How can you tell a vampire from a prophet? How do you get a changeling out of your house, or neutralise a phantom? How do you track down an incubus, or free a werewolf from their curse? And finally: How can you find an inexhaustible supply of Polish and Slavic folk beliefs, ready for immediate use in your own creative work?

Project Phantom is the first initiative aimed at gathering Polish folk demonology, transmitted in sources from the first Polish and Latin documents through Enlightenment polemical works, the Romantic rebirth of supernatural forces to the classics of Polish 19th- and 20th-century ethnography.

The project isn’t just an attempt to restore forgotten, rejected and often distorted folk mythology and the world of the imagination that was still present a few generations back. It’s also a huge reservoir of material for all kinds of creative work: from computer games through illustrations to scripts and stories. The assistance that’s being announced for makers of games promoting Polish culture make Project Phantom an ideal source of inspiration and ready materials for works that are being created.

Additionally, an exceptional advantage is the legal status of the materials: All of them are in the public domain, so they can be used in any way, free of charge and without limitation. At the workshop you’ll learn how to legally draw on public-domain materials. We’ll answer the following questions:

How do you distinguish works not covered by authors’ rights from contemporary, protected versions?

Can you draw on contemporary interpretations of culture, e.g. by citing them, and to what degree?

How can you get resources from libraries, museums and archives for “re-use”?

How can you protect your own ideas for games or other projects using public domain materials?

What licensing policy should you adopt, and how do you manage rights in a project?

The workshop will be conducted by: Łukasz Kozak and Krzysztof Siewicz.

⟿ The organiser will accept participants based on the application form; space is limited. The chronological order of applications is not binding. Participation does not require accreditation or a Digital Cultures carnet. The workshop is free of charge.