Well, my main jam right now is to start a designer’s cooperative organization to help boost this movement and start putting some new business models and economics into practice. It’s at its very beginning stage, but I tried to summarize it as best I could here: anddesign.org
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@LifeSMyth on a call, mentioned about gift he had received from an Artist. Steve can you tell us more or share a pic?
My recent involvement in setting up Phx Food Coop’s Discourse forum tool like this one, has helped me see potential of badge customization that can be done and can offer tremendous value to gamify interaction and engagement of members. Help is appreciated! (@polyannie01 @kerrgreg)
@MonaP DesignerCooperative sounds so cool. “Digital Art” being non-physical makes me wonder following:
- Membership of such a Cooperative.
- Global Currency such a Cooperative could Issue.
- Value System guiding Cooperative.
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Hey @Aryabhatta,
The way I was envisioning membership to the co-op is members benefitting from sharing software, branding, limited liability, bookkeeping, maybe health insurance, and having a team to bounce ideas off of, while keeping their freedom to decide which projects to work with.
Membership would require ideological alignment to amplify the co-op/solidarity/commons/open-source economy and stop using our talents just for the benefit of business as usual. Also spreading and normalizing collective decision-making practices as well as distributing power, profit and ownership.
I recently discovered too the DisCo manifesto and loved how they are using technology to boost effective governance, benefit distribution, and compensating ‘care work’ appropriately, so that’s something I could see using Holochain for.
I had not thought about issuing a currency through it, interesting idea! Could you elaborate on how that would operate?
@polyannie01 if this is something that looks interesting to you, I’d be happy to chat about it sometime
@MonaP whoa!! I love it, you definitely have my attention. I do think the time is right for such a thing. And I’m def interested in chatting with you about it 
@Aryabhatta I’m the artist Steven traded with. Art for a holoport. 
I would also love to hear more about the discourse forum tool!!
@alu happy to have you as part of the discussions here
- “Designer’sCooperative” currency has tremendous potential in terms of “Utility” and “Trading” value for such a token can be used to source art work from artists globally.
- Based on the ideological alignment of the cooperative, it could channelize Sovereign towards creation of Self-Sustaining Communities globally, while members earning “Coop” currency which can be traded in real world with others.
- It could also adopt other currency such as RainForestCurrency or AhimsaCoin to help meet visions of these projects.
For starters, following Currency related courses are being offered by other Community Members:
- Future of Money @GraceR offered on ‘You may pay what you like at the end, or whenever you want, or not at all’ basis.
- Currency Design @emalinus offered via Udemy for $149.99
Though you don’t have to wait for that if you want to learn high level concepts around Token Life Cycle and Currency System Life Cycle - you can watch Currency Design discussion between Art and Grace captured by @raphisee.
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@polyannie01 Below is an example of what our customization is like currently.
Look at “Other” category with custom image and description.
Badges can be awarded to members by admin.
For other items one can swap inbuilt icons or upload theirs.
Specific to PhoenixFoodCoop, which is in early stages.
We are exploring how to leverage the Badge system to promote Member Engagement.
For example: KickStarter supporter, Newsletter committee member, registered Volunteer etc
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Woooow! Thank you for the awesome resources!! Looks like I have some homework 
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Thanks for the recommendation. If you want to join the Future Ain’t what it Used to Be, do so now! It starts in 1 week and we had to close the AIPAC-friendly time because there weren’t enough registrants. Please reach out to me directly if you can’t find a time that works for you. I am not sure we will run it a third time, so if you are interested, now is the time. The workshop is not recorded because it’s interactive.
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Hey everyjone!
A more pragmatic question about Art and Open Source in general, and eventually Art and HoloChain too.
- given that it is not the same open sourcing a piece of software (that can be art itself by the way) and a more traditional form of art, like graphics (paintings), sculptures, music…
- and given that some form of arts contain the source inside themselves… but at the same time they can need a code to fully understand and accessed…
did any of you thought, or are there somewhere some ideas, about how to open source art, and eventually how to make it exist and possibly prosper inside the HoloChain echosystem? Talking about music (being musician myself I fosuc there now), all what I saw is open source apps or websites to listen to free music, but it is off course not the same, and the misconception of free and open source is common too.
I got an idea about a piece of music and I wrote it yesterday. I did not formally compose anything in many years, probably because of luck of inspiration and motivation, but it seems this project gave me back some creative juice… That makes me really happy, and I would off course be happy to share it, I just wonder in fact what could be the best way.
For a musical composition in particular, I thought open sourcing it could translate into providing the thoughts and the meaning behind the composition itself. In the baroque and classic eras it was very common to “infuse” some geometry, figures, shapes, inside the music itself (as well as other forms of art), with precise meanings. What I did is not dissimilar, even if with modern language.
I basically thought about creating a donut-like thing. The listener (agent) will get 2 musical lines played by 2 different instruments, starting at the front, at the level of the head. They will spin, spiraling around with a slight time-shift (forming a double coil, or in fact a toroid, thus a closed-loop DNA-like thingy). This will procede in 3D all the way around, first going down on the left side, passing behind, up again to the top right and back to the starting point. This is the representation of the 2 membranes the holo is made of, one interfacing with the “agent” (listener) and the other interfacing with the external world (universe). Under all this, a very low frequency drone-like sound pattern (drone meaning sound-pad) will follow along, accompaning the spiral exactly as the universal energy pervades everythhing. A choir from far away, slowly orbiting around at the same speed as the 2 forming lines, represents the other agents, the entities in dialog.
This is the source and the concept, I could post the audio file somewhere if it gives interest, and I would be off course very happy to get some thoughts and feedback about the whole idea.
Cheers and all the best
Dario
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Hey @GraceR, thank you for the invite. The course sounds amazing, I unfortunately don’t have the bandwith for it right now in both the literal and metaphorical sense. I’ll definitely stay tuned with the upcoming developments at DAO 
Wow, Dario! What a beautiful concept, this is sending my mind into some interesting bends. I’d love to check out the audio.
So far I have greatly appreciated the Creative Commons of stock photography and pieces of graphic art. An icon bank called The Noun Project has been particularly helpful, speeding up the design process by saving the time and effort of designing the same icons over and over. It’s nice also to take pieces of different graphics and combine them in new ways or blending them into something totally different. Another great artistic, open-source project is The League of Movable Type, they are an open font foundry that also shares lessons and articles. Their quality is fantastic.
There are also banks of Photoshop brushes, textures, tricks, mock-ups and lessons; some of these now sold into bundles, but many still freely shared. Sometimes it is challenging to find them and they are scrambled all over the internet, so I could see these graphic banks prosper in Holochain if they are well organized and perhaps compensating creators in some form with a digital ‘current-see’.
I had never thought about open source it in terms of music, but I love the idea of getting the background insight into what inspired the piece. A great look into what goes on through the creator’s heart and mind through the creation process. One of my favorite podcasts for a while was Songexploder, where an artist breaks down a song, how they created it, layered the sounds on it, etc. I remember enjoying very much this episode.
Perhaps a way of ‘open-sourcing’ music would be to make a ‘sound bank’ of sorts? Just an idea
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Thanks @MonaP,
it is always inspiring and encouraging to get some feedback and reactions!
Open Sourcing music has been aproached before in terms of software, both as open source composition tools and algorithms, thus having a machine instructed in a certain way and then “composing” music following those (eventually open sourced) instructions.
But what I am trying to go for, is a rather “human” way, still opening up the “conpositional moment” for others to join and experiment, but still with a human element in it.
I like technology and I like when it can be used to assist, help, even expand… when it takes over though, I set some questions, and this is absolutely not limited to music off course.
A course/raw version of my “Holo” soundtrack is available here.
(requires good headphones/listening conditions).
Looking forward to more thoughts! 
Dario
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I listened to the track after a workout this morning (With my unfortunately mediocre yet only headphones) and it felt like bubbly champagne. Very dreamy!
I agree on your previous statement, there is something highly disturbing about machine-generated compositions, visual or auditory. Seems to defeat the purpose of the creative process, which, I am starting to discover, is not necessarily the product itself, but the “journey” the creator has to take In order to produce. maybe I’m going too deep into the aesthetic philosophy weeds…
At any rate, that’s what I’ve liked so far about the graphics hubs- they really do spark further hand-made creations and let is build upon what already exists, providing richer palettes to play with
No @MonaP, not only you are not going too deep, I think you got in fact my point! The “creative journey” (or momentum, or process) is exactly what I was trying to go for, when thinking about the possibility to open source music at all!
It could be similar if one wanted to open source a poem… anyone can formally disassemble it, it is made of letters, common intellectual property of anyone so far… but why to use certain words in a certain order, why certain words instead of other possible ones, that’s where you can make the difference, and that’s where -open sourcing it- you can share that process.
Back to the msuic… yes, among the rest it has a sinusoid rappresented by the musical lines, and each line is made by many elements, so comparing those elements to bubbles is in fact very matching. Thanks for that!!
that makes perfect sense now.
It makes me think how we are conditioned to see art just like everything else in our materialistic world, focusing on the product while the creative process (or supply chain) remains invisible.
I like your idea of accompanying the composition with a description of the creative process to make it visible and valued.
Hey @bierlingm!
Not entirely sure if I get (and like) the point of connecting trading and speculation with art this way. Off course going blockchain (here) rather than old school can bring some new possibilities. What are your thoughts? As an artist myself I should maybe learn that the value of what I do can fit into this kind of platform.
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I recommend reading this interview with Addie Wagenknecht, a featured creator on the platform.
I think she answers some of your questions well.
The blog goes into detail on those too.
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Hi @Aryabhatta. I could eventually share a pictureand I’ve been busy with other things right now. Short story; an artist shared on twitter that they were making a large Holo wall hanging. When someone asked what they were going to do with it the answer was: “I hope to sell it to raise money to buy a HoloPort.”
I invested in 3 HoloPorts during the IndiGoGo campaign with the idea that I might donate one to a worthy cause. I knew immediately that I would offer the HoloPort in exchange for the Artwork. So now I have a one of a kind Holo art piece, and a very happy artist is a member of the Holo[ port | chain ] community.
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