DAOWO

In 2016 Ruth Catlow and Ben Vickers led the symposium, Blockchain’s Potential in the Arts, hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum. This symposium sought to bring together individuals from across the arts nationally to highlight and discuss the potential future impact of blockchain and encourage early engagement. This gathering and the activities that followed then led to the initiation of this series, intended as a form of active engagement in these rapidly unfolding technical and socio-economic developments. ‘What seems to emerge is a potential for blockchain to devolve mechanisms and processes for funding artists, as well as allowing various players in the arts ecosystem – artists, collectors, viewers, curators, and others – to define how they want to interact, with the possibility that sharing and artwork almost merge, or at least become as two sides of the same coin.’ – U. Kanad Chakrabarti The programme is devised by Ruth Catlow and Ben Vickers in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut London, and the State Machines programme. Its title is inspired by a paper written by artist, hacker and writer Rob Myers called DAOWO – Decentralised Autonomous Organisation With Others. The Blockchain – Change Everything Forever, 2016, a short film by Furtherfield, in collaboration with Digital Catapult. Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain, 2017, published by Furtherfield and Torque editions, distributed by Liverpool University Press. Events will be hosted at the Goethe-Institut, London and Drugo More, Rijeka.