Lecture Performance
at Bükü
2015

Does technology infuse us with the power to imagine a borderless society? Why do political promises and utopias keep inscribing themselves into digital infrastructures? What are modes and conditions of these inscriptions? The performance lecture zeroes in on those questions through a collective examination of decentralised, deterritorialising techno-political structures such as that of the blockchain. The lecture performance confronts these convoluted and highly abstract questions with a healthy dose of critical spirit reinforced by hands-on experiences: It takes as an experiential point of departure the phenomenon of the blockchain-wedding – the ability to obtain binding documentation for a contractual event – something traditionally guaranteed by the nation-state. This event is transposed into the lecture situation, thereby providing concrete phenomenological material illustrating the far-ranging techno-political problematic outlined before. Within this context, participants are tasked with embodying the blockchain themselves. Customarily digitally mediated procedures are translated into a paper-based process, executed by the collective mind of present individuals. The event thus aims to lyse existing ideological positions, leaving its subjects cheerily infused with newly discovered dreams, acquired techno-political tastes and secretly productive ambiguities.