Can Reciprocity Replace Capitalism in Art?
Exploring the Ampliative model and a new vision for creative ecosystems built on collaboration instead of speculation.
Since returning from Palo Alto, where I took part in a light festival that drew over 27,000 visitors1, I’ve been buzzing with creative energy. For people like me, who often work alone or spend much of our time with young children when not in our studio, the intellectual stimulation of being surrounded by other creative minds is priceless.
The clarity of purpose that comes from genuine back-and-forth dialogue is hard to match. It’s almost better than any economic incentive, almost.
Rebuilding Creative Energy
Since getting back, I’ve been trying to recreate some of that energy by attending art and technology events and continuing my involvement with the Cornell Tech Maker Lab2.
My friend Niti Parikh, who directs the lab, has been running a workshop that gave me the chance to help develop an AR/VR toolkit for artists. That experience reminded me just how powerful feedback, access to resources, and the opportunity to showcase work can be for artists and other creatives.
At the same time, I’ve been making a conscious effort to give back, to share energy, uplift others, and motivate them in return. Because in our profession, reciprocity is everything.
The Power of Reciprocity
I’m still learning to balance focused, heads-down studio work with the kind that involves community, dialogue, and mutual support. The latter doesn’t always get enough credit, even though it’s often what sustains artists over the long run.
Communities and networks create resilience. They allow careers and creative lives to evolve in more fulfilling ways than money alone ever could.
The Ampliative Model
This idea of reciprocity connects to a model I recently came across called Ampliative3, proposed by independent researcher Adrián Onco Orduna.
It’s a platform based on enhancement and reciprocity rather than profit and middlemen. In this system, artists “enhance” one another by expanding each other’s worldviews. Art isn’t commoditized to fit a capitalist mold, it’s experimental, meant to spark conversation and reflection.
In this model, value isn’t measured solely in money, but also in other currencies, such as feedback, critique, sharing, and collaboration. Money still plays a role, but it’s not the main one.
The governance is distributed and transparent. There’s no board of directors, just a self-regulating artist network where rewards circulate within the community. The artist, not investors, sits at the center and decides what they want.
When Idealism Meets Reality
Of course, no system is perfect. The biggest challenge is participation. What happens if not enough artists join or stay engaged?
Another issue is inclusivity. The Ampliative model mainly serves artists and adjacent fields, which could unintentionally isolate art from the public. A child wandering into a gallery or a passerby discovering a mural wouldn’t experience art through such a closed network.
There’s also a practical challenge: many artists aren’t interested in running the administrative, technical, or financial parts of a distributed platform. Some just want to make art, not manage systems. They’re often happy to share profits if it means someone else handles accounting, governance, or engineering.
A Hybrid Future
That’s why I’ve been thinking about a hybrid approach, one that combines the reciprocity of Ampliative with the stability of a market-based model.
This kind of system could build a self-sustaining, distributed network while still maintaining practical infrastructure: moderators, accountants, engineers, and a board composed of artists themselves.
In such a setup, reciprocity and community value could coexist with structure and sustainability. Artists would retain agency, but they wouldn’t have to shoulder every operational burden alone.
I’m not sure yet whether reciprocity can truly replace speculation and profit as the driving forces of the art world but I do believe it can reshape them.
The future of art doesn’t have to reject capitalism entirely; it can reimagine it.
If we can build systems rooted in collaboration, transparency, and mutual support, where value is measured not only in dollars but in dialogue, then perhaps we can create an art world that’s more sustainable, more humane, and far less dependent on market forces.
Great article and I think relevant to many sectors. The lesson, I think, is to move beyond "zero-sum game" thinking. In other words, instead of competing for a small slice from a small pie, work to grow the size of the pie for everyone!
I really enjoyed reading this article- I agree that the reward as an artist comes in so many different guises and working with others is a huge reward in itself. Interested in trying to work out how this circular alternative arrangement might look