Phantasms of Decentralization? Conversations about Commoning with Coming Media

Commoning as a verb refers to the joint action of negotiating, regulating, and conducting ways of living together with the expectation of mutual care, aid, and benefit. Commoning in the context of emerging alternative urban living projects are mostly linked with sentiments of de-growth, offline-living, and a general scepticism towards new technologies. While sympathizing with such projects, this panel attempts to initiate a speculative conversation about a more radical commoning using recent and forthcoming information technologies. The conversation addresses the potential entanglement of technologies with alternative forms of living together from different scales and levels, such as networking (goods, communication), decision making, predicting/modelling, automation driven post-scarcity economies, tracking, and negotiating situated value. It also looks at the affective and fantastic ingredients of commoning with tech—such as the phantasms of decentralization.

With: Viktor Bedö, Michaela Büsse, Yann Martins, Shintaro Miyazaki, Selena Savic, John Evans (special guest), Cade Diehm (special guest)

This panel is presented in cooperation with Critical Media Lab Basel.