Description

The blockchain is widely heralded as the new internet – another dimension in an ever-faster, ever-more-powerful interlocking of ideas, actions and values. Principally the blockchain is a ledger distributed across a large array of machines that enables digital ownership and exchange without a central administering body. Within the arts it has profound implications as both a means of organising and distributing material, and as a new subject and medium for artistic exploration.

Contributors: César Escudero Andaluz, Jaya Klara Brekke, Theodoros Chiotis, Ami Clarke, Simon Denny, The Design Informatics Research Centre (Edinburgh), Max Dovey, Mat Dryhurst, Primavera De Filippi, Peter Gomes, Elias Haase, Juhee Hahm, Max Hampshire, Kimberley ter Heerdt, Holly Herndon, Helen Kaplinsky, Paul Kolling, Elli Kuruş, Nikki Loef, Bjørn Magnhildøen, Rob Myers, Martín Nadal, Rachel O’Dwyer, Edward Picot, Paul Seidler, Hito Steyerl, Surfatial, Lina Theodorou, Pablo Velasco, Ben Vickers, Mark Waugh, Cecilia Wee, and Martin Zeilinger.

About the authors

Marc Garrett is an internet artist, writer and curator. He is co-Founder and co-Director of Furtherfield/HTTP Gallery, London, and is one of Furtherfield’s principal researchers into net art and cultural context on the internet.

Nathan Jones is a poet, curator. Currently: Reid cross-disciplinary PhD scholar in Literature and Media at Royal Holloway University of London; associate Lecturer Fine Art Liverpool John Moores; and co-director of Torque Editions a hybrid publishing project and research platform.

Ruth Catlow is a net artist, and co-Founder and co-Director of Furtherfield. She is involved in research into net art and cultural context on the internet and co-curates featured works on furtherfield.org and HTTP Gallery, London.

Sam Skinner is an independent artist, researcher and curator. Recent projects include: co-curation of The New Observatory at FACT, Liverpool in collaboration with the Open Data Institute; Research Associate at Kingston School of Art; and co-director of Torque Editions.

Table of contents

• Preface Nathan Jones and Sam Skinner
• Introduction Ruth Catlow
• Documentation
  • FinBook: Literary content as digital commodity Rory Gianni⍏, Hadi Merpouya*, Dave Murray-Rust⍏, Bettina Nissen⍏, Shaune Oosthuizen⍏, Chris Speed⍏, Kate Symons**
  • Text as Market Ami Clarke
  • Plantoid Primavera De Filippi
  • Terra0 Paul Seidler, Paul Kolling, and Max Hampshire
  • Critical mining: blockchain and bitcoin in contemporary art Martín Nadal & César Escudero Andaluz
  • The Blockchain: Change everything forever Peter Gomes
  • Satoshi Oath Jaya Klara Brekke and Elias Haase
  • 01.01.20 Kimberley ter Heerdt & Nikki Loef
  • Role Play Your Way to Budgetary Blockchain Bliss Pablo Velasco
  • A Shared Timeline PWR Studio
  • Gamer Case Images Simon Denny
• Fictions
  • Flying Under A Neutral Flag Cecilia Wee
  • History of Political Operating Systems > Interview with Dr. L. Godord Elli Kuruş
  • All That Happened Surfatial
  • Bad Shibe Rob Myers and Lina Theodorou
  • Defixio Nervorum Theodoros Chiotis
  • How to Surf Juhee Hahm
• Theory
  • If You Don’t Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms Hito Steyerl
  • HAUNTED BY CYBERNETICS / IMMUTABILITY MANTRA Ben Vickers
  • Blockchain Poetics Rob Myers
  • Love on the Block Max Dovey
  • Collections management on the blockchain: A return to the principles of the museum Helen Kaplinsky
  • Artists Rights in the Era of the Distributed Ledger Mark Waugh
  • Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About the Blockchain* (*But Were Afraid to Ask Mel Ramsden) Martin Zeilinger
  • Does digital culture want to be free? How blockchains are transforming the economy of cultural goods Rachel O’Dwyer
  • Aphantasia – blockchain as medium for art Bjørn Magnhildøen, Noemata
  • Interview with Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst Marc Garrett

Photo by Ars Electronica

The post Book of the Day: Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The blockchain is a decentralised infrastructure for automating, monitoring and verifying transactions, and this promises to facilitate the monetisation and marketisation of all things networked. It is no surprise then that the sponsor of the most recent Ethereum London Meetup was speaking to the room when he said, “We can make finance great again!”

While the technical protocol is now well described, conversations about blockchain’s transformative potential beyond FinTech are yet to attract the same level of debate and development within other sectors – let alone connect with a wider public. This is a problem because technologies develop to reflect the interests of those who develop them. Artists can help here.
Few conversations are had regarding blockchain’s potential beyond FinTech – artists can help change this.

Ascribe and Monegraph both look to build the market place for digital art by offering platforms that allow artists and collectors to prove that they own original digital art assets. They use blockchain to determine and track provenance without restricting the circulation of the artworks.

Perhaps more importantly though, an active community of artists, technologists and activists are asking questions and developing critical practices around blockchain’s potential. These can transform our approach to contemporary economic and social challenges.

It may be surprising to some to find artists central to projects such as D-Cent and FairCoop, the blockchain-based tools for enhanced democracy. However, artists have worked with computing and communication infrastructures for as long as they have been in existence.

They created software to craft experiences and relationships, pre-empting developments in the social web by 10 years. Audiences for early Net Art became participants in and co-creators of distributed online artworks, making really strong user interfaces to engage people. The new social relations were integral to the aesthetics and message of their work.

“Artists have worked with computing and communication infrastructures for as long as they have been in existence”

When artists use new technologies as their materials, a number of things happen:

1. They discover ways to extend the expressive and communicative range of tools, devices and systems
2. By making connections that are neither necessarily utilitarian nor profitable, they explore potential for diverse human interest and experience
3. They do the cognitive work to make difficult abstractions more legible and fascinating.

Plantoid uses blockchain technology to interact with gallery visitors

For instance Plantoid, a blockchain based artwork by Okhaos is a metal sculpture. It is powered by a blockchain-based smart contract that, when tipped with bitcoin by gallery visitors, will trigger the commission of another artwork.

Rob Myers’ Facecoin is an artwork and altcoin. Data visualisations of real-time bitcoin hashes are searched by facial recognition software. It generates portraits as proof of aesthetic work, or ‘Proof of Face’ as Stephan Tual (Slock.it) notes. This work provokes dialogues about value and values because the algorithm decides what constitutes the ‘portrait’.

A snapshot of Rob Myers’ Facecoin, which presents ‘Proof of Face’ data visualisations

The promise of blockchain as a medium, metaphor and distribution platform for these artists is as a decentralised co-ordination technology; allowing people to bypass intermediaries, to organise and co-operate peer-to-peer. At scale, it can help form organisations, products and communities; prompting people to co-create an Internet of Values.

Lead image: Ascribe.io

Source: the Art in the Blockchain blog post was originally posted on the Digital Catapult website

The post Art and the Blockchain appeared first on P2P Foundation.