Ideas like butterflies

The dance of a collector

A conference; a place to confer, to exchange views. An ecosystem of perspectives, each dependent on the existence of the others, demonstrably or not.

Ideas flit through the air, weaving through the meadow of listeners, gently alighting on the opening minds of the audience, spreading inspiration as they go. The room swirls, the reels pick up pace, you inhale the worlds of possibility.

As you skip through the febrile fields of this festival of ideas, dancing on the dunes of Silicon Beach, your hands begin to seek out the means to make meaning, to make concrete from chaos, useful reusable memories of the maelstrom.

What will be left of this? What must I remember?

You dig deep into the red, drawstring bag, and emerge with a white box covered in black doodles and notes. This is a clue.

Inside, the Artefact Cards Field Kit. “The perfect present for idea lepidopterists”, according to Faris and Rosie Yakob. The field kit is a nimble net with which to catch the emergent, delicate thoughts as they float out over the field.

Artefact Cards are named for purpose. Wielding a black Sharpie and a crisp yellow card focusses your attention. You work quickly to realise these artefacts, permanent encapsulations of the ethereal, fleeting moments you’ve caught in your outstretched mind.

Across the two days, the field kit slowly swells, your collection grows. Yet this is no static notebook, this is a living, breathing library.

In these separate cards exists a constant interplay. You continually find new combinations, new patterns and new directions. Order, reorder, order, reorder.

Every time you shuffle and deal out the ideas again, you step once more back on to the Silicon Beach, unearthing new possibilities in the sand, new ways to look at those precious finds, beachcombing for brilliance.

Remember the room. Capture the chaos. Dance the dance again and again, and dance it anew every time.

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This is a short introduction originally written for the attendees at Silicon Beach which will be held 29th-30th September 2016. We’ve made a special custom edition of the Artefact Cards Field Kit for them to give away to every attendee.

For more information and to get one of the last twelve tickets, please visit here.