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Beyond the Blokechain: The Cryptofeminist Agenda panel discussion
THIS VIDEO from MoneyLab#7 features four cultural critiques of the blockchain space, from a feminist economics perspective: Andy Morales Coto, Denise Thwaites, and Ailie Rutherford (and I), moderated by Rachel Falconer
Andy Morales Coto explores how blockchain cultures use and abuse ecological metaphores. Denise Thwaites offers a feminist analysis of DAO cultures and the emergent affective economies they instate. And Ailie Rutherford talks about her work with feminist economics at The People’s Bank of Govanhill. I talk about DAOWO and DisCOs and explored the spaces of convergence between the Commons and P2P movements along with the world of cooperatives and the Social and Solidarity Economy.
First Experiences of Reading
Last week Edward Picot asked “What are your first/most formative memories of reading and encountering books? Was it in a library, a bookshop, or exploring the bookshelves at home? http://edwardpicot.com/blog/first-experiences-of-reading/.
He was first inspired by Code Poet Mez’s autobiographical account of early reading- which is quoted on the website.
I wrote: In the effort to remember my early reading experiences, I instead remember smells of places: the damp of my grandparents house in Clitheroe, the classroom in my primary school, the camper van in Devon. I can’t remember learning to read or write. I was read to a lot as a child, I love my parents for that. Such a variety – Spike Milligan, Lewis Carol poems and songs. Astrid Lindgren, Joan Aitken, Alan Garner. I also recall my younger brother (who had a strong sense of pathos) reciting from the book of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, with a forlorn look on his face. Later we went on long camping holidays and we would be read to in the evenings: Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy. Tolkein.These are some of the books I remember. What I know, is that I learned to read with books designed for the purpose: Janet and John; Topsy and Tim; the ladybird books of fairy stories.
I’m not very good at reading words off the page/screen and I’m a horrible speller. I am a pretty good listener though. Recently I signed up to an audio book club – and find I can “read” all sorts of things I had previously struggled to attend to. Last year I “read” Marx’s The Communist Manifesto for the first time, on the treadmill at the gym, and Emma Goldman’s On Anarchy, while driving 3 times a week to a particularly un-free workplace. Moving my body and eyes as I “read” audio books liberates me to make more connections, to comprehend the layers of meaning and tone.
Ruth CV 2015
Artist and Co-founder, Co-director of Furtherfield
http://furtherfield.org
http://ruthcatlow.net/
Education
1990 BA(Hons) Fine Art Sculpture, Falmouth School of Art
2004 MA Networked Media Environments, Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication
Employment
Since 1997 Co-founder and artistic director of Furtherfield
Founded in 1997 by artists Marc Garrett and Ruth Catlow, Furtherfield is the UK’s leading organisation for art, labs, & debates around critical questions in art, technology and social change. Its thriving international, online community and programmes make network cultures more feelable and accessible to more diverse people. Exhibitions and labs tour nationally and internationally, strengthening the expressive and emancipatory potential of digital technology. Furtherfield is a non profit organisation and has been part of the Arts Council England National Portfolio of Organisation since 2005.
2011-2014 Head of School, Writtle School of Design (WSD)
2009-11 Course Scheme Manager, Digital Art and Design, WSD
1995-2008 Senior Lecturer in Digital Media, Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication
1991-2001 Violinst with Midas Touch, Traditional Greek Wedding Band.
Selected Artistic Projects and Exhibitions
2014 Play the Web We Want, commissioned by Southbank Centre as part of the Web We Want Festival; Play Peer2Peer Futures, Alt_Cph Assemble, Copenhagen;
Play South Westminster, commissioned by, Tate Britain & Peabody Housing Trust exhibited as part of The British Folk Art Exhibition
Since 2012- 2015 Play Your Place
co-devised by Ruth Catlow and Dr Mary Flanagan (Tiltfactor, US), this open, online artwork enables people to collaborate to draw, make and play multi-level platform games, that express their shared values and aspirations for the future.
2003 – 2015 Rethinking Wargames, Lo-fi Net Art Commission (2003) exhibited and played at The Baltic, Gateshead & Limehouse Town Hall, London; part of The Making of Balkan Wars- group exhibition by Personal Cinema, Athens & Madrid 2004. RISK, CCA, Glasgow 2005; now touring 10 USA venues alongside artworks by Yoko Ono and Cory Arcangel, as part of Free Play, an international touring exhibition organized by Independent Curators International (ICI).
2010 At Winter Equinox we burn The Sun, & Festival of Money short films created by Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett, screened at Show Room Cinema, Sheffield, and at The Zone, The Hundred Years Gallery, Brighton, 2010 and Givon Gallery, Tel Aviv 2012
2009-10 Connecting Across Difference. Artistic director for an inclusive multimedia performance at V&A Museum of Childhood working with 6 artists and musicians alongside 70 children. Commissioned by Drake Music
2009 We Won’t Fly For Art, pyramid pledge and artworld intervention by Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett, as part of Furtherfield Media Art Ecologies programme. Shortlisted and exhibited for the BASH, RSA and Ecology Sustainable Art Awards, London
2008 Driven- a Dilemma of Co-existence, net artwork by Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett, Banff New Media Institute, Canada
2003 -09 VisitorsStudio, a realtime, online platform for audiovisual remix, for which Furtherfield was awarded the 2009 Grand Net Art Prize by Machido Museum, JA. Creative directors, Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett and Neil Jenkins. Dissension Convention. VisitorsStudio performance by Ruth Catlow and Michael Szpakowski, Postmasters Gallery, New York 2004
Selected Curatorial and Commissioning Activity
2015 WWW TV, at Southbank Centre; Beyond the Interface installation for the Web We Want Festival, with Museum of Computing History, Cambridge
2015 The Netartizens Project and open online exhibition as part of The Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium, presented by the School of Art, Design & Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
2014 Digital Zoo: Life from the world wild web, a touring exhibition to 5 UK shopping centres, in partnership with Land Securities and Culture Code.
2014 Do It With Others (DIWO), CLICK Festival, Culture Yard, Helsingor, Denmark
2011 Collaboration and Freedom – The World of Free and Open Source Art, online collection commissioned by Arts Council England Knowledge Bank, mirrored by the Foundation for Peer To Peer Alternatives
Furtherfield exhibitions include:
2015 The Human Face of Cryptoeconomies as part of Art Data Money
2015 Beyond the Interface
2014 Piratbyrån and Friends curated with Rachel Falconer
2013 Shu Lea Cheang and Mark Amerika; Glitch Moment/ums curated with Rosa Menkman
2012 WWW: World Wild Web; Being Social; Invisible Forces with Class Wargames
2011 Made Real by Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern; Art is Open Source, 2011
2010 If Not You Not Me by Annie Abrahams
2009 Feral Trade Cafe by Kate Rich
2008 The Jeremy Bailey Show; Open Source Embroidery with Ele Carpenter
2007 Zero Gamer: Sometimes We Just Like To Watch, as part of London Games Fringe Festival (also exhibited at Zero One)
2007 Do It With Others (DIWO): E-Mail-Art
2006 GAME / PLAY a national touring exhibition, curated with Giles Askham, also exhibited at London Trocadero as part of London Games Festival Fringe; Open Vice/Virtue: The Online Art Context by Andy Deck
2005 Abuse of the Public Domain by Stanza; Theatre of Restless Automata by Boredom Research;
2004 The Future Is Not What It Used To Be by Erkki Kurenniemi
Recent Conferences and Public Speaking
2015 Back to the Future, Closing panel discussion chaired by Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of Southbank Centre Web We Want Festival, Southbank Centre – May 29-30
2015 Hackathons: Grassroots Activism or Digital Sweatshops? Digital Shoreditch. Panel participant, hosted by Queen Mary University chaired by Becky Stewart Codasign 11 May
2015 Art, Technology, Human Existence, CLICK Festival seminars, Culture Yard, Helsingor, Denmark: Co-hosted and co-curated with Richard Stallman, Cory Doctorow, Jennifer Lynn Morone, Francesca Da Rimiini, Virginia Barrett, Shulea Cheang & Stelarc
2015 Play as a Commons: Practical Utopias & P2P Futures. Panel speaker, Transmediale, Berlin, January 2015
2015 PLAY: Respondent to McKenzie Wark Keynote, Transmediale, Berlin, January 2015
2015 Creating, Commissioning, Exhibiting and Collecting Art in the Digital Age. Panel convened by Ruth Catlow, with Steve Fletcher, Lindsay Taylor. London Art Fair, London, January 2015
2015 Activating the Public Space, Digital Utopias, Hull Truck Theatre, January
Recent participation on Boards, Peer Review
2014 Named by Foundation for Peer2Peer Alternatives in their list of 100 Women Co-creating the P2P Society
2014 Moderator for the Practice panel, Understanding Post-digital Cultural Forms – A Review Summit, organized by Transmediale in cooperation with the German Federal Foreign Office and hosted by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, November 10th, 2014
Since 2008 Advisory board, Tiltfactor, critical games lab, Dartmouth College, USA
Selected professional Development & Training
June 2014 – January 2015 7 month Fellowship with the CultureHive Digital Marketing Academy for leading cultural practitioners. An experimental, evidence-based programme for digital marketing developed through a ‘lean’ methodology
June 2014 Creating Innovation from Collaboration. One day workshop by Creative Works London, Somerset House
2013 Multi Platform Business School (Scholarship). 6-day project-based, tutorial and consultation driven course, which focuses on the business aspects of creating cross-platform content. Ronda, Spain
2013 Pixel Lab (Scholarship). 6-day intensive development workshop for participants across film, TV, games, online, advertising, visual arts, publishing and mobile. Belgium
Since 2009 Ongoing professional development in teaching and learning in Higher Education, through participation in annual training sessions run by Writtle College.
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