Island Mentality: report on recent workshop 'What Will It Be Like When We Buy
An Island (on the blockchain)?'
By Alice Bucknell on Rhizome.org
Jun 14, 2018
This report about Ed Fornieles’ recent workshop What Will It Be Like When We
Buy An Island (on the blockchain)? is published in partnership with DAOWO, a
series that brings together artists, musicians, technologists, engineers, and
theorists to consider how blockchains might be used to enable a critical,
sustainable and empowered culture. The series is organized by Ruth Catlow and
Ben Vickers in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut London and the State
Machines programme. Its title is inspired by a paper by artist, hacker and
writer Rob Myers called DAOWO – Decentralised Autonomous Organisation With
Others.
A few years ago, when British artist Ed Fornieles began researching the social
dynamics of the blockchain and cryptocurrency, this sort of scene was an
ecstatic fantasy conjured up by what’s generally perceived as the delirious
imagination of the rich and bored; of opportunistic Silicon Valley
entrepreneurs and a pack of wily investors on the hunt for the next lucrative
buzz. “Now it’s become our present reality, and it’s not so funny,” says
Fornieles of the burgeoning crypto society. We’re gathered in the
Goethe-Institut London on a drizzling afternoon in March, and Fornieles,
embodying the role of a digital coach and dramaturge, is introducing the
concept of live action role play, LARPing for short,to a motley group of around
two dozen participants including students, artists, techies, architects,
and–unbeknownst to all–IRL Seasteaders in disguise.
Convened in collaboration with Ruth Catlow, co-founder of online research
platform and gallery Furtherfield and Ben Vickers, CTO of the Serpentine
Galleries, the workshop, titled What Will It Be Like When We Buy An Island (on
the blockchain)?, is the fifth installment of DAOWO (Decentralized Autonomous
Organization With Others): a series bringing together artists, writers,
curators, technologists, and engineers to investigate the production of new
blockchain technologies and their socio-political implications. It’s also an
effort “explore the hazards of formalizing the idea of ‘doing good on the
blockchain’,” according to Fornieles.
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2018/jun/14/island-mentality/
Marc Garrett
Co-Founder, Co-Director and main editor of Furtherfield.
Art, technology and social change, since 1996
http://www.furtherfield.org
Furtherfield Gallery & Commons in the park
Finsbury Park, London N4 2NQhttp://www.furtherfield.org/gallery
Currently writing a PhD at Birkbeck University, London
https://birkbeck.academia.edu/MarcGarrett
Just published: Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain
Eds, Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, Nathan Jones, & Sam Skinner
Liverpool Press - http://bit.ly/2x8XlMK
Latest post: Unlocking Proprietorial Art Systems interview:
with Artists, Gretta Louw, Antonio Roberts & Annie Abrahams
https://bit.ly/2HQM1bs
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