Blockchain Future States

At the exhibition from October 20, 2017 to August 5, 2018

»Blockchain Future States« investigates »Ethereum«, »21 Inc.«, and »Digital Asset«, three financial companies at the forefront of digital money and the application of the blockchain, a database technology that is the backbone of the denationalized cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The potential widespread usage of cryptocurrencies as supranational money and other applications of blockchain technology that involve propositions of a decentralized, financialized web enables these visionaries to propose radically different worlds where traditional political and geographical formations are obsolete. Financial-markets-as-logic here reaches an all time high as we say goodbye to state-regulated monetary policy and private market-based logic is embraced.

For »Open Codes« at ZKM | Karlsruhe Simon Denny presents a video introducing blockchain’s core narrative, and three displays highlighting the nuances of each company’s version of blockchain’s potential and the political and ideological differences they are based on. Their radical propositions are concentrated into speculative postage stamps as infographics, calling into question whether any version of blockchain’s radical future is desirable.

Courtesy of Galerie Buchholz, Berlin / Köln / New York