The thematic cycle "Exchange Values" revolves around the question of what has what value in society and why, and how the dynamics of value formation have changed. In particular, it is about the opportunities of blockchain technology for new models of participation.

STUDIO BONN. Discourse in the Bundeskunsthalle

Exchange Values
CONTRACTS FOR EARTH

Wednesday, 15 June 7 p.m.
live in the Forum and streamed on www.studiobonn.io
€10 / concessions €5 incl. VRS
Advance booking through Bonnticket
The event will be held in English and French.

with
JULIA WATSON
CATPC (Ced’Art Tamasala und Mathieu Kasiama with Renzo Martens)
YOUSSEF NASSEF

Chair: Kolja Reichert
In English and French with simultaneous translation

Within a mere two hundred years, the capitalist way of running the economy has revealed itself as unsustainable: it is destroying its own ecological and social foundations. Indigenous economies, on the other hand, have worked for millennia – and are increasingly being discussed as solutions for coping with climate change. Studio Bonn presents three models of global cooperation that combine sustainability and social justice.

The design expert Julia Watson, author of Lo-TEK. Design by Radical Indigenism, Taschen 2021, has researched indigenous architectures all over the world. To ensure that the transfer of knowledge does not lead to one-sided exploitation, she has developed a new business model: An oral smart contract, developed with experts in indigenous law, allows companies that use indigenous knowledge to share profits with the indigenous communities that originated it via blockchain. The initiative, named The Symbiocene, is currently being presented in the exhibition Our Time on Earth at the Barbican in London

The diplomat and computer scientist Youssef Nassef has coordinated resilience work in the United Nations system for 23 years, after having served as a diplomat and climate change negotiator for ten years before that. Disillusioned with the impact of the post industrial-revolution war on the biosphere, he and the new Bonn-based UN initiative Resilience Frontiers are using the knowledge of writers, film directors and data analysts to gear our attitudes, thoughts and actions towards the impending destruction of the planet.

On a former palm oil plantation in Lusanga, Congo, Ced’Art Tamasala and Mathieu Kasiama and the Congolese Plantation Workers’ Art League (Cercle d’art des travailleurs de plantation congolaise, CATPC) engage with the history of the colonial exploitation of palm oil and cocoa plantations. CATPC’s chocolate sculptures have been exhibited at the SculptureCenter in New York and elsewhere. The day before the Studio Bonn event, at Art Basel, CATPC and artist Renzo Martens will sell 300 NFTs of a Diviner’s Figure carved in 1931 during the Pende uprising against Belgian colonial rule and now preserved at the Virginia Museum of Art. The proceeds will be used to buy back land and revitalise cultural traditions and sustainable agriculture. In the documentary series Plantations and Museums, Tamasala and Mathieu explore the history of the sculpture and of cultural exploitation in general.

Abb.: Film still from White Cube, Renzo Martens. Copyright © Human Activities, 2020
CATPC members (from left) Olele Mulela Mabamba, Huguette Kilembi, Mbuku Kimpala, Jeremie Mabiala, Jean Kawata, Irene Kanga, Ced’art Tamasala and Matthieu Kasiama

Glossary: Blockchain, NFT & Co.

Blockchain
A decentralized collective account book that allows money transactions without banks or notaries. All transactions are publicly visible. Once entered, it can never be changed. Great hopes are pinned on this technology for a democratic and more effective financial system. But it is also under criticism: because of the high energy consumption, the large price fluctuations and the more difficult control by states. There are countless blockchains, the best known being the Bitcoin blockchain (since 2009) and the Ethereum blockchain (since 2015), which also allows software applications and NFTs.

Wallet
The digital wallet on the blockchain that stores wealth in cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

NFT (Non Fungible Token)
A unique blockchain entry that can serve as a certificate of ownership for both digital and analog assets. Millions of euros are sometimes paid for digital art, memes, pieces of music or sports trading cards provided with NFTs. Even the Uffizi Gallery and the Vienna Belvedere have sold photographs of works in their collections as NFTs. See also STUDIO BONN: TAUSCHWERTE: Who owns the art? with a.o. Eike Schmidt, the director of the Uffizi. ENS addresses are also guaranteed by an NFT.

ENS (Ethereum Name Service)
A publicly visible address that can be linked to a website or wallet. For example, wallet addresses look like this: 0xFC25EF3F5B8A186398338A2ADA86715FBA2D695E. ENS addresses, on the other hand, look something like this: bundeskunsthalle.eth. ENS addresses are an important building block for Web 3.

Smart Contract
An algorithm running on the blockchain that automatically distributes certain profit shares on certain incoming payments. Blockchain-based software is built from smart contracts.

DAO (Dezentrale Autonome Organisation)
Associations of people who vote anonymously to jointly manage assets or organizations. The PleasrDao bought an NFT from Edward Snowden. The CityDAO is planning a city in the US state of Wyoming. Wyoming was the first legislature in 2021 to legally put DAOs on an equal footing with corporations and NGOs.

Web 3
When we create, share and comment on content in the so-called Web 2.0 as we know it today, it is usually via platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. They analyze and sell our data and can control our revenue sharing or block content or accounts as they wish. In Web 3, users network directly on the blockchain and build their own networks and platforms. On the one hand, this promises co-determination, greater innovation and artistic freedom. On the other hand, this is accompanied by an increased financialization of social relationships: the like is replaced by a transfer.

STUDIO BONN. Listening to the Future

Exchange Values
WHO CONTROLS THE BUNDESKUNSTHALLE? CAST YOUR VOTE!
Blockchain vs. the state: Hito Steyerl has occupied the Bundeskunsthalle and is producing a new work there with the audience.
An evening about the future of the public, culture and its institutions.

Here you can register to vote: www.strikedao.com 

Wednesday, 16 March 2022, 7 p.m.
Live in the Forum (admission till 6.55 p.m.) & livestreamed
Tickets: €10 / conc. €5 incl. VRS via Bonnticket for participation in the forum

On July 15, 2021, the artist Hito Steyerl declared the Bundeskunsthalle occupied at STUDIO BONN. She had registered the address of the Bundeskunsthalle on the Ethereum blockchain and thus controlled it via NFT. (See the conversation with Hito Steyerl, Joseph Vogl and Ville Haimala here). With this satirical action, Hito Steyerl demonstrated how arbitrary ownership claims are in the booming market for digital certificates of ownership (NFTs). By "minting" an entire institution as an NFT, Steyerl simultaneously got serious about the anarchist utopia of blockchain, which promises to distribute control of money and culture from the hands of gatekeepers into the hands of the masses.

But how democratic is the blockchain really? And is the Bundeskunsthalle really that undemocratic? On March 16, centralized institution and decentralized governance, representative democracy and anarchy will show what they are really capable of. Afterwards, Hito Steyerl and the Department of Decentralization will be in Bonn let the audience vote on the future of the Bundeskunsthalle, thanks to a specially developed software.

Three administrative models compete against each other: Managing Director Oliver Hölken explains how the Bundeskunsthalle works. The collective Department of Decentralization shows how blockchain could allow for increased co-design by the public and artists. And the collective Other Internet designs a model for more transparency regarding money and resources. The audience is invited to join in the discussion and ask questions.

A website that will be launched in the evening allows 100 guests in the room and on the stream to register (more are not possible for technical reasons). Each of them can distribute four votes among the three options. This method of "quadratic voting" is also a new form of voting that allows for more differentiated democratic participation.

What consequences the vote will have is still open. But one thing is certain: a new collective work of art. For the software will produce a live recut of Hito Steyerl's work "Strike" (2010), which has been in the Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany since 2015, based on the distribution of votes. The result, "StrikeDAO," will be purchased by the Federal Collection and displayed in the exhibition of its new acquisitions at the Bundeskunsthalle from May 7, 2022. Hito Steyerl thus also decentralizes her own work.

Everything too complicated? Read our glossary. And come to STUDIO BONN, get involved and ask questions. If you've long wanted to understand the cryptic world of blockchain, which could fundamentally change the way we live together, here's your chance.

Hito Steyerl uses the latest technologies of control and surveillance as artistic tools. Her video installations and essays have made her one of the world's most influential artists.

Department of Decentralization (DoD) is a collective of individuals working on Decentralized Open Source and the intersection between such technologies and art.
From its inception, the DoD has focused on research around blockchain and arts, as well as trying to establish relations between the hacker and the creative communities and their cultures. DoD developed the voting tool for this evening with Tim Daubenschütz and Lea Filipowicz. María Paula Fernández, Stina Gustafsson, and Mary Elizabeth McCarthy are traveling from Berlin.

Toby Shorin, Sam Hart, and Laura Lotti represent Other Internet, an applied research organization. They study and build social technology and advise organizations on decentralized coordination. An overview of their projects can be found here.

Oliver Hölken has been the new Managing Director of the Bundeskunsthalle since August 2021. The graduate economist has held various management positions in the administration of Koelncongress GmbH since 2003.

Glossary: Blockchain, NFT & Co.

Blockchain
A decentralized collective account book that allows money transactions without banks or notaries. All transactions are publicly visible. Once entered, it can never be changed. Great hopes are pinned on this technology for a democratic and more effective financial system. But it is also under criticism: because of the high energy consumption, the large price fluctuations and the more difficult control by states. There are countless blockchains, the best known being the Bitcoin blockchain (since 2009) and the Ethereum blockchain (since 2015), which also allows software applications and NFTs.

Wallet
The digital wallet on the blockchain that stores wealth in cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

NFT (Non Fungible Token)
A unique blockchain entry that can serve as a certificate of ownership for both digital and analog assets. Millions of euros are sometimes paid for digital art, memes, pieces of music or sports trading cards provided with NFTs. Even the Uffizi Gallery and the Vienna Belvedere have sold photographs of works in their collections as NFTs. See also STUDIO BONN: TAUSCHWERTE: Who owns the art? with a.o. Eike Schmidt, the director of the Uffizi. ENS addresses are also guaranteed by an NFT.

ENS (Ethereum Name Service)
A publicly visible address that can be linked to a website or wallet. For example, wallet addresses look like this: 0xFC25EF3F5B8A186398338A2ADA86715FBA2D695E. ENS addresses, on the other hand, look something like this: bundeskunsthalle.eth. ENS addresses are an important building block for Web 3.

Smart Contract
An algorithm running on the blockchain that automatically distributes certain profit shares on certain incoming payments. Blockchain-based software is built from smart contracts.

DAO (Dezentrale Autonome Organisation)
Associations of people who vote anonymously to jointly manage assets or organizations. The PleasrDao bought an NFT from Edward Snowden. The CityDAO is planning a city in the US state of Wyoming. Wyoming was the first legislature in 2021 to legally put DAOs on an equal footing with corporations and NGOs.

Web 3
When we create, share and comment on content in the so-called Web 2.0 as we know it today, it is usually via platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. They analyze and sell our data and can control our revenue sharing or block content or accounts as they wish. In Web 3, users network directly on the blockchain and build their own networks and platforms. On the one hand, this promises co-determination, greater innovation and artistic freedom. On the other hand, this is accompanied by an increased financialization of social relationships: the like is replaced by a transfer.

STUDIO BONN. Listening to the Future

Exchange Values
TO WHOM DOES ART BELONG?

Saturday, 20 November 2021, 7.00 pm
Live in the Forum and livestreamed

Part of the symposium The Public Role of Private Collections

Please note: Unfortunately, Chus Martínez cannot take part for health reasons.

What connects Renaissance princely portraits with digital art and NFTs? How do forms of collecting differ in different forms of society? How do decentralized collectives challenge museums, and what new concepts of art do they make conceivable? Is the accumulation of art treasures still in keeping with the times?   Studio Bonn moderator Kolja Reichert discusses these questions with Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi in Florence, the artist Harm van den Dorpel as well as curator and professor Clémentine Deliss.

As director of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Eike Schmidt is in charge of the very origins of private art collecting. During the NFT boom in spring 2021, the Uffizi sold a digital copy of Michelangelo’s Tondo Doni. In an interview with the business newspaper Handelsblatt, Schmidt recently commented that ‘very soon the far more interesting dialogues will no longer take place in museums or galleries, but in the metaverse.’

Harm van den Dorpel has been dealing with certificates of ownership for digital art for years. He recently sold off all the works of the Left Gallery, which he had founded, thereby securing some unexpected income for himself and his fellow artists. He is currently advising a group of Dutch collectors, whose collections date back to the 17th century, on the possibilities of blockchain-based DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations).

Clémentine Deliss is Global Humanities Professor of History of Art, University of Cambridge (2021-2022) and Associate Curator of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, where she directs the Metabolic Museum-University. Her practice crosses the borders of contemporary art, curatorial experimentation, and critical anthropology. Between 2010–2015, she directed the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt instituting a new lab for post-ethnographic research. She was a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study Berlin and has taught art theory and curatorial practice at the Ecole nationale supérieur Paris-Cergy, Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, and the Hamburg University of the Arts. Her book “The Metabolic Museum” is published by Hatje Cantz in co-production with KW (2020) and in Russian translation with Garage Publishing (2021).

TO WHOM DOES ART BELONG? is the second iteration of Studio Bonn in the series devoted to the subject of ‘Exchange Values’, which began in July with Crypto-Capitalism with Hito Steyerl, Joseph Vogl and Ville Haimala. With Exchange Values, Studio Bonn asks what is of value in society? How much is it worth and why? And how have the dynamics of value formation changed? The panel takes a closer look at the opportunities of blockchain technology for new models of participation.

STUDIO BONN. Listening to the Future

Exchange Values
CRYTPO-CAPITALISM (English with German interpretation)
July 15, 8.15pm GMT-1, Live in the Forum of the Bundeskunsthalle

The craze around crypto art and NFTs (non-fungible tokens, i.e. digital certificates of ownership) blurs the boundaries of culture, economy and politics. Does blockchain technology offer ways out of parasitic platform capitalism, in which all users feed the ledgers of tech gigants? Or will it lead to even greater inequality and the complete financialization of human relationships? Artist Hito Steyerl, the cultural scientist Joseph Vogl and the musician Ville Haimala, one half of the duo Amnesia Scanner, discuss the opportunities and risks of a decentralised internet for the arts and democracy.

HITO STEYERL uses the latest control and surveillance technologies as artistic tools. Her highly alert video installations and essays have made her one of the world’s most influential contemporary artists and theorists.

In his book “Kapital und Ressentiment” (C.H. Beck 2021), the philosopher and literary scholar JOSEPH VOGL continues his investigation of the financial industry and shows how its alliance with platform corporations has turned populism into a lucrative business model.

VILLE HAIMALA’s band Amnesia Scanner (with Martti Kalliala) creates sublime, floating stills of information overload full of contradictory signals. Haimala has worked with various artists, for example with Anne Imhof on her current exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.