Tactics&Practice #9: MoneyLab #8
Minting a Fair Society
Ljubljana, 11. May–29. June 2020
Critical thinkers, artists, researchers, activists, and geeks in search of other economies and financial discourses for a fair society.
All along, these have been dark times for the economy, as offshore finance wreaks havoc in the very fabric of cities and communities, and crypto-companies navigate the world in search of their own tax havens. Information leaks from financial paradises have made it clear that the wealthy, influential, and well-connected will still escape taxation. These are the same people turning places like Malta and the Bahamas into luxury apartment zones. At the same time, well-documented Dutch fiscal loopholes cost the world approximately 22 billion euros in lost taxes each year. Corporations like Shell tempt governments with scraps of their ill-gained revenues in exchange for legal residence in anonymous letterboxes. Global business and crypto-speculation have debased national regulations to the competitive logics of an international tax marketplace, and local economies and communities struggle to hold up against privatisation and the mass transformation of jobs to a precarious freelance existence in the gig economy.
Weeks into the corona crisis, it is too early to say which aspects of the global financial system have been thrown into the dustbin of history. Pivotal nation-states are now exploring digital currencies as one tool for post-pandemic stimulus (or austerity). How do the earlier proposals for Universal Basic Income relate to the sudden appearance of helicopter money in some countries? Are the Keynesian money proposals to prop up the Western economies an indication of the end of the neoliberal hegemony? Is the ban on cash during the corona crisis an indication of the arrival of the cashless society?
It is a grim scenario, but perhaps not all is lost. The economy is not – and never was – merely in the hands of faceless corporations and cryptocurrency speculators. MoneyLab explores the imaginaries of artists, researchers, activists, and geeks in search of other possible economies and urgently interrogates a different financial discourse. It has always asked: can we use technology critically to support alternative values of cooperation and “commoning” in a world that is dominated by individualism and competition?
MoneyLab #8, the first-ever in a post-socialist country and the first-ever virtual edition, features examples far from the mainstream media spotlight. It zooms in on the effects of offshore finance and explores counter-experiments in the realms of housing, care work, and blockchain technology. In the fringes, something interesting is happening: blockchain is no longer just another tool for capitalist growth obsessions, and people are realising radical visions for fairly-waged care work, redistributed wealth, equitable social relations, and strong grassroots communities. In our world of vanishing cash, corner-cutting multinationals, and weakened social support structures, can community currencies or self-organised care networks strengthen neighbourhoods? What would fair and social housing look like if it was turned into the cornerstone of the economy? Who is building local systems that can stand up against the financialisation of housing in the global platform economy?
MoneyLab #8 sheds light on radical and alternative strategies for self-organisation and pushes on towards new and collective futures situated in resilient local communities.
Initially planned as an IRL conference in Kino Šiška in Ljubljana, MoneyLab#8 was reformulated during the COVID-19 pandemic as a series of weekly streaming events to be held every Monday at 17:00 CET from 11 May to 29 June.
ML8 Stream #1: Critical Finance Strategies, Three Months into the Corona Crisis
Brett Scott, in conversation with Geert Lovink
Special guests: Iztok Hočevar, Tjaša Pureber, Vuk Ćosić and Rok Kranjc
ML8 Stream #2: Beyond Solutionism in a Post-COVID-19 World
Speaker: Evgeny Morozov (BY)
Moderator: Lenart J. Kučić (SI)
Special guests: Sandra Bašić Hrvatin, Valerija Korošec, Nejc Slukan
ML8 Stream #3: Data Sovereignty and Proximity Tracing
Speaker: Denis ‘Jaromil’ Roio (IT)
Moderator: Domen Savič (SI)
Special guests: Anja Blaj, Andraž Tori, Maja Založnik
ML8 Stream #4: Care: Solidarity is Disobedience
Moderator: Davor Mišković (HR)
Speakers: Pirate Care / Tomislav Medak (HR); Cassie Thornton (CA); Maddalena Fragnito (IT)
Special guests: Majda Hrženjak, Lea Aymard, Maja Ivačič
ML8 Stream #5: Housing: Hacking the Crisis of Home
Moderator: Klemen Ploštajner (SI)
Speakers: Lenart J. Kučić (SI); Forms of Ownership / Vienne Chan (HK/DE); DOMA.CITY / Maksym Rokmaniko (UA), Francesco Sebregondi (IT/FR)
Special guests: Maša Hawlina, Uroš Mikanovič, Maruša Nardoni
ML8 Stream #6: Tax Havens: Normalized Grand Theft
Moderator: Anuška Delić (SI)
Speakers: RYBN.ORG (FR); Demystification Committee (UK/IT)
Special guests: Maruša Babnik, Žiga Perovič, Sebastijan Peterka, Matej Zwitter
ML8 Stream #7: Blockchain: Radicalising the Social Imagination
Moderator: Inte Gloerich (NL)
Speakers: Jaya Klara Brekke (UK); Max Haiven (CA); Martin Zeilinger (GB)
Special guests: Martin Mihajlov, Miha Artnak, Marina Markežič
ML8 Stream #8: Value extraction and the workforce of the cryptocene
Moderator: Aude Launay (FR)
Speakers: Martín Nadal (SP); César Escudero Andaluz (SP); Telekommunisten (CA/UKR); Sašo Sedlaček (SI); Nascent (VB)
Organised and produced by:
Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2020
Curator: Janez Janša
Head of production: Marcela Okretič
Executive producer: Sonja Grdina
Curator assistant: Jana Renée Wilcoxen
Community relations director: Nika Mahnič
Program advisers: Vuk Ćosić, Inte Gloerich, Geert Lovink, Domen Savić
Tehnicians: Valter Udovičić, Matej Marinček
Coordination at Kino Šiška: Anja Zver
Webcast operator: Jan Marin
Web developer: Jaka Železnikar
Visual identity: Federico Antonini, Alessio D’Ellena (superness.info)
Animated graphics: Domen Dimovski
For the series:
Tactics & Practice
In the frame of:
konS ≡ Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art
In collaboration with:
Kino Šiška – Centre for Urban Culture
Institute of Network Cultures / Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
In partnership with:
Rijeka ECoC 2020
Interface Cultures Department / Kunstuniversität Linz
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The project konS – Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art was chosen on the public call for the selection of the operations “Network of Investigative Art and Culture Centres”. The investment is co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia and by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union.