June'22: The Art of Indifference Lecture & Workshops, Price of Anarchy Salon, Hyperenclosure Approaching, Revue Publication update, DAOcolonisation Audio Report, Death Under Computation, $HASHY...
June'22: The Art of Indifference Lecture & Workshops, Price of Anarchy Salon, Hyperenclosure Approaching, Revue Publication update, DAOcolonisation Audio Report, Death Under Computation, $HASHY...
by William Kherbek, Wassim Z. Alsindi, and 0x Salon
Dear fellow discourse lovers,
Greetings from the Salon team, currently dispersed across several locations. Spring is arriving one raindrop at a time in Berlin. In London, plane trees are cleared for landing in everyone’s bronchial tubes, but in Copenhagen the sun is shining bright upon the Orientalist gateway to Tivoli Gardens. It’s been a busy month at the Salon as it reterritorialises after having long since become ungovernable. Here are some of the highlights.
The Art of Indifference Lecture & Workshops
A couple of weeks ago, Wassim gave an update on our S+T+ARTS Repairing The Present Fellowship. He presented a lecture in Copenhagen at the Art Hub, where we are currently artists-in-residence as part of our "The Art of Indifference" project. The project, as Sweeping Statements heads will know, involves both a play and a game that we’re developing with Salon Fellows. In the lecture, Wassim talked attendees through the project and offered a glimpse of what is to come in August when the Salon Fellows head to Copenhagen to ready the play for production.
At time of writing, we are currently working through a series of workshops in Copenhagen, Berlin, and (where else?) online to test and further develop our climatic, ecological, and necroeconomic speculations. Get in touch [the0xsalon [at] gmail [dot] com] for more information, or if you’re interested in participating.
The Price of Anarchy Salon
We recently held the second IRL salon of 2022 at Trust in Berlin, on the topic of ‘The Price of Anarchy’. In the Salon we discussed the ways in which economic relationships and hierarchies interact to reinforce or destabilise each other. The mythos of the market vs. the realties of ‘destructured’ ‘institutions’. Among the key texts explored were works by Jo Freeman and Salonnier Kei Kreutler.
The Salons focussing on it may have passed, but the topic won’t be going away as the need for visions of new economic futures only becomes more pressing. You can read our previous report on ‘The Price of Anarchy’s online iteration here. Tune into our Arena channel for further discussions.
A Hyperenclosure Approaches
Salon Fellow Will Kherbek has been busy, not only working on the play script with Claire Tolan, Anna-Luise Lorenz, Kate Tyndall, and Wassim himself, but he’s also completed a first draft of a new manuscript: a follow-up to 2020’s Technofeudalism Rising which he completed on a fellowship for the Sandberg Institute. The new work, entitled Hyperenclosure, examines the ways in which what he calls the ‘logic of enclosure’ is being applied to the structuring of the metaverse (such as it is). Prepare for a treatise on the perils of a universe based on new adventures in rent-seeking. Coming this autumn. But if you can’t wait that long, get in touch for a preview.
Revue Publication Update
The Salon’s new Revue will be published soon, including an excerpt from Hyperenclosure. This year’s Revue will feature work from a number of Salonniers and some new voices. Among the names included will be Kinga Kielczynska, Adina Glickstein, Sahej Rahal, Lou Cantor, Victoria Bosch just to name a few. This edition will examine the ways communities are created by inclusion, exclusion, and redefinition, as well as offering a smørrebrød (and not just to our Danish fans) of new ideas of both a textual and visual nature.
DAOcolonisation Audio Report
Last month’s Salon topic, ‘DAOcolonisation’ on the history, politics, philosophy and technology of Web3 and DAOs has now been digested into an audio report based on the discussion. Taking part in the audio discussion are Wassim Z. Alsindi, Alice Yuan Zhang, Laura Lotti, and Ricardo Saavedra. If you’d like to give it a listen, check it out here.
Death Under Computation concludes
The final event in 0x Salon resident Anna Engelhardt’s incredible event trilogy on cyberwarfare and digital colonialism is coming up soon. Anna’s project has been one of the most ambitious and urgent endeavours the Salon has helped to produce, and, in the upcoming ‘From Anti-colonial Hacking To Decolonial Cyberwar’ will feature the writer Sophie Toupin whose works include The Beautiful Warriors: Technofeminist Praxis in the 21st Century and Technological Sovereignty and Social Justice, which touches on similar concerns to those discussed in our ‘DAOcolonialism’ Salon. It’s certain to be an insightful and far-ranging discussion. Write to us for access: [the0xsalon [at] gmail [dot] com] if you’d like to take part. Death Under Computation concludes towards the end of June in the 0x Salon Discord server - stay tuned to our Twitter, Instagram, Telegram or Discord feeds for the announcement.
When $HASHY Met SHAlly
If Death Under Computation has got you down, here’s a little teaser for our Bitcoinic vision of a brighter future (or at least an energy intensive one). Say hello to your new friend $HASHY, a cheery anthropomorphised Bitcoin mining machine who is destined for a close up in the 0x Salon’s play, The Black Hole of Money. $HASHY as well as other friends and technoserfs, take centre stage in mid-August at CLICK Festival in Helsingør, Denmark at The Black Hole of Money’s theatrical world premiere. Cheer up! The future is smiling.
See you all next time, here at the newsletter!
0x Salon
What is the 0x Salon? At the Salon we are working tirelessly to unlearn any possible answer to this question. New beginnings are our end, and openness is our means. The Salon is a meeting point for methodologies, a site for distinct disciplines and epistemologies to connect, however casually, for conversation among friends.
Discursive knowledge sharing and production is a key aim for salonniers and organisers. One could think of it as an epistemological skunkworks where nothing is forbidden and nothing is required beyond a spirit of enquiry. Since 2020, the 0x Salon has been meeting at Berlin’s storied Trust workspace, itself a haven for artists, designers, and technologists striving to move in new directions beyond their disciplines. Trust provides the backdrop for the broad and encompassing discussions that the Salon fosters. As the Salon seeks to provide a minimally prescribed forum for intellectuals from various disciplines to think freely without formality and the often siloed approach of academia, we employ Chatham House Rules for every salon, ensuring anonymity to all involved so that participants can have the confidence to question all answers (and even all questions) without fear or favour.
More about the 0x Salon.