From basic byte streams to serialized bytes on blockchains, there is no doubt that the digital sphere has already survived a few iterations of being ordered. As we approach the age of Web3.0, 221A’s Head of Strategy, Jesse McKee, shares with us why the artist-run centre 221A is researching the implications blockchains may have on our cultural spaces. Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts’ Digital Strategy Fund, their four-phase research initiative, Blockchain and Padlocks, is only the beginning. When paired with decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) models, blockchain has the potential to facilitate recollectivization at city scale. Under the guise of great social upheaval and the irregularity of coping with a pandemic, the notion of imagining the development of a digital suburb seems utopian in scope. Nevertheless, do not be discouraged. Jesse shares his enthusiasm for blockchain as a technology that “recognizes the value of the social” and the “value of [social] labour.” Another question to consider within the context of blockchain technology is the role of digital anonymity. We are beginning to see a shift away from anonymity online, but what about the demise of anonymity in digital spheres all together? For example, have you heard of the social token community? Like DAOs, the idea is that the earlier one commits the greater value one sees in return. However, as Jesse explains, the community is not structured to value commodified preeminence, rather social tokens ensure accountability through undeniably charted transparency and that “return” one sees is collective prosperity. So the question becomes, if we lifted the veil could we bring an end to the vitriolic behaviour we have seen play out in Web2.0? And, perhaps, as with all innovation, the struggle we now face is systemizing these uncharted blockchain waters, and is art not the perfect place for a simulation?
Keep Up with the Centre here:
Discover More of their Phase 1 Findings here:
Blockchains & Cultural Padlocks – 221A
221A’s Upcoming Workshop Partners:
Learning from Artist-Run Centre Elders:
“The Paranoia of the Western Mind”:
“The Paranoia of the Western Mind” with Achille Mbembe
Living inside a mega system we cannot control?
Come Again, Did You Say “Social Tokens”?
The DAO Landscape:
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)
Developing the Digital Suburb:
A Little Library:
The Value of Everything: Who Makes and Who Takes from the Real Economy?
Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism
Learn How to Do Nothing:
“They’re Watching You with Your Full Consent”:
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Communities Implementing Change:
Curiosities from Vancouver:
Produced by the Artengine Stream Team:
Mikke Gordon aka Seiiizi https://twitter.com/s3iiizi
Ryan Stec
Kimberly Sunstrum https://www.kmbrlysnstrm.com/
Editorial Assistant
Erin Galt
Theme Music by Mikki Gordon aka Seiiizi
That's basically what blockchain will enable you to do is to kind of create more mass collaborative networks that are more definable and self designable by communities themselves.
Tracey Lauriault provides a dynamic introduction to the relationship between data and the city at the Future Cities Forum. This talk delves into the social and technological infrastructure and frames a new more open and democratic version of a data centered city.
What is software without hardware? Join us as DEL participant, artist and National Director of the Independent Media Arts Alliance Emmanuel Madan shares his vision for the viability of the Arts ecosystem and what role a union, Artwork_Local404, could play within that system. In this conversation, we discuss the importance of language, authorship, and time when it comes to the development of meaningful work (tools, platforms, initiatives and art).