⚡ This website reflects my own engagement with BLACKBOX (founded by Dr Gavin Keeney). My research — including the kairos/chronos framework and the legal theoretical approach — is aligned with the project but remains my own. The site does not claim to represent BLACKBOX officially.
What does it mean for a work to live?
A work lives when it circulates, transforms, signifies — when it matters in ways that exceed its status as property. Yet the dominant legal architecture of authorship, built on exclusive rights, tends to enclose rather than enable. It constructs the creator as an owner only to facilitate dispossession.
This project explores three interconnected ideas: the relational link between creator and work (neither ownership nor abandonment), the cultural commons as shared inheritance, and the distinction between kairos and chronos — linear time versus the qualitative, disruptive time of a work’s ongoing life.
◈ BLACKBOX: a heuristic experiment ◈
BLACKBOX is a “no rights” Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) that implements these ideas on‑chain. Using smart contract registries, it preserves the creator’s relational link to the work (via blockchain authenticity records) while dedicating the work itself to the cultural commons. No exclusive rights are assigned. Collective governance replaces individual ownership. The DAO is a living heuristic — a site to ask: what would a jurisprudence of the cultural commons require in practice?
Relational not proprietary
Blockchain registry anchors the author’s connection to the work — inalienable, but non proprietary. A moral rights inspired stake in the work’s ongoing life.
The cultural commons
Works are shared inheritance, not assets. Drawing on analogies from the law of the sea, outer space, and environmental law — resources held in common, governed by participation.
Kairos vs. chronos
Copyright imposes linear, commodifiable time (chronos). The DAO embraces the work’s qualitative, disruptive life (kairos) — circulation, transformation, and ongoing significance.
A heuristic for the future
BLACKBOX is a site of experimentation. It draws on critical legal studies, comparative international law, cultural theory and philosophy, but its core question is universal: how do we let works live?
Glossary of key terms
Decentralised Autonomous Organisation – an internet‑native organisation run by rules encoded as smart contracts, without central leadership.
A public, tamper‑evident ledger that records the creator’s relational link to a work without conferring exclusive property rights.
Self‑executing code on a blockchain that automatically enforces an agreement (e.g., registering a work or updating a pointer).
A deliberate refusal of exclusive intellectual property rights; the work is dedicated to the commons, while the creator retains a relational stake.
Originating in ancient Greek philosophy, chronos refers to sequential, measurable time (clocks, calendars, copyright terms). Kairos means the opportune, qualitative moment – the right time for action or meaning. This page uses the distinction to critique how copyright law imposes a linear, commodifiable time (chronos) that forecloses a work’s capacity to signify anew (kairos).
A vision of the internet built on blockchains and decentralised protocols, emphasising user ownership and peer‑to‑peer interaction.
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is a core Web3 technology used to host this site.