<nettime> latest on MoneyLab #X (Australia, November 5/6)

Dear nettimers,

the MoneyLab network is more or less adjusting to the Corona measures worldwide. As you might know we’re bringing together critical artistic and political responses to the expanding field of digital money, bloandckchain, DAOs, defi but also crowdfunding, UBI, cashless society and debt.

MoneyLab #8 in Ljubljana, planned for late March, had to switch online at the last minute and became a weekly lecture series from a TV studio setup with a small audience. Same with MoneyLab #9 in Helsinki that took place in the Oodi public library. Next is MoneyLab #X in Australia. Hopefully things will have improved for MoneyLab #11 in Berlin (planned for March 2021, organized by Supermarkt) and Copenhagen (May). More on those later, on the MoneyLab website: https://networkcultures.org/moneylab/ and the INC-synthesis email list.

Here you can find the program of MoneyLab #X in Canberra and Hobart on November 5/6: https://economythologies.network/.

Here more info on two specific projects, The Invisible Hand and the Scapbook. More on this in the coming weeks.

MoneyLab#X – Economythologies coordinators are Denise Thwaites in Canberra <Denise.Thwaites@canberra.edu.au> and Nancy Mauro-Flude in Hobart <nancy.flude@rmit.edu.au>.

Best, Geert

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The Invisible Hand

A participatory art project by Lara Luna Bartley

Presented as part of MoneyLab#X – Economythologies

MoneyLab#X – Economythologies

Send us your sightings of the Invisible Hand.

The Invisible Hand is one of (neo)classical economics’ most enduring mythologies. Its magical power is to ensure that social benefit is maximised as long as everyone acts in their own self-interest through the market – apparently. But what if the Invisible Hand were less benign than this?

The recent torrent of images of police brutality which have come out of the US, have got me wondering whether this is the Invisible Hand at work – keeping the Ponzi scheme we call capitalism at play. Maybe it was the Invisible Hand that knocked on my partner’s door a couple of years ago demanding instant payment on an old debt ‘or else’. Perhaps it was the Invisible Hand that set off the brutal explosion that destroyed the 46,000 year old sacred caves of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people in the Juukan Gorge, on behalf of Rio Tinto.

Building on the late David Graeber’s reflections on the crucial role violence and the threat of violence play in maintaining our economic system, I invite you to submit photographs / sketches / collages / diagrams / prints / doodles of recent sightings of the Invisible Hand you have come across or heard about. These will be incorporated into the Moneylab #X experimental online publication and collated into an e-pamphlet in early 2021.

— HOW TO TAKE PART —

Please send the following via email to: info@laralunabartley.com anytime before the end of the year.

An image of a recent sighting of the Invisible Hand (ideally 300dpi)
Place and date/time of the sighting
What makes you suspect this is the Invisible Hand (150 words max.)
Your name / pseudonym (optional)

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As part of our program for MoneyLab #X – Economythologies, we are embarking on a community scrapbooking project. Our aim is to develop a patchwork of ideas, images and references that explore the complexities of our contemporary economic imaginary. If you have the time, we would love you to contribute! Our wonderful designer and programmer, Shahee Ilyas , will be working with the Scrapbook material as it accumulates to develop a creative and customised response.

We are inviting our community of thinkers, makers and doers to contribute to the Scrapbook project by emailing texts, images and/or links to Denise or Nancy, cc’ing our Publications Coordinator, Lexi Mossop (email addresses provided below). Alternatively there is a submission portal on our Scrapbook page which you are most welcome to use.

Contributions may include (but are not limited to):

An original blog post or short text (this could be research-based, analytical, confessional, myth-busting, poetic, you name it!);
An extract from a seminal theoretical text that has informed your thinking about money;
Pop-cultural references that engage with the symbolic currency of wealth/markets/cash;
Republication of extracts from previous/forthcoming works by you;
Media snippets and/or digital artefacts recalling significant historic events and practices in the domains of finance and economics;
Calls for participation in current projects exploring our economythologies;
Anything else your imagination permits!