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Alchemy of Commons is both a research and a game that inquires about the future of art economy and collective practices; it is an innovative archiving method for socially engaged art, as well as a growing set of toolkits offering constructive guidance for intentional communities and non-profit organizations.
Aiwen Yin and Yiren ZHAO are the core researchers and developers of the Alchemy of Commons, with assisting contributions from Sixin Zeng, Meander Yip, Zijin Wang, Nuo Lu, Muyang Lyu and Yubin Zhang (ordered by recent contribution).
While the core members are responsible for the maintenance the continuing development of the project, we strive to make Alchemy of Commons a platform for collaborations and collective endeavors.
Current active collaborators include Mi You /documenta institute, Framer Framed, AFIELD, KANAL-Centre Pompidou.
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As research, Alchemy of Commons can be traced back to the exploration of maintenance economy in the arts by Yin Aiwen and Binna Choi between 2019-2022, under the name of Commons · Art . Later, the project became independent and named as Alchemy of Commons. Yin Aiwen and Yiren Zhao become the main developers and researcher of the project.
Alchemy of Commons uses Web 3.0 technology as a thinking tool and gamification as a research and design method. It conducts a deep reflection on increase reliance of attentional economy and top-down funding. To imagine the alternative, the project takes socially-engaged art, a catergorically uncomfortable practice in the current art economy, as an entry point to conceive alternative value models of the arts, funding mechanisms and economic incentives.
Alchemy of Commons develops through long-term friendships and collaborations with different communities and institutions. We are thrive to become an open network of like-minded practitioners and researchers. Currently, our research has long-term cooperation with Framer Framed, documenta institute and Dinghaiqiao Mutual-aid Society, and welcomes new partners.
Alchemy of Commons has been funded by different funds and art institutions in different moments of the project. Among them, the Supporting Act Foundation (2022-2023) and Creative Impact Research Center Europe (2023) are funded by Framer Framed’s “Digital Commons” fellowship this year.
Related Readings:
- https://www.e-flux.com/journal/150/645055/play-to-heal-on-resourcing-sustainable-activism-in-the-arts/
- https://www.leapleapleap.com/2024/05/utopia-in-progression-on-the-social-relevance-of-the-arts-in-the-21st-century/
- Can Web 3.0 technology help socially-engaged art become sustainable, or what the heck is a community?
As a game, the Alchemy of Commons is a collaborative game that mix role-playing game, scripted storytelling, and strategic tabletop gaming as one experience. It allows players to experience the life stories of members of a community, and to work together to develop and maintain the community, seeking self-realisation and social justice during their communal life.
As a semi-strategy tabletop game, players juggle and make balancebetween three components in Alchemy of Commons: the individual life of community members, the development of the community as a whole, and the changing environment surrounding the community's and the larger society. The three components intertwine and influence each other, revealing the complex inner and outer challenges of a community. The game encourages players to learn, grow, and explore collectively and individually with new perspectives. For the roles of community members, the entire game is a journey of personal growth, where they gradually gain a sense of belonging and graduate from the community through self-realization and pursuit of social justice.
As a scripted role-playing game, the Alchemy of Commons can accommodate the histories of different community, making itself an innovative Archival Method. The first script of the Alchemy of Commons features the self-organizing period (2018-2022) named “Co-op Plan” of the renowned Shanghai artist-run space Dinghaiqiao Mutual-aid Society. The script is currently in development with a testing version of three hours which covers about a year long story of the community. The full version is expected to cover the entire four year journey, which is estimated to have nine hours playing time. As we continue the development and design, collaborations or commissions to develop scripts to capture the experience of more communities are more than welcome.
Besides the version with prescripted content, we aim to introduce a sandbox version of Alchemy of Commons where players can create and test out their own scenarios.
The Alchemy of Commons received experimental seed funding from the Creative Industries Fund NL in 2023.
Using the framework of scripted role-playing game and tabletop strategic games, the Alchemy of Commons offers a multi-focal and multi-layer archival method for socially engaged art and community practice.
Through the personal stories of community members, it offers various individual perspectives, revealing the individual emotions and struggles behind the collective facade; through interactive cards and community status records, it showcases the efforts made by the community at different stages; through community and societal events, participants are immersed in the specific historical time and space where the community lived, experiencing the challenges faced by the community firsthand. As a role-playing game, the Alchemy of Commons allows participants to revisit historical scenes and have the opportunity to change history. It enables participants to deeply empathize with the lives of individuals and communities, while providing a distant and constructive perspective to reexamine the community's scene.
By reenacting historical scenes, participants continuously generate new parallel universes and explore different possibilities of community practice. Therefore, this archival approach goes beyond general archival methods, with a lower level of embodiness, a relatively static and singular perspective.
Compiling a complete Alchemy of Commons community scenario includes but is not limited to the following tasks: sorting through public records/group information/related social and neighborhood news, conducting personal interviews with members, conducting group interviews with members, and organizing collective workshops. We welcome collaboration or commissioning for archival work related to communities or organizations.
"Survival Kits for Self-organized Communities" (hereafter "Survival Kits" ) is the toolkit and workshop formats of Alchemy of Commons that aim to help intentional communities - especially artivist communities - to self-reflect and assess their resiliences and the ability to mobilize. The "Survival Kits" is the "Belbin Report" for intentional communities, providing insight and analysis of the community’s current status and future potentials. Unlike many organizational toolkits that underpin efficiency and productivity, the "Survival Kits" emphasis on the activist nature and healing needs of intentional communities, covering a boarder spectrum of considerations such as practicing solidarity and transforming individuals and society.
The Survivial kits is aim to be a self-help tool box for community to self-assess and receive standard suggestions. It will provide several typical community patterns, commonly associated causes in these patterns, and possible tools that communities can try. We also provide workshop for community members to map out the collective history and the personal histories of members, as well as the the status of the community onto the ontology. In the workshop, the workshop facilitator will analyze the current status of the community with community members starting from the ontology, and identify the strength, possible improvements and places that needs attention.
The "Survival Kits" is still under development, and the current version is only available for trial use by core members of a community, i.e. who have direct responsibilities to the maintenance of the workshop. While we welcome collaboration with research institutions to further develop the current version of the toolkit, we also plan to launch toolkits suitable for more broadly defined consensus community types in the future.
The Survival Kits received financial support from Creative Industries Fund NL in 2024 and 2025, in collaboration with Framer Framed (NL), AFIELD (FR/global), and KANAL-Centre Pompidou.