hello X is founded on an emergent cultural production philosophy which nurtures a circular feedback loop between co-creators (in contrast to a linear production model in which creative professionals and an anonymous mass of passive recipients). While the process values specialists who can contribute their skills and insights, hello X aims to facilitate creative participation by people at all levels of experience, from all walks of life, through a diverse range of formats and distribution channels. This circular cultural economy places value on the experiences and insights of every participant and can strengthen democratic communities, activating the powerful force of the human imagination. hello X hopes to be a prototype for a forum with that uses the universal language of stories to communicate on three levels: objective reality (evidence-based knowledge), intersubjective reality (ethics and socio-economic models), and subjective reality (our personal, emotional experiences).
The language of story is both universal and diverse, with many traditions and formats available. People need stories, not merely as a distraction, but as an ancient way to maintain functional communities and as a way to construct meaningful and reflective lives as members of these communities. Culture is not merely an industry or catalogue of leisure-time activities. Culture is as vital as air, water, and food. We can’t live without culture. We can’t live without stories. The mainstream cultural industry of the last century has increasingly been created by a professional elite who stimulate us with painstakingly formulated recipes of heroic violence, hollow sexuality, and bankrupt love. Unfortunately, the most popular stories of our time (Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead) are not particularly complex, and do not appear to reflect the objective or subjective lives of the audiences that consume them.
hello X attempts to couple the new culture of networked communities with a new story-production process. Participants at all levels should have fun, enjoying the freedom of the imagination, while also absorbing and synthesising complex social issues along a long generational timeline. Because the future can never be contained in one perfect story (just like the past and present cannot be contained in one official story), hello X nurtures a creative space where many stories can grow, like a forest garden. Our great hope is that the hello X forest will evolve into a complex creative ecosystem, developing in stages and producing relations, ideas, possibly even social movements that would be impossible in our current environment.