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Today we’re hosting our Ontologies salon, and instead of our usual issue, here’s something we’ve been working on over the last few weeks. A kind of stakeholder report to reflect the work we’ve done over the last decade. Specifically the learning and literacy work that fuels our work and enables future capabilities.
For the last decade, literacy has been our primary discipline. Not in the narrow sense of reading and writing, but as the lifelong practice of learning how to read the world.
The systems we live within—technological, ecological, political—are complex, dynamic, and often opaque. To live responsibly within them, to act with intention, requires the ability to decode, interpret, and engage with these systems on their own terms. Literacy is how we navigate that complexity.
Over these ten years, we’ve built a practice of learning that is not confined to classrooms or institutions. It’s not credentialed, nor is it linear. Instead, it’s immersive, self-directed, and embodied. We learn by doing, by breaking things, fixing them, and building them again. From AI theory to welding robots, from solar power to goat herding, each skill is a new form of reading—a new grammar for understanding the world.
This report is a simple record of that journey. It’s not a catalogue of expertise, but a map of questions asked, skills acquired, and systems explored. The work is ongoing. The literacy deepens.
Philosophy of Learning
At the core of our approach is the belief that learning is a form of agency.
We do not wait for permission to learn. We do not require institutional approval to engage with new ideas or acquire new skills. We seek what we need to understand in order to act. The curriculum follows the questions.
Two principles guide our literacy practice:
1. Systems Literacy
Every system—whether political, technological, ecological, or mechanical—operates with its own logic and internal language. Our goal is to become literate in these languages, to understand how systems function, how they fail, and how they can be repurposed or rebuilt.
2. Embodied Practice
Knowledge is not abstract. True literacy is physical, emotional, intellectual, and political. We do not separate theory from practice. Welding a steel frame, repairing a battery bank, preparing to speak before a Supreme Court: these are all extensions of the same literacy—an ability to act within and upon the world with comprehension and responsibility.
In a time when knowledge is both abundant and unstable, self-directed literacy is not simply personal growth. It is a form of resistance. It is a way to remain independent, adaptive, and prepared for the evolving crises and opportunities of our era.
A Decade of Learning Projects
2015 – Algorithms and Intelligence
Began a self-directed Master's degree in Algorithmic Media. Explored the philosophical and political foundations of artificial intelligence while learning microelectronics. Literacy expanded into both code and circuitry, and into the politics of computational power.
2016 – Preservation and Prototyping
Completed the Master's. Learned 3D printing as a method of distributed manufacturing and creative independence. Began pickling and preserving food—both a practical skill and a metaphor for sustaining knowledge and culture.
2017 – Fermentation and Advocacy
Began baking sourdough, engaging with microbial intelligence and biological systems. Presented to the Supreme Court of Canada on the threat Silicon Valley poses to democratic sovereignty, translating intellectual literacy into legal and civic discourse.
2018 – Machines and Movement
Returned to skating and playing ice hockey, exploring embodied skill acquisition. Taught myself to operate a tractor, adding mechanical literacy to the growing repertoire. Departed from CBC, stepping into independent media and public scholarship.
2019 – First Harvests and Herd
First year of full-time farming, living with animals, and managing land. Learned the language of fields, weather, and livestock. Practiced landscaping and small engine maintenance, building literacy in both the living and the mechanical systems that sustain a farm.
2020 – Training and Transmission
In the pandemic’s early years, taught myself dog training, horsemanship, woodworking, ATV maintenance, and livestreaming. Literacy expanded into both care work and media-making during a time of global uncertainty and rapid digital adaptation.
2021 – Forest Management and Firewood
Managing forest systems. Taught myself goat herding and chainsaw operation. Literacy here involved reading ecosystems, understanding interdependence, and assuming responsibility for both cultivation and conservation.
2022 – Force and Precision
Completed firearms safety certification. Taught myself excavator operation. Literacy moved into domains of physical force and precision machinery, navigating both risk and responsibility in handling large-scale tools and systems.
2023 – Repair and Recovery
Focused on basic carpentry and battery maintenance. Survived a near-death experience due to COVID, which became a profound lesson in resilience, and the embodied nature of risk. Literacy here was not just technical but existential.
2024 – Power and Potential
Learned solar power systems, off-grid electrical wiring, and sawmill operation. Literacy expanded to the design and management of infrastructure: producing energy, processing materials, and building durable systems for long-term independence.
2025 – Metal Literacy and Machine Making
Current focus: metalwork, welding, rust mitigation, and the construction of purpose-built robots. This phase integrates multiple literacies into creative fabrication—where mechanics, electronics, and design converge in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems.
Literacy is not an endpoint. It is a practice—a way of being in the world that refuses passivity and embraces curiosity. These ten years have been a sustained act of learning in public, and the work of literacy continues.
