Radical Friends brings together the leading voices in the DAO, NFT, crypto-art, Web3, and blockchain scene to unpack and elucidate the profound potential of these new technologies for the arts. Comprised of essays, artworks, and interviews, the book offers readers a broad introduction to the latest conversations, themes, and experiments in this fast moving field.
DAOs ― decentralised autonomous organisations ― are the most revolutionary technology to emerge in the Web3 space, offering new ways for people to coordinate assets, activities, and value, using smart contracts, tokens, digital objects, and voting on the blockchain.
For the arts, DAOs revitalise the possibilities of: working collaboratively; collective authorship; distributing material; creating value; incentivising behaviour; and certifying intellectual property.
Composed of a wide range of views on and experiments with DAOs, the book looks critically at the technology and its contemporary applications, whilst situating it historically and considering its future in the arts.
Edited by Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty, who have been at the forefront of the relationship between DAOs and the arts, the book follows Torque Editions' ground-breaking book Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain.
Contributors: Ramon Amaro, Black Swan DAO, Erik Bordeleau, Calum Bowden, Jaya Klara Brekke, Mitchell Chan, Primavera De Filippi, Cade Diehm, eeefff, Fingerprints DAO, Charlotte Frost, Lucile Haute, Sara Heitlinger, Lara Houston, Cadence Kinsey, Nick Koppenhagen, Kei Kreutler, Aude Launay, Laura Lotti, Jonas Lund, Mao Mollona, Rhea Myers, Bhavisha Panchia, Tina Rivers, Legacy Russell, Nathan Schneider, Hito Steyerl, Alex Taylor, terra0, Cassie Thornton, Suzanne Treister, Stacco Troncoso, Ann Marie Utratel, and Samson Young.
