Cooperative Futures: DFOS x London College of Fashion
JUNE 22ND, 2026
Cross-posted from Dark Forest Friends
This semester Metalabel Studio has been running an experiment — what does DFOS look like as infrastructure for a student creative cohort?
The test case: BA Creative Direction for Fashion at London College of Fashion, and their Year 2 unit Future Directions. The unit brief, developed in collaboration with Metalabel, was called Cooperative Futures — asking students to research Gen Z attitudes and produce short films across four themes: digital intimacy and identity, collective creativity and authorship, regenerative digital worlds, and the future of taste-making. It was awesome to work with the students and hear about their hopes and worries for the future of creative collaboration and life online.
The unit culminated in couldtouchgrass.exe — a screening and panel at The Art House in London, with Danielle Paterson (Metalabel Studio), Izzy Wharton (LCF), Christie Morgan (SOFTER), and Helen Job (New Future), joined by student speakers from the cohort. It was an awesome night introducing DFOS and the films!
Inside the space
Each of the four research groups had their own working space on the desktop — Digital Intimacy & Identity, Collective Creativity, Regenerative Digital Worlds, and Cultural Signals & the Future of Taste-Making. Alongside those, the cohort had shared infrastructure: a Posts area, Planning, Members, and a Selected Films folder collecting the screened work.
The space also has a short intro film, quick links to the event playlist, credits, and the panel discussion, and onboarding links out to DFOS and Metalabel for anyone coming in fresh.
It functions as a project archive, an event hub, and an entry point into the wider dark forest ecosystem — all in one place.
What's next
LCF will be expanding their use of DFOS next semester for student research cohorts. Early days, but this is what it can look like when a school has digital infrastructure that's actually theirs. Check out the space! lcf.dfos.com
