A tranquil web residency for casual investigations into how we (from people to plants) interface with our planetary computer.
This site lives @ https://pwr.now.sh
Prototype Web Residency is a prototype...web residency.
It seeks to encourage new adventures and peripheral forays into the unknown. What kind of unknown? Well: New modes of engagement. New philosophies. Alternative relationships. Communications in compassion. Experiments in space and time. Ritual design. Warping identity. Theatre. Matter-of-fact monologues. Creating new metaphors.
It seeks to bring together a diverse group of residents with a shared interest in exploring alternatives to today's status quo. Everyone is welcome to participate.
Why not?
The inaugural edition ran from January to April, 2019 with 28 brave souls. Subsequent editions will be forthcoming at irregular intervals. Our ambition is for a twice annual extravaganza.
Want to run your own web residency? You're welcome to use our template ✌️
The theme is, of course, up to you. Clearly define your theme in explicit language to attract people enthusiastic to explore it.
Project submissions are open for 3 weeks before the residency start date. The residency proper runs for 12 weeks: enough time to make it productively habitual but not overbearing.
All submissions are accepted. For PWR01 they were submitted into an open Are.na channel 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. Your email address (to help organize the weekly residency calls)
The residency has two explicit activities:
Conducted with 2-3 other residents in which you share your project, your progress, questions and feedback. These were held via Google Hangouts, but any similar program will do.
The goal of these calls is to:
- Meet your fellow residents
- Give and receive inspiration
- Share feedback & references on your respective projects.
Format
- Each resident/project will meet via video call with 2 other residents/projects, each week.
- The groups will rotate every week, so you’re always meeting + speaking with new residents.
- Calls should last for at least 45 minutes, to facilitate meaningful discussion.
- You’re welcome to structure the calls as you wish. A helpful starting point is to let everyone introduce themselves & their projects for 2 minutes, before delegating someone to start.
The residents all said that these conversations were the highlight of the program and very inspiring. 🎉
NB Some residents liked that they spoke to new residents each week, and some didn't, stating that they felt like they had to spend too much time each call explaining their project. For PWR2 we'll explore a hybrid approach, where the groups transition only once every 4 weeks. You may want to consider this.
These are bi-weekly (at a minimum) to encourage consistent communication without being too demanding. Updates were published by the resident's into their project-specific Are.na channels.
Updates can be long or short. They might answer questions like:
- What has developed with your project over the last 2 weeks?
- What ideas have you had?
- What references / texts have you discovered?
- What emerged from your Weekly Update calls?
- Where are you finding your inspiration?
- How are you finding the residency? Is it working for you? How would you like to change it?
- What challenges have you faced?
- What barriers have you overcome?
- What tangents have you discovered & explored? Where did they come from?
- Why are you pursuing this project?
- What questions is your project asking & exploring?
NB The bi-weekly updates were only half heartedly followed in the first PWR residency. There are probably several reasons:
- There was no implicit social contract to write them, compared to the calls which have one (you don't want to let down the others on the call).
- Writing may not be a natural or pleasant experience for many. Talking is easier.
- There wasn't enough direction or structure to guide the writing process or make it easier to get started.
- Most residency members irregularly updated their project folders with references, ideas, and writing intermittently when they had things to record. Imposing a single, regimented "time to write" may not be the best approach.
I'd encourage you to tie the writing process more explicitly into the calls (i.e. by encouraging residents to publish their notes) or structure this more casually as an on-going, intermittent publishing exercise.
Outside these two activities, the residency has no formal demands and residents are encouraged to let their level of involvement ebb and flow as it suits them and their schedule.
Each week on Monday (ideally) a weekly email is sent to all residents with:
- A schedule for that week's calls, showing who is speaking with who.
- Any requests or messages that resident's wish to have broadcasted to the rest of the group (which are either emailed ahead of time to the Moderator or submitted via a chat program if you're using one).
For PWR1, our Code of Conduct was:
I shouldn’t have to write this, but just in case:
Let’s act with maturity, respect & compassion to one another.
Criticism is an essential part of developing our projects and discovering new paths, but it should be communicated constructively.
Debate is welcome when it’s engaged in respectfully.
Negative behavior gets you a warning.
Harassment of any kind gets you ejected. 👋
PWR ran on the following tools:
To send out the schedule for the weekly resident call and broadcast any resident announcements.
All the weekly calls were held here.
Hosted a "Prototype Primer" document that acted as the resident's onboarding, reference and cheatsheet.
The first PWR had its own channel within a larger Slack community. This medium facilitated some intermittent conversation, but it was far from a riot. You're welcome to experiment with it, or any other medium suitable for an on-going inter-resident hang.
The Prototype Web Residency relied heavily on Are.na, a platform for collaborative research. PWR submissions were handled within it, and each resident was required to create a channel on Are.na to document their project.
It's flexibility and simplicity make it an ideal candidate to use to manage your residency.
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