The printing press was at the centre of William Morris’s studio, factory and social activism - an instrument for the creation of both beauty and radical knowledge. In his home borough, HSCB’s participatory money printing builds on this legacy. Using traditional print processes and community participation we create handcrafted currency that sheds light on and questions our current debt fuelled system. In this century the power of the press is extended as social media and digital technologies such as blockchain open up new distribution and funding channels beyond traditional, often elitist and conservative models. This event explores cultural agency and examines tactile and technological applications of art as a meaningful and creative force in society - contributing to a toolkit for building a beautiful, provocative DIY uprising.
FEATURING:
JEREMY GILBERT. Professor of Cultural Rand Political Theory at UEL and has written widely on politics, music, and contemporary culture. Recent publications include the translation of Maurizio Lazzarato's Experimental Politics and the book Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism. He is editor of the journal New Formations and writes regularly for the British press and think tanks such as IPPR and Compass. He is an advisor to and participant in a range of ongoing projects such as The World Transformed and the New Economy Organisers Network and maintains a lifelong commitment to public education outside the academy, currently hosting Culture, Power, Politics, a series of free open seminars and lectures.
RAYMOND WILLIAMS FOUNDATION is a charity whose trustees aim to continue the writer and cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ 'Long Revolution’ and commitment to adult education and a learning society."I've often defined my own social purpose as the creation of an educated and participating democracy.”
OPTIMISTIC FOUNDATION – BANK JOB art, film, community and money makers.
JOE TODD. CO FOUNDER THE WORLD TRANSFORMED. An organisation hosting interesting, exciting and unexpected political events.
MAX DOVEY . Artist, researcher and producer exploring data, value, crpyto-currencies and blockchains and making installations/performances about the financializaton of data. He is an affiliated researcher at the Institute of Network Cultures and organised a series of conferences called MoneyLab about interventions with finance. He regularly writes for Open Democracy, Imperica & Furtherfield. His work has been performed at Ars Electronica Festival, Art Rotterdam & many U.K based music festivals.
RUTH CATLOW is an artist and curator working with emancipatory network cultures, practices, and poetics. She is codirector of Furtherfield, cofounded with Marc Garrett in 1996, an artist-led organization for labs, debates, and exhibitions around critical questions in arts, technology, and society. Furtherfield’s "Art Data Money" program seeks to develop new economies and a commons for arts in the network age, and to cultivate diversity in the blockchain development space. Exhibitions include The Human Face of Cryptocurrencies (2015) & NEW WORLD ORDER (2017) now touring internationally via the State Machines European collaboration. Catlow made the short film The Blockchain—Change Everything For Ever (2016) with Pete Gomes. She co-edited Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchainwith Torque Editions & Liverpool University Press (2017), commissioned the blockchain-based artwork Clickmine by Sarah Friend and devised the ongoing "DAOWO" workshop series with Ben Vickers (Serpentine Galleries) and in collaboration with Goethe-Institut London (2017– 2018). Catlow was named in a list of 100 women co-creating the P2P society by the Foundation for P2P Alternatives.