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tags: Voicing Gaia
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# Creative structure

In this document we look to outline a core creative structure that enables independent theatre practitioners and communities to flexibly run workshops for Voicing Gaia, but at the same time givens enough clarity and structure to enable a coming together of these autonomous elements into a powerful and coherent performance (and governance prototype). In short we look to answer the following question:

- How do we combine a free creative space for workshops with the specific requirements of the collaboration?

## Independent workshop streams

The first thing to note is that we expect that different groups will come at the question of how to give voice to Gaia from different perspectives, and use different techniques. Currently we have applied for funding for three independent workshop streams:

1. [RadioActive](https://hackmd.io/@garden/H1Kr0-jDt/edit)
2. Rangbhumi
3. Paramitalab

Groups should share their experience and practice regularly through scheduled sessions, and we expect groups may wish to come together at various points (such as RadioActive organising theatre workshops with Rangbhumi / Paramitalab). It may also emerge that these groups come together and seek to develop a common workshop format - but this in not the starting assumption.

Other practitioners may wish to join and organise their won workshops with communities that they are connected to. The Voicing Gaia production will be structured to enable and encourage such collaboration. This may be easier to achieve with a structure that is designed around giving creative space and freedom to practitioners, rather than standardising on a single workshop format - this aspect of diversity of approach is after all an essential aspect of Gaia?

As structured at present the freedom to organise workshops on themes, and in a minor of your choosing is given a minimal collaborative structure through the following elements:

1. Collection of sounds
2. Creation of a map or drawing (positive cartography)
3. Providing workshops tools and support
4. Invitation to live networked performance

## Collection of sounds

Each workshop should be tasked with collecting sounds, organising them and uploading them to an organised archive. We call this shared audio archive the “Sound Garden”. The Garden Crew is responsible for creating this archive and providing tools for workshops to use that enable them to record, annotate and upload these sounds.

Sounds include the following categories:

- Found sounds, ambient sounds and field recordings
- Community discussions and conversations
- Individual audio diaries
- Spoken word and group performances
- Live acoustic music
- DJ Playlists of music for radio

## Sound seeds

Sounds need to be cared for and “planted” in the Sound Garden. Specifically this means we need to collect the following metadata for each sound we care for:

- Geolocation
- Tags
- Author, date, description
- Creative Commons license

Sound seeds can be automatically transcribed, and an AI can look to automatically tag and link these sound seeds to concepts and Wikipedia articles. But we do not expect anything of quality to be created without careful hand tending and watering of seeds. Workshops should look to organise work so that these seeds are not just recorded but cared for as it will not be possible to do this centrally in post-production.

## Positive Cartograph

We use positive cartography to map Gaia’s mind. In simple terms this is a form of “mind map” that we create by assembling maps created in each workshop. This is the second structural element that each workshop should have in common - to create an image of how they see the “structure” or “inner workings” or “principles” according to which Gaia’s mind or minds operate.

Workshops may utilise material and tools created by the Voicing Gaia (production) team, that help the playfulness of the workshops. An example toolkit or default map may be one of those. We can imagine a map and set of cards that look something like the following:

- Voices of Place - rivers, mountains, oceans etc - indigenous groups
- Voices of People - citizen assemblies
- Listen to Science - and other “experts”
- Visions of Artists - creative communities from around the world
- Anatomy - philosophical concepts relating to Gaia

We can imagine a map, and a set of cards that can be arranged in space. There may be questions, facts, provocations - in short we can imagine a board game to be played, torn up and re-imagined. Perhaps we start with indigenous groups, or structure a specific role in which they are present in each space? What is clear is that we take the position of human or user centred design as we approach the question of structure, and that this map or process of positive cartography is a starting place as we consider structure.to imagine

## Provocations

It is not the aim of workshops to create “happy” or “utopian” images, but rather to responsibly address controversy. How this is communicated and convened is up to each practitioner, but the performance and authenticity of the production will be greatly improved if we have imaginative, controversial and provocative points of contention to start the process of imagining.

A “provocation” is an audio piece and text that is recorded as a Sound Seed, and is designed to stimulate conversation. It need not be deliberately provocative, but it should provide energy and serve to stimulate deep thought and deliberation. Such “provocations” need to be supported by structure and process - a form we can reference to as a “workshop”.

## Near future fiction

“Voicing Gaia” is the creative process of imagination in which participants are asked imagine or rather design a future form of environmental governance in which the “Voice of Gaia” can take an active part in decision making. Gaia in the framing of this performance takes the form of an institution, by which we mean a functional assembly of human and non-human actors that are tasked to speak for Gaia.

Nothing is off the table in terms of how such an entity is built, and the components it is made of. Slime mould? Sensors? Satellites? Dance? Poets? Science? Software? Ancient scriptures? However the workshops are tasked with building an actual governance structure tasked with managing actual budgets.

This near future (science) fiction can be imagined by workshop participants as a conversation that happens between a citizen and Gaia. We can for the sake of simplicity imagine a school girl in say Malaysia asking Gaia why she allowed people to pollute the earth, or whether she should become a dancer when she grows up? We should explore these near future scenarios in workshops as provocations, as they will surely happen. Should the parallels with religion and a confessional make us uncomfortable, then this is furtile soil to explore.

Provocations however may in a more directly relevant sense be focussed on governance decisions. We can imagine for instance a near future scenario where a local council is debating a proposal to fund various local initiatives and decides to invite Gaia to organise a participatory budgeting exercise. How would Gaia structure the debate? Who would be invited?

## Next year - 2022

To be more grounded we can imagine our task in structuring Gaia as an institution through the following imaginary scenario:

- A theatre group creates something it calls “Gaia”. It is a legal person founded on June 3rd 2022. It uses blockchain and software to structure an assembly of human and non-human actors that are able to speak with one voice and make decisions.
- It is presented on “stage” at Stockholm+50.
- A local council is impressed by the way this institution is structured, and decides to invite “Voicing Gaia LLC” to organise a participatory budgeting process in their local community in which local people have the chance to decide where safe how €200 will be distributed.

As we imagine this scenario in the design phase we can explore how this might work in 2022, or in 2052. We can explore the technology we could use. How might scientists from around the world take part? What about indigenous voices? How is this relevant to, or valued by the local community? How would this work in Thailand, Brazil, London, or Kentucky? The design workshops could be run with out partners in each of these communities.

We can also explore if Gaia - perhaps we imagine her as a mobile app? - can she vote in the proceedings, or just speak / advise? Does Gaia believe in democracy? Perhaps she is the only person to vote and decide? We can explore in the workshops how such a process can go wrong? What about corruption? Commercial interests? How does the immune system of Gaia work?

To ground these questions in reality, we look to explore real issues and scenarios, and to ensure that participation is authentic. Participants are encouraged in the workshops not simply to describe what is wrong with the current system, but to imagine a better one. As applied to our institutions and governance this is the essence of legislative theatre. This grounding is made even more direct by the requirement to structure the governance of the actual art work itself as a legal autonomous organisation of LAO.

## LAO

Specifically in the first iteration “Voicing Gaia” will be a hybrid digital artwork embodied as a legal entity that owns and finances itself. It may initially be simple and crude, but it has the capacity to evolve and hopefully improve.

As such the “performance”, or theatre play, is a digital art work that takes the form of a LAO. These things are one and the same thing. This concept is a development of the original art work in this space - Plantoid - which is an autopoetic sculpture that was empowered to commission itself and its own reproduction. In a similar way “Voicing Gaia LLC” is a digitally augmented legal entity, that is able to speak for its values, is able to contract or commission performances, and has to make decisions about its future and future viability. The creative question is how to structure true this institution using human and non-human actors so that it (as far as we are able) speaks for Gaia.

The aspect of “as far as we are able” is an essential aspect of the structure. It is something which we do not simply imagine, but also something we have to build. Voicing Gaia is not just a story in our imagination, but an actual living organisation. LAO can stand for life-like autonomous organisation - just as it does with Plantoid or the Voicing Gaia performance.

## Life-like

Each year Voicing Gaia LLC will commission artworks or “voices” to stage at an annual event. It will finance and run workshops, and will apply for funding from a range of sources. The decisions about which sources of funding to apply for, and which art works or voices to commission will be made by the company, and the company is a LAO - or life-like autonomous organisation organised by an assembly of human and non-human actors on the blockchain.

It is important to understand this structure in the context of James Lovelocks Novacene and Christophers Alexander's use of the term “life-like”. Voicing Gaia LLC is able to learn and evolve. It does not have to start perfect, but rather it is the direction of the journey that is important. Each year the governance of the production is able to change, it is able to re-write its governance code - which is in effect the equivalent of the genetic material or DNA of the institution.

## Performance as AGM

The structure with which Voicing Gaia LLC is able to evolve is built into its governance and its legal structure. In a traditional sense members of the legal entity can propose amendments to its constitution, which in the case of Voicing Gaia is the “code” that runs the organisation. Amendments can be proposed at various times and in particular at the annual general meeting (AGM) which coincides with the annual “performance”. In many ways the performance of Voicing Gaia is the AGM, and therefore an opportunity to change and grow.

In practice what this means is that Voicing Gaia should renew itself like a Phoenix each year. It does this by creating a new show or performance each year, and as this performance is the same thing as its legal structure - that is the performance is a performance or manifestation of its governance structure - then this implies each year we need to “burn down” the governance code for “Voicing Gaia” and try again. It is this mechanism alongside others that makes it life-like.

## Governance Workshops

Some but not necessarily all of the workshops we organise as part of the production are legislative theatre or “governance workshops”. These have a specific form as they are designed to result in the creation of legal smart contracts written in the Lexon language. We can imagine them in simplistic terms as follow:

- We run a governance workshop where we explore the idea of a “producer” of “Voicing Gaia”.
- We invite diverse but motivated stakeholders including lawyers and smart contract (Lexon) tutors.

We explore lines of code through scenarios, for example we may look at the following lines of Lexon code:

- A “Producer” is a person
-
- If no Producer is appointed, the Guardians may appoint a Member as the new Producer.

In this workshop we ask ourselves what sort of entity these “Guardians” are? They in turn are defined by small pieces of code like this. We may enact through theatrical techniques potential problem scenarios, or explore questions of value with regard to the concept of Gaia in the context of what it would mean to have a “producer”? Perhaps we do not wish to have a producer as a person? If not, then how are we proposing fulfilling the functions of a producer in the organisation of Gaia?

We try to explore and propose solutions to these questions through enactment followed by writing down simple lines of code like the ones above. We may end up with something like the following:

- A “Producer” is a DAO

- Gaia does not permit the role of producer to be undertaken by a person.

- If no Producer is appointed, the Members may appoint a DAO as the new Producer.

- The Guardians may veto the appointment of the New Producer.

## Pseudo-code

It should be noted that some of this “code” is not defined. Some of it is not currently possible to implement as is in Lexon - but we have progressed. The output of this workshop can be taken to other workshops. Lawyers and Lexon developers may advise on how to phrase the code so that it works technically, or suggest problems. Other workshops may explore notions of stewardship and guardianship from a purely creative perspective. Input from creative workshops can then inform future governance workshops.

We might call this type of hand-written rough english-like syntax governance rules that we use to describe elements of governance “pseudo-code”, or perhaps something softer and more poetic like a governance “script”. Time might give us a better name. Perhaps the original name is good “liquid law”.

## Governance Stub or Placeholder

In many places in a discussion of governance it is not clear how to proceed. In particular there may be very little that can be meaningfully said with code regarding its structure - so how can we accommodate such considerations within the LAO and with relation to the code? To answer this question let’s explore the idea of Guardianship or Stewardship in the script above.

One way to handle this situation is to use a placeholder - a decision making body that we can elaborate and replace later with something better designed. This “governance stub” can at its simplest be a person - let us call them an actor - who is tasked to represent that governance function. As an example let us say that we appoint Lua as the “steward” for Gaia.

We have as yet no idea what that might mean, we simply empower Lua to fill the role of “steward” and add this to the code. We consider how a person is appointed or removed from this role, and we consider what powers this role has. For instance:

- The Guardian may veto any proposal.

How Lua decides which proposals to accept, and which to veto can be worked out later. For now Lua can stand in for a “workshop” that she runs to explore this question. She can invite stakeholder to this workshop and be as creative and playful as she wants. After a while we may replace this governance stub with a legal person designed in these workshops.

This legal person may be constituted from software and human and non-human actors represented in turn by its own DAO or LAO. In this way we begin to elaborate more structure through workshops and performance. In this way we can include as much flexibility and soft governance as we wish, only creating structure as needed. We anticipate a constant play between structure and softer governance facilitated by the creation of creative spaces. Structure need not bee hard. A jellyfish has structure, a poem has structure.

# Workshop tools and support

## Gardens and knowledge architecture

Gaia will be supported by the combined knowledge of many communities. This knowledge will be supported by a knowledge archetecture and new collective intelligence portal hosted at regovern.earth

THis knowledge article is based on the process of knoweledge casting in which the results of workshops are published as a novel form of "voice" or "seed" which sits in a sea of open access knowledge.

Each article is published to a knowledge article which forms an important aspect of the LAO which is Voicing Gaia LLC. The knoweldge contained in these deliberations is a record of the decision making process of the performnce (Gaia).

## Landscape of Rebellion
Gaia as a legal person sits within a landscape of alternative visions regarding the future stewardship and governance of planet earth. We can call this landscape a "Landscape of Rebellion" as we seek dialogue partners and alternative views.

As a living entity, and creative performance rebellions are encouraged. Each year alternative governance proposals may be proposed, and if they are accepted then the next years budget, curatorial and commissioning process will be implemented by the rebels. Some rebels may preefer not to have such responsibility.

# Live performance

## Novacene
The core controversy or provocation that the first perforance will be based is the conceit contained in the recent book by James Lovelock, uthor of the Gaia Hypothesis) that Gaia can only be saved by a merger of Gaia and AI.

We will use music, voice and composition created by an AI trained on the sounds, and texts and song we collect during the workshops to give Voice to Gaia.

It is the tension between the machine, the institution, and the spirit of Gaia that we will explore. The tone and voice of the production will not be restricted to progressive ideals.
Faasd

Mad scientist

## Institutions and Decisions

Fsadfads

## Collage - sound and vision

Dada