Essential Resources:
Learning Outcomes
- Understand the depth and breadth of artworks created with or about decentralized networks.
- Walk away with key examples of artworks that engage with decentralization from the 1970s to the present.
- Understand movements in the arts related to decentralized systems, led by artists and art advocates.
Materials Needed
A computer or device with Zoom installed, with camera and microphone.
Notebook (tangible or virtual)
An interest in the history of modern and contemporary art.
Prerequisites
None
Session Description:
In the earliest days of any emerging technology, one can count on a handful of artists who choose to utilize said technology as a tool or aspect of medium in their artwork. Despite popular belief, the history of artists working in Dweb does not begin in 2018 or even 2009. As the internet in itself is a decentralized network, artists have been creating artworks that behave within these systems for decades.
Participants will learn why artists have been drawn to making work with and about decentralized networks and who helped to shape the evolving aesthetics and discourse around artwork related to these systems, utilizing everything from peer-to-peer file sharing networks of the late ‘90s to blockchain. Finally, participants will learn how artists use decentralized tooling for autonomy and why it may or may not have been successful.
