Infrastructures of Consent – Critique through the lens of consent

Workshop by Zsófia Samodai and Julio Linares of Circles (English only)

November 18, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
15 participants capacity
Registration: buchung@bundeskunsthalle.de

What do we wish to say yes to? What do we dare to say no to? How can we use our bodies to learn about our relations ith material objects, other humans and institutions, and how can this knowledge be helpful in building alternatives? The crisis of expertise exists within the very material and institutional conditions that exacerbate the crisis. How could we describe this crisis in terms of agreements and care? Could reckoning with what we want to consent to and who we want to care about aid us to find an adequate framework to re-imagine critique and expertise?

What principles do we wish to ground critique in? What sets of promises and agreements would we like to make in order to have consensual forms of critique? To think about the institutional forms and norms and their recreation might not be enough. How about if we noticed how they make us feel? Who are the we and who is the critique for? How do the institutions and practices we have in place exist in our bodies and not only in our minds? Art institutions create bodily sensations that inspire or restrict the imagination of what is possible. Through slowing down and introducing the question: “Who is it for?”, we start to distinguish taking and receiving from each other. What do institutions take from us? What do they give and pretend to give? Connecting the somatic-emotional to the systemic-institutional will bring participants new perspectives on critique."

Julio Linares is an activist and economic anthropologist from Guatemala, currently exploring the intersection of basic income, direct democracy and p2p technology with the CirclesUBI project in Berlin. He serves as Social Outreach for the Basic Income Earth Network. 

Zsofia Samodai is a heterodox neuroscientist turned somatic practitioner and STSer, working at the intersections of body awareness, consent and science & technology. After studying practices of meditation while living in Taiwan for 10 years, she is currently facilitating interactive, praxis-oriented workshops and developing tools to bring a more consensual and joyful world into being. 

CirclesUBI is an unconditional basic income system for communities. With Circles, people claim the right to a basic income by issuing money into being. Understanding money as a set of promises we make to one another, Circles gives people the equal and unconditional power to issue promises into the world and claim resources. In Circles, people exercise the power to create money, thereby democratizing its creation. Circles is a form of electronic money, which people have the power to issue on a periodic, individual basis, without means-test or work requirement. In order to become an unconditional basic income, to claim enough wealth and be free of wage labor, covering one's basic needs, political and economic organization is needed. This is the work that the Circles Cooperative currently does in Berlin, organizing an open pilot with over 30 businesses. People therefore take the responsibility of issuing promises to one another, without the need to repay it back to a bank or a state. The only prerequisite is access to the internet and that other people in your community trust you in order to enter the system. 

More information
https://joincircles.net/