Private: Blockchain Utopia

Verena Hermann / London, England — Okt 24, 2016

Portfolio: verena-hermann_portfolio-1

The next couple of weeks I’m going to critically investigate blockchain* technology by means of analogue techniques, such as action and performance, and document it on a web platform.

Blockchain technology became the metaphor for empowerment, equality and transparency. Beyond its predicted capability of drastically transforming financial markets it has been heralded as »the future of the internet,« even as the universal remedy for the current crisis. The World Wide Web, the underlying structure of this new organizational model (formerly also acclaimed for generating freedom and democracy for all), has been usurped by governance and corporations as the main tool for surveillance and exploitation.
The pre-context of blockchain technology, ‘economy’, applies to any aspects of life /phenomena as it is just a synonym for exchange/interaction.
What would it mean to have an infinite decentralized database, which connects all human endeavour with the machine?
Can decentralisation be equated with the absence of control?

*a decentralized database

Verena Hermann http://anthropotechnik.org/vhermann_cv.pdf
I am a London, UK, based media artist & writer.
My projects are imperfect experiments, assembling reflections of lived experience and excursions into metaphysics and science.
I’m utilizing all kinds of methods, tools and materials, which enables authentic response to the actual state of affairs. This has led to an eclectic output of video, sound and sculptural/installation works.
Currently I’m dabbling in performance art and enquire about the [digital] technological and how it molds socio-economic structures.

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