I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. I am the one who is the most powerful. Thank you. Thank you. Well, for those who want to stay with us in the stream now, there is the opportunity to state your statements, as I said, and ask questions, and participate in our discussion, which is open now. Antonia Folguera, Katia Von Roth, Margarete Jamannann and Christian Faubel are still here with us. Christoph Hubatschke, you have been chatting the whole night. So some questions were raised, so I can like maybe summarize them and throw them into the discussion. So one comment was that maybe if is blockchain like only like really this revolutionary new thing or is it just like another hype or a buzzword so maybe katia could say more on on that one question was also regarding what antonia said that she gets angry if she cannot customize her avatar the same way she looks in reality asking what happens when we not really use the potential of transformation in the concept or the figure of the avatar. And in relationship to that, one question was also if the avatar really can become or even be this emancipative figure we talked about, or is it not mostly reproducing the power relations and discriminatory biases in a given society? Okay, let's do one after the other. It's time to forget the first one already. Maybe we take the middle one. Antonia, how was it? Can you maybe repeat, Christoph? How was the precise question? Yeah, it was in the question of the transformation and the aspect that when you get angry that you don't, that can look as you look in reality. This is a technical question, actually. No, no, it was about if you then not really use the transformative potential. Okay. Antonia. Do you hear me? Yes. Loud and clear. I think it's kind of, I will answer, I guess it's a really personal answer because uh creating your digital identity or your avatar gives you the freedom to be whatever you want and there are people who in metaverses or in social networks or wherever uh they decide to design crazy beings like you can be whatever you want but i i just like to be myself and uh and i like to set up avatars that look like myself that they even have my own clothes i may change little things maybe my hair maybe things like that but i like to be represented in that on the internet, be it a metaverse or any regular social networks as myself. Katia, you were telling us, I don't know if we saw it all here, but this avatar with the skateboard arms. With the skateboard hands so this is a try to do something completely different because if you use the normal tools of of creating avatars then it is like painting by numbers you are as Jana Hervik said before it is as much freedom as you can have or as much freedom as the programmer and the platform is giving you, and within this it is quite limited. So it would mean that it has more limitations than the biological or the biosphere or the biological entity would have. Yeah, maybe this is like, because there was also the question if the blockchain is the big new thing or not, which I can for sure not answer because we don't know yet. I am experiencing really interesting things. I was interested in the concept of smart contracts for a long time, and now I really feel and meet people in different metaverses. And I think the person, like the avatar with the skateboard hands, I think it's not that there's a person that was dreaming of having skateboard hands. But and there we see what is something that I think is interesting in how blockchain is used. It's possible to build skateboard hands. And therefore they are there. And it is possible because the costumes you are actually wearing and the Tetrapak with God juice your avatar is holding in their hand are NFTs and the land that allows you to build in metaverse, at least in the case of crypto boxes, is an NFT. And I could sell it to you at the kiosk by writing down my wallet number to you and you are taking four thousand dollars from you and then send it to your wallet and the next time you go online then you can build in that area of the metaverse because you own it or you have skateboard hands because you have it you know and that's um we had a costume um like a costume that the don't know the word, like a show about who can design the best wearable, like a competition. And there were really crazy wearables for other avatars. And there were people having like, I mean, there are people that have big wings. And they also only fly on parties, you know. They choose the behavior depending on their costume but who won was like a small really crappy paper box on a skateboard because somebody managed to not even have like the avatar body at all and just like become an object on a skateboard and everybody was really hyped about this this wearable winning okay well. Well, I mean, this brings us actually to the first question about the blockchain, when you are now, because you mentioned it already, if blockchain is so revolutionary as it is presented. I think that was the base question, Christoph? Something like that, yeah? Or is it just... Thank you for your fantastic explanation how blockchain works, because now even I understand it. So it is... Well, I think it is lots of potential in it, but maybe, Christian, you are not the big blockchain fan, or Katia, I mean, you're the specialist on that. I mean, maybe I can say something and then Christian can go into fight with me, as we also can see each other. Did you see Christian looking go into fight with me as we also can see each other like did you see Christian looking and like saying hi to me we can see each other we are in the same space for me something like really I don't know what will happen in the future maybe I have like some ideas of it and so we all have and some people have like interesting and critical ideas about blockchain and there's a lot of like I mean there's a lot of critical topics in there, like environment and capitalism and all this stuff we know about. And you should read and study about it. All of you should read and study about it to understand what's happening. Because for sure it's like a shift of power dynamics. And a really concrete thing that i like is all the people that are into code and developing now get the perspective that there are like millions and millions and millions traded in the art market which was somehow clear before but you know it was not in the news it was not in the news that somebody is paying like $1.5 million for a single pixel. But these things happened. And for the whole arts, we are for sure, it's still gatekeeped. You still need marketing. Maybe you need even more marketing to be in there. And you still have to think. And if you want to do like the environmentally friendly blockchain, then you have less audience. And I mean, it's a cool audience. But, you know, for for sure it's reproducing a lot of stuff because we are not coming from nowhere. But I think the direction is an interesting one. And I'm really rich in JPEGs. I have more money and worth than I ever had in these categories right now in JPEGs. And some of them I made my own. I have tons of JPEGs on my computer, so I will upload them and become rich. No, it's like, you know, the context is interesting. It's like who are you, what are the JPEGs, what are they for you, and what's your story about it and how you tell it to us. Because this is what art, at least to me, or parts of art is. But also, I mean, I'm still here to perform because when we were watching before, I thought I'm maybe not even able to watch from the outside into this topic because I'm just really feeling it. This is why you can't see my face. Margarete, you have a laid-back view on this topic. Do you think that the blockchain is a chance to change political systems and our social interaction? I'm not laid-back here. and our social interaction? I'm not laid back here. Actually, I would prefer to jump on the question of the metaverse and data avatars again, because this is your topic also, of course, related to the discourse. But for me, it is not a political tool to escape anywhere again. Not at all. To me, it is a tool also to affirm art markets and art market discourses in general, and a tool to consume energy. Because blockchain and Bitcoin are related, and one Bitcoin transmission consumes according to the etc. I don't know if we can trust that sources. one Bitcoin transmission consumes according to the NZZ. I don't know if we can trust that sources. The amount of energy and power that Swiss car uses in a month in Zurich, in any monoculture entity. I don't know if the data is correct, but of course a lot of energy flows are activated, which are consuming hardware, consuming energy, consuming power. And therefore, I think I don't want to build only on that system. Also, the digital representations are possible, also digital systems. other digital representations are possible, also digital systems. So, as you started with this discourse, also you said there was also in the discourse mentioned that you cannot escape the digital providers, sort of. Yeah, you can create a sort of social network also with the means that each user has. She has the power also to represent her own data in a form that she likes. And we don't have to use the social network and system, and not necessarily to accept the contract system of a law contract, which was in the discourse before. And I think there are different forms also if we consider text or data or these forms of representation as avatars. It's just a different form. I understand that Antonio wants to use her classes also in a virtual representation because it can be fun because you're never really like you are yourself. This little difference, that is, I think, the teasing thing why you want to look like yourself for your physical appearance. I can understand this as well. Well, just a little insert here because here we see your brain avatar, Margarete. This is a suggestion, no? That is really not looking like anything we know. Yeah, it's like a mind worm that is crawling out of somewhere, but it is a live record from data, like this tracking data that was mentioned before, but it is also encrypted, so to say, in an aesthetic or, I don't know, in a tube shape or a mind form, or like an oa-wurm is like an hirn-wurm. I just like it and we use it also. Brainwurm is nice. and here here i just like it and we used it also like it's nice yeah it is just a different form in order to show that there are options for and this is very close really to my mindset at that moment in terms of what we can record now yeah of course it doesn't show the whole mind but okay i'll continue now with uh christian faubel because you brought up one physical aspect which i found very interesting especially in the context of this discourse we have here i'm an engineer actually so i relate very much to practical stuff but nonetheless is what i there is this idea of course, with this having kind of like your own data, that you could have something like a digital twin or something that could exist on its own based on kind of like all your data, all that, to the extent that people think like at one point you could upload your brain to an avatar, then it would kind of like coexist with you. And this idea of, it's kind of like there's an inherent contradiction. And that inherent contradiction comes from the fact that you are never the same and i think that sort of links to that question of authenticity so because you are actually i would say you are constantly constantly remodeling yourself because whatever you do modifies your experience and what you experience modifies your inner structures. So, for example, you could, when you start doing a lot of sport training every day, you will build up new muscles, but you will also have your brain structure changing and that will eventually provide you with a completely different experience of the world and and that is something if you consider that it makes it impossible to think of something like a digital twin coexisting with you because you would have to constantly kind of like override the experience of that digital twin if that if that one could have an experience on its own okay so that means um this brings me to uh these ideas or this project, Hossein Ranama, with his company Human Dynamics, he's offering to build an avatar of yourself or of other people. The project is called Augmented Eternity, so everybody can Google that, you will find lots of articles and it's all CC. You can copy and paste and use it because he's very sure about what he's doing, so he doesn't need to have any copyrights on it. So he's actually, just to briefly explain for everybody, he is actually offering that he's building an avatar out of the big data. So he's using the big data all the companies are using to make money with it and sell information. And he says he's a democrat. He gives it back to the people. You can have your own avatar living forever or as long as the electricity is working. But he's also offering that you can order an avatar from your brother, your sister, your ancestors, or even other people, or your business partners, or your... So you can, like, train, for example, if you want to enter a job or something, you can already... You can let them make an avatar of your future boss and then you can talk to this person before you see him in real. And of course all these avatars have the perspective to live as long as there is energy somehow. But you actually say this is bullshit because this cannot work. Because this avatar can be in the best case an entity but it will not be a twin of you it will be somebody else in the end the question would of course be whether that i mean it's it's kind of like a statistical snapshot of yourself or you can think of it like a you take a photograph now Now, is that photograph yourself in that moment? Yes, but then you continue and you deviate from that picture. So two days later, that old data set of yourself is already, you have deviated from it. And now the other question is whether that other data set has its own dynamics or not if it doesn't if it's just static i mean that's plainly boring obviously i mean what i would say so only would work if we are dead no well yeah then it's kind of like you're frozen in a way yes it would work i am not sure if it makes very a lot of sense like what what is the purpose of your avatar living in a metaverse like doing something while you are living in the real world like you are dead and this being this digital being lives there i'm not sure i what i like about the idea of the avatar it's not possible today but maybe will be possible one day when technology allows is to be able to embody the avatar like that i don't have to control it anymore with a joystick or with a keyboard or even when VR and AR technology, I think that there will come a point when they will be so small that they will be invisible. And so we will be able to inhabit these digital worlds. That's what I was saying in the beginning. We have the capacity to be in the real world as we know it like this where i am right now and i'm touching things and then at some point i can i don't know maybe snapping my fingers i have no idea i can be in uh different metaverse or changing metaverses i can i i would like to imagine to imagine different worlds that are interoperable, like that I can have my identity, my avatar, with its different configurations, and I can enter these different worlds, and I can jump out of these different worlds, and when I am there, I can live, I can act, I can be in my own body, which I think this is only possible to experience in a kind of clunky way in virtual reality nowadays. But I think that technology is going there. Like when we will have the possibility to interact with these digital worlds, these digital layers, with basically our gestures, our voice, our hands. Like there is a lot of research in this area called spatial computing. And I am fascinated by these possibilities, that I'm not sure if they will come fast enough for me to see them, but I'm excited about it. Okay. Christoph, is there a request? Well, there were two questions left. One was the more broader general question on the potential of the avatar, like as Margarete said, like if the avatar even can be a figure like the cyborg or so, is it not more reproducing power relations? And the other one was a discussion, not so much a question on the statement at the end of the value, what is more valuable, the data or the person behind it, because Constanze very much is voting for the person and the data is only valuable in relation to person, like the one person but also the other person. Yeah, but it says your data is more valuable than the services you give it to. And that is actually the political aspect of it, that we actually, we are the resource for big companies. And most of us even pay for giving the data or giving the resource to the companies. So you pay like, I don't know, 25 euros a month for providing the data to Google and Microsoft and Apple and all these companies. So this is actually very strange upside down political thing. That's like, yeah, we can have this in the third world, no? Where the so-called, no? Where the resources like iridium and all these materials are... They pay for getting the highway, the Chinese build the highway and they pay for it and so they can take the resources there for more or less nothing. That is actually not a technical problem, it is a problem of, as I always say, it's a problem of the economy, economical system and it is a problem of capitalism. It's, you can, the technical possibilities are great, but it's if you set it up and infiltrate it with this kind of system, then it is to our negative development. Ja, please. In einem Metaversum gesprochen Es geht um unser negativeres Entwicklung. Ja, bitte. In einem Metaversum gesprochen oder gibt es mehrere? Das ist die erste Frage, weil hier wird von einem Metaversum oft gesprochen. Sie spricht von mehreren. Und die zweite Frage ist, es dreht sich nicht eigentlich darum, dass so ähnlich wie Facebook oder Google alle versuchen, das eine Metaversum zu erzeugen, wo dann alle hingehen. Und was bleibt dann übrig von dieser Freiheit und Gestaltungsmöglichkeit? So, ja, this is to all of you actually. But you, Antonia, were talking of many Metaverses. And I was mentioning, like in the 90s, there was this idea of one Metaverse. And what is this actually? Still we don't really know. So we don't know. I guess that I'm not sure. I have no idea what will be in the future. But right now, there are many metaverses. And basically, they are worlds that live in a server, in a computer server. So there are many and their property of different companies, different collectives, etc., etc. and their property of different companies, different collectives, etc., etc. And so I think that at the end of the day is to visit or live in the metaverse that you feel most comfortable with, where you find your community, like the people who you like to spend time with, as you do in the physical world. So there are quite a few a few actually many of them are highly centralized and there are some of them that run on the blockchain and there are decentralized and i would say that the decentralized option is the one that looks more ideal to me also because in a way the early internet didn't address two questions. And one was identity and the other one was exchange of value. And blockchains can have the potential to solve those things, like to own your identity, your avatar, your name, your surname, and also to exchange value digitally with other avatars, other people, other things. So I think that this kind of decentralized metaverses are like the most interesting ones. Also because they offer like a lot of freedom to design. Okay. But in the end, even if it's a server, but it has to be online, so somehow it is connected to the online. So somehow it is connected to the internet. So the tendency is, I think the tendency is, as you said, that in the end there will be just one because it's all connected. And this is the vision of the 80s and the 90s, that there will be one metaverse which is actually doing everything. That means you can even do all your bank uh transfers and whatever uh in this uh parallel uh metaverse you don't even need to step out at all and this is like also um like in neuromancer well um well that sounds like the current internet actually yeah this is the internet yeah but it is sounds like the current internet, actually. Yeah, this is the internet, yeah, but it is like, if the whole internet is like fed by this kind of virtual three-dimensional whatever construction, it's maybe just a question of the capacity of the computers. But in the end, that I think is very important, that the people think the internet, the internet. But in the end, there have to be servers, there have to be computers standing somewhere. And as we know, I think China owns the most, the biggest server farms for blockchain, which is interesting, because if... I think it's not China think it's not China owning them. It's many people using them in China and then China forbidding it. This is what's happening. So, I mean, what I think is interesting, we were hearing the idea of my avatar doing stuff without me somewhere else where I am, which is something that I can totally not identify with, because I mostly, like, it's a lot of fun, all the fun would be with my avatar and not with me, you know? I mean, I don't want, I don't have any desire to have, like, some representation or twin or anything. It's just that I don't know what I experienced is a cultural practice that I can still, I mean, I can do in many environments. I can decide to turn around my body and open up to a newly joining person with my avatar the same like I do in physical world or off-world metaverse, how I call it. For sure, there's like totally different things happening, but I have a lot of situations and environments and groupings with people that I don't have any connection with in so-called real world or off world metaverse and I have really strong connections and they are so strong that people can even like end my sentences sometimes with some people I don't even know if it's one or more persons that I'm interacting with you know but I really feel a connection so I would be interested in this idea of having a representation to is it about free time then to be like to meet several people at the same time is this in that well i mean i'm just thinking about uh the self-driving car which is uh like um on on on in the weekend the car is going somewhere to the south, to the sun, while I have no time and I have to work at home, so the car goes there by its own. So I'm represented in Grado or somewhere. Okay. Well... There are streets and cars in many metaverses, by the way. I think it's interesting. Why do they reproduce, streets while designing metaverses? Yeah. I mean, this is something which I'm not deeply into. The metaverse, when I go in or when I look at pictures of these words, I'm surprised that they are not so weird as all this could be. I mean, this is, and I think, for example, what is the difference between kind of like a purely text-based interface, so where I can exchange ideas and I absolutely can imagine these experiences Katia is describing, that you can get very connected to someone. It's an old tradition. Even just by writing letters back and forth, you can have this deep connection. And I think that's something for sure can happen in such a world. But what I don't get is why the – for example, it's three-dimensional Cartesian. For example, it's three-dimensional Cartesian. You can build a polar world, you know, where everything is defined by radius and angle, just as an example. Or you can think of, I mean, the idea would be to create a world that you haven't even ever experienced or thought of. And I don't see this happening. I see pictures hanging on the wall. I mean, what for? It's not only. I know. We didn't mention the diamond age concept or environment that I was also discussing with Thomas in the preparation phase. And so, yeah, this discourse also is very present with the moment where the possibility of a three-dimensional representation or Cartesian representation is possible. But parallel, there are other concepts. I fully agree, Christian, also here. Also where the avatar and metaverse discourse could be anchored is this diamond age environment that I also was discussing with colleagues in an application where you only have the reflection at corner points of others as a network, which expresses and shows the structure of the network. And this would connect again to a philosophic network ofAM Buddhism, where the Diamond Age discourse comes from. And also Snokrej's authors were referring to it, by the way. in one of his books also this was deeply rooted in this optional living discourse, a way of better living discourse and interestingly this already shows us models that are different than the 3D representation of cars of course what I would add is I am constantly listening or reading other people in these metaverses talking about being excited once real artists and real architects come in here and do crazy stuff it was really a thing when the first person made a pizza that somebody ate from and designed this into metaverse to tell a story about it. You know, and this for sure, I mean... So you definitely missed then, of course, all the metaverse discourses where the artist, I would say, a decade ago or 15 years ago, when the 3D representation of avatars and the 3D net started with the web in 93, 94. And I really think that not only with Habitat, the game environment, where the graphical avatar period started, it was really a phase where these online metaverses and open spaces also involved and you know that there was as a from a a a relatively big group of artists from chrisma care to uh and he was 80 or 1990 then and we could develop a close relation by chatting with a cat and he was always a cat for example because that leaked to his art to young artists not like uh branco and eva martis were in this group also of this online environment and they are selling big if selling is the is the indies indies but for me it is not of course so i don't like that but there was a lot of experiment work always in the early phases. Then it went down again. I don't know what will happen now. I see that the question is there, and I'm happy that the question is there again. So let's go there. Well, I have the feeling that most of the things which are happening now are actually the realization of ideas which are 70 80 90 years old so lots of stuff is dystopian or utopian ideas of the 60s and 70s where the big authors like Philip K Dick and We're designing these kind of ideas and now this is on the way to be realized or is realized already. And I also think, I agree with you, Margarete, that it is interesting to think about the things to come. Not the things which are here now, but in a similar weird way or in a similar visionary way like 70 80 years ago because now we have lots of possibilities technologically wise but It looks like the divisions and the ideas are a little bit dry. Let's say like this So I thank you very much for joining uh us here and it is a very difficult discussion actually and it can go on we had lots of time we spent in the preparations and i think there's lots of material, lots of stuff we also recorded, so I hope we can also present this to a broader audience, or at least to interested people. Thank you very much for being with us in this stream. Thank you for being here in the audience. Dankeschön fürs Kommen und für die Teilnahme und auch die Frage. und für die Teilnahme und auch die Frage. Thank you Antonia, I wish you good luck, toy toy toy. For your festival, I know it will start on the 29th of October, the Sonar T Festival. This is also online available and accessible, so everybody who is interested should log in there. I think it is very interesting and it will be, yeah, I hope you will have lots of fun, even if it's lots of work. So, thank you very much, and bye-bye. Ciao, bye-bye. And now we are going to listen to Martin Sievert's guitar for a moment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.