general term for the activity of working jointly with others towards a shared goal. the goal can be blurry, yet each individual that's part of the collaboration contributes something towards the result. there are different levels of dividing the work, different forms of work, different levels of investment by participants, different hierarchies, organizational structures, credit distortions, favoritism and power dynamics. MODULAR COLLABORATION is one of the many forms of collaborations. team effort can rely on greater resources and in more decentralized forms of collaboration the idea of the Genius Author is weakened - probably a reason why in the art world collaborative efforts are less sellable desireable.