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==== Dark arts, grey areas and other contingencies ==== | ==== Dark arts, grey areas and other contingencies ==== | ||
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(variously; [[https:// | (variously; [[https:// | ||
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Let us begin with a disclaimer: This lecture discusses techniques often frowned upon in our techno-materialist society. If some of what I say sounds dubious, please substitute our words with others that you might be more comfortable with. Magic, for example, can otherwise be referred to as “advanced technology”. Those who resonate with ceremony may be comfortable with spirits and spells, while those of you who align yourselves with more pragmatic lineages might prefer calling these things “clear mind” or “prayer” or “contemplation”. And - for the more hardline - rationalists or skeptics, you can consider this as an experiment in meta-belief. | Let us begin with a disclaimer: This lecture discusses techniques often frowned upon in our techno-materialist society. If some of what I say sounds dubious, please substitute our words with others that you might be more comfortable with. Magic, for example, can otherwise be referred to as “advanced technology”. Those who resonate with ceremony may be comfortable with spirits and spells, while those of you who align yourselves with more pragmatic lineages might prefer calling these things “clear mind” or “prayer” or “contemplation”. And - for the more hardline - rationalists or skeptics, you can consider this as an experiment in meta-belief. | ||
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- | In a world enthralled by market economics, sooner or later every artist is faced with the existential question—How do I finance my work? Day jobs? Commissions? | + | {{> |
- | Whatever form the financing might take, it almost always requires an engagement with bureaucratic institutions, | + | ---- |
- | Over time, these engagements can gradually infiltrate all aspects of the work. | + | In a world enthralled by market economics, sooner or later every artist is faced with the existential question—How do I finance my work? Day jobs? Commissions? |
- | Administration has spread through other domains like a plague of zombies. In its wake crawl hordes of burnt-out, semi-living artists, scientists, academics, SMEs and miscellaneous members of the cultural proletariat. | + | Administration has spread through other domains like a plague of zombies. In its wake crawl hordes of burnt-out, semi-living artists, scientists, academics, SMEs and miscellaneous members of the cultural proletariat. Researchers who spend more time complying with bureaucratic procedures than conducting research, Artists who are so overworked by endless fundraising that they have no energy left for creative pursuits. |
- | Researchers who spend more time complying with bureaucratic procedures than conducting research, | + | Rather than allowing business administration to infect our creative process, how can we reclaim its tools? And how do we realign these tools with more inclusive ethics and an aesthetics of generosity? First of all, we need to acknowledge that we can't escape. We can try to fight, but we will likely lose. Resistance is futile. |
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- | Artists who are so overworked by endless fundraising that they have no energy left for creative pursuits. | + | |
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- | Social entrepreneurs whose business acumen is overrun by the red tape involved in transparency and accountability. | + | |
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- | Rather than allowing business administration to infect our creative process, how can we reclaim its tools? And how do we realign these tools with more inclusive ethics and an aesthetics of generosity? | + | |
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- | First of all, we need to acknowledge that we can't escape. We can try to fight, but we will likely lose. Resistance is futile. | + | |
Whatever we do we must not freeze, blocked by fear of a complicated spreadsheet. Instead, we can try to calmly attend to it, while keeping a tight watch on our own boundaries. Administration must be confined to heavily guarded summoning grids; to protect ourselves and our loved ones from its ever expanding, time-sucking appendages. | Whatever we do we must not freeze, blocked by fear of a complicated spreadsheet. Instead, we can try to calmly attend to it, while keeping a tight watch on our own boundaries. Administration must be confined to heavily guarded summoning grids; to protect ourselves and our loved ones from its ever expanding, time-sucking appendages. | ||
- | You might wonder — why would I engage with business administration at all, if it poses such an existential threat to my wellbeing? | + | You might wonder — why would I engage with business administration at all, if it poses such an existential threat to my wellbeing? Because as much as you’d like to pretend that you can't be touched by it, administration is always and already here. Oscar Wilde was onto something when he said “When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money.” |
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- | Because as much as you’d like to pretend that you can't be touched by it, administration is always and already here. Oscar Wilde was onto something when he said “When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money.” | + | |
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- | Considering that many of us depend on some form of funding for our livelihoods, | + | |
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- | Engaging with such faceless entities was traditionally the domain of dark arts; of magicians, witches and fortune-tellers. They know that the entities they engage with are not innocuous. They also know that communing with these entities has the power to transform lives and occasionally even reality itself. | + | |
- | There are similar Entities found in the economic sphere. They can bring out the worst in us. Binding ourselves to them shares many of the dangers of black magic, of the Left Hand Path. | + | Considering that many of us depend on some form of funding for our livelihoods, |
So, could the tools of the dark arts help us engage more productively with bureaucratic and economic strategies deployed around us? | So, could the tools of the dark arts help us engage more productively with bureaucratic and economic strategies deployed around us? | ||
- | When it comes to fundraising, | + | When it comes to fundraising, |
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- | The purpose of both casting spells and fundraising is essentially the extraction of favours from a fickle universe. We ask for favours because we can't achieve something on our own; Be it unrequited love, gold at the end of the rainbow or money to develop a new project. | + | |
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- | A key to both invocation and fundraising is that you need to be fully committed to the process without attachment to any particular result. If successful, the reality you want to invoke will become legible to the funders, who in their turn become enchanted into giving this reality their blessing. And if it happens, you can unabashedly call yourself a mage of chaos magick. | + | |
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- | If we look at funding and administration not as vehicles of absolute truth, but as manifestations of a particular belief system, we might improve our chances and our agency. | + | |
Let’s zoom out a bit, to consider some wider economic realities around us. Economies can be seen as specific kinds of belief systems. These economic beliefs are encoded in legal statutes, financial conventions and patterns of behaviour. You probably believe, that, if someone gives you a few metal discs called “dollars”, | Let’s zoom out a bit, to consider some wider economic realities around us. Economies can be seen as specific kinds of belief systems. These economic beliefs are encoded in legal statutes, financial conventions and patterns of behaviour. You probably believe, that, if someone gives you a few metal discs called “dollars”, | ||
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Grey areas can be seen as places where different beliefs about how the world should work overlap. Where they interfere or create gaps. In grey areas, fixed rules dissolve into edge cases. They point to flaws in existing systems. They allow economic outliers to emerge from legal limbo. They can also become a temporary refuge for people whose lifestyles don’t always conform to consensus reality. Artists working with communities across borders. People working between monetary and non-monetary economies. Migrants who fall between the gaps of national tax regimes. To name but a few. | Grey areas can be seen as places where different beliefs about how the world should work overlap. Where they interfere or create gaps. In grey areas, fixed rules dissolve into edge cases. They point to flaws in existing systems. They allow economic outliers to emerge from legal limbo. They can also become a temporary refuge for people whose lifestyles don’t always conform to consensus reality. Artists working with communities across borders. People working between monetary and non-monetary economies. Migrants who fall between the gaps of national tax regimes. To name but a few. | ||
- | If you’re interested in operating in grey areas, you need to remain vigilant. | + | If you’re interested in operating in grey areas, you need to remain vigilant. Rules and regulations keep changing. What might be perfectly legal one day, could be a definite no-go zone the next. But... if you are comfortable with a degree of uncertainty and enjoy being somewhat adrift, grey areas can be fertile grounds for experimentation. |
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- | Rules and regulations keep changing. | + | |
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- | What might be perfectly legal one day, could be a definite no-go zone the next. | + | |
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- | But... if you are comfortable with a degree of uncertainty and enjoy being somewhat adrift, grey areas can be fertile grounds for experimentation. | + | |
Let’s look at a specific example. Most of us have heard about offshore finance. In it’s simplest form, offshore finance involves transferring payments, debt or fees between legal entities in low tax or low administration jurisdictions. Most entities who use offshore finance do so to avoid administrative or financial obstacles that exist “onshore”, | Let’s look at a specific example. Most of us have heard about offshore finance. In it’s simplest form, offshore finance involves transferring payments, debt or fees between legal entities in low tax or low administration jurisdictions. Most entities who use offshore finance do so to avoid administrative or financial obstacles that exist “onshore”, | ||
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Yet what if you could use some of these instruments to pay your collaborators who are unable to get work permits in your country? Or if you could facilitate sharing of infrastructure amongst distributed collectives? | Yet what if you could use some of these instruments to pay your collaborators who are unable to get work permits in your country? Or if you could facilitate sharing of infrastructure amongst distributed collectives? | ||
- | Think carefully about an economic obstacle you are currently facing... Close your eyes and hold it in your mind. | + | One of the most peculiar grey areas that's emerged over the last decade, involves cryptocurrencies and public blockchains. What began as a twinkle in the eye of a few - self declared - crypto-anarchists, |
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- | Ask yourself, How could your obstacle be overcome in the grey areas of global finance? | + | |
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- | Let this question linger in the back of your mind while I continue talking. | + | |
- | As you open your eyes, know that the answer might take time to manifest... and it might appear where you least expect it. Perhaps in a grey area you are not aware of, yet... | + | |
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- | One of the most peculiar grey areas that's emerged over the last decade, involves cryptocurrencies and public blockchains. What began as a twinkle in the eye of a few - self declared - crypto-anarchists, | + | |
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- | Cryptocurrencies can provide decentralised, | + | |
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- | With cryptocurrencies, | + | |
There' | There' | ||
- | In Estonia, for example, there is a growing concern around algorithmic-liability laws. This discussion is too abstract and complicated for most of us to follow. So instead of wrapping the issues in techno-legal jargon, the Estonian public administration draws on the language of folk tales. | + | In Estonia, for example, there is a growing concern around algorithmic-liability laws. This discussion is too abstract and complicated for most of us to follow. So instead of wrapping the issues in techno-legal jargon, the Estonian public administration draws on the language of folk tales. In particular The " |
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- | In particular The " | + | |
However, and there is always a " | However, and there is always a " | ||
- | The kratt stories warn about hidden costs and responsibilities. They warn of engaging with entities capable of affecting the world on our behalf. | + | The kratt stories warn about hidden costs and responsibilities. They warn of engaging with entities capable of affecting the world on our behalf. As complex technologies (like AI) become increasingly involved in our economic and governance systems, they will almost certainly create grey areas that we can’t even begin to imagine. Grey areas that could bypass humans altogether. |
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- | As complex technologies (like AI) become increasingly involved in our economic and governance systems, they will almost certainly create grey areas that we can’t even begin to imagine. | + | |
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- | Grey areas that could bypass humans altogether. | + | |
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- | There are already experiments to assist landscapes in becoming co-operatives, | + | |
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- | In this grey area we’re looking at the birth of exonomics, a field focusing on what were traditionally seen as economic externalities, | + | |
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- | We may eventually study animist exonomics alongside free markets, modern monetary theory or steady-state economies. Here too, we might call on techniques from the dark arts, shamanism or animism to enable us to commune with “planetary others”. | + | |
- | Whether you believe | + | There are already experiments to assist landscapes |
- | If we pay attention, we can notice such multiplicity of worlds and worldviews already around us. When engaging with art and economy, there is not a clear-cut dualism of black and white, us and them. All of us exist in grey areas. The sum total of our actions consists of many shades of grey, many shades of shadow. | + | Whether you believe in other-than-human sentience or not, the idea of a multispecies, |
In our struggle to survive the contemporary economic climate, we may cross lines defined by our own ethics. You can expect that you will continue to be confronted with ethical dilemmas. You will have to straddle different beliefs and worldviews. Because there is no single, clearcut way out of the convoluted circumstances we live with today. | In our struggle to survive the contemporary economic climate, we may cross lines defined by our own ethics. You can expect that you will continue to be confronted with ethical dilemmas. You will have to straddle different beliefs and worldviews. Because there is no single, clearcut way out of the convoluted circumstances we live with today. | ||
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It’s becoming essential to increase our economic literacy. If for no other reason than to demystify strategies that corporations and institutions deploy on us. Or, as a more tactical approach, to re-mystify existing financial instruments; | It’s becoming essential to increase our economic literacy. If for no other reason than to demystify strategies that corporations and institutions deploy on us. Or, as a more tactical approach, to re-mystify existing financial instruments; | ||
- | “I can’t help but worry” says Anna Tsing “when the scrap metal will run out, and whether there will be enough other stuff in the ruins to make continuing survival possible. And while not all of us enact such a literal figuration of living in ruins, we mostly do have to work within our disorientation and distress, to negotiate life in human-damaged environments. Without the singular, forward pulse of progress, the unregularized coordination of salvage is what we have.” | + | “//I can’t help but worry//” says Anna Tsing “//when the scrap metal will run out, and whether there will be enough other stuff in the ruins to make continuing survival possible. And while not all of us enact such a literal figuration of living in ruins, we mostly do have to work within our disorientation and distress, to negotiate life in human-damaged environments. Without the singular, forward pulse of progress, the unregularized coordination of salvage is what we have.//” |
And yet, we do know how to work with contingencies. All of us still wake up and and get to work on things that we believe are good, without any certainty of success. Whether we create artworks, run co-operatives, | And yet, we do know how to work with contingencies. All of us still wake up and and get to work on things that we believe are good, without any certainty of success. Whether we create artworks, run co-operatives, | ||
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To care, to cure, to comfort. To be with. To help cope, regardless of the situation. | To care, to cure, to comfort. To be with. To help cope, regardless of the situation. | ||
- | “Being with” involves allowing yourself to be touched by the joys and sorrows of another. To be touched by external circumstances. Thrown off-course by the sheer rawness of the moment, by your own inability to make things better, by our fragility, impermanence and mortality. | + | “//Being with//” involves allowing yourself to be touched by the joys and sorrows of another. To be touched by external circumstances. Thrown off-course by the sheer rawness of the moment, by your own inability to make things better, by our fragility, impermanence and mortality. We learn to “be with” when looking after a sick child, tending to a garden, or when caring for the dying. “Being with” a person or a process that you can’t quite understand can be frightening and uncomfortable, |
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- | We learn to “be with” when looking after a sick child, tending to a garden, or when caring for the dying. “Being with” a person or a process that you can’t quite understand can be frightening and uncomfortable, | + | |
The work of care in the Anthropocene is a struggle with scale and scope and sentience. | The work of care in the Anthropocene is a struggle with scale and scope and sentience. | ||
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The space of care exists in parallel to the space of “problems” and “solutions”. Underneath the litany of blame and judgement. Beneath economic systems and ecosystems. Beneath worldviews and opinions. Deep, deep down in a place where words and worlds are intertwined. Where myths and metaphors grow from the direct experience of entangled relationships. Transferred through a touch, a broken bone, a bedtime story. | The space of care exists in parallel to the space of “problems” and “solutions”. Underneath the litany of blame and judgement. Beneath economic systems and ecosystems. Beneath worldviews and opinions. Deep, deep down in a place where words and worlds are intertwined. Where myths and metaphors grow from the direct experience of entangled relationships. Transferred through a touch, a broken bone, a bedtime story. | ||
- | The patterns of care solidify through repetition. From thoughts to words, from words to actions, from actions to habits and from habits to character. From a person to a clan to a culture. This process takes time. An instant in geological time, generations in human time. | + | The patterns of care solidify through repetition. From thoughts to words, from words to actions, from actions to habits and from habits to character. From a person to a clan to a culture. This process takes time. An instant in geological time, generations in human time. Maybe in order to care across spatial and temporal scales — to care for a loved one as much as for an eroding hill or decaying infrastructure — we need alternatives to the current cultural imaginaries. They need queering and complexifying. We need new stories to live by. New or alternative myths, drawn from ever more diverse mythologies. |
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- | Maybe in order to care across spatial and temporal scales — to care for a loved one as much as for an eroding hill or decaying infrastructure — we need alternatives to the current cultural imaginaries. They need queering and complexifying. We need new stories to live by. New or alternative myths, drawn from ever more diverse mythologies. | + | |
Perhaps most urgently we need stories that can cultivate our internal landscapes. Widen the reach of the human sensorium. Activate the unknown. Transform reactions into responses. Rewire our neural pathways. Embody other mindstates. Entangle our grey matter with machines for seeing otherwise. | Perhaps most urgently we need stories that can cultivate our internal landscapes. Widen the reach of the human sensorium. Activate the unknown. Transform reactions into responses. Rewire our neural pathways. Embody other mindstates. Entangle our grey matter with machines for seeing otherwise. | ||
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Until we stop taking ourselves so seriously (or not seriously enough). Until our individual identities are shattered and smeared and re-congealed innumerable times. Until we understand that we exist because of and despite relating to everything else. Until we understand that we are hydrogen ripped from its context, mixed with the dust of dead stars. That we are endlessly recycled water and crystalising cyclones. That we are teeming civilisational hosts. Most importantly, | Until we stop taking ourselves so seriously (or not seriously enough). Until our individual identities are shattered and smeared and re-congealed innumerable times. Until we understand that we exist because of and despite relating to everything else. Until we understand that we are hydrogen ripped from its context, mixed with the dust of dead stars. That we are endlessly recycled water and crystalising cyclones. That we are teeming civilisational hosts. Most importantly, | ||
- | Take heed from the Overstory. | + | Take heed from the Overstory. |