We have chosen Rhizome as the name for this extraordinary program of Divergent Labs. The purpose of the Rhizome program is to serve as an incubator of ideas for creating Autistic economy and it follows a rhizomatic model in evolving these ideas; in essence ‘it resists structures of domination’ and empowers you to bring your ideas to life.

Rhizome is a philosophical concept developed in “A Thousand Plateaus” by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. It is what they called an ‘Image of Thought’. In organic life Rhizomes grow perpendicular to the force of gravity, until they choose to emerge. A rhizome may be broken, but it will reemerge again.

Autistic phenomena may conceptually be viewed as a multifaceted Rhizome. We stand on the edge of human society, each of us alone in our struggle for survival, and yet all of us mutually interconnected. We emerge spurred by the Universal forces that tell us to rise; and so we are born. “In wide expanses…and major upheavals of those expanses, we are the tiny rivulets of new intensity… “. We in our multiplicity, are Autistic Rhizome, and we are emerging.

The illustration to the right is a collage of Marc Ngui’s visual interpretations of the Rhizome philosophical [A Thosand Plateaus] concept, which depict the evolution of human thoughts and ideas, characterized by ‘ceaselessly established connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles’. The principle by which the Rhizome program is organized is fundamentally rhizomatic, and this collage intends to visually represent the essence and the elements of the Rhizome program.

This program is based on an ideal of collaboration and enterprise. There is a discussion section Rhizome Net for people to express and exchange their opinions and ideas related to this undertaking;  the motions section where the submitted ideas are listed;  the projects section where the matured motions [motions promoted to projects] are described – leading into a private project space; and the PEOPLE section including the board, people on a management panel, and project team members [incognito when requested].

The details of the Rhizome program are documented in the ‘Rhizome Program’, ‘Rhizome Program Management’, and ‘Rhizome Process’
under the info section. These documents elaborate the program’s principles, the management approach, and the process by which the ideas are incepted and developed; together defining the mechanism by which Divergent Labs serves as the conduit for the evolution of the ideas: the ideas becoming motions – motions becoming projects – projects finding collaborators – projects managed – projects developing – evolving into programs – businesses and enterprises emerging – industries growing – interconnecting into sustainable mutualistic Autistic economy.

This is what The Rhizome program and Divergent Labs are about. A lab for creating this economy. That is what we have set to accomplish.

Rhizome Autistic – Connecting – Rising Together under the Sun – Shining our Light unto the World