CHAIRS: Alexandra Mueller-Crepon and Julia Buntaine Hoel
Presented by swissnex Boston and SciArt Initiative
LASER Boston: The Crypto Canvas
When: March 25, 2021 from 12:00pm - 1:30pm EST | 6:00pm - 7:30pm CET. Find your timezone HERE
Free, RSVP below
In this edition of LASER Boston, we are going on a virtual adventure, where we will explore the worlds of blockchain and its wide range of possibilities. Over the past few years, public attention has turned to this new decentralized technology. But what is a blockchain exactly? How does it work? And where is it applicable? What do cryptocurrencies and art have to do with it? These and many more questions will be answered by three impressive speakers from the arts and sciences. They will share their work and thoughts around blockchains, crypto, and art.
So please join us for LASER Boston: The Crypto Canvas on Thursday, March 25th to explore the beauty and bandwidth of blockchains and crypto with Prof. Dr. Claudio J. Tessone (Academic Director and Chairman at UZH Blockchain Center), !Mediengruppe Bitnik (contemporary artist duo) and Sarah Meyohes (emerging technologies artist).
Speakers
Prof. Dr. Claudio Tessone, Academic Director and Chairman at UZH Blockchain Center
Claudio J. Tessone is the Chairman of the UZH Blockchain Center and Professor for Network Science at the University of Zurich. His main interest lies in the study of complex socio-economic and socio-technical systems from an interdisciplinary perspective. Specifically, he aims to unveil links between microscopic agent behavior, the rules agents follow, and the emergent global of these systems. Blockchain-based systems, cryptocurrencies, and other digital tokens are pillars of his current activities. This includes crypoeconomics (specifically endogenous factors that affect price formation, and the emergent centralization in cryptocurrencies), big-data blockchain analytics and forensics, and the analysis of economic incentives (present in these systems by design or set inadvertently) which are fundamental to multiple blockchain platforms. He is also the director of the interdisciplinary UZH Summer School: Deep Dive into Blockchain and co-directs the Certificate of Advanced Studies on Blockchain at the University of Zurich.
Sarah Meyohas, Artist
French-American artist Sarah Meyohas centers her practice within emerging technologies. Working in media from cryptocurrency to augmented reality, she enlists the natural world as references, network as medium, and the specular as a mode of contemplation. Rose petals act as a metaphor for the binary language of digital communication, augmented reality birds flock in accordance with the stock market index, and foliage is visually pulled into a boundless void through the artist’s ongoing two-way mirror photographic series. By merging traditional mythologies and clichéd objects of beauty with contemporary digital mediums, Meyohas enacts a visual language for the systems, algorithms, and technologies that influence our daily lives. Meyohas exhibits her work internationally, with solo exhibitions in New York at Red Bull Art Center and 303 Gallery. Her work has traveled to institutions including the Barbican in London, the Jameel Arts Center in Dubai, the Ming Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai, and the New Museum in New York. Meyohas holds a B.S. in finance from the Wharton School and a B.A. in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and in 2015 received an M.F.A. from Yale University.
!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Carmen Weisskopf and Doma Smoljo, Artists
!Mediengruppe Bitnik (read – the not Mediengruppe Bitnik) are contemporary artists working on, and with, the Internet. Their practice expands from the digital to physical spaces, often intentionally applying loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms. In the past, they have been known to subvert surveillance cameras, bug an opera house to broadcast its performances outside, send a parcel containing a camera to Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London and physically glitch a building. In 2014, they sent a bot called«Random Darknet Shopper» on a three-month shopping spree in the Darknet where it randomly bought items like keys, cigarettes, trainers and ecstasy and had them sent directly to the gallery space. !Mediengruppe Bitnik’s works formulate fundamental questions concerning contemporary issues and are shown internationally.
LASER Boston is co-organized by swissnex Boston and SciArt Initiative. LASER is a program of Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology. LASER Boston meets four times per year, featuring local and visiting artists, scientists, technologists, and creative professionals.
Further information: https://www.swissnexboston.org/event/laser-boston-the-crypto-canvas/
SPONSORS:
The Leonardo/ISAST LASERs are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 40 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website. @lasertalks
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