[NetBehaviour] The Situationist Blockchain

Wed Dec 22 14:56:39 UTC 2021

The Excavations project looks delicious!

And the Luttecoin video is sooo good! Evocative, stirring and beautifully
produced.

The project does give me a powerful pang though as I would love to see a
Situationist critique of the crypto scene that actually detourned the scene
and I'm not sure this is there yet.

Situationism rejected all art that separated itself from politics. I feel
this is still somewhat distant from the political machinery of crypto.

I wish it were more actionable. By which I mean I wish it was showing me
how an engagement, hack or critique of the crypto-scene can build
solidarity to bring on the actual "bricking". I want to be able to see the
mechanism by which we will gather around the provocation and bring it
about. Otherwise, it's somehow safe, in a separate domain.

The moment when I felt this strongest was on the governance page
https://www.luttecoin.com/governance which led me to the "invest" page both
of which used the same hollowed-out language found in generic crypto and
NGO messaging. "Freedom to Dream" and "Make a Difference". I was so curious
to see how you were going to dig into the economic or governance
propositions being developed across the political spectrum in the
crypto-scene.  But it doesn't really go beyond irony.

Situationism was about praxis, about actually changing culture.
I can't wait for this to happen with the Situationist Blockchain Foundation
- is this what you hope for Eryk? Can you share any more about how it will
be funded and governed?

So, to shill my own coin (as they say;)... I'd love it if you and other
NBers wanted to join us for this conference I'm co-curating with Penny
Rafferty at HDK in Munich in January. It's called *Radical Friends- the DAO
Summit for Decentralisation of Power and Resources in the Artworld*
https://hausderkunst.de/en/events/radical-friends-dao-summit There IS a lot
more interesting and critical work and play developing now and it would be
great to build more connections and solidarity.

Thanks for sharing Eryk!

Warmly
Ruth

On Wed, 22 Dec 2021, 01:02 Mez Breeze via NetBehaviour, <
netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

> ...*head nods in approval*...
>
> On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 4:09 PM Eryk Salvaggio via NetBehaviour <
> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>> Wanted to share a new piece of work created for an art & research
>> residency, “Excavations: Governance Archeology for the Future of the
>> Internet,” created by UCBoulder and King’s College, London:
>>
>>
>> https://excavations.digital/
>>
>>
>> The goal was to research pre-digital forms of governance and imagine
>> adapting them to contemporary online governance structures.
>>
>>
>> Our proposal was to study the Situationist International and attempt to
>> reconcile the anarchic stance with protocols and ideologies around
>> cryptocurrencies. The result is The Situationist Blockchain, or LutteCoin:
>>
>>
>> http://LutteCoin.com
>>
>>
>> ++++
>>
>>
>> From the exhibition website:
>>
>>
>> ++++
>>
>>
>> We propose a decentralized peer-to-peer Situationist blockchain. The
>> Situationist International was a French anarchist movement inspired by
>> surrealism, Dada, and libertarian Marxism. They proposed that we navigate
>> the world through a "mystifying illusion" of spectacles present in
>> advertising, films -- even vacations and leisure -- that consolidates
>> control in the name of economic productivity. This is true on its face: we
>> spend hours of "free" time on social networks, for example, turning that
>> leisure into data which is collected and sold by those providing us with
>> "leisure." This is, fundamentally, an employee relationship being given
>> freely to corporations. UX interfaces and digital interactions extend the
>> spectacle, rewarding users with illusions in exchange for distracting them
>> from the ways they wish to actually live.
>>
>>
>> Abandoning the spectacle of economic productivity, our “Proof of Non-Work
>> Consensus Protocol” turns devices into an otherwise useless object, or
>> “brick.” Users, liberated from the spectacle of electronic interfaces,
>> pursue other dreams. Meanwhile, the devices mine and create
>> cryptocurrencies only to be immediately burned. The devices are essentially
>> frozen and interfaces made inaccessible. The CPU power processes at full
>> capacity, and cannot be turned off. Eventually, they burn out, and with it,
>> so does any currency it has produced. This perfects the process of
>> automating human leisure, mining and destroying wealth in an endless parody
>> of economics.
>>
>>
>> ++++
>>
>>
>> There is also a write up of the research, included as a white paper for
>> the “cryptocurrency” we’re pitching, which explores the relationship we’ve
>> identified between financialization, the seductive allure of “liberatory”
>> cryptocurrencies, and the spectacle of user interfaces under surveillance
>> capitalism:
>>
>>
>>
>> https://static1.squarespace.com/static/615ba1842a6b1371238ebc60/t/6196a151193b52305fabe677/1637261649657/LutteCoin.pdf
>>
>>
>> I welcome any feedback from the NetBehavior community on this project!
>>
>>
>>
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>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
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>>
>
>
> --
> | mezbreezedesign.com
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>
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