Life in the forest

Across the worlds of DFOS, Artist Corporations, and Metalabel, connections are thickening. A private showcase of private spaces. A collaboration and event with a NYC institution. A new path forward for creative work.

Space tour: Sol Invicto

Last week we hosted the first Forest Keepers, a monthly ritual where we invite Space Keepers to show their domains. The session included Clear.txt, Creative Quests, my personal space, and Richie Londres of the band Sol Invicto sharing and talking about their DFOS spaces. 

Seeing how different everyone's spaces were, and the ways they molded the tool to fit their community's needs (not the other way around), felt exciting. The shared space felt like a network of networks. The aliveness was palpable.

Thanks to everyone who came. And a special thanks to Richie for joining from the band's tour van on the side of the road in northern England. Epic. We'll host the next one in early July.

IRL: New Inc x DFOS x Metalabel

The network of networks went offline on Saturday, too. Along with our friends at New Inc, the wonderful NYC-based incubator based out of the New Museum, we hosted talks by artist-technologists at Metalabel Studios in Chinatown. Among them Jeremy Capps, Isabel Flower (Metalabel release), Amy Jiang (Metalabel release), Sydney Ziems (Metalabel release), and Lita Vinueza. The talks and vibes were excellent. Thanks to everyone who came.

A new creative network

Both events manifested temporal containers of the world we're reaching for: a kind of decentralized creative network where we can all see and be seen for who we really are.

When we talk about DFOS being “shared private internets,” this is what we're thinking of. A world that more closely resembles the underground subcultures of earlier eras — the willful decision to make things your way — than the attention jackpot that envelops us now.

DFOS is infrastructure for a different kind of creative ecosystem where creative scenes collaborate and release work on their terms. In public spaces when we want to, but more often in shared private universes that are part backroom, part stage, and entirely worlds of our own.

A-Corps and the economics of Obsession

News of the A-Corp signing continued to make the rounds this week, highlighted by this great piece in the Art Newspaper.

In DFOS, a member asked us to weigh in on how A-Corps might impact the economics of a movie like Obsession, the surprise micro-budget horror hit that got headlines this week when a member of the crew talked about earning just $6,700 for working on the film, which has now earned $200m+ at the box office.

Would the A-Corp fix this?

Short version: while the A-Corp wouldn’t make a different outcome mandatory, it does protect creative ownership of the work in a tangible way, and makes fractional shares and collective ownership a simpler, standard part of the process. Both go a long way towards establishing better norms and standards for how we treat creative ownership.

Read our whole take here on DFOS.

Hacienda 1.1

This week we released Hacienda 1.1, the newest version of the Dark Forest OS. This update fleshes out the money aspects, as well as more minute controls for who can post in spaces. Release notes here.

One question

What do you want a shared private internet to be?

Tell us. We'll read every answer.

In groups we become stronger,
Metalabel Studios