Reorganizing Artworlds
This talk revisits the thorny relation between art, finance and crypto in light of the relative maturation of the blockchain ecosystem. Looking at recent examples of cryptoart and how they engage specifically with DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs, it reflects on the opportunities and challenges that blockchains provide toward a project of ‘reorganizing artworlds’.
This talk revisits the thorny relation between art, finance and crypto in light of the relative maturation of the blockchain ecosystem and against the backdrop of the ever-increasing financialization and precariatization of the cultural sphere. Amidst the recent NFT renaissance, accompanied by the rise of yield farming, DAOs, and meme coins – and also prohibitive transaction fees, network congestion problems, environmental externalities, clunky interfaces, spectacular hacks and governance disasters – I reflect on the opportunities and challenges that blockchains provide for alternative forms of organizing by looking at recent examples of cryptoart and drawing on my own experience with Black Swan and The Sphere.
Laura Lotti
Laura Lotti investigates the relations between technological, economic and cultural systems, with a focus on the affordances of blockchains and the role they play in cultural production. She is a researcher at Other Internet, where she collaboratively explores emerging dynamics in networked cultures. She co-founded Black Swan, an experiment in organizing interdependent artworlds developed at Trust. She collaborates with The Sphere, an initiative building a digital infrastructure for self-organization in the performing arts.