⚡ 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.
This project explores three interconnected ideas: the relational link between creator and work, 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 ◈
Can the ontology of cultural works be reimagined through decentralised structures? BLACKBOX is a collective venture that asks this question, proposing a decentralised application that operationalises attribution without ownership. Current frameworks treat works as ownable assets, producing failures such as orphan works frozen from circulation and the enclosure of the cultural commons by commercial platforms.
This project treats the work as a relational pattern: something that exists not in a fixed form but in the network of its uses, users, and originators. It deploys the concept of user obligation: those who benefit from a work incur a debt to its originators and to the cultural commons.
For a survey of existing blockchain-based cultural infrastructure projects and how BLACKBOX differs, see BLACKBOX and the Blockchain Landscape.
Relational not proprietary
A blockchain registry anchors the originator's connection to the work as a relational claim: inalienable, non-transferable, and entirely distinct from ownership.
The cultural commons
The project draws on the conceptual logic of legal regimes that treat resources as held in common such as the high seas, outer space, the global environment. They provide a vocabulary for imagining cultural works as shared inheritance, subject to stewardship and care, rather than private property.
Kairos vs. chronos
Copyright imposes linear, commodifiable time—chronos. The project works instead with kairos: the qualitative, disruptive time of a work's circulation and transformation. This is the time of remix and revival, of intergenerational use and community reinterpretation.It is in the time in which a work's significance emerges not at creation but through its ongoing life in the cultural commons
A heuristic for the future
BLACKBOX is a site of experimentation. It draws on artistic practice, 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. The term remains contested: critics point to continued platform centralisation, speculative finance, and unresolved governance questions. This page treats Web3 as a site of experimentation
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is a core Web3 technology used to host this site.