Next stop — Osaka: DEVCON5
No rest for the wicked. We are taking over DEVCON5 — this time with a reality check that will manifest into an art experience in the Main Hallway at DEVCON5, October 8th to 11th in Osaka, Japan.
The Department of Decentralization is thrilled to announce that we will be curating the art space (hallway) for DEVCON5.
As art and culture have always been central to our collective, we are really excited to be able to collaborate with DEVCON5 and continue with our intersectional hackartivism[1] at the biggest conference for Ethereum developers.
As with everything else we do, we believe that the exploration of the intersection of technology and art should be championed and presented within these events, via thought-provoking and interesting interventions able to engage the community.
Our road towards this big milestone began in January 2019, when we started the first discussions led by the provocative stance “There is no Such Thing as Blockchain Art”, which after six months of research, concluded in a paper with the same name. Later on, we curated a discussion at CogX in London with people from both art and technology, bringing awareness to this topic in this big conference for emerging technologies. Finally, we just closed our second Culture Room at ETHBerlinZwei, our flagship event, which explored the interplay between the organic and mechanic realms. The exhibition was visited by more than 730 people during the weekend of culture, code, and education.
We are really stoked and honoured to have the chance to bring our message, work, and ethos to the main event in the Ethereum calendar.
The inspiration behind this new DoD exhibition stems from an ever-changing discussion about the climate crisis we are currently in. In these times the medium is becoming equally as important as the message to engage more people in taking an active role in societal change. Through this new project, we invite people to think about the following questions:
Can we as a community help to solve some of the issues stemming from the climate crisis through pushing wider awareness by working on a message able to be grasped by a global audience? And if so, what is the best medium to convey this message? Are the “autonomous versions of nature” that technologists in our ecosystem are proposing the way forward, or do we need to think beyond that notion? In the light of “preparing for the worse” could decentralized and autonomous archiving systems be a sustainable way of preserving what we have, but what we are sadly not taking care of?
We want to raise these questions within the Ethereum community, and have people submit their answers to us. Rather than stating the obvious, we seek to activate them through the emotional attachment to the earth and its inhabitants. Through specifically selected artworks, we want to make the participants of DEVCON5 think about their stance and their surroundings in the ongoing climate crisis, and share their ideas on how this community can contribute to the conversation and the much-needed change.
More info on the artists will follow shortly.
To realise this exhibition, Department of Decentralization is seeking patronage from companies and individuals, who align with our mission and believe in art as a medium for activism. Through your support, we will be able to not only make this art/activism experience possible at DEVCON5, but also continue to fund our work. So far, the Department of Decentralization is a grassroots organization doing research, educational events, supporting communities and technologies on a volunteer basis. The collective is full of new ideas and energies to continue our work, but to do so, we work on securing donations to sustain the organization.
The supporting companies will be included in the promotional material and we are happy to discuss other patronage means. All funds raised will go directly towards the production of this exhibition, and a report on the results and possible follow-up actions.
All donations matter. If you would like to simply donate crypto, please do so to the ETHBerlin Wallet Address — and send us a note to make sure it’s for the arts fund: https://etherscan.io/address/0x82338b1b27cfc0c27d79c3738b748f951ab1a7a0
For further questions or if interested, please contact joinus@ethberlin.com or art@ethberlin.com.
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[1] Hack and art activism
