Civic Interplay · Steward onboarding Copenhagen · 15 September 2026

If we were here

How did we act? What role did we play? This exercise helps to bring us to the ground, where we live, with who we are.

The line

Fig. 1. Eight points, with the cards where they are used. Tap any point to ring it and go there.

The four selves

Fig. 2. Point 03, then 04. One each, then swap.

Self 1

The Heart

The heart drives your blood.

  1. It becomes attached
  2. It pulses, it coarses, it feels everything
  3. It can break. It cries out. It knows no rationality

Trap: feeling standing in for awareness.

Self 2

Stomach

The stomach connects to the brain, but it knows more.

  1. The stomach has a deeper wisdowm
  2. It knows everything.
  3. But it will stay silent

Trap: holding on to knowledge without change

Self

Mind

The Pre-frontal cortex is in control.

  1. It is decisive
  2. It filters
  3. It achieves what it needs to.

Trap: losing a capacity to care

Self

Agent

The agent is there to help

  1. Loves a delegating human.
  2. Craves the context it cannot have.
  3. Consumes all data without question

Trap: trusting in artefacts over process

The guides

Fig. 3.

Ursula K. Le Guin. Source: The Marginalian.

Ursula Le Guin

Key: The Fable

Terrain
The Fable is the story that senses the place from another worldly vantage point.
The act
Can you write a fable about this place?

Walter Benjamin. Source to confirm.

Walter Benjamin

Key: The Fragment

Terrain
what ruin is left in the landscaoe? What did the rush to be modern forget to destroy?
The act
What role do the fragments play in revealing a place we forgot to see?

Elinor Ostrom. Source to confirm.

Elinor Ostrom

Key: The unspoken agreement

Terrain
What rules are in use, as distinct from rules on paper. What is implicitly agreed to, without speaking, without explicit acknowledgement?
The act
What unspoken generosity is present, without acknowledgement or attribution?

James Lovelock. Source to confirm.

James Lovelock

Key: the instrument

Terrain
Metabolism. Heat, water, air, load.
The act
What devices are in service of metabolic performance? Does anyone even care? What if they were taken away?

Lynn Margulis. Source to confirm.

Lynn Margulis

Key: the merger

Terrain
What looks like one thing here and is two that can no longer be separated.
The act
Name a partnership wearing a single name. Say who is living inside whom.

Marcia Langton. Source: The Howling Infinite.

Marcia Langton

Key: the custodian

Terrain
Whose country this is, and what has been negotiated on whose behalf.
The act
Name who speaks for this place, by what authority, and who was not at the table when they staked their claim.

Agnes Denes, Rice/Tree/Burial, 1968. Artist’s documentation.

Agnes Denes

Key: the planting

Terrain
What would grow here if somebody insisted, and what the growing would heal.
The act
Choose the most valuable ground in sight. Say what you would plant on it. How could it look, and who would care for it?

Carlo Rovelli. Source: The Guardian.

Carlo Rovelli

Key: the interval

Terrain
The durations layered in one site. Tidal, budgetary, electoral, a training run.
The act
Name three clocks running here at different speeds. Say which one governs.

David Graeber. Source: The New York Times.

David Graeber

Key: the IOU

Terrain
What value is being extracted? How is this value being measured, and who loses?
The act
Name one rule everybody here obeys that somebody made up for their own benefit.

The specimen card

Fig. 4. Point 07. Filled in by hand, on paper.

CI

First Walk

Copenhagen · Steward onboarding

Place, hour, weather
Heard in the six minutes
Sense that dominated
Sense that was shut down
Register spoken from first
Guide and key
What the key opened
What the agent reached
What it could not get near
One line kept
Walked by

The nine plates are reproduced here to discuss each thinker’s work, and are credited where the source is known. If a credit is wrong or missing, tell us and it will be corrected or the plate removed.