On Thursday December 1st FIBER – in cooperation with RIAT (Research Institute for Arts and Technology) – organises a session as part of INC’s fabulous event MoneyLab. At Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, we present The Politics of the Cyphersphere, exploring and discussing possible pitfalls and current discourses around future applications of the blockchain from a socio-political dimension.
In this discursive workshop we will trace the roots of crypto-movements in technological activism and artistic interventions to outline motivations and positions from a historical as well as a technological perspective. The first cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) and more importantly the ‘blockchain’ are unarguably key inventions of the 21st century. The less popular and more vernacular blockchain experiments will be discussed with a call for an open and interdisciplinary discourse in the cryptosphere in order to foster an informed and critical artistic financial literacy that can help develop the society of tomorrow.
We’ve invited a selection of artists and developers to present their ideas around applications and concepts on the blockchain. We’ve asked them to revisit The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto written by Timothy C. May in 1988 and reflect on the implication of this manifesto and its anarchist ideology in relation to their work. Confirmed participants are: Brett Scott, Martijn van Boven (EU Microcoin), Richard Kohl (Bitcoin Wednesday), Joachim Koning (Internet of Coins) and Romek Venray (Projectdemos). After these short presentations and an initial introduction by RIAT the second part of the session is located for discussion for all participants (audience included).
This collaborative workshop is a pre-event for the the Cryptolab session, which will take place during FIBER Festival in May 2017, that will showcase a diverse range of interdisciplinary projects that explore art, cryptography and technology. For more information and to stay-up-to-date visit www.fiberfestival.nl or sign up for the newsletter at the bottom of this page.