual and self-aware as CHART, the Collaboratory will invite us to step away from our labels of appearance, status and wealth, and into an open laboratory which allows us to speak our mind, test our ideas and reveal our true opinions.
Here collaboration takes centre stage, with architecture a tool for screening, layering and veiling our visuality - its democratic form giving all voices equal weight. By de-aestheticising a gathering of strangers, the usual event chatter will be converted into meaningful dialogue and debate.
By abstracting our identities to speech alone, perhaps we are enabled to speak a truth that our physicality prevents us from revealing. By re-imagining the terms of our collective engagement, the Collaboratory provides a space in which we can begin the task of open-source co-creation.
ALL WORKS © BENJAMIN WELLS 2018.
PLEASE DO NOT REPRODUCE WITHOUT CONSENT.
