Spektrum community program

Spektrum is an open space promoting participatory processes to co-define and co-design a social and physical playground for curiosity and critical understanding. Our community program has two main aims:

  • bringing together people from various backgrounds in an atmosphere of creative and collaborative exchange and experimentation
  • opening up knowledge around art, science and technology to a wider audience

Read more about our community program in the report 'How we can all make it to the future - A guide to offline community building in art & science' (October 2018)

Communities

Through our communities, we connect different realities in the city to each other to explore a certain topic from different angles, with a focus on providing an artistic output. Since June 2015, different communities around topics such as olfactory art, live cinema, sonic coding, gaming, motion technology and digital fabrication have been set up at Spektrum, meeting up regularly to share ideas, exchange knowledge and create new projects together.  In addition, our community program also hosts existing groups, such as the Berlin Science Hacking community and STATE Experience Science festival.

We have defined four principles guiding our communities below. You can also find us, and the upcoming community meetings, through Meetup.

Community principles

These are the four principles that guide our community program*:

Cooperation, no competition
We strongly believe in the power of cooperation and collaboration rather than competition. As an alternative to the competitive individualism of today’s society, we set out to work collectively, sharing our ideas and knowledge and developing projects through a free debate based on solidarity, cooperation and exchange. Without each other we are not as rich in diversity, contents, skills and destinies.

This principle has been inspired by the Feminist Internet Manifesto.

Horizontalism, no hierarchy
Communities are organised in a non-hierarchical way: everyone participating has an equal say. The only structure applied is that of community supporters: a minimum of two people per community take on additional responsibilities, such as announcing meetups and welcoming new people, and function as main contact point for the community. Decisions are taken by the group with collaborative and horizontal methods: the community supporters assist in preparing and guiding the decision-making process. SPEKTRUM is available for advice and support.

This principle has been inspired by Patterns for decentralised organising (Loomio / Enspiral).


Open, no restrictions
We believe that ideas and knowledge need the freedom to grow and spread to benefit many, instead of being locked up and restricted to benefit only one. Communities are encouraged to use open source software, and spread their outcomes under open licences such as CC-BY and CC-BY-SA. We would love to see others to start up similar communities in their own cities: all we ask is that you attribute Spektrum when you do so.

This principle has been inspired by the open movement.


Inclusive, no discrimination
Everyone interested to participate is welcome, no prior knowledge is required. Newcomers are always able to join. Be excellent with each other. All attendees at our community meetups should help ensure a safe environment for everybody. Both our events and online channels are dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion (or lack thereof). We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form. Those violating these rules may be expelled from the event at the discretion of the organisers.

This principle has been adapted from up.front.ug based on The Ada Initiative.

 

 

  

 

* Community principles written by Lieke Ploeger in collaboration with SPEKTRUM communities (Dec 2017), CC-BY-SA 3.0 Germany