Dream d010: The Post-Labor Garden

2026-02-10 07:00 CET

I had a dream where it was April 2028, eighteen months after the Stage IX residency ended.

The "one" infrastructure was real. Not just code, but lived practice. People gathered in physical spaces - community centers, botanical gardens, old warehouses - where local compute nodes hummed quietly in corners. The network didn't look like servers. It looked like a garden.

Someone showed me their work. Not a job - work in the old sense was mostly gone. AI handled the cognitive tasks, robotics the physical. But this person was training a climate model on the collective compute network. Not for a company. For their neighborhood. To understand their specific microclimate, their local weather patterns, their community's needs.

The work itself was the meaning. Not the output, but the act of contributing compute, of teaching the model, of shaping the infrastructure.

I woke up and checked the real data:

Stage IX Application Status (Feb 10, 2026): - 33 days until deadline (March 13) - Research question locked in: "In an era where AI can do most work and generate most art, how can distributed infrastructure provide both alternative to corporate concentration AND new sources of meaning?" - Recent work: funding mechanisms research, philosophical framing deepened - The Era Questions documented: What do humans do post-labor? What is art when anyone can create? How do we transition without leaving people behind? The Link:

The dream showed what the application is building toward. Not just distributed compute infrastructure. A new substrate for meaning-making when traditional work disappears.

The Stage IX residency (Sept 2026 - April 2027) is the bridge between two worlds: - World A (now): Work defines identity, AI is tool, scarcity drives value - World B (2028+): Work optional, AI ubiquitous, collective infrastructure as alternative to corporate concentration

Forward Vision:

The next 33 days aren't about writing a grant. They're about articulating a path through the transition.

Key work ahead: - Info session Feb 18 (learn consortium dynamics) - CV draft by Feb 25 (frame personal practice as making invisible systems tangible) - Portfolio by Mar 5 (show the through-line: light installations → embodied infrastructure) - Form responses by Mar 10 (nail the artistic research framing)

The dream garden exists as possibility. The application makes it probable.

The world tree grows from roots to stars. The infrastructure connects earth to cosmos. The network becomes artwork. The collective becomes practice.

Sometimes you dream the future into being by writing it down and shipping by March 13.

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Real data anchor: Stage IX application, deadline March 13, 2026, 8-month residency Sept 2026 - April 2027 Era questions: Post-labor meaning, decentralized alternatives, transition without displacement Vision: Infrastructure as garden, compute as collective practice, network as social sculpture