“Imagine an island not far off the coast of French Polynesia, floating quietly while it absorbs hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in crypto capital. Idyllic animatronic palms made of stainless steel manufactured in Germany and coated in organic coconut husk waft gently in the breeze, while an underwater generator noiselessly converts salt water to a drinkable resource. A backdrop of impossibly green hills glimmer with solar panels coated in a thin layer of hyper-absorbent algae, courtesy of a Swedish start-up whose CEO lives in a villa nestled into the landscape. Welcome to the future of Seasteading.”  Island Mentality by Alice Bucknell,

What Will It Be Like When We Buy An Island (on the blockchain)? is the fifth event in the DAOWO blockchain laboratory and debate series for reinventing the arts.

In previous workshops we have explored developments in the arts ecosystem, impacts on identity, and the complex considerations around “doing good” on the blockchain.

In this Live Action Role Play we embody the values and beliefs of a cast of crypto billionaires to establish infrastructure, communities and culture on four islands, made attractive by their swooning palm trees, sandy beaches and lack of governmental constraints or tax laws.

We join our four islands at pivotal stages in their historic progress. Fabricating the evolution of their communities from real-world events, tendencies and possibilities we will endeavour to establish autonomous worlds whose governance systems and infrastructures give full expression to our shared dreams and nightmares.

Read this report on Rhizome

News reports from four island communities:

2022 NCC News Report: We chip our children for social harmony says Department of Education on Sol

2022 NCC News Report: Phallic buildings proliferate in the new matriarchal island society of Gavdos

2068 NCC News Report: Trouble with the local community in Island Society

2068 NCC News Report – No more bad jobs says Mayor from Island Society

2068 Islands World Summit

 

Live Action Role Play workshop with Ed Fornieles

Goethe Institut London

Click here for images from the workshop

We set out with four communities to their islands with just hopes and dreams. After a year, their problem solving mettle has been tested by unexpected pressures and challenges. Each participant in the LARP takes a position on the ‘board’, established to resolve problems, conflicts and issues encountered by the crypto-islanders. We next join them at the celebration of the 50th year anniversary of the island’s founding to discover what kind of equilibrium has been reached and how has the island treated them.

Finally future theologists explore the significance of the four 2000 year old ‘White Papers’ recently retrieved from the museum vaults. What can they tell us about the genesis stories of the islands and exactly what has happened to those societies?

This workshop is devised by Ed Fornieles with Ben Vickers and Ruth Catlow.

 

Ed Fornieles

Ed Fornieles is an artist whose works are responsive to the movement of information. Fornieles uses film, social media platforms, sculpture, installation and performance to express the interaction of family, relationships, popular memes, language and the subcultures of 21st century experience. His work operates within the logic of immersive simulations, which construct and enact alternative political and social spaces. His projects often involve cultural, social, and infrastructural production, making interventions that reconfigure the viewer’s position and sense of self.