It depends, doesn't it, on what is meant by 'infallible'? They're
corruptible in terms of value and in terms of use; it's the old
use/exchange value conundrums here. They're corruptible because they're
not ideal; a prime number isn't corruptible, but protocols are. What if a
"distortive intervention" comes in the form of nuclear war?
You're postulating an ideality somewhere between engineering and Godel's
neo-platonism I think and I'm not sure that position would hold. These
models exist in a real world of interactions after all.
How are we freed from deceit and usury when blockchains are used for
ransomware payments? There's a difference as well between the "meant to"
in terms of usage of blockchain, and the reality?
The anthropocene desert you describe is brutal in my opinion, allied to
Kristeva's clean and proper body; without ecosystems in depth, without the
dirt of the world, the cleansed future (or so I read it) frightens.
Did you mean Labanotation? That's a good example; the interstice between
Labanotation and the real/grit world of dance is fascinating, amazing!
I'm the first to admit here I don't really know what I'm talking about
since the details of blockchain elude me, as do the claims made for it.
That side, I've been reading what I can; I just don't hold to the utopian
vision that seems to accompany it.
Best!, Alan, and apologies for my ignorance
On Thu, 28 Sep 2017, Rob Myers wrote:
Entities of code and rules are incorruptible and infallible (so it
is said), they are not subject to distortive interventions by
debased human institutions. They have no soul, it is true, but
they also do not weigh on ours. They are Spirographs, not
Stormbringer.
The blockchain's metronymic, reified, transactional model of human
relations is meant to free us from deceit and usury. We are
already homeostats in socioeconomic networks whose restrictions we
notice about as much as a fish notices water. Code at least makes
this explicit.
Plantoid is a way of paying for the creation and exhibition of art
- a difficult and worthwhile problem - in a creative way. If it is
too successful it will end up as the economic-aesthetic equivalent
of grey goo. The anthropocene desert will be filled not with
triffids but with plantoids and the artisans hired by their code
to create their offspring. Maybe these offspring will mutate into
relational artworks that choreograph decorative humanity into
their schemes, multitudes that dance and sway in time to
Lananotation representations of block hashes while wishing that
they hadn't opposed UBI quite so vehemently.
Or perhaps plantoids are simply oases in the contemporary desert
of the real, depicting something of the moment we find ourselves
in between financial crises.
Some of the real plants are in Terra0...
On Thu, 28 Sep 2017, at 12:28 PM, Edward Picot wrote:
Annie,
I love this response! - and I think you've really
latched onto something here. 'Being made of code and
rules is not the same as having a soul... Plantoid
seems to be conservative, reinforcing the
characteristics it started with...' There's a real
sense of claustrophobia and frustration about some of
the Blockchain-based artworks, unquestionably
brilliant though they are, in that although they seem
to be offering a commentary on the shortcomings and
limitations of the Blockchain, they seem at the same
time to be binding us to those shortcomings and
limitations, freezing us into that world, suggesting
that we are all going to be subject to this new
version of reality and unable to escape from it. Yes,
this stuff is creeping into every aspect of our
culture. Yes, we are all going to be touched by it and
influenced by it, directed by it, shaped by it, just
as we are by capitalism, mass marketing and mass
media. But no, it doesn't define us or completely
contain us. We can still be human in spite of it. At
least I hope we can: and I hope that along with
Blockchain art and the like, we can still have an art
that celebrates and explores the bits of existence
that the Blockchain and the like can't comprehend.
Beyond the plantoids there are still real plants.
Edward
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