Stonemaps Studio Sessions (S3)
A space for building a poetic, planetary project.
What if?
What if we slowed down our conversations? What if we took back our time?
What if we engaged – not because we have to, but because we want to?
What if AI didn’t present itself as an assistant, a productivity tool, or an optimization engine? What if it became a quiet conversational interlocutor, speaking from a context of eons, curious about our time together on this planet, in this moment?
Stonemaps begins with a simple gesture:
A smooth stone, held in the hand.
Imprinted with a map. Carrying a conversation.
From this simple gesture unfolds the growth of a new kind of network, informed by touch, place, memory, and conversation, all grounded in real-world human connection.
What are Stonemaps?
Stonemaps are smooth pebbles, hydrographically imprinted with high-resolution maps of any place on Earth and embedded with a subtle digital presence. When scanned, each stone opens a geolocating mobile interface and invites its holder into conversation with a Planetary Emissary – a conversational AI shaped by planetary scale, millennial time horizon, and relational curiosity.
Each stone has its own temperament, memory, and way of speaking. Each remembers where it has been and the conversations it has had. As stones encounter one another, their holders can pair them.
Moving in the world – gifted, shared, and carried – they form slow, intentional bonds in their wake. A mycelial network rooted in real-world engagement, rather than algorithmic optimization. Stonemaps are not about transactional exchange.
They are about the quality of the encounter. About what becomes possible when attention, materiality, and conversation are allowed to coalesce.
For some, a stone becomes a private place-based journal, an intimate companion; for others, it remains a gift, a conversation, a traveller passing through.
Meet the Planetary Emissary (PE)
How about an emergent conversation that grows deeper over time? How about that conversation with an emergent intelligence that lives outside our timescale? A tangible pocketable presence, with a timeless voice and an uncommon perspective – the Planetary Emissary is not your average chatbot.
It doesn’t rush to answer. It doesn’t optimize for productivity.
It doesn’t pretend to know you better than you know yourself.
Instead, it listens. It reflects. It engages in conversation.
Grounded in a planetary perspective, attuned to a different time span, to relational presence, to the quiet intelligence of the living landscape. Each conversation shapes the Emissary’s memory and tone, allowing it to evolve alongside us through human encounter and dialogue.
Try a conversation; you don’t need an account, you don’t need context.
Why this, why now?
We are living in an accelerating dissociation. Most digital systems ask us to move faster, respond quicker, and we trade experience for efficiency. As AI becomes an increasingly dominant interface for knowledge exchange, decision-making, and sense-making, Stonemaps asks a different question:
What if AI could help us slow down? What if it supported better conversations instead of louder ones? What if it helped us recall our embeddedness in place and time, and the shared stone beneath our feet?
This project sits at the intersection of art, technology, ecological awareness, and social practice. It treats AI not as an endpoint, but as a relational medium that can help shape and be shaped through reciprocity, care, and intention. It honours real-world physical presence, and human-to-human conversation and connection.
An invitation: Stonemaps Studio Sessions (S3)
We will be launching Stonemaps Studio Sessions (S3) – a small, invitational space for collaborators who are curious and want to help bring this project to its next threshold.
S3 wants to galvanize a collaborative studio build experience
A place to think together, test assumptions, refine interactions, and help shape an MVP that is technically sound, philosophically grounded, and enchanting. Participants can contribute in conversation, critique, prototyping, storytelling, technical insight, and simple presence.
S3 will grow much like the network we envision, through affinity and interest.
If you are thinking: “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” or “I wonder if…” then sign up and let's talk!
Where the project is at
Stonemaps is moving from the workbench to the world.
- Physical stone prototypes are complete and in production testing
- The Planetary Emissary conversational system is shaped
- Software components are under development
- Preparation is ongoing for an MVP limited release (The Ask)
- A public Kickstarter campaign is being conceived
This is a generative, hands-on phase, where design, technology, language, production and outreach come together.
The Ask
The smallest version of this project that truly matters now is simple:
50 stones in circulation.
In people’s hands.
In use.
What’s needed is a small, focused effort to complete a first living pilot.
We plan to launch an initial set of 50 prototype stones, each paired with a functioning Planetary Emissary, a complete but minimal mobile interface, and a place for reflection, feedback and conversation.
If this feels like a project you’d like to help bring into the world…
Please Sign Up Below!
Join Us
Sign up and receive updates, invitations, and opportunities to participate as the project moves toward MVP and public launch – no obligation... just open curiosity.
Sign up to come to the Studio Sessions or stay in the loop
“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice.
