EDITOR’S NOTE: Lithopy, curated by Denisa Kera and Petr Šourek along with a second project entitled Out of Power Tower, represents the Czech participation in the XXII Triennale di Milano, Broken Nature. The projects arise from a survey centered on the significant mineral resources of the Czech territory––in particular, lithium. Lithopy questions the practice of this mineral’s extraction and its use. The Czech pavilion was commissioned by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague with the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
Lithopia Design Fiction movie scene.
The Lithopia Project1 offers a design method for anticipatory governance7 of emerging blockchain and DLTs that goes against the current hype of anticipatory and frictionless design promises of full control over user decisions2,11. Instead of predicting user needs that ultimately serve one version of the (industry defined) future, anticipatory prototyping involves the users as stakeholders in the adoption of the emerging technology. It offers templates of blockchain services that present the future scenarios and dilemmas, which can be modified and iterated to support inclusive and democratic “future-making”14,15 that combines prototyping with deliberation.
The Lithopia prototyping templates consist of a dashboard featured on Figure 1 and a design fiction scenario (Figure 2 and 3). While the dashboard integrates the existing social and technical infrastructures (social institutions of marriage and property ownership on the ledger with data from satellites, Hyperledger Fabric REST API, and various open APIs), the design fiction presents exaggerated and artistically rendered use cases that hint at the potential (mis)uses. In this fictional village, some common gestures have unexpected meaning if caught by satellites, and the Lithopians are forced to invent bizarre strategies of hiding under umbrellas to escape their satellites and the blockchain. They also indulge in various techno-superstitions, such as horoscopes of satellite locations, which they use to interpret geopolitical events.
The scenarios are intentionally ambiguous and exaggerated to provoke creative uses of the Lithopia templates on the Github. In the Lithopia context “Sunny days are made for transactions. No clouds prevent satellites from keeping an eye on contracts being made and assets changing hands. People exchange goods, make payments, marry and divorce. All the hustle and bustle of sunny days is recorded by the decentralized digital ledger of the blockchain. Hugs are big and kisses are many to make sure satellites recognize and the blockchain records affection, love, and friendship. In Lithopia, all social contact is a smart contract.”8
Anticipatory prototyping
The Lithopia project serves as an educational tool, but also a participatory probe to critically evaluate the promises of DLTs’ future, in which governance will merge with automation over smart contracts, and we will have a tool to control data tempering, fake news, or even AI simulations. The anticipatory prototypes explicitly connect design with ethical deliberation and policy negotiations by engaging the public directly in the design process rather than predicting user behavior and promising “anticipatory” design.
The prototypes utilize existing open source tools (Hyperledger Fabric and Composer for the blockchain contracts; Node-RED and various open APIs for the dashboard) to create templates on GitHub that support creative and exploratory uses of such technologies. The goal is to help the general public and various stakeholders to understand, experience, experiment with, and deliberate upon the future of blockchain and its integration with other existing technologies.
Blockchain governance and design
While the first decade of blockchain and DLTs was mainly on transactions between humans (Bitcoin blockchain and numerous crypto-alt-currency projects), we are entering a phase that emphasizes integration of these emerging technologies with existing infrastructures and corporate and institutional actors (Ethereum, Ripple, and Corda platforms and protocols) along increasing machine-to-machine transactions, including AI and IoT scenarios (IOTA). The original, libertarian, and crypto-anarchist emphasis on privacy and anonymity of the individuals is transforming into a pragmatic search for convergences of the DLTs with existing social, but also technological, infrastructures (satellites, IoT, banks, and supply chains)4,13 .
...
|
On Sep 13, 2019, at 6:00 AM, Christy Spackman <Christy.Spackman@asu.edu> wrote:Imagine you are at a cafe. Three people are there.1) who are the three people whose interaction you want to prototype?2) what might a "normal" script be for those interactions?3) what new script(s) are you hoping to inspire?
Prototype Fall 2019publish in DIS, CHI, Leonardo, etc.Local Exhibit Emerge 2020Apply for funding Spring 2020Refine Summer 2020
On Sep 13, 2019, at 6:15 PM, Yanjun Lyu <ylyu16@asu.edu> wrote:Follow up Xin Wei and Christy,I think the Global Cafe Team should receive the notification of a shared Google "Cafe Project" folder. If you are not, please remind me.I built a Google Project folder in which I uploaded all files, clips, a poster and a note(DRAFT) from my understanding and a summary based on Xin Wei and Christy's emails during these days for this project. I hope this is helpful for our Monday meeting (9/16, 3-4) and future communication. The Note named "notes for TEAM to edit" is a mutual place for us to share thoughts, suggestions, resources, even an online discussion space. I hope this helpful for teamwork and also for Xinwei, Christy, Lauren to edit any suggestion on here to us.Best,yOn Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 1:10 PM sxw asu <shaxinwei@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Everyone,To follow up Christy –Christy Spackman, Lauren Hayes and I think the social form of the meal / cafe gives a concrete “boundary object” in which to try out speculative, experimental artistic / computational techniques, as well as conceptual questions. It is rich enough to be a site for individual special research work, and simultaneously meaningful to people from any walk of life. So let’s make the meal / cafe social form one of Synthesis focal research platforms. (The other remains improvisatory events and participatory steering of complex systems in responsive environments.)
I’m hoping that this term, with Shomit, Yanjun, Ri, and Andrew R, Garrett, andsupported by key Synthesis researchers, we can build a new generation of experiments that will lead to publications and internationally exhibitable work that can attract support from outside ASU, even outside the academy.We’re very lucky to have faculty like Lauren and Christy interested in advising us in this work.We are interested in helping focus the really exciting explorations into tangible iterations.Yanjun, Shomit, Ri, Garrett,In order to make progress let’s propel this with the initial constraints and questions that Christy and I pose. To repeat:Imagine you are at a cafe. Three people are there.
1) who are the three people whose interaction you want to prototype?
2) what might a "normal" script be for those interactions?
3) what new script(s) are you hoping to inspire?
In order to have impact, we’ll need to have an adequate production level : I will take responsibility for this — with Connor and Pete as “goto” experts, as well as Todd, Lauren, Brandon, and the Tech Team (Pete, Luke, Ozzie). Remember the Tech Team are advisors but they have very limited time to actually fabricate solutions. So it will be important to collanorate, recruit students, and pool skills.Let’s talk today if we can .I’ll Zoom in in about 15’ as soon as I get to a quite spot and hang out near my zoom for a couple of hours as long as I can today.Xin WeiPS Thanks Garrett, Shomit, Yanjun Andrew’s for earlier ideas…Can someone — Yanjun? — start a a Google project folder + notes doc for the “cafe” ?We may want a more inclusive name for the social form / genre of collective meal / refreshment in common spaceOn Sep 13, 2019, at 6:00 AM, Christy Spackman <Christy.Spackman@asu.edu> wrote:Yanjun, Shomit, Ri (and Garrett),I met with Xin Wei yesterday, and we wanted to add on one additional task for all of you. We think that the possible interactions you could explore are quite large, so we invite you to constrain it in the following way:Imagine you are at a cafe. Three people are there.1) who are the three people whose interaction you want to prototype?2) what might a "normal" script be for those interactions?3) what new script(s) are you hoping to inspire?Please plan on being able to present this information to us in person during Synthesis lab's open work hours in a week. Please let us know which of the drop in hours you will make.Best,Christy and Xin WeiChristy Spackman, PhDAssistant ProfessorSchool for the Future of Innovation in SocietySchool of Arts, Media, and EngineeringArizona State University@christyspackman
_________________________________________________skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962Founding Director, Topological Media Lab_______________________________________________________
From: Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu>
Subject: FW: You’ve been added to the shared drive Global Cafe
Date: September 13, 2019 at 5:49:42 PM PDT
To: sxw asu <sxwasu@gmail.com>
From: Yanjun Lyu (via Google Drive)
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2019 5:49:37 PM (UTC-07:00) Arizona
To: xsha1@asu.edu
Subject: You’ve been added to the shared drive Global Cafe
Global CafeYanjun Lyu has added you to Global Cafe.
You can add, edit, move, and delete files in this drive.Shared drives is a space where teams can easily store, collaborate on, and access their files anywhere, from any device.
Folder for Global Cafe Team
Open shared drive
Google Drive: Have all your files within reach from any device. Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You received this email because you were invited to a shared drive.
On Sep 13, 2019, at 6:00 AM, Christy Spackman <Christy.Spackman@asu.edu> wrote:Yanjun, Shomit, Ri (and Garrett),I met with Xin Wei yesterday, and we wanted to add on one additional task for all of you. We think that the possible interactions you could explore are quite large, so we invite you to constrain it in the following way:Imagine you are at a cafe. Three people are there.1) who are the three people whose interaction you want to prototype?2) what might a "normal" script be for those interactions?3) what new script(s) are you hoping to inspire?Please plan on being able to present this information to us in person during Synthesis lab's open work hours in a week. Please let us know which of the drop in hours you will make.Best,Christy and Xin WeiChristy Spackman, PhDAssistant ProfessorSchool for the Future of Innovation in SocietySchool of Arts, Media, and EngineeringArizona State University@christyspackman
Angela Walch