Code as Scripture & Monastic Coordination Technologies

Ben Vickers

• Spent most of teenage years playing ultima online
• Ran a gold farm aged 15 – 16, made considerable amount of money
• Involved in unspecified fringe groups
• Does not align with Libertarianism
• Interested in the potential of Bitcoin to disrupt institutions
• Hosted Bitcoin meetups in 2010 / 2011 for radical left, academics and Artists, non-technical
• CTO of Serpentine Galleries

What is your primary interest in blockchain technology?

• Read Nick Szabo and found Ethereum more interesting than Bitcoin
• Was excited about new forms of organisation
• Has experimented with organising groups of people in cooperatives & corporations
• Has a tech background but more focussed on the arts
• Interested in history of organising in different ways, like the Bauhaus
• DAO notion interested Ben for practical purposes
• Interested in monastic codes particularly Benedictine rule as precursor to open source software development.
• Benedictine rule is a set of 73 rules about organising people living together
• Interested in the emergence of sovereign orders of different kinds, particularly as contrasted with monastic orders from the 10th – 15th century.

Are there similarities to the way DAOs and religions operate?

• This is a big thing missed in silicon valley and startup culture
• Most prior examples of challenges to state sovereignty involve religion.
• Code can be seen as scripture
• Part of what is scary about autonomous software is the notion of a god/non-human entity making decisions which affect us.
• Through research/experiment has found it is hard to not build an authoritarian organisational structures.
• Interested in testing these systems now
• Concerned that current state-run programs are building platforms that never forget inside institutions that never forgive.
• Imperative to understand these systems before it is too late.

How do we proceed safely down the path of creating these systems?

• Some friends surveyed the blockchain space 12 months prior – 98% vaporware
• This has since changed. Examples given:
  • Colony
  • Backfeed
  • Aragon
• It is important that a plurality of types of organisations adopt tools as soon as possible
• Also important not top simply replicate existing structure in new medium
• Many blockchain music startups erroneously imitate spotify
• When true industry participants begin building platforms to serve their industries we will see real progress made.
• Sees misconceptions about what the art world needs.
• As in permaculture, before beginning work, it is important to observe the environment for a sufficient period of time.

How did you meet Trent McConaghy of BigchainDB?

• Working on a festival called Transmediale
• Trent and Marsha reached out to pitch the Ascribe Platform
• Initially skeptical
• Understood storing of cultural objects over time
• Trent & Marsha saw the potential of neutral museums to support blockchains
• Liked the thinking.
• As they were building out the infrastructure for Ascribe, pivoited to BigchainDB

What do you find exciting about blockchain technology and the way it might interact with Art?

• Wants to see a renaissance in the way cultural practitioners self-organise, a re-exploration of guild-like structures and development of novel structures.
• To escape the commercial side of the art world.
• To break the control of museums over the representation of time and the structure of history.

Could you relate the sale of cryptographic tokens to the sale of art?

• They are totally irrational markets
• It is often forgotten how bizarre this moment is
• The replicability of ethereum and valuable blockchain infrastructure is amazing. Especially in light of the fact that unknown people all over the world are contributing financially to its development.
• It is deeply disruptive to silicon valley.
• ICOs are the opposite of the hard work of silicon valley – put a vague idea out there, collect tons of money, then figure out how to deliver
• This is destructive not purely because of scams.
• It is because most people do the silicon valley thing because they want to get rich. With ICOs the money comes before the work.
• This disrupts the ability to produce things of value.
• There is an opportunity to change the ownership model of art – elites or states own art.
• The ICO model opens the opportunity for crowd ownership of culture.