Once a month in the late 1700s, a group calling themselves the Lunar Men gathered by moonlight to ask big questions about the world and to listen closely to what it was becoming. Known historically as the Lunar Society, they were inventors, makers, and thinkers who didn’t just trade ideas, they turned them into factories, canals, instruments, and machines.They collected things. They combined inventions. They treated experimentation as a form of play: curious, tactile, and often delightfully strange. Among their creations were early steam engines, technologies that once powered foghorns and reshaped how humans oriented themselves in the world.

They were also nonconformists, free thinkers and dissenters who questioned what was considered unquestionable. Willing to stand outside structures of authority, they made room for curiosity, disagreement, and ideas that didn’t yet have a clear place in the world.That spirit of inquiry and delight matters deeply to us, so from our little corners of the world in Austin Texas, and Antigua Guatemala, we started our own modern Lunar Society, one that grows out of that same curiosity about how humans question, experiment, and find their bearings in a changing world...

About Us

The original Lunar Society gathered to test ideas together, to combine disciplines, linger with questions, and pay attention to what the world was becoming. They believed thinking was a social act, and that experimentation required time, trust, and proximity.Today, ideas move faster than ever. But speed has a cost. Too often, ideas are consumed alone and forgotten just as quickly.We believe ideas don’t end when a film does, or close with the last page of a book. The real work happens between people.So we design experiences that create those in-between spaces: intimate, sensory, question-driven gatherings where people slow down, notice more, and come back into relation, with each other, with ideas, and with themselves.

What we believe in

We live in a world shaped by powerful tools, and we believe technology matters most when human values stay at the center. Tools can accelerate ideas, but humans give them direction, care, and meaning...At the Lunar Society, we design experiences that slow things down just enough to notice, reflect, and ask better questions, helping humans stay human, especially in an age of intelligent machines.

What we do

Experience Design

Experience design is the craft of shaping how people encounter ideas: emotionally, socially, and sensorially. When experiences are designed with care, they don’t just inform, they transform. They make change possible because they invite people to live an idea, not just understand it.We design these experiences using empathy, worldbuilding, ecosystems (not just formats), game mechanics, orientation, storytelling, and all the senses...

What this looks like?

We partner with filmmakers, authors, and cultural organizations to transform their work into participatory experiences, catalysts for connection and exploration.
Some examples:

Shelf Life

A documentary about aging becomes a cheeseboard ritual where strangers share their life stories.

Humans in our Food

A book launches not with a reading, but a secret gathering full of memories and play.

Paseo Sonoro & Punto de Inflexión

A music album is released through strangers sharing personal stories, and a Sound Walk in Antigua invites guests to listen deeply...

Suitcase Museum

Participants create a novel museum, by contributing a small personal object to a permanent, yet mobile, museum...

Who is this for?

  • Documentary filmmakers frustrated by passive viewership

  • Authors craving deeper engagement than book tours allow

  • Creators who believe their work should spark dialogue, not just downloads

  • Organizations who care about meaning, not metrics alone

  • HR teams seeking human ways to explore culture, purpose, and change

Lunar Salons

Lunar Salons are for creative technologists, researchers, educators, artists, makers, scientists, optimists, rebels, and anyone who lives in the in-between.Once a month, we gather online or in person (Austin, Boston, Antigua, Maine…) to jam, prototype, and learn from each other.

Attend a Lunar Salon

How it works?

Each salon is question-driven. A member brings a genuine question they're wrestling with. Not a polished project or presentation, but a real inquiry that invites collective exploration.The question becomes the catalyst for:

  • Socratic dialogue and generous feedback

  • Hands-on making and experimentation

  • Unexpected connections across disciplines

  • Collaborative sense-making

What's in it for you?

Shared value: Access to diverse perspectives and points of view

Community: Long-standing relationships with kindred spirits who get your weird

Interesting people: Meet makers, thinkers, and doers across disciplines

Curious minds: Engage with others who ask "what if?" and "why not?"

Tangible takeaways: Leave every salon with something: insights, artifacts, connections, or clarity...

Attend a Lunar Salon

Lunar Salons

Formats

Each salon takes a different form based on the question at hand:

  • Book clubs: Deep reading and discussion around a shared text

  • Artistic workshopping: Feedback on creative projects-in-progress

  • Teaching experiments: Workshopping how to teach or explain something complex

  • Experience facilitation: One member facilitates an actual designed experience for the group

  • Field trips: Exploring a site, museum, or space together through a curious lens

  • Walking tours: Moving through a city or landscape while in conversation

  • Scavenger hunts: Playful quests that combine discovery with collaboration

  • ... and other formats we invent together

Our Shared Values

  • Trust: We create a container where it's safe to not know, to be wrong, to start over

  • Vulnerability: We bring our real questions, not our polished presentations

  • Empathy: We listen deeply and meet each other's curiosity with care

  • Generosity: We give our time, attention, knowledge, and resources freely

Robyn Metcalfe

I am drawn to the allure of an unanswered question, even if it means entering uncharted territory, promising the possibility of learning something new, that can change the meaning of something big or little, or nothing at all.A deep desire to learn, read, meet new people, travel somewhere,
anywhere, with other people who carry their own questions, draws me to explore the world, through writing books, making movies, and creating experiences.Years as an ultrarunner prepared me for the long-haul, being right with discomfort, knowing the slow way brings greater satisfaction, opportunities to get close to our world and other humans. Academia gave me a way to discuss my obsession with history, logistics, and storytelling.

Films

Books

Stefy Bolaños

My roots grow in volcanic soil. My branches reach through fiber optic
cables. I speak in local textures and global metaphors, always
translating one world for the other. I am both connected and homesick, grounded and drifting, trying to make sense of what it means to belong in more than one place at once.I build learning worlds that invite people to think differently about
how they can explore their curiosities, create, and connect. I believe that true learning is a rite of passage.I follow hunches, trace patterns, and collect clues from classrooms,
online playgrounds, and cobblestone streets. My work lives between pixels and paper, the digital and the analogue.

Books

The Bellow of the Beast Experience

August 27 & 28, or August 29 & 30, 2026
Whitehead Island, Maine
$150

Once a month in the late 1700s, a group calling themselves the Lunar Men gathered by moonlight to ask big questions about the world and to listen closely to what it was becoming. Known historically as the Lunar Society, they were inventors, makers, and thinkers who didn’t just trade ideas, they turned them into factories, canals, instruments, and machines.They collected things. They combined inventions. They treated experimentation as a form of play: curious, tactile, and often delightfully strange. Among their creations were early steam engines, technologies that once powered foghorns and reshaped how humans oriented themselves in the world.This is where we come in. We started a modern Lunar Society, one that grows out of that same curiosity about how humans sense, listen, and find their bearings in a changing world.We’d love for you to join us!
We have two different dates: on August 27 & 28, or August 29 & 30, 2026 for a special experience on Whitehead Island, Maine, once the site of a foghorn that is now forever silenced…

Save your Spot!

Details

A one-day, immersive gathering hosted by the Lunar Society, shaped around fog, sound, attention, and what it means to orient ourselves when things aren’t fully visible…

  • We’re inviting 40 friends that we admire

  • Space is limited to 24 participants, first come, first served.

  • The experience costs $150

  • Includes food and overnight lodging on the island

  • Participants are responsible for their own travel

  • Your spot is confirmed once payment is received

  • Please reply by February 28

How to Get to Whitehead Island

We will depart from Emery Wharf, where you will be met by a boat, a man, and a dog.

🚍 BUS

  • You can take a bus to Rockland, Maine from downtown Boston or Logan Airport, using Concord Trailways.

  • Buses depart from Boston at the bus terminal near South Station. The journey takes about 4 hours and since you arrive in Rockland, you will take a taxi to Emery Wharf, about a 25 minute drive.

✈️ AIR

  • You can take a plane to and from Boston, using Cape Air, operating out of Boston’s Logan Airport to Rockland, Maine (RKD).

  • Contact Cape Air at (800) 227-3247 for Reservations.

  • You’ll also need a taxi from the airport to Emery Wharf, a 20 minute drive.

🚗 CAR

  • You can drive with your own car or rent a car from Boston. From Boston, you’ll travel on Route 1/Highway 95 to Emery Wharf, where you can park.

  • Without stops, the journey takes about 3.5 to 4 hours. Directions from the main highway to the wharf will be provided closer to our experience.

Once the first 24 spots are filled, we’ll start a waitlist.Directions subject to change and more details about the experience will be provided, once you confirm your spot...

Save your Spot!

We'd love to hear from you!

Send us a message and we'll get back to you!