Here's the info sheet I just designed for an upcoming event. Titles are in Impact, the rest is Courier that was condensed by kerning. The portraits I chose are Emma Goldman and Piotr Kropotkin, both 19th century anarchists. I chose the anarchists on purpose, to make the exhibition mildly provocative.
There are those in the Minnesota blockchain space that vocally oppose including anarchists in our community. This strikes me as unfortunate, and maybe worth talking about. After all, there would be no crypto for the masses without anarchists.
When Timothy May wrote his Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, he ended it with this sentence: "Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!" By now, everything he wrote in 1988 has arguably come to pass. Everything but the part about losing our fences.
The digital world is governed entirely by anarchism. It has rules, but no rulers, which is how it should be. If rulers try to take control of it, we can just depopulate their digital domains and build another internet for ourselves. The nature of the technology makes this feasible. Just look at the story of Hive.
Personally, I think that the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect our natural freedom. Anarchists like Kropotkin believed that federations of federations were best suited to this task. Goldman focused heavily on the rights of women and workers. I suspect both figures would consider the current situation much improved from the situation in the era they lived in.
These days, I usually disagree with most people who publicly call themselves anarchists. Sure, we all favor self-governance, but that's often where our common ground ends. I totally understand why the blockchain community in Minnesota wouldn't want to be associated with criminals and tax protesters. But self-governance seems like one of the main advantages of decentralization, right up there with system resilience.
Most of my experience of anarchism in action comes from the rainbow family, where governance involves lots of sitting in circles, trying to reach consensus. Last night, I dreamed that I was sitting in a peaceful circle, but the circle had been broken by a guy who was standing right next to me, ranting angrily about something or other. Eventually, the person seated next to me and I pushed the guy out of our circle by joining hands. I feel like this could be a metaphor for displacing misused power by strengthening important connections.
I don't know if my upcoming NFT exhibition will start any good conversations. Chances are no one will even notice the anarchists on my info sheet. And that's fine. I had fun designing it, and the event will definitely introduce my art to an audience that wouldn't otherwise be exposed to it.
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