Rehearsing Social Imaginaries in Blockchain – A workshop

Geert Lovink, Barbara Cueto, Tanya Cruz

Summary
Recently, the decentralized technology blockchain narratives have moved from obscure techno-economic circles to the mainstream art market after a NFT was sold at a Christie’s auction for $69 million. This workshop is a guided debate where the audience will be invited to think through the technology to collectively inquiry into its social potential.
Meetup
English
Conference

Recently, the decentralized technology blockchain narratives have moved from obscure techno-economic circles to the mainstream art market after a Non-Fungible-Token (NFT) was sold at a Christie’s auction for 69 million USD. NFTs, minted on a blockchain, overnight became a speculative object of desire. Record prices could have potentially sparked off a more nuanced conversation but within mainstream discourse NFTs seem to be understood merely as assets that happen to be on a blockchain. Usually, artists working with NFTs neither engage with the affordances of the technology, nor explore new ways of exhibition that go beyond static digital display. This lack of involvement with the blockchain vernacular drastically reduces the critical capacity of NFTs, as they are replicating the traditional mechanisms of scarcity from the art market usually appreciated by consumers.

In this workshop, we will explore how blockchain facilitates vibrant new understandings of economy, politics and social relations. The workshop is a guided debate where the audience will be invited to think through the technology to collectively inquiry into its social potential. With the active participation of the audience, we will think together about the possibilities, dreams and threats of this still nascent technology.