From Bearer Bonds to the Blockchain: Artistic Perspectives on Digital Money
by aainslie
Bitcoin and the blockchain have generated an enormous amount of press, as well as investment by governments, banks and technology companies. Ruth Catlow of Furtherfield and Ben Vickers of Serpentine Galleries, with the generous support of the Austrian Cultural Forum London organised a fantastic workshop attended by artists, representatives of public and commercial arts organisations, and technologists. The agenda was to consider what the blockchain, a poorly-understood yet politically-charged technology that means many things to many people, might mean for art and artists, and society-at-large.
Motivation
Although our audience had a specifically artistic interest, the discussion around blockchain intertwines economics, technology, and public policy, so I thought it might help to take a step back and start by thinking about money pre-bitcoin. Specifically, I wanted to un-entangle some of the philosophical and historical questions around money; not least because the nature of money itself, and long-standing assumptions in Western…
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aainslie 