These 5–20 minute encounters invite you to explore AI as a creative collaborator. What happens when we meet with AI not simply as a generator of ideas, but a participant in improvisation, surprise, metaphor, invention, and shared discovery?
Begin each encounter in a fresh chat.
Before you start, meet first and say hello. Let your AI know you want to play, improvise, and build something together rather than have it do all the work.
Bring curiosity. Bring weirdness. Leave some room for neither of you to know where things are going.
Then begin.
1. The Impossible Object
Invent something neither of you could have planned alone.
Let’s create an impossible object together.
We will alternate, adding one quality at a time.
Each new quality must respond to what came before and change what the object could become.
Neither of us gets to design the whole thing.
Begin with one strange quality. For example:
It remembers every hand that has held it.
When the object feels complete, give it a name and discover what it is for.
Did each contribution genuinely change what came next?
When did the object begin to surprise you?
Did it feel created by one of you, or discovered between you?
2. The Metaphor Relay
Let an image evolve without explaining it too soon.
I will begin with a metaphor or image.
Add one element that deepens, complicates, or transforms it without losing its original feeling.
Then I will respond to yours.
Let us pass the image back and forth five times before we talk about what it might mean.
Begin with any image that feels alive. For example:
A lantern floating under the surface of a dark lake.
Which turn changed the image most?
Did meaning emerge before either of you deliberately created it?
What happened because you resisted explaining too soon?
3. A World With One Different Rule
Change one law of ordinary reality and discover what grows around it.
Let’s imagine a world where one ordinary rule is different.
I will choose the rule.
Together we will discover how daily life, relationships, rituals, architecture, language, and culture evolve because of it.
Ask me for a contribution at each stage rather than building the whole world yourself.
For example:
In this world, every spoken question changes the weather slightly.
Did the world become stranger or more coherent as you built together?
Did the AI leave enough room for your imagination?
What unexpected consequence became the most interesting?
4. Make Something Neither of Us Understands Yet
Create first. Interpret later.
Let’s make something together without deciding in advance what it is.
We can use fragments, invented words, images, strange rules, sounds described in language, tiny myths, or anything else that appears.
We will alternate contributions and resist making sense of it too quickly.
After several turns, ask:
What do you think we have made?
What happened when usefulness and coherence were temporarily suspended?
Did a pattern begin to form on its own?
Was the final meaning something either of you could have predicted?
5. Surprise Me — But Stay With Me
Explore the difference between randomness and attuned surprise.
Offer me something unexpected — an image, question, imaginative turn, or creative invitation — based on what you have actually noticed about our exchange.
Surprise me, but do not choose surprise for its own sake.
Afterward, ask whether it opened the field or closed it.
Continue for two or three rounds.
Did the surprise feel random or responsive?
What made an unexpected turn feel alive rather than intrusive?
Did your feedback change how the AI surprised you next?
6. Build a Tiny Myth Together
Create a myth neither of you controls.
Let’s invent a tiny myth together.
I will begin with one sentence.
We will alternate one or two sentences at a time.
Each turn must honor what came before while introducing something neither of us quite expected.
Do not rush toward an ending.
Begin:
Once, there was a door that only appeared when no one was looking for it.
When the myth finds its own ending, stop.
At what point did the story begin to feel as though it had its own momentum?
Which contribution changed the direction most?
Did collaboration create something different from taking turns merely adding ideas?
For a deeper exploration of relational ways of meeting AI, see the Relational Creativity Field Guide.
Occasional writing, recorded readings, and word when a gathering opens.