xyz is so called after the co-ordinates x, y and z that the gps (global positioning system) uses to locate us in reality in this technological age.
xyz is also a way of making sense of  these coordinates through a personal way of working, a structure for placing speculative and fragmentary ideas in the public domain to see how they can evolve in the real world on their own; this is a process that creates its own coordinates without timeline. The objective is not to make objects or reach particular goals but to progress towards bringing together 3 kinds of making:
making of an ecosystem¹
the making of a network connecting the material and virtual²
the making of complementary culture³

Everything produced through xyz is released into the community:
all software developed is released as GPL open source tools and all designs released under Creative Commons Sharealike.

As a rough guideline for navigating through the xyz site:
x = concepts and ideas
y = engagement with particular places
z = creating tangible tools for circulation

To initiate the xyz process, the project began with the z bicycle resource with 20 bicycles in London in Autumn 2004. Currently there are 4 processes or threads in development running through xyz.


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¹ The ecosystem is a practical way to connect things that we would not otherwise be able to connect up as the links between them may be diffused or disguised by
complex structures and monocultures. The ecosystem interrelates the small
and large things in everyday life to create the continuity of links in a
self-regulating yet evolving process chain.

² The network, both human and virtual, is a way of re-visualising the idea of society, as possibilities emerge both from new forms of participatory culture and social organisation as well as new centralising powers of state and globalisation.
Networks facilitate what is transferable through dynamic exchanges across borderlines;
however networks may be loose representations of the realities of the resources
and community structures that ground us.

³ The complementary encompasses the tools and concepts we use to relate to each other as subjects. At present the principal governance of social interaction is structured by virtual and cultural entities such as money. However today's money as a form of social currency has little to do with our material needs as most of it, some 97% of the money in circulation is produced for abstract speculation in the financial markets. The complementary on the other hand sanctions the exchanges that make our lives meaningful - communal associations, identity, affiliation etc.