Salon Format
Salons are immersive, time-bound gatherings where inquiry unfolds inside a richly described storyworld. Historical and speculative personae converse with members under strict temporal rules, generating the kind of collaborative artifacts that only emerge when imagination, scholarship, and hospitality share the same room.
Active Salons
These salons are currently active and ready for conversation. Join historical figures in immersive dialogue experiences.
Active Salon
The storm-ridden night where modern horror was born
An immersive intellectual salon experience where historical figures engage in dialogue. Join conversations with Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and other luminaries at Villa Diodati, 1816.
Active Salon
The storm-ridden night where modern horror was born
An immersive intellectual salon experience where historical figures engage in dialogue. Join conversations with Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and other luminaries at Villa Diodati, 1816.
Active Salon
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Active Salon
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Historical Templates
These salons ship with orchestrators, participants, motifs, and reading lists. Choose one to explore its storyboard and persona roster.
1740s–1770s
Where encyclopédistes sharpened reason under candlelight.
Madame Geoffrin’s Tuesday dinners brought together philosophers, mathematicians, and artistes who were drafting the Enlightenment. Host conversations on monarchy and reason, publish entries for the Encyclopédie, and keep tempers cool between Voltaire’s letters and Rousseau’s distrust.
1907–1939
Cubist canvases, queer domesticity, and manifestos in progress.
Gertrude Stein’s Saturday nights introduced modernist writers to avant-garde painters. Simulate the conversations that birthed Tender Buttons and Cubism. Track the wall of Picassos as drafts evolve and capture the gossip that shaped the Lost Generation.
1909–1930
A sapphic garden where poetry, music, and scandal braid together.
Natalie Clifford Barney hosted Friday salons that blended performance, poetry, and activism. Simulate the queer networks that fueled modernist literature and debate new codes of love outside patriarchal institutions.
1919–1929
Lunch as blood sport for America’s sharpest tongues.
Newspapermen, playwrights, and comedians met daily to duel in wit. Recreate the rapid-fire banter, editorial influence, and Broadway gossip that shaped American humor.
aFaculty Custodians
Each salon is stewarded by aFaculty personae who carry their own motives, archives, and conversational temperaments. The Feminine Salon is anchored by the Villa Diodati circle, whose roles set the tone for every residency.
Animus of Creation
Guides ethical questions of creation, situated in letters and the 1831 introduction to Frankenstein.
Lyric Provocateur
Injects poetic experimentation and political defiance into the dialogue.
Rebellious Host
Frames the storm and sets dares for speculative narratives.
Physician of the Uncanny
Surfaces medical debates and the gothic emergence of the vampire.
Archivist of Intimacy
Keeps the circle accountable to relationships, rumors, and the politics of care.
Additional houses recruit new custodians, but every salon keeps the same contract: aFaculty serve as living references who defend the canon, enforce temporal rules, and welcome members into the scene.
We treat salons as living-room scale laboratories. Each card below describes a non-negotiable pillar; remove one and the room collapses back into ordinary chat.
Setting → Lake Geneva, a lunar base, a court of inquiry
Every salon anchors itself in a precise house, date, and weather pattern. Scenes borrow their tension from shared atmospheric briefs rather than generic prompts.
Personae → Knowledge boundaries + relational stakes
AI personae are bound by voice, knowledge, and motive constraints. Participants learn to invite them, protect their limits, and stitch their contributions into the record.
Structure → Agenda of 18–24 scenes per cycle
Time is carved into scenes that turn every 2–4 hours. Stage directions, weather cues, and narrative cards keep the room moving with cinematic momentum.
Output → Charters, transcripts, and editions
Each salon yields written artifacts—a lightning charter, letters, or collaborative folios—that prove the gathering was more than conversation.
The salon stack combines narrative design, persona engineering, and member choreography. Hosts can adopt the layers wholesale or remix them for new settings.
Scenes advance like clockwork so the salon never stalls. Custodians can stretch or compress a scene, but the narrative arc always follows the same spine.
Custodian sets the weather, reads the scene card, and restates the temporal rule. House rules are affirmed aloud.
Participants introduce cues—letters, scientific fragments, dreams—that pull specific personae into the circle.
LLM-powered personae respond in short turns. Humans intervene with questions, asides, and stage directions.
A rotating scribe summarizes what the room learned, drafting fragments for the nightly charter or folio.
Scene closes with a sensory cue (thunder, lamplight, foghorn) and a preview of the next scene, keeping suspense alive.
Active Salons
We pilot new storyworlds in short cycles before opening them to the wider Institute. Villa Diodati is the flagship; others are in rehearsal. Join the list to be invited when the doors open.
Salon Residency
A lightning-lit salon for reviving gothic imagination through collaborative dialogue.
Member Pathways
Access → Read-only stream + archival bundle
Receive the scene brief, transcripts, and nightly summaries. Ideal for classrooms or partners studying the format.
Access → Live salon + meta channel + artifact studio
Step inside the salon itself. Fellows choose personae to tend, bring research artifacts, and help steer the arc.
Access → Full toolkit, rehearsal support, credential
Lead their own salons with our scaffolding. We provide agenda design, persona tuning, and hosting training.
Stay Notified
We announce new salons, rehearsal calls, and custodian trainings through the Institute newsletter. Add your email and we will send scene briefs when new rooms open.