Week 8 Workshop: Oracle build clinic

Choosing what your own small oracle will do, and being honest on paper about how its mechanism actually works.

Field session

20 September 2027

Build an Oracle asks you to design and build a small working system that gives readings, the same shape as the systems studied in weeks 6 through 9 — and to be completely transparent about its mechanism in a way none of those traditions historically were. This clinic is where the design gets decided, before the building starts.

Before the workshop#

Have a rough idea of what your oracle asks the user and what kind of thing it gives back. It doesn’t need to be original — several of the strongest past projects have been honest, disclosed versions of an existing tradition (a transparent tarot, a disclosed horoscope).

In the workshop#

Sanjay runs a build clinic format: pitch your oracle’s concept and mechanism in two minutes, get questions from the group, particularly on the one point that trips up most first drafts — where does the “reading” actually come from, mechanically, and have you said so plainly.

Afterwards#

Start building. The mechanism disclosure isn’t a footnote you add at the end — it’s graded as part of the piece, so it’s worth drafting alongside the build rather than after it.