7 6 # January February 2015 / WE GROW MONEY WE EAT MONEY WE SHIT MONEY MONETARY ALTERNATIVE/CRYPTO-CURRENCIES/FISCAL DISOBEDIENCE VIRTUAL CURRENCIES/TIME BANKS/POST-INTERNET ECONOMY www.digitalmcd.com DOM: 9.9€- BEL/LUX: 9.9€- CH: 14FS - CAN 14.99$ca - D: 10.50€- N CAL/S: 1250cfp - POL/S: 1450cfp we grow money/we eat money/we shit money EDITORIAL THE COUNTERFEITERS Our relationship with money is complex, to say the least… On this side of the Atlantic, we preserve an almost aristocratic modesty when it comes to talking about our income, whether we are employee or heir. On the other hand, obeying the laws of attraction / repulsion, money is a powerful source of motivation and inspiration. Like sex (just as an example), there is no taboo regarding its artistic representation and interpretation. And the crisis—assuming that it is indeed a crisis and not a structural element of our economic model—seems to spark artists’ imagination. As we can see from the panorama of initiatives collected by Shu Lea Cheang (guest editor for this issue), along with consulting from Annick Rivoire (poptronics.fr), money is no exception to the “great transformation” brought on by digital technology—dematerialization, networking, transparency, openness, etc.—the exact opposite of the verticality and opacity of financial structures that continue to collapse before our delighted eyes… In the age of electronic transactions, accelerated cash flow and ubiquitous banking platforms, humans seem to be out of the loop of this infernal machine generating 2.0 crashes. In parallel, we are witnessing the emergence of the first virtual currencies. Not to say that this announces a new financial counter-utopia on a human scale. As some of the contributors point out, we find, on the contrary, greed, speculation, exploitation… along with symbols that send us back to the stone age—the analogy between the goldmines and the “mining” of bitcoins is arresting. No doubt, these so-called virtual currencies will not give us the chance to renew with our nostalgic origins of trade and donation, the absolute antithesis of money. And it is rather troubling to see how the esthetics of both the coins and “fake-bills” distributed by the artistic and political collectives resemble state currencies, recalling the great battle between libertarians and liberals… It is reassuring to know that both coastal brothers and night workers regularly tend to their encrypted piggy banks… Nonetheless, the monetary alternatives suggested by artists and activists express dreams of economic emancipation, indicate other possible yet uncertain paths, symbolize the potential of new media technologies, and still force us to rethink current distribution networks. In this time of penury, both material and intellectual, it’s already a lot. LAURENT DIOUF EDITOR IN CHIEF MCD gives special thanks to Shu Lea Cheang, Annick Rivoire and all the writers and translators who contributed to this issue. mcd #76-03 we grow money/we eat money/we shit money CONTENTS 03_EDITORIAL WE SHIT MONEY 05_CONTENTS 66_ SILICON MONEY AND THE COMMONS 07_ PREAMBLE 70_ BANKING ON NETWORKS, OR THE 08_CRITICAL INTERNET ECONOMIES, RISE OF PLATFORM ECONOMIES A PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY 72_ BITCOIN, THE END OF THE TABOO Cover: ON MONEY Zéro Euro. WE GROW MONEY 78_ BITCOIN AS THE REFLECTION © Michael Aschauer 16_ AGLIOMANIA : EATING AND TRADING OF THE MATERIAL HUMAN MY STINKY ROSES COMMUNITY OF THE INTERNET 18_ MONEY, ART AND GIBLING 82_ MOVING BEYOND BITCOIN 22_ PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN LEWES 84_ ONE YEAR IN BITCOIN THOMAS PAINE’S ADOPTIVE TOWN 88_ WHY I BUY INTO THE CULT 24_ MONEY DOESN'T SMELL OF DOGECOIN 26_ ARTISTS AS BANKERS, CURRENCY 92_ QUANTITATIVE EASING AS ART (FOR THE STREET) 28_ MINOR USES OF MONEY 94_ (W)ORLD CURRENCY EQUATION 32_ ART REWRITES THE HISTORY 96_ (A) P2P MONEY MANIFESTO OF MONEY 100_ZERO EURO ART 34_ THE AFRO CIRCULATES HOPE 102_ECONOMY 0 FOR AFRICA 104_IMAGINE THE FUTURE OF MONEY WE EAT MONEY 108_WEBOGRAPHY/BIBLIOGRAPHY 38_ CULTURAL ACTIVISM IN SPAIN FACING THE CRISIS 112_ SUBSCRIPTION 42_ NOTRE-DAME-DES-LANDES: 114_ WHO'S/DISTRIBUTION OMNIA SUNT COMMUNIA 44_LESSONS IN FISCAL DISOBEDIENCE WITH NÚRIA GÜELL 48_ ART AS BUSINESS / BUSINESS AS ART 50_ TIME BANKS 54_ SURVIVING MONEY 56_ BUREAU D’ÉTUDES 58_ OLGA KISSELEVA 60_ÉCONOMIE SOLIDAIRE DE L'ART 62_ ALBERTINE MEUNIER mcd #76-05 we grow money/we eat money/we shit money PREAMBLE CHANGE MONEY! The economic crisis of our globalized societies Rivoire—to invest its pages. From Greece, Germany, Austria, Argentina, has at least one positive consequence—it pushes Brazil, Africa, Spain, UK… artists and theorists, journalists and citizen hacktivists have contributed to this panorama of money in the age of citizens, artists and activists to tackle the issue decentralized networks. Change moneywas conceived internationally, of money. Finding alternatives, inventing new forms via network, and in three parts. of exchange and even foregoing currency: We grow moneystudies initiatives of citizen and/or artistic alternative Change moneygives an overview of this collective, currencies, such as the Lewes pound, local currency of a little English town with a revolutionary past, or the Gibling, trading currency of an electronic and shared reappropriation of money. Austrian punk collective, or the Afro, the unique virtual currency of the African continent. In a time of crisis, there are many answers: artists create banks, currency, citizens invent alternatives to institutionalized systems, money takes on another value (we spend locally, we grow money…). The first speculative bubble in the history of global finance dates to We eat moneyproposes a society that ignores money, either because the 17thcentury; it was called Tulipmania. In Holland, the rate of the the system has simply collapsed, as was the case in Argentina in the tulip bulb rose exponentially to reach its climax in 1637—at that time, 1990s, or because the communities mistrust it and build alternatives one bulb was worth more than a painting by Rembrandt… The origin such as the Zone to be defended in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, near of this first speculative crisis (of course, both the bulb and the bubble Nantes in France, which is very practically attempting to bring down deflated, provoking an economic crisis) should be credited to a form economism by cultivating potatoes and molding flour… In Greece, of speculative hysteria. time banks have invented another form of (non-commercial) exchange, trading knowledge and skills since the debt crisis. In Spain, artist Núria Money, value, monetary exchange… These concepts have long been Güell distributes her lessons in fiscal disobedience. In the felted world excluded from the field of new media, as if the Internet and Net Art of contemporary art, Kate Rich does commerce with her Feral Trade, were emancipated from these issues, living not on love and fresh water which returns “the vacuity excedent of art”. In France, artists take care but on silicon and bits, living in a utopia of collective intelligence of themselves, evoking a sort of Economic solidarity with artin order detached from economic constraints. On one side, the global financial to improve their economic situation. One thing is certain, 2015 and crisis—from U.S. subprimes to sovereign debt in Europe to Chinese the expansion of bitcoin have ended the “money taboo”, as proclaimed speculative economies; on the other side, the emergence of crypted by artist and activist Jaromil. alternative currencies such as bitcoin have shown that globalization is also an “ideal” moment to disconnect cash flow from flow of people Since the emergence of bitcoin and so-called alternative currencies and goods. The same algorithms that currently allow our computers (no central bank or sovereign state), it’s a new deal. As we enter the to multiply their calculating power contributed to this disconnection age of networked banks and the decentralized crypto-currencies of in the field of financial markets. Speculative money flows faster than “alt-coins”, Change moneyraises the question of currency’s post-Inter- what the economy humanly produces. Without having contemplated, net future. We shit moneyposes the theoretical, practical, political studied, tackled head-on the issue of money, information theorists were questions of the moment: should we burn the bitcoin, should we con- trapped once the crisis occurred… trol the expansion of virtual currencies, does the value of virtual trans- actions make silicon the new gold ounce of the 21stcentury? Are we Change money—We grow money, we eat money, we shit money. moving toward a society with no monetary regulation? Are P2P mon- MCD #76 observes and presents a range of proposals, actions, thoughts ey, crowdfunding, crypto-currencies our economic future? Should we about money in the Internet age. Yesterday the tulip, a merchandise go even further, toward economy zero, euro zero? Now is the time for far removed from the idea of currency, today garlic, joyously and furi- germinating open source crypto-currencies. ously brandished as an exchange value(1)… MCD magazine invited us—an American hacktivist artist living in Paris and working every- where on the Net and around the world, Shu Lea Cheang, and the SHU LEA CHEANG &ANNICK RIVOIRE founder of Poptronics, media for online hacktivist cultures, Annick (1) Agliomania, project by Shu Lea Cheang, see page 16. mcd #76-07 we grow money/we eat money/we shit money CRITICAL INTERNET ECONOMIES A Personal Chronology With resource sharing becoming a necessity, the currencies in which this is happening are now on the radar of a growing number of geeks, artists and activists. Let’s talk about the aesthetics of post-credit money, writes media theorist Geert Lovink. “The personal is political.” This 1970s is a capacity that only the fast boys of politicized. Debt is a public affair. After adagium of the feminist movement Wall Street possess while speculating 2008 we can barely say: Wir haben es rarely gets applied to our financial sit- with other people’s savings--the rest of nicht gewusst. Can we finally speak of uation. Money is a private fate. You’re us are busy scraping coins(1). With the an emerging ‘virtual class’ conscious- doomed if you have and doomed if you recent stagnation of middle class ness?(2)With resource sharing becom- haven’t. Making money(Ole Bjerg, 2014) incomes, everyday finance is becoming ing a necessity, the currencies in which 08-mcd #76 this is happening are now on the radar doing some organizing work in the looked like a hyped-up, temporary of a growing number of geeks, artists Amsterdam cultural scene (dominated opportunity. Writing, be it journalism, and activists. How are you going to by baby boomers) and working part- fiction, poetry or criticism, would have make a living? Let’s talk about the aes- time at the Dutch national broadcaster to be financed through cultural funds thetics of post-credit money. But before VPRO, earning $700 (US) a month, or traditional publishers and become we do this, I want to look at how inter- barely more than a social security check. de-professionalized, or ‘democratized’, net culture and financialization have The world had tumbled into yet anoth- to put it in more friendly terms. come together over the past decades er recession. Regardless, ‘new media’ The internet was going to disrupt all and why Silicon Valley has so far started to boom under speculative businesses, and ‘text’ was its first vic- stopped us from using tools that redis- rubrics such as ‘multi-media’, ‘virtual tim--a Napster moment avant la lettre. tribute resources. reality’ and ‘cyberspace’. Soon after, in early 1993, I obtained internet access. The early nineties is a crucial period in With the help of my hacker friends the ‘dotcom’ saga. Its libertarian spirit Crisis of the 1980s I uploaded my archive of digital texts, was captured well by Richard Barbrook In the midst of the never-ending eco- which was already considerable since and Andy Cameron in their seminal nomic malaise of the 1980s, I went I had started using a PC in 1987. It was piece The Californian Ideologyfrom through an existential crisis of sorts. in this context that I had my first dis- 1995(3), but the text failed to analyse a Like others of my generation, I was liv- cussion about the absence of an ‘inter- few critical elements, such as the econ- ing off social welfare, making my home net economy’. I was told that content omy of the ‘free’ and the role of venture in squats, and hitchhiking between was going to be ‘free’. Users had to pay capital and the IPO in the business plan. Amsterdam and West Berlin while con- an ISP in order to gain access and would Internet start-ups all follow the same fronted with the neo-liberal backlash also continue to purchase and upgrade scheme: above all attract a critical mass of Reagan and Thatcher. Witnessing their hardware such as PCs, screens, of users in a short period of time. the sad decline of the autonomous printers and modems. In the case of soft- Market share is more important than a movements and having said farewell ware, the situation wasn’t as clear-cut. sustainable revenue stream. In this cyn- to academia after grad school, there From early on there were shareware and ical model it was accepted that most were little professional opportunities free software vs. corporate propriety start-ups would fail, and their losses for us post-hippies pre-yuppies. I felt ones; games were another grey zone. would be made up by one or two suc- too much of an independent intellec- cess stories that would be sold early or tual to identify with the journalist role brought to the stock market. model, and in 1987 I decided to label 1990’s: ‘text’ as first victim myself ‘media theorist’, wherever that My geek friends told me: if you’re not It took me years to decipher Wired(sold would take me. I had recently joined into old media or academia, try to find and ‘kaltgestellt’ in 1998) and then Red the Amsterdam free radio movement an arts grant, but do not expect the Herring and Fast Company to get a and had been interested in media the- internet to provide you with an income. deeper understanding of what the eco- ory ever since I majored in ‘mass psy- Find some boring day job, and express nomic premises of the dotcom craze chology’ at the University of Amster- yourself the way you want to at night. were about. There were hardly any dam. But how was a ‘media theorist’ Set cyberspace on fire. That’s the des- books about it, and the critical litera- going to make a living? tiny of writing and all art forms. Become ture was about zero—and before we an entrepreneur and start your own knew it the market had collapsed. A good five years later I had still not business, learn some coding and The multitudes at the time were active improved my job situation but quit the become one of us. In 1993 serious mon- in counter globalization movements dole anyway, by selling essays in the ey could be made with web design, but focussed on the IMF and Latin Ameri- > media arts context, giving lectures, then again, that wasn’t content and ca, the worthy struggles of yesteryears. WE GROW MONEY/WE EAT MONEY/WE SHIT MONEY-mcd #76-09 M O C OT D A NI A M O ULIP AB, T NEYL O M © macro picture, together with Manuel Castells’ sociological account of the ‘net- work society’, gave solid overviews; however neither dealt directly with the madness of dotcom culture post Netscape’s IPO in 1995. From 1997 to 2000 billions of dollars flowed from pension funds, mutual funds, etc. into internet ventures. Only part of these investments ended up as ponzi schemes of fake e-commerce companies, such as pets.com and boo.com. A great deal of the institutional investments disap- peared into fiber-optic infrastructure. None had revenue; all was based on future hyper growth schemes, fuelled by outside capital. Tens of thousands of designers, musicians, engineers and social scientists quickly retrained as HTML coders, communications and PR officers and IT consultants—only to find themselves unemployed again a few years later when the bubble burst. One way to counterbalance the ruth- less waves of privatization and the stock market craze was to point to the inter- net as a public infrastructure. The inter- net, with its military and academic back- ground, should guarantee ‘access for all’. ‘We want bandwith’ was the slogan of our one-week long campaign at Catherine David’s Documenta X, as part of the Hybrid Workspace project. Tulipomania DotCom. The same group, coordinated by Waag Design: Persijn Broerse. Society Amsterdam, where I used to work as a part-time fellow in that peri- od, designed a similar Free for What? campaign out of the Kiasma museum > A classic study on how the internet rise and fall of dotcoms published by in Helsinki, late 1999. ruined San Francisco, still worth read- the Fucked Company website. Our only ing, is Pauline Borsook’sCyberselfish, academic guardian in the dark was Sask- Delays in perception concerned me back which came out in 2000(4). Then there ia Sassen, who linked global finance then in the ‘roaring’ nineties, as it does were the hilarious daily accounts of the with computer networks. Her complex now. Who benefits when we do not 10-mcd #76