with Sarah Grant and Regina Harsanyi.
In the earliest days of any emerging technology, one can count on a handful of artists who choose to utilize said technology as a tool or aspect of medium in their artwork. Despite popular belief, the history of artists working in Dweb does not begin in 2018 or even 2009. As the internet in itself is a decentralized network, artists have been creating artworks that behave within these systems for decades.
Participants will learn why artists have been drawn to making work with and about decentralized networks and who helped to shape the evolving aesthetics and discourse around artwork related to these systems, utilizing everything from peer-to-peer file sharing networks of the late ‘90s to blockchain. Finally, participants will learn how artists use decentralized tooling for autonomy and why it may or may not have been successful.
- Understand the depth and breadth of artworks created with or about decentralized networks.
- Walk away with key examples of artworks that engage with decentralization from the 1970s to the present.
- Understand movements in the arts related to decentralized systems, led by artists and art advocates.
- A computer or device with Zoom installed, with camera and microphone.
- Notebook (tangible or virtual)
- An interest in the history of modern and contemporary art.
- None
- agoraXchange Website & Discussino Forum by Natalie Bookchin commissioned by Tate Modern
- Namecoin Bitcoin based key/value registration
- Artblocks Generative Art Platform
- Dadaglobe Anthology of Dada movement by Tristan Tzara on Wikipedia
- The Pirate Cinema Fragmentary p2p Video Installation by Disnovation.org
- Send/Receive Satellite Network initiated by Keith Sonnier and Liza Bear
- Monegraph Founded in 2014 and invented the NFT concept
- Jonas Lund Token Distributed Decentralized Autonomous Artistic Practice by Jonas Lund
- Tonic Curated Generative Art Platform
- ERC-721 Non-Fungible Token Standard on Ethereum.org
- La Plissure du Texte (The Pleating of the Text) by Roy Ascott
- CryptoPunks Iconic NFT Collection on Wikipedia
- alpha 3.4 Network Infrastructure Performance by tsunamii.net collective on Rhizome's Net Art Anthology
- The Thing Artistic BBS Community founded by Wolfgang Staehle on Rhizome's Net Art Anthology
- Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain Torque and Furtherfield
- Feral File Curated Digital Art Publishing Platform Founded by Casey Reas and Bitmark
- Community Memory First BBS System on Wikipedia
- Dark matter objects Technologies of capture and things that can't be held Compiled by Neta Bomani
- BACKSPACE Net Lounge & Medialab London established by James Stevens
- Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future by Ben Tarnoff Published by Verso Books
- Netless Alternative Data Exchange Strategy by Danja Vasiliev
- Verse Curated Contemporary Art NFT Platform
- Neptune Frost Drected by Anisia Uzeyman & Saul Williams
- left.gallery Artist run NFT Gallery by Harm Jan van den dorpel
- Netvvorth Net art auction house by Daniel Temkin with TRANSFER Gallery
- Digital Demands Toward Decolonial Feminist Futures Brittney Cooper
- Futura Tropica Decentralized local networks by Juan Pablo Garcia Sossa & Sarah Grant
- Captivating Technology Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life Ruha Benjamin
- CryptoKitties Early Ethereum collectible game Created by Dapper Labs on Wikipedia
- Mail Art on Wikipedia