We propose to build, right in the middle of an event (a colloquium, a seminar, professional gatherings), the abecedary of the words circulating there: from the recordings of the talks, artificial intelligence helps retrace how the debates have run through each word, and the object, accessible via a simple QR code, grows in real time with the participants. A first edition exists and lives on: the abecedary of the Cerisy colloquium on the transformations of cultural policies.
The need
Professional events produce proceedings, published months later, that few people read. Meanwhile, what makes a week of debate rich gets lost: the shifts in meaning, the fruitful disagreements, the words everyone uses without carrying the same world. The abecedary goes the other way. Built during the event, it is read on the spot, it feeds the following days’ exchanges and it enriches everyone’s experience. Its entries are not definitions: they relate the different meanings that have run through each word, with their debates and their sometimes conflicting positions. Tracing common ground in the diversity of viewpoints, without smoothing them over: the intention of the object is political, and its technical form follows from it. The tool is deliberately simple: a QR code to reach it, a single page to read, one person listening and making it evolve as corrections, additions and new words are requested.
Where we stand
In service, a first edition. Updated: August 2026. The abecedary of the Cerisy colloquium What words do to cultural policy was born in June 2026, four days into the colloquium week, and its first version was built in one night (read the story : « Careful, it’s slippery »). Distributed in the room via QR code, it was read during the colloquium itself; participants asked for corrections, proposed words, and it has kept growing since: it now holds one hundred and thirty-four words, the gallery of the cultural references invoked and the list of the people who spoke. The interface lets you move effortlessly between alphabetical order, themes and a built-in search. Technically, it is a single web page holding all its own code, with no server, no database and no proprietary dependency: a lasting, sovereign object. Browse the abecedary.
Taking part
If you are organising a colloquium, a seminar or professional gatherings, a living abecedary can be built there during the event, then remain with its participants as a common object that continues to serve. Write to us.