Program of White Papers on Dissent: A Public Program on the Politics & Poetics of Blockchain
October 22-24, 2021, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (NL)
More information on the program plus background texts can be found here: www.whitepapersondissent.xyz
White Papers on Dissent is a discursive programme dedicated to the investigation of blockchain as a tool for radical imagination. Though panel discussions, artist talks, participatory events, and a podcast it aims to collectively practice the making of the world otherwise, thinking through the technology to rehearse new social and political imaginaries.
White Papers on Dissent moves away from the economic discourse surrounding blockchain to understand the technology as a social apparatus. Through panel discussions, participatory events, artist talks and a podcast, it examines how blockchain can articulate new ways of organising in a community circumventing hegemonic economic principles like the accumulation of capital and the focus on productivity. And, thus, reformulate the notion of value beyond the market. In this way, the project investigates how the particular characteristics of the technology can potentially re-address power structures and create alternative forms of governance adapted to the shared goals and wishes of a community. Therefore, the discursive project explores technology as a tool to concoct new elsewheres and otherwises: new forms of utopia with a biopolitical production adjusted to the characteristics and desires of the post-digital society.
White Papers on Dissent looks into blockchains through two complementary angles: the politics within the technology and its aesthetic experimentations. On the one hand, it delves into how the different uses of the technology develop of new political imaginaries, forms of subversion and new forms of digital activism. On the other hand, it explores how artists working with blockchains give rise to new forms of aesthetic resistance. they become rehearsals of the not-yet that formulate new meanings of social structures and prepare new spaces of autonomy.
Program
Friday 22nd of October, 2021
14:30-15:00 Introduction to Blockchain for Social Change
Barbara Cueto, curator of the project will introduce White Papers on Dissent, and talk about the possibilities of reframing blockchain into a tool for social change
15:00-15:30 Artist Talk ReUnion
Interview with YIN Aiwen, designer and leader of ReUnion Network, which generates long-term P2P care contracts and relationship-driven cryptocurrencies, helping people building bottom-up social organizations.
15:45-16:15 Artist Talk Black Swan
Interview with Black Swan, a Berlin-based collective pursuing horizontal and decentralised approaches to the traditional art world templates for art making.
16:30-18:00 Panel Discussion Blockchains & Governance
This panel navigates focusing on how artists and designers are developing new forms of social organization using blockchain, and how the technology can orientate their meaning with non-capitalist points of identification.
Participants: Christopher Kulendran Thomas (RadicalXMarkets), Maksym Rokmaniko (DOMA), Gary Zhexi Zhang
Saturday 23rd of October
13:30-13:45 Talk Welcome Words by Barbara Cueto
13:45-14:15 Interview Recorded Blockchains & Affects
It aims to expose the affective qualities of blockchains, and its potential affects in the word(s)-making strategies in technologically mediated communities.
Participants: Daphne Dragona, Shintaro Miyazaki
14:30-16:00 Panel Discussion Blockchains & Commons
This panel explores how blockchains can support the development of a new of a new generation of self-governed, economically sustainable commons-oriented communities using blockchain.
Participants: Geert Lovink (Institute for Network Cultures), David Rozas (P2P Models), Saraswathi Subbaraman (Circles UBI)
16:00-16:30 Artist Talk Allie Rutherford
This artist talk will delve into the practice of Allie Rutherford, about feminist economies and the practice of blockchain in a community space
16:30-18:00 Panel Discussion Blockchain & Digital Activism
This panel envisages blockchain as a tool to voice dissent.
Participants: Emiliano Treré, Larisa Blazic, Balázs Bodó
10:30-19:00 Hackathon The Assets
A nine hour live-action hackathon about the ontologies of value by the a Berlin-based collective Black Swan, who pursues horizontal and decentralised approaches to the traditional art world templates for art making (Registration Required)
Sunday 24th of October
12:00-14:00 Workshop String Figures
String Figures is a workshop by Ailie Rutherford dedicated to reveal the inextricable threads that connect us all. Registration Required
14:00-18:00 Game “On Liquid dependencies: What does a decentralised, caring society look like?”
The collective Liquid Dependencies Theory will lead a game dedicated to construct a commons-based society grounded on long-term care relationships.
Registration
Registration is encouraged but not mandatory, unless you would like to take part in the workshops or participatory events, which need registration before 8th of October. You could register in as many event as you would like a day.
Please bring your vaccination certificate or a test no longer that 24 hours.
If you have any questions, write us at: hello@whitepapersondissent.xyz
Address
Van Abbemuseum, Stratumsedijk 2, 5611 ND Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
About the curator
The curator of White Papers on Dissent is Barbara Cueto. She is interested in the intersection of activism, new technologies and contemporary art. She is fascinated with how decentralised technologies are prompting new social constructions that compose new political and economic infrastructures, and how artists rehearse these imaginaries in their practices, giving us a glimpse in a world post-crisis.
She is the digital curator of C/O Berlin and a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. She has convened and curated projects internationally at institutions like MMOMA Moscow for the 6th Moscow Biennale for Young Art in Russia, Asian Culture Centre in Gwangju and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul in South Korea, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Bétonsalon in Paris, Marres in Maastricht, Impakt Festival in Utrecht, and de Appel arts centre in Amsterdam, all in the Netherlands. And has been resident at Tokyo Wondersite in Japan, Rupert in Lithuania, and Cité des Arts in Paris.