<nettime> ++Save the Date++MoneyLab #3: Failing Better (Amsterdam, Dec 1/2, 2016)

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

   SAVE THE DATE

   MoneyLab#3: Failing Better

   A collective attempt to fail better with artists, critics and activists
   that are all feeling the pinch.

   Amsterdam, December 1 & 2, 2016

   Organized by the Institute of Network Cultures (HvA)

   More on http://networkcultures.org/moneylab

   Mailinglist: http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/moneylab_listc
   ultures.org

   Introduction

   After Bitcoin forked, and remains in tatters, it is now blockchain
   technology that ignites visions of de-regulated and decentralized
   organization, all the while it is simultaneously being sanitized by
   commercial banks. Meanwhile the sharing and "service" economy lost its
   innocuous veneer and streaming services have failed and continue to
   fold the music industry. Despite the escalation of crowd-funding into
   crowd-equity and platform co-operatives, artists and designers struggle
   to financially support themselves. Meanwhile, the financial mediators
   of the previous centuries continue to drag themselves onward into
   global debt.

   We are failing better, nonetheless. Worker's unions are on the rise and
   numerous collectives are working together to collectively insure their
   own wellbeing and build alternative models of social governance. The
   aspirations of grassroots organizations such as Diem25, that promise to
   liberate social democracy from the stronghold of global finance, are
   gaining momentum across Europe. People's parties such as Podemos and
   15M even neared an electoral majority. This momentum has thrust radical
   economic alternatives into the central stage and governments around
   Europe have begun experimenting with progressive policies such as a
   living working wage and a universal basic income.

   The search for economic forms of governance in the service of the
   commons remains urgent. Issues of trust, scale, distribution and
   ownership remain at the core of developing alternative models of
   economic exchange and governance and need to be addressed. Let's
   prefabricate a perfect storm of untimely thinking and experimental
   engineering in order to interfere directly into hard-core social and
   economic issues.

   Session 1: Global Finance: Failing Better?

   Beyond the culture of celebs, what comes after Ewald Engelen, Thomas
   Piketty, Yanis Varoufakis and David Graeber? How can we build bridges
   between economists and their critique of global finance, neo-liberal
   policies, financialization, shrinking middle classes and the
   ever-growing gap between rich and poor? Can we address the gap between
   the best selling financial book of the year and grass-roots social
   resistance?

   `Global Finance: Failing Better?' addresses the need for a multitude of
   critical strategies that go beyond analysis and step up the game into
   action. As scores of citizens amass in public squares as part of Nuit
   Debout or campaign for political reform with people's parties such as
   Podemos or the Five Star Movement, will the original underlying
   critique against global finance retain its sense of urgency? How has
   popular economic critique propelled or even overshot its evaluation of
   the financial crisis?  Can popular economic literature engage directly
   with the current social movements to become, more than just a
   conversation piece, but a potential manual to reroute the austerity
   economy.

   Session 2: Big Pocket is Watching You!

   The explosion of new forms of alternate currencies and the persistent
   refusal to do away with physical cash indicates growing public concern
   over the way in which electronic monetary exchange enables large scale
   data surveillance. In a world without cash, every payment becomes
   traceable, allowing for unprecedented amounts of data to be collected
   on citizens. As more and more shops and retailers in large cities
   reject cash in favor of electronic money, important issues regarding
   privacy, data and surveillance become central to the future of money.
   These concerns echo wider debates around data and surveillance - the
   Apple vs. FBI backdoor encryption case has highlighted the mounting
   tensions between commercial and governmental data surveillance. The
   financial upheaval and internal reconfiguration of monetary transaction
   provides an optimum moment to discuss the future of money and digital
   banking.

   What alternatives to electronic money can prevent citizen surveillance
   and inspire radical visions of the future of money?

   Session 3: The Music Industry: The Last Dance?

   The music industry is still in repair after the initial disruption of
   digital downloads and streaming sites in the mid 1990s. Traditional
   rights management laws continue to restrict the creation, distribution
   and profitability of music. In addition to this, public performances
   are now monetized with the use of audio recognition technology in music
   venues, turning bars, clubs and festivals into sites of data-based
   economic revenue for major publishers and labels.

   How does this play in the ever-growing festival and club scene? What is
   the vision for a global industry that now relies on counting streaming
   playbacks and selling hand-made band t-shirts? Can the outcry for
   alternatives be met with distribution platforms that disrupt the
   dominant players and reach larger audiences? And how is the club scene
   itself being affected by the ongoing real-estate boom in the
   metropolitan areas, usually seen as the birthplace of new music
   currents?

   Session 4: When Art Mirrors Marx

   Artists are vital to de-constructing how finance and economics have
   affected our collective imagination, and to re-imagine alternatives.
   Artists have been monitoring, tracking and intervening into finance to
   provide new insights and potential escape routes. Moneylab#3 invites
   artists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to present research,
   experiments and interventions into finance.

   `When Art Mirrors Marx' presents a selection of artists that invert and
   disassemble the intrinsic value of art to re-imagine the scope of
   artistic production and distribution. We present works that reflect on
   the endemic characteristics of the 21^st-century economy, and that
   initiate alternative value systems, from designing stock trading
   algorithms, to occupying private banks to eating and digesting of pages
   from `Das Kapital.' What happens when life imitates finance art? Can
   artists' investigations into finance create viable alternatives for the
   masses?

   Session 5: Whose Commons?

   `Whose Commons' is a timely examination of the commons as ideological
   battleground. Amidst a fresh wave of digital initiatives that focus on
   shared collective resources, that range from car-pooling to collective
   farming, the sharing and social support upheld within the commons has
   spilled into commercial ventures that see the virtue of the commons as
   the essence to a better future. As the values of the commons are
   incorporated, manipulated and brandished by both business models and
   co-operatives alike, how should we reflect on and manage our
   relationship to the often-idealized notion of the commons? As
   businesses and co-operations increasingly advance towards
   de-centralized, p-2-p business models what are the core values
   associated with the commons that we want to retain and permeate into
   wider social movements?

   Moneylab#3: Failing Better is scheduled for 1-2 December 2016, again in
   Amsterdam. A two-day symposium will be accompanied by a series of
   workshops from art collectives, designers and activists featuring
   investigations into artist contracts, experiments in digital
   publishing, artist revenue platforms, p-2-p co-operatives, and
   experiments in universal basic income.

   If you want to contribute to the program, please contact Max Dovey
   <max@networkcultures.org>.


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