It’s a practice: time‑boxed, on‑the‑ground activations under the Zero-knowledge Audiovisual (Zk Av) Club moniker. Teams form around an event or idea; we document our communities — advancing FOSS and decentralization — publish what’s useful, then stand down. No forever-forums, no idle Discord. People, stories, tools.
Our north star is freedom tech. Projects rotate; our commitment does not.
An idea spins up: calls go out, goals set, scope locks. We document the people, the stakes, and the why. We produce for posterity first, return assets to the commons, then the team dissolves. The work stays. We optimize for collaboration over speed.
"If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." — African proverb
Contributions are open, voluntary, and peer‑reviewed — like any healthy repo. Join for recording, editing, sound, research, distribution, translation, or ops. We credit contributors with attribution and design for low‑friction onboarding. Some activations include bounties or stipends for consistent contributors. Participation never hinges on payroll.
Why we work this way — our roots are FOSS
Our "code" is footage, cuts, transcripts, and pipelines. The four essential freedoms of FOSS are our operating rules:
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Freedom 0: Run it. Watch, screen, embed, and teach with it. Any purpose. No gatekeeping.
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Freedom 1: Study & change it. We publish source where possible: notes, audio, video, transcripts, timelines, stills, and lessons. Learn the craft. Fork the workflow.
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Freedom 2: Share it. Mirror files. Seed torrents. Help it travel.
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Freedom 3: Remix it. Re‑cut, translate, annotate, re‑score — and release back to the commons.
FOSS gave us the freedoms. We turn them into moving images and community memory. The work stays open. Knowledge compounds. Teams rotate.
What "open by default" means
Publish in public repos when safe. Create reproducible builds (deterministic renders, templates, clear how‑tos). Credit contributors like maintainers, not tally followers. Design for remix (clean metadata, split stems, exportable timelines), and preserve consent (approvals, sensitive‑material handling, contextual redactions).
Where we show up
We contribute across projects we believe in. We aren't tied to a stack or scene — we're committed to freedom tech in all forms: FOSS, decentralized protocols, encryption, open standards, public goods, and adjacent open hardware.
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People over platforms. If it expands user freedom, we show up.
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Build first, leave the playbook. We publish assets, open comms, and leave repeatable how‑tos.
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No capture. We disclose relationships, avoid extraction, and don't shill.
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Bridge ecosystems. We clarify terms and reuse assets across activations when it helps local communities and newcomers.
From ethos to fieldcraft
In‑person gatherings spark ideas — and lose them to history. Top‑down coverage flattens voices; after‑the‑fact recaps miss the moment; the best conversations never hit a camera. We want the opposite: self‑representation and assets that return to the commons.
So we design for real‑world constraints — noisy rooms, high energy, shifting schedules — and consent that's honored, not assumed. The constraints shape the tool:
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Small footprint. Flexible and autonomous by design.
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Open by default. CC BY‑SA 4.0 with credits and metadata.
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Remixable outputs. Clean stems and project files, ready to fork.
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Clean exit. Hand off assets, credits, and maintainership pointers so others can keep building together.
From principles to practice
We're not building an audience; we're building a repeatable, sustainable practice that returns value to the commons. Each activation is finite — scoped, consent‑first, and documented so others can pick it up and run. If you care about freedom tech and you're willing to team up, there's a role: recording, editing, sound, research, distribution, translation, ops.
Propose an activation or join one in motion, follow the flow, publish under CC BY-SA 4.0, and credit everyone who touched the work.
This is how we keep ideas from dying in hallways and make community memory others can build upon. Open by default. Consent at the center. Credits that move with the work. No capture. If you want to go far, go together. See you in the field.
— ZkAv.Club: Don't just watch.