we are
solarlions
Rylan G. Peery
Today, Rylan works to integrate his lifelong arts practice with his platform co-op technology work in collaborating with The Brooklyn Arts Exchange, The School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech, and Chromaway AB towards co-designing a data trust / data union model that supports artists in keeping their work safe while promoting new forms of collaboration and publishing.
Rylan is an active contributor of ethical biotechnology research with the Boundaries of Humanity project at Stanford University where an interdisciplinary team explores the ethical risks of emerging biotechnologies. Rylan’s own research explores the social, cultural, and ecological risks posed by social media, affective computing, and AI technologies; and his practice is oriented towards creation of means by which decentralized collectives can work together via commons work and culture hacking to deliver prosocial technology interventions upon information exchange and the noosphere as whole.
Rylan is an active public speaker and workshop co-leader. Rylan has engaged public audiences on such topics pertaining to economic justice and Next Economy / Web3 models as "How platform co-ops might support the incubation of more just economic ventures?" and a talk, “Not Business as Usual” for aspiring entrepreneurs in New Delhi, India hosted by the International Co-op Alliance. Rylan co-lead a participatory workshop titled "Data Trusts for Digital Equity" at a workshop with MozFest in 2021. Rylan gave a TEDx presentation: Working Together for the Greater Good in verse at Big Sky TEDx event in 2018.
“In a world that increasingly relies on technology, trusted technical design is fundamental and fundamental to that is data equity."1
Rylan's motivation is unique. Rylan merges collaborative artistic practices with a commitment to spiritual discipline towards engaging open sorcery forces that breathe life into shared visions of a just and harmonious future. His long history of collaborative work in the arts was documented in the article “Art Co-ops and the Power of Mobilizing Collaboration for Creativity.”
Rylan co-founded CoLab.coop in 2010, as the world’s first transnational technology cooperative. As a ‘Best of BCorp’ ‘For Benefit’ corporation run democratically and owned by its membership, Rylan learned to collaborate across borders in delivering impact technology. His contributions include sustainability and ecology projects like UpandGo.coop, Who Votes Dirty, and Open Solar. Rylan’s co-leadership as a designer and user experience researcher towards actualizing user ownership of technology platforms was documented by Wired Magazine in the article “Where Workers Control the Code”. Rylan successfully Exited to Community in 2022 selling his member-owner shares back to the CoLab.coop community in order to focus on launching an under-development platform co-op built around a model supporting shared data ownership and governance of a data trust co-designed to support cultural, racial, and ecological justice.
1World Economic Forum, “Why data equity plays a crucial role in establishing trust in the tech era,” January 11, 2024. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/01/data-equity-trust/
Rylan has given his life to creativity, the arts and ecological sustainability. As an activist, Rylan co-founded Giveback, a (too) early cause fundraising platform that precipitated Kickstarter by linking artist networks to fundraising for causes such as building a music studio for youth in Hunter's Point, Tibetan justice, and the drilling of water wells in Ethiopia. His love of music goes back to late 90's raving with Aphex Twin and Rabbit in the Moon in the desert of Los Angeles, collaborating with Bhagavan Das at a nada yoga retreat in the hills of Ojai, remixing ambient works from the Desert Dwellers and Mirabai Ceiba on Black Swan / [DD Label], putting out a raggatronic banger with Tippa Irie and Freq Nasty on Skint Records, throwing underground live PA parties as a founder of the Harmonic Temple collective, eulogizing loved ones by spoken word, painting murals with children, vocal improvisation at Bali Spirit Music Festival or performing renegade EDM guerrilla poetry sets under bridges; Rylan embodies the maxim that 'Life is Art.'