Love on the Block

An article on the practice of crypto-weddings and other performed rituals around love, sovereignty and nationalism using crypto-currencies and decentralised ledger technologies. Part of a larger publication featuring a wide selection of leading contributors to the emergent field of blockchain technology and the arts.

About the book: MoneyLab is a network of artists, activists, and geeks experimenting with forms of financial democratization. Entering the 10th year of the global financial crisis, it still remains a difficult yet crucial task to distinguish old wine from its fancy new bottles. The MoneyLab network questions persistent beliefs, from Calvinist austerity, growth, and up-scaling, to trustless, automated decision making and (anarcho-)capitalist dreams of cybercurrencies and blockchained solutionism.

We consider experiments with digital coops, internet-based payment and network-based revenue models as spaces of political imagination, with an equally important aesthetic program. In this second MoneyLab Reader the network delves into topics like the financialization of art; love as a binary proposition on the blockchain; the crowdfunding of livelihood; the cashless society; financial surveillance of the poor; universal basic income as the real McCoy or a real sham; the cooperative answer to Airbnb and Uber; the history of your financial dashboard; and, Hollywood’s narration of the financial crisis. Fintech rushes through our veins, causing a whirlwind of critical concepts, ideas and imaginaries. Welcome to the eye of the storm.

Contributors: Jaya Klara Brekke, Tripta Chandola, Max Dovey, Economic Space Agency, General Intellect, Max Haiven, Robert Herian, David Hollanders, Dmytri Kleiner, Silvio Lorusso, Laura Lotti, Nathalie Maréchal, Rachel O’Dwyer, Nina Power, Patricia Reed, Patrice Riemens, Emily Rosamond, Trebor Scholz, Brett Scott, Nathaniel Tkacz, Pablo R. Velasco, Martin Zeilinger.

Colophon: Editors: Inte Gloerich, Geert Lovink and Patricia de Vries. Copy editing: Ed Graham. Cover design: Anastasia Kubrak. Design: Inte Gloerich. EPUB development: Inte Gloerich. Printer: Drukkerij Tuijtel, Hardinxveld-Giessendam. Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures.

This publication is supported by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. MoneyLab Reader 2 is part of the State Machines project. This project has been funded with the support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.