Johannes Ebert am 22. Januar 2022 in München
Eröffnung des Symposiums „Radial Friends”

Grußwort von Johannes Ebert bei der Eröffnung des Symposiums „Radial Friends. DAO Summit for Decentralisatin of Power and Resources in the Artworld / Lockdown Lessons” am 22. Januar 2022 im Haus der Kunst in München

Welcome to the Summit “Radical Friends”,

I am very happy and also truly very curious about these upcoming 8 hours that give space to the voices of artists, technologists, thinkers and other stakeholders, who explore how traditional institutional (infra)structures can be transformed through decentralised autonomous organisations enabled by blockchain technologies.

Over the last years, the Goethe-Institut, led by the Goethe-Institut London set up an extensive transnational network.

In close cooperation with trusted partners in the UK, among them Ben Vickers (from the Serpentine Galleries), Ruth Catlow (from Furtherfield) and Penny Rafferty, as well as with colleagues and partners of international arts and technology institutions, but above all with artists and activists in Athens, Berlin, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Minsk, Moscow, Singapore and Seoul the network explored the benefits and pitfalls of blockchain developments for civil society, the arts, and culture.

It is fascinating to look at some of the prototypes that have been developed over the course of the last years within this network. I personally want to welcome the teams as well as all the other speakers and very much look forward to their presentations today.

Let me also take this opportunity to reflect on why this topic matters to us as a cultural institution working in 98 countries. Not only do we observe how blockchain technology is changing the arts or funding-system in the arts. For us, having decentralised our network of 158 institutes many years ago, we are genuinely interested in the nature of decentralised working structures / models. Also, it is in the very challenging circumstances that we operate in at times, for which we see potential for the use of blockchain technology or simply for working with models of decentralised autonomous organisation.

To give you an example: In illiberal and authoritarian contexts, we have started to encounter new self-organised decentralised structures when working with artists or cultural practitioners in needs or at risk: Here, blockchain-based solutions are often used in communication, distribution and support by members of the respective scenes – for example, in order to support fellow cultural workers in danger through crowdfunding, which is paid out in cryptocurrency for security reasons or due to a lack of a “traditional” bank account.

It is also these practises that we are interested in as an institution, possibly allowing us to overcome some bureaucratic hurdles – while at the same time critically observing the many down-sides of the technology, like the speculative cultures that surround them. It also currently remains a challenge for us to network and scale such decentralised and collaborative structures worldwide. So formats such as this summit today serve as hubs of innovation for all of us, meaning our work is about being in exchange with critical thinkers and practitioners on the topics of our time. It means that we are learning from and incorporating these discourses in our own institutional structures - and allowing us to constantly rethink our ways of operating in order to stay relevant and to serve communities and society around the world in the best possible way.

This summit is part of “Lockdown Lessons”, a project which searches for answers on what can be learned from the Covid-19 crisis on a global scale - looking at various concerns. While we are here today discussing the aspect of agency and equality as a corrective to hierarchical structures and centralised control, other modules in Belgium, Brazil, India, Greece, Germany, Korea, Namibia and the US, explore topics such as the pandemic’s repercussions on our democracies, why the reaction to the pandemic was rather rapid and robust, compared to the rather slow-moving response to climate change, or which new opportunities and innovative products and solutions can found in reaction to the pandemic.

I don’t want to conclude without expressing my regret that we cannot all meet in person today, here in Munich at the Haus der Kunst. While I fully embrace the digital revolution, I do very much believe in real-life encounters for us as human beings, for a certain chemistry and creativity that trigger new ideas, start new collaborations. Having said this, much work has been invested into this programme to create a digital space that allows for all of us to feel as little restricted as possible in this realm. I hope this approach triggers a similar creativity we all know from real life encounters.

Also, the digital version of this summit has certainly given many of you a chance to join today. So a very special welcome to you!

Finally, allow me to thank our partner and host, the Haus der Kunst, specifically Andrea Lissoni, Sarah Theurer, Julia Pfeiffer and Saskia Müller-Bastian for the trusted cooperation in these last months. Above all, my sincere thanks goes to the curators of Radical Friends: Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty. And of course I also would like to thank my colleagues from the Goethe-Institut.

Enjoy the summit!