DOWNLOAD PRESS RELEASE

Book launch, drinks reception, and discussion.
Max Dovey “Love on the Block”: using blockchain for wedding vows
plus JJ Charlesworth in conversation with editors

Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain is the first book of its kind, intersecting artistic, speculative, conceptual and technical engagements with the the technology heralded as “the new internet”. The book features a range of newly commissioned essays, fictions, illustration and art documentation exploring what the blockchain should and could mean for our collective futures.

This event features talks and conversation by contributors and editors of the publication, and an opportunity to be among the first to purchase the unique print edition.

Artists Re:Thinking The Blockchain
Imagined as a future-artefact of a time before the blockchain changed the world, and a protocol by which a community of thinkers can transform what that future might be, Artists Re:Thinking The Blockchain acts as a gathering and focusing of contemporary ideas surrounding this still largely mythical technology. The full colour printed first edition includes DOCUMENTATION of artistic projects engaged in the blockchain, including key works Plantoid, Terra0 and Bittercoin, THEORISATION of key areas in the global blockchain conversation by writers such as Hito Steyerl, Rachel O’Dwyer, Rhea Myers, Ben Vickers and Holly Herndon, and NEW POETRY, ILLUSTRATION and SPECULATIVE FICTION by Theodorios Chiotis, Cecilia Wee, Juhee Hahm and many more. It is edited by Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, Nathan Jones and Sam Skinner.

Along with a print edition, Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain includes a web-based project in partnership with Design Informatics at University of Edinburgh: Finbook is an interface where readers and bots can trade on the value of chapters included in the book. As such it imagines a new regime for cultural value under blockchain conditions.

This book and surrounding events is produced in collaboration between Torque and Furtherfield, connecting Furtherfield’s Art Data Money project with Torque’s experimental publishing programme. It is supported by an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology and through the State Machines project by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Available from Liverpool University Press, order copies here

CONTACT
Nathan Jones and Sam Skinner
mail@torquetorque.net
07877660150

Social media
@furtherfield

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Artists Re:Thinking The Blockchain
ed. Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, Sam Skinner and Nathan Jones
published by Torque and Furtherfield
in partnership with Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT)
ISBN: 978-0-9932487-5-7
distributed by Liverpool University Press
contact for stockist enquiries: lup@liv.ac.uk

CONTENTS

Foreword by Sam Skinner and Nathan Jones
Introduction by Ruth Catlow

A: documents
FinBook: Literary content as digital commodity – Rory Gianni⍏, Hadi Merpouya*, Dave Murray-Rust⍏, Bettina Nissen⍏, Shaune Oosthuizen⍏, Chris Speed⍏, Kate Symons**
Text as Market – Ami Clarke
Plantoid – Primavera De Filippi
Terra0 – Paul Seidler, Paul Kolling, and Max Hampshire
Critical mining: blockchain and bitcoin in contemporary art by Martín Nadal & César Escudero Andaluz
The Blockchain: Change everything forever by Peter Gomes
Satoshi Oath by Jaya Klara Brekke and Elias Haase
01.01.20 by Kimberley ter Heerdt & Nikki Loef
Role Play Your Way to Budgetary Blockchain Bliss by Pablo Velasco
A Shared Timeline – PWR Studio
Blockchain Future States – Simon Denny (and artist interview)

B: fictions
Flying Under A Neutral Flag – Cecilia Wee
History of Political Operating Systems > Interview with Dr. L. Godord b – Elli Kuruş
All That Happened – Surfatial
Bad Shibe – Rhea Myers and Lina Theodorou
Defixio Nervorum – Theodoros Chiotis
How to Surf – Juhee Hahm

C: theories
If You Don’t Have Bread, Eat Art!: Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms  –  Hito Steyerl
immutabilty mantra  –  Ben Vickers
Blockchain Poetics – Rhea Myers
Love on the Block by Max Dovey
Collections management on the blockchain: A return to the principles of the museum – Helen Kaplinsky
Artists Rights in the Era of the Distributed Ledger – Mark Waugh
Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About the Blockchain* (*But Were Afraid to Ask Mel Ramsden)    – Martin Zeilinger
Does digital culture want to be free? How blockchains are transforming the economy of cultural goods   – Rachel O’Dwyer
Aphantasia – blockchain as medium for art – Bjørn Magnhildøen, Noemata
Interview with Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst – Marc Garrett