XMP-novelty Namespace 1.0 — Specification

1. Abstract

This document defines the XMP-novelty namespace, identified by the URI http://hexart.pl/novelty/1.0/, for the annotation of timestamped media artifacts (audio, photo, video) with metadata describing the position of the recorded moment within the Novelty Theory framework as proposed by McKenna (1975) and elaborated in subsequent work (McKenna 1992, 1993).

The namespace provides eighteen properties, all optional, that extend the Adobe XMP data model (Adobe 2012). It is intended for archival, research, and documentary projects that require persistent, structured metadata fields not covered by general XMP vocabularies (dc:, xmp:, xmpDM:, Iptc4xmpCore:).

The namespace makes no truth claim about the underlying theoretical framework. It provides a stable vocabulary for projects whose curatorial logic adopts that framework as an organising principle.

2. Status of this document

This is the initial publication of the XMP-novelty namespace, version 1.0. The namespace has been distributed since ExifTool release 13.59 (May 2026) as config_files/novelty.config in the official ExifTool source tree (Harvey 2003–present). Earlier ExifTool versions support the namespace via a user-supplied .ExifTool_config.

Future minor revisions may add properties or refine non-normative definitions. The namespace URI of this document shall remain stable; subsequent major revisions will be published under distinct URIs of the form http://hexart.pl/novelty/<version>/.

3. Conformance

A conforming producer shall declare the namespace prefix novelty bound to the URI http://hexart.pl/novelty/1.0/ in the enclosing XMP packet. All properties are optional; producers may emit any subset.

A conforming consumer shall treat unrecognised properties as opaque and preserve them on rewrite, as required by the XMP specification (Adobe 2012, § 7.5).

4. Vocabulary

All properties are simple-typed XMP literals. Datatypes follow the XML Schema Part 2 conventions (W3C 2004). All cardinalities are 0..1 (optional, non-repeating).

Property	Datatype	Card.	Definition
`NoveltyIndex`	`xs:decimal`	`0..1`	Scalar value in the range [0, 1] denoting the novelty coordinate attributed to the recording timestamp under the timewave model of McKenna (1975). No normalization or validation is performed by the namespace; producers are responsible for documenting the timewave variant used.
`TimewavePosition`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text expression of the recording position along the timewave, typically relative to a reference point (e.g. McKenna's 2012-12-21 zero date). Format is not normalized.
`Concrescence`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text annotation describing the concrescence phase attributed to the recording moment. Term adopted from Whitehead's process philosophy (Whitehead 1929) as used in McKenna (1975).
`EschatonCoordinates`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text annotation pairing a timestamp with an observed condition relative to the eschaton reference of the timewave model. Format is not normalized.
`StrangeAttractor`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text label denoting the dynamical-systems attractor state attributed to the recording moment. Term used in the dynamical-systems sense (Ruelle & Takens 1971) as adopted by McKenna (1975, ch. 5).
`HabitNoveltyRatio`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text expression of the habit-to-novelty ratio attributed to the recording moment within the timewave model. Conventionally written as two complementary decimal values.
`WaveformType`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Identifier of the waveform variant referenced by the producer (e.g. "King Wen sequence collapse", "Watkins objection variant", "TimeExplorer rev. 3"). Not normalized; useful for distinguishing among timewave implementations.
`Protocol`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text identifier of the documentation protocol under which the artifact was annotated.
`Operator`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Identifier of the person or organization that performed the annotation. Distinct from dc:creator (authorship of the underlying media).
`Intent`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text description of the documenting party's intent in placing the annotation. Provided for archival auditability.
`Witness`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Identifier of an additional party present at the recording moment whose presence the producer wishes to record alongside the artifact.
`CosmicSign`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text reference to an astronomical or calendrical alignment associated with the recording moment (e.g. lunar phase, solstice, planetary configuration). Semantics are open.
`Frequency`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text reference to a tuning or carrier frequency relevant to the artifact (e.g. "432 Hz reference", "528 Hz"). Use of the field does not endorse any particular tuning standard.
`SacredGeometry`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text label denoting a geometric framework used by the producer as a curatorial reference for the artifact. Term derives from the sacred-geometry literature (Lawlor 1982); the namespace does not normalize or endorse values.
`Dimension`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text annotation describing the dimensional framing the producer attributes to the artifact (e.g. "4D temporal artifact within 3D substrate"). Used for curatorial classification.
`Lineage`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text expression of the intellectual or conceptual lineage the producer attributes to the artifact (e.g. "McKenna → Sheldrake → Hexart"). Distinct from dc:source.
`Mantra`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text annotation typically used to record a short phrase functioning as a thematic key for the artifact within the documenting party's archive.
`Seal`	`xs:string`	`0..1`	Free-text annotation intended to carry a short Unicode glyph functioning as a stable signature for the artifact within the documenting party's archive. In the ExifTool registration this property carries Avoid => 1 to defer to XMP-seal:Seal on ambiguous lookups.

5. Serialisation

Properties are encoded as standard XMP properties in the RDF/XML serialisation of the XMP packet (Adobe 2012, § 7). The following packet fragment is conformant:

<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/">
  <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
    <rdf:Description rdf:about=""
        xmlns:novelty="http://hexart.pl/novelty/1.0/">
      <novelty:NoveltyIndex>0.998</novelty:NoveltyIndex>
      <novelty:TimewavePosition>T-zero + 8920 d</novelty:TimewavePosition>
      <novelty:Operator>Hexart</novelty:Operator>
    </rdf:Description>
  </rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>

6. ExifTool integration

From ExifTool 13.59 onwards, the namespace can be enabled with the bundled configuration file:

exiftool -config config_files/novelty.config \
  -XMP-novelty:NoveltyIndex=0.998 \
  -XMP-novelty:Operator='Paul Łazniak (Hexart)' \
  artifact.mp4

The configuration file is reproduced from the ExifTool source tree at github.com/exiftool/exiftool/blob/master/config_files/novelty.config.

For ExifTool versions earlier than 13.59, a functionally equivalent .ExifTool_config may be placed in the user’s home directory (Harvey 2003–present, § Configuration file).

7. Relation to other namespaces

XMP-novelty is orthogonal to general-purpose XMP vocabularies. Producers are advised to use established properties where available:

Authorship of the underlying media: dc:creator, dc:rights.
Time-based media information: xmpDM: family.
IPTC Photo Metadata: Iptc4xmpCore: and Iptc4xmpExt:.
Creation and modification dates: xmp:CreateDate, xmp:ModifyDate; for QuickTime/MP4 containers, the corresponding atoms.

XMP-novelty properties extend, rather than replace, these vocabularies.

8. References

Adobe Systems Incorporated. (2012). Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) Specification, Part 1: Data Model, Serialization, and Core Properties. Adobe.
Harvey, P. (2003–present). ExifTool: Read, Write and Edit Meta Information. https://exiftool.org/
Lawlor, R. (1982). Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice. Thames & Hudson.
McKenna, T., & McKenna, D. (1975). The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. Seabury Press.
McKenna, T. (1992). Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge. Bantam Books.
McKenna, T. (1993). True Hallucinations. HarperSanFrancisco.
Ruelle, D., & Takens, F. (1971). On the nature of turbulence. Communications in Mathematical Physics, 20(3), 167–192.
Sheldrake, R. (1981). A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. Blond & Briggs.
W3C. (2004). XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition. https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/
Whitehead, A. N. (1929). Process and Reality. Macmillan.

9. License and stability

The XMP-novelty namespace specification is released into the public domain under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal. The namespace URI shall remain dereferenceable and stable for as long as the maintainer is operational; in the event of maintainer dissolution, the URI and this document will be archived through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.