Convivial
In 1971 Ivan Illich, the activist philosopher, suggested that to
formulate a theory about a future society both very modern and not dominated by industry, it will be necessary to recognize natural scales and limits. Once these limits are recognized, it becomes possible to articulate the triadic relationship between persons, tools, and a new collectivity. Such a society, in which modern technologies serve politically interrelated individuals rather than managers, I will call “convivial.”
He wrote that he chose
the term “conviviality” to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment; and this in contrast with the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others, and by a man-made environment.
The concept of conviviality gives us a clear goal to aim at. We do not intend to “make the world better” (because inevitably that means something different to each of us) but rather to work towards a jointly understood goal of conviviality.
Mechanics
We use the word mechanics in all three senses proposed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
1 : a branch of physical science that deals with energy and forces and their effect on bodies
2: the practical application of mechanics to the design, construction, or operation of machines or tools
3: mechanical or functional details or procedure
Convivial Mechanics
Convivial mechanics, therefore, names a hypothetical branch of science and artistic research that explores the existence of natural limits on human behaviour, both material and social; researches the implications of conviviality for cultural democracy; and applies this to the design, construction and operation of digital tools that will serve the aims of a reborn and convivial sufficiency.
Welcome to the second follow-up event of the Social Tools 2018 conference. Since new practices cannot be established during a weekend workshop we decided to host six separate training sessions. The program for the sessions will be based on the "12 Patterns of Decentralized Organizing" as outlined by Natalie Lombardo and Rich Bartlett (Enspiral/Loomio) in their workshop, which took place at the2018 Social Tools Conference.
Session 3 will focus on Patterns 11+12: "Use Rhythm to Align Autonomy" and "Find Your Own Patterns With Regular Retrospective".
The six sessions will furthermore outline...
Welcome to the second follow-up event of the Social Tools 2018 conference. Since new practices cannot be established during a weekend workshop we decided to host six separate training sessions. The program for the sessions will be based on the "12 Patterns of Decentralized Organizing" as outlined by Natalie Lombardo and Rich Bartlett (Enspiral/Loomio) in their workshop, which took place at the2018 Social Tools Conference.
Session 2 will focus on Patterns 9+10: "Make Decisions Asynchronously" and "Agree How You Are Using Your Communication Tools".
The event is intended as a peer learning...
Welcome to the first follow-up event of the Social Tools 2018 conference. Since new practices cannot be established during a weekend workshop we decided to host six separate training sessions. The program for the sessions will be based on the "12 Patterns of Decentralized Organizing" as outlined by Nati Lombardo and Rich Bartlett (Enspiral/Loomio) in their workshop, which took place at the 2018 Social Tools Conference.
Session 1 will focus on Patterns 7+8: "Distinguish Commitment from Participation" and "A Toolbox of Decision Protocols".
Pattern 7 describes the issue of different levels...
Let's Do Decentralisation! Social Tools Conference in Helsinki, 28.-30.9.2018.
At the 2018 Social Tools Conference we examine the economic, social and political practices of decentralisation. We will look at what happens to groups or communities that try to work in different, democratic and more decentralised ways. Social Tools 2018 Conference is aimed at members of activist networks, artistic collectives, companies, co-ops, NGOs, museums, startups, universities, and interested individuals.
At Social Tools we will have debates and practical workshops to share a variety of practices that...
We will continue from where we left off last time: looking at possibilities for creating a digital toolkit for groups like Pixelache. Last time we agreed that we should use open source software wherever possible, and we began working out what kinds of tools we might need.
We discussed the benefits of Trello as a simple project organising tool and then looked at various open source alternatives. Tonight we will look at >WeKan, an open source software that bills itself as "The open-source <em>Trello-like</em> kanban". If you know Trello at all then WeKan will seem very...
Continuing from the December meeting, Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen and Owen Kelly will lead a workshop that will look at:
tools for communicating effectively now that Pixelache has decentralised; methods for managing tasks, now that we will have no central leadership to hand them out, other than the board; the software that Oliver has built to focus discussion on methods and tools for votingAll of these revolve around social as well as technical issues, and none of these issues will disappear simply by choosing one app over another. We need to look at how we want to organise in our new...
We will meet for the second in a series of regular and highly sociable workshops. We will test a variety of open source software with the aim of putting together a digital toolkit that small, independent, mobile groups can use to power themselves. Once we have done this we will produce documentation and a set of video tutorials.
In this workshop we will examine three related issues.
In the first workshop we looked at Mattermost and liked it. However, one of the problems with both Slack and Mattermost lies in the fact that the channels and messages can get confused and overwhelming. Avoiding...
This is the first experiment at Temporary byConvivial Mechanics. We hope that it will be the first of an irregular series of fireside chats. The format will be simple. People will bring their own cushions to sit on. They will bring a snack to share. We will bring a pretend fireplace. There will be a conversation between two people that will open out into a roomwide discussion. We will livestream the chat and make the video available for posterity at the convivial mechanics website. The topics will be connected, in one way or another, to the idea that we are "stories all the way down".
The...