Activities

Debates and workshops

The debate sessions and workshops include regular OSG public sessions and workshops hosted by OSG partners, as well as presentations and talks. Debate sessions and workshops are intended to first talk about different aspects of collective decision-making, and second, to actually make a collective decision within that community. This includes discussing the basic idea, its possibilities, ethical questions, and practical possibilities/obstacles. This is also where we try to collectively diagnose a problem for a small community, and attempt to solve it. During these sessions, we will use the Communal List and the Socratic Debate to reach a common question and a set of possible answers to that question. Then we will try to come to a collective decision, based on the given choices.

Decision-making workshops

The project regularly holds deicision-making workshops. Some examples are decision-making workshops for students at RASL Rotterdam, and another is an online collective decision-making workshop for a self-organized group of staff and students from Willem de Kooning Academy called AWA (alternative working assembly). During this workshop, the group was introduced to collective decision-making methods, and together, they formed a collective question for their group to answer. For the case of the students, the group used this technique to curate, produce, and organize their own end of semester exhibition.

Our events, workshops and public sessions are announced on our social media, as well as on this site under events.

Urban interventions

With subjects arisen from our debates, we perform several urban intervention projects. The performance is done together with the participants from the public sessions/workshops. These projects could vary from interviews, campaigns, performances, installations, urban sculptures, designing places of gathering, graffiti, soapbox street speeches, etc.

Regarding the research process, these interventions are seen as experiments within the realm of urban space where the theory and the concept can be put into a practical examination. The results from the urban intervention projects are reliable as the reaction comes from a more direct and less staged setting compared to a talk or a seminar or an exhibition.

Rumor Camp

Rumour Camp: A project which will continue to live as part of the OSG is the Rumor Camp. This project was a rumor campaign in Groningen, as a social test in spreading the rumor that there will be a refugee camp built next to the city of Groningen. The aim was to collect the reactions by the people to measure the social tolerance from the residents of Groningen (known for their leftist views). This project will continue to live in the city of Rotterdam. The Groningen version was delivered under an invitation by Sign Groningen.

This project was initiated by artists Angeliki Marina Diakrousi, Alice Strete, and Pendar Nabipour.

RASL Rotterdam decision making workshop

Mediums

OSG publication

The project is aiming to release annually printed publications which will include the talks from the guests, and writers who interact with our sessions. The publication will also publish articles from related topics. Reports and results from the debates and our urban intervention projects will be visible in the publication as well as reports of the blueprint design’s development process. These publications will be released during publication launch events. The publications will also be available to download here on this platform

Mobile app

The project is trying to launch an app. The app will link all activities together. The publication will be available on this app, as well as an encrypted software to create the possibility of communicating between peers in a community. After enough development of the blueprint, there will also be a voting/evaluation tool which will be used for our workshops and for the communities to use for their debates. After the second phase of the project (after 2022), the app will then later develop into a fully functional version which will be used for local collective decision-making reasons.

podcast

As a very important part of this project, OSG has initiated a podcast in order to keep the debate alive. In the podcast, the terms and notions of collective decision making will be introduced, public sessions will be available to listen to, and most importantly, specialists and guests will be invited to discuss several issues within the realms of different disciplines. The podcasts are available to listen to on several platforms, including this website.

Forum and Discord server

Under our forum section, anyone can form topics, engage in conversations, and follow up on different issues. Our forum is also used as a form of communication among our workshop attendees to reach consensus over their issues.

There is also a Discord server with the same mission.

Consensual drawing meditation sessions

As part of our mission to practice collective consensus, and stimulate mindful and creative approaches toward group work, we are holding biweekly consensual drawing meditation sessions. During these sessions and in a small group of attendees, we will try to practice collectively reaching a consensus regarding choosing drawing exercises to do collectively on that day.

The main aim of the session is to decompress from the workload of the week behind, let go of the possible pressing matters at hand, and reach a state of mindfulness using drawing as a tool to find balance. The aim of these sessions is not necessarily the improvement of artistic skills (although this might be a result), but more finding commonality between the attendees using drawing to bring us to a state of peacefulness.

These sessions follow a basic set of steps and house rules which is open to be updated by the attendees, according to a possible consensus on changing these rules.

Sessions are made of three stages:

  1. Warm-up drawing exercise connected to breathing and getting in the zone. This exercise is proposed and selected by the attendees.
  2. Meditative drawing which is usually longer, deeper, and more meditative than the warm-up. This exercise is proposed and selected by the attendees.
  3. Cooling-off exercise. This could be any activity proposed and selected by the attendees in order to end the session in a vibrant and joyful manner.
  • A blank notebook, papers, and drawing material are provided by Project OSG, otherwise, you are welcome to bring what you feel comfortable with.
  • These sessions are free but limited according to the capacity of our studio. Donations are welcome, but not necessary.
  • In general, any topic, action, or language that triggers stress or discomfort is discouraged, including talking about work.

These sessions are held every other Friday at Deftsestraat 9D, where the project is based. Please send us a message and register if you are interested.

open call for articles

The open call invites all enthusiastic writers and bright thinkers to submit articles to be featured on Open Source Governance.

These articles could address the following topics:

– Politics and diagnosis of the present systems
– Governance and decentralized methods of organization
– Creating initiatives and mobilization
– Direct and liquid democracy
– Collective decision-making
– Open-source programming and tools
– Web3, DAOs, and metaverse
and other suggestive topics

The submissions could be in the form of texts of up to 2000 words, sketches, doodles, audio, video, VR experiences, and in general, in free form.

The open call is open-ended in terms of submission date.

publication

In addition to being published on the website of the project, a selection of the submitted articles will then be selected and printed in the form of an annually published publication.

Please send your submissions to:
info@opensourcegovernance.com