THE ANARCHIVING GAME

The  inaugural newsletter introduces "The Sphere," a new socio-economic platform for the performing arts, emphasizing the importance of anarchiving, or preserving creative 'waste,' to enrich future projects as a composting process.  

By Amy Fee (Earth), Sara de Vylder (Sun), Joel Mason (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #1 - "Keep It Funky!" (August 21, 2020)

Newsletter #2 explores the concept of "Staatskunst," or the art of statecraft, and its implications for grant writing and creating a self-sustained economy for artists through blockchain technology. It calls for new rituals to document and celebrate collective experiences.

By Joel Mason (Earth), Amy Fee (Sun), Erik Bordeleau (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #2 - "Staatskunst - State of the Art / Art of the State" (September 4, 2020)

Newsletter #3 focuses on the role of circus arts and clowning in challenging and renewing infrastructural and computational systems, advocating for the inclusion of circus arts in management and organizational innovation.

By Erik Bordeleau (Earth), Joel Mason (Sun), Emma Stenström (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #3 - "Send in the Clowns" (September 18, 2020)

Newsletter #4 investigates creative documentation and teaching methods for juggling, aiming to transcend conventional techniques towards a universal sharing and access approach. It discusses the potential of peer-to-peer platforms for collaborative creativity and the philosophical difference between networks and platforms, advocating for decentralized interaction models.

By Emma Stenström (Earth), Erik Bordeleau (Sun), Olle Saloranta Strandberg (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #4 - "How Do We Teach Aliens to Juggle on a P2P Community Platform?" (October 2, 2020)

Newsletter #5 provides a vivid look into the life of a producer, juxtaposing the challenges of administrative duties with creative aspirations within The Sphere. It humorously details the daily grind while addressing The Sphere's vision for a collaborative, autonomous, and creative performing arts ecosystem.

By Olle Saloranta Strandberg (Earth), Sara de Vylder (Sun), Emma Stenström (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #5 - "I'm Not Your Mama Plus Some Info" (October 16, 2020)

Newsletter #6 critiques the administration-heavy approach to art funding in Europe, reflecting on a disheartening EU information day. It celebrates The Sphere project as an artist-led initiative against the backdrop of administrative challenges.

By Sara de Vylder (Earth), Olle Saloranta Strandberg (Sun), Amy Fee (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #6 - "Listening EU Depression" (October 30, 2020)

Newsletter #7 discusses leveraging the intelligence from the performing arts to design new economies, highlighting the importance of adaptability, style, and sustainable momentum in both music and the arts for vibrant new systems.

By Amy Fee (Earth), Sara de Vylder (Sun), Joel Mason (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #7 - "Swing" (November 13, 2020)

Newsletter #8 explores the impact of the pandemic on artistic practices and aspirations through the lens of libidinal economy, suggesting that joy and desire can fuel both economic and artistic production.

By Joel Mason (Earth), Amy Fee (Sun), Erik Bordeleau (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #8 - "A Disturbance in the Force - A Libidinal Economy" (December 5, 2020)

Newsletter #9 reflects on the collective journey of The Sphere, exploring philosophical questions of property, freedom, and gift-giving in a neoliberal capitalist context, and celebrating the community's resilience and creativity.

By Erik Bordeleau (Earth), Joel Mason (Sun), Lene Vollhardt (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #9 - "Forever Walks a Drifter" (December 18, 2020)

Newsletter #10 explores the nuances of gifting and control, this issue delves into the philosophical and practical aspects of sharing knowledge and resources within The Sphere. It reflects on the balance between control and the freedom of gifting, suggesting that true gifts carry elements of randomness and high entropy, detaching from the creator's control.  

By Lene Vollhardt (Earth), Erik Bordeleau (Sun), Cem Dagdelen (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #10 - "This Is a Title, Welcome to Our Little Boat" (January 5, 2021)

Newsletter #11 dives into the concept of hacking Babylon from within without being compromised, using the metaphor of becoming the system to change it. It discusses the recursive nature of colonialism and learning from machines for subversive strategies.

By Cem Dagdelen (Earth), Lene Vollhardt (Sun), Laura Lotti (Wind). 


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #11 - "Zionian Penetration Systems" (January 20, 2021)

Newsletter #12 explores the intersection of finance, art, and the complexities of collaboration, inspired by personal narratives and the GameStop stock event. It reflects on trust and the future of art in digital spaces.

By Laura Lotti (Earth), Erik Bordeleau (Sun), Rafael Pefeira (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #12 - "If You Wanna Play, Prepare to Be Played" (February 21, 2021)

Newsletter #13 discusses the transformation from intellectual capital to intellectual property, questioning the efficacy and motivations behind IP systems. It challenges the notion that IP protection is a primary driver for creation and suggests looking to non-traditional fields for innovative models of knowledge and skill sharing.  

By Rafael Pereira (Earth), Laura Lotti (Sun), Olle Saloranta Strandberg (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #13 - "The Journey of Intellectual Capital to Intellectual Property" (March 7, 2021)

Newsletter #14 explores the creation of new artistic practices that embody physical presence while existing digitally. It questions how to document complexity in physical practices and the potential for misunderstandings as creative catalysts.

By Olle Saloranta Strandberg (Wind), Steven Bachelder (Sun), Erik Bordeleau (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #14 - "Language Farm" (March 21, 2021)

Newsletter #15 examines the syntax and grammar of juggling as an art form, pondering the audience's literacy and the dialogue between jugglers about their craft. It touches upon the definitions of juggling and circus and their implications for artistic identity and freedom.  

By Erik Bordeleau (Earth), Jay Gilligan (Sun), Steven Bachelder (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #15 - "On Juggling" (April 16, 2021)

Newsletter #16 reflects on embodying artistic practice in digital spaces, the need for documenting complex physical work, and the role of language in artistic expression. It discusses the creation of new expressive languages to support and initiate new creative works.  

By Steven Bachelder (Earth), Teresa Noronha Feio (Sun), Josa Kölbel (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #16 - "Fragmented Physical Thoughts" (April 30, 2021)

Newsletter #17 advocates for a summer dedicated to visual engagement, moving away from the written word to immerse in the physical and visual richness of the world. It encourages a break from the normative constraints of artistic expression, embracing a more sensory experience of art and environment.

By Josa Kölbel (Earth), Teresa Noronha Feio (Sun), Sara de Vylder (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #17 - "Summer of Looking" (June 3, 2021)

Newsletter #18 muses on cooperation, sensitivity, and the interconnectedness of all things through the lens of mycelial networks and proprioception. It prompts reflection on the symbiotic relationships within the artistic process and the sphere of influence each artist inhabits.

By Sara de Vylder (Wind), Josa Kölbel (Sun), Teresa Noronha Feio (Wind).


The Sphere's Floating Newsletter #18 - "Floating Thoughts for Long Solstice Nights" (June 29, 2021)

A discussion on how to make the destination of the fragments in The Anarchiving Game visible on the website. The result can be checked by selecting "From" or "To" in the selector on the navbar of the webapp.  

Audio in PT-BR, English transcription below:

[...] it got antsy, got the ants. Because, you see, there are about 12 organizations, between 12 and 20, okay? Once it's up and running, I'm counting on people adopting the fragmentary logic. Which is easy, as easy as posting on Instagram. Gradually, this will be populated with this logic of to and from. As it gets fuller, it will be possible to see a bit of the certain influence some organizations have over others.  

So, I think the idea of a beam, which is more diffuse than a line for this to and from case, I think it works. But I don't understand the problem you mentioned, like, let's assume, a tiny organization that only made one fragment... Yes, and the beams that reach this tiny organization that only made one will be represented by a tiny line. You get it? While whenever something reaches this large one, it will get a... This here is only a connection that is being expressed by this gigantic beam, like this. And for this one here also just one, but it is expressed by a very thin line.  

Yes, but it's kind of disproportionate and somewhat fails to express this expressiveness. We have these two concepts here: the beam and the one too many. And one more which is expressiveness. In this case, the organization is just one person, they only made one fragment. And this one fragment, it's referring to organization A, which is the organization that generated many fragments for others or for itself.  

And then, if this line here, this fragment here is from organization E to organization A, all good. This principle you mentioned, that one goes to many, it goes to all. But then, but you cannot regulate this, sorry, you cannot regulate this force of expressiveness with a third variable.  

What force of expressiveness? Like, this force of expressiveness here from this fragment to this organization, it is small because it's only one, right? Depends. Because if this one here is you, you're the recipient, it looks small, because it looks like a line. But if this sends to here, it's a beam the size of the number of fragments.  

So, let me just conclude the reasoning. There's a low expressiveness of this fragment here because it is a fragment from organization E to organization A. In the logic you defined, this fragment here, it will connect with all of these here. But then my proposal is, if it's not the case for this expressiveness to be apparent with a luminance index.  

Yeah, like, it will be connected with all of them here, but the brightness of this beam, it will be one because it is a too many, but it's just one for all these others. Unlike, for example, from organization A to organization B, where there are several fragments here, let's suppose, there are 10 fragments where 7 go here and 3 go there. Hmm, right? And then, if 3 go there, here is brightness 3, here is brightness 7. It's a way to express the force field with light. Hmm, yes.  

And at the same time, keeping all these connectors. So, let's assume, if each of these fragments here, it will send 10 lines to each of the other fragments there from the other, and it will have a brightness of 7. But the brightness, it will come from the junction in our eye, is, from this different amount or will it be an intrinsic characteristic of the line? The line will be, you see, or it will be an effect of the junction of lines, it will be an effect of the junction of lines with different opacity, equal opacities. Equal opacities, but when they overlap, yes, they will, for example, this organization here, it is super influential and is communicating many fragments to this one here, it will have an opacity, a lightness, is, greater than this one here to this one here.  

And we would work with only one color. It's just that it won't be lightness and it also won't be opacity, it will be complexity, it will be entanglement. But this can't be expressed with opacity, it's going to be different, you see? Because they have a direction, this line isn't diffuse, even if it's with a blur of 5, it's not a wafting smoke, it's something that emerges from a place well.  

Things in a three-dimensional plane, vectors need to have a to and a from, there must be a path. If you want to put a lot of randomness in the middle, but it's not randomness, it's a very precise thing I'm proposing. But you understand what I told you that these lines that will not be opacity, opacity is a name, a summary of the effect of this complex tangle in your eye, it's not like this can rotate, something about rotating and changing dimensions, you gain the 3D effect, these lines they will be revealing. I think it's going to be interesting, let's see what if it doesn't clash with the result of something.  

This is going to make sense, you know, it's not the sense that's most important. It is, maybe the tangle becomes so bizarre that it ends up being more noise than sense, you understand? I understand, but I imagine that in this one-to-many connection there will be an important expressive sense, unlike the selection by events. Selection by events will simply group the events that will be there, events.  

Yes, this visualization is more extravagant different from all. Yes, the others are more like a sort, a sorting, a grouping, group by, but not in a linear list, it is spatial. And beyond spatial, it is three-dimensional, like year, such year, such year, 5 years right, 2019, 2024, 5. Little dots there, here will be a big group, there will be a small group. But I think this here would bring a flair that's not just visual flair, it's not just a spell, but it is a is an ability to see. I think this will be the most fun, most beautiful chart, right, it is.  

It's just that I have, I worry a bit, well but that's another issue, okay. And I propose that you are an organization, right too. You and I, we are very much a studio. And then, I was going to propose you make a fragment with this audio of us debating the sphere thing. But the from of this is Uint Studio to the Sphere. Can be, makes sense. Uint Studio is an organization, it is. You're organized now.  

I've always dreamed of being an organization, it's my dream. We are a tribe, we are tribe, Uint Studio is a pack of a… of a jaguatílope. It's late already, one more moment, in Portuguese itself, in Portuguese itself, learn our language. And maybe this drawing too, you see…  


On destination expressivity of fragments

Interview with the Sphere’s Digital Soul in R. Catlow and P. Rafferty (eds.), Radical Friends (2022) 



I Am a Digital Soul (Radical Friends) II

The economy is a dark place where business models loop themselves into existence. How do we transform the traditional economic modes of capture embedded in the current infrastructures and re-open for  the benefit of the community? 

Undo Business as Usual

Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, head of the Stockholm School of Economics, sings a soulful business song during his talk "Curating Capitalism" 

Mon paradis Magritte

Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, head of the Stockholm School of Economics, playfully sings the glory of the blockchained 'thing in itself'

 Ja Du - Phenomenology of (blockchained) Presence

The Feeling of Interdependence

Umami Theory of Value, Or: You Can't Be Alone in a Liquidity Pool 
(Cryptoeconomic Design)

Umami Theory of Value 

The story of the Sphere's creative journey to build a regenerative web3 commons for the live arts 

Circus and the Arts of Commoning

An interview with Peter Sloterdijk by Sjoerd van Tuinen about the arts of speculative generosity. Originally published in Joke Brouwer and Sjoerd van Tuinen (eds.), "Giving and Taking: Antidotes to a Culture of Greed", V2_ publishing, Rotterdam, 2014.

What Does a Human Have That He Can Give Away? 

How do we account otherwise? How do we step out of the bulimic and neurotic double entry accounting system that has dominated our economic life for
centuries? How do we integrate in our future accounting systems an interspecies and cross-generational “return on investment”? How can we account for the in-between when that which we give (art?) can’t be owned? What other economic systems can we tentatively prefigure as we explore web 3.0 affordances and recursivities?

Accounting Otherwise - The Sphere Lab Program

A cosmo-financial diagram of the Sphere’s ecosystem

Accounting Otherwise Lab Diagram

How to grow digital souls at the speed of trust

Seek simplicity and distrust it

A Digital Soul Offering Protocol, designed by Futurefarmers 
https://futurefarmers.com/footnotes/soul.html#2

Imagine Yourself As Transparent as Glass

Humpback whales in Antarctica create a Fibonacci swirl to capture prey. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/watch-humpback-whales-stunning-fibonacci-spiral-to-capture-prey/#:~:text=Your%20teacher%20was%20right%20%E2%80%93%20math,bubble%20net%20and%20capture%20prey.

Fibonacci Whales

A comprehensive diagram representing the whole of the Sphere as a regenerative commons for live art. It includes: 

1. Each module of the ecosystem design process (outer circle)
2 the Karmic Funding Campaign (inner circle)



The Sphere Ecosystem Diagram

A basic economic diagram of the Sphere, foregrounding the Sphere's common pool

More Live Art! 

When I think of The Sphere’s convivial cryptoeconomic adventure and the choreography of value that we have set in motion, I’m reminded of a favourite activity from my childhood summers: the making of an atomic whirlpool with friends and family in the above-ground pool of our suburban backyard. The protocol is simple: everyone starts moving in the same direction, slowly at first, and then faster and faster as the current starts growing stronger, sweeping away our increasingly floating bodies into an irresistible summer-style liquid procession. 


You Can't Be Alone in a Liquidity Pool!

“What I call an idiotext is an open locality taken up within another, greater locality, or within what I describe as NESTED SPIRALS as they co-produce a process of collective individuation. (...) They are the motives and figures through which knowledge is woven as the circuits of transindividuation.”  (Bernard Stiegler, Escaping the Anthropocene, 2018). 

Idiotextual Spirals (Stiegler's style)

mediums of care: a love letter to the sphere

An homage to all those who suffered the consequences of political censorship from the German Staatkunst apparatus.

- Philosopher Achille Mbembe, censored in 2018.
- Art collective ruangrupa, censored in 2022.
- Cultural center Oyoun, censored in 2023.
- Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, two of the four directors of No Man’s Land, censored in 2024.


The End of Staatkunst?

A vector connecting The Sphere to the emerging organization of Meshdia

A Social Protocol Among Cinematic Realities

Staatskunst roughly translates as statecraft, or the art of governing. But the word also suggests something like State art, of which the art of grant writing is no doubt one of the greatest expressions. 👀👽

Staatskunst

Palestinian Girl Rocking her Eid Outfit (Proof-of-Celebration) 

Skating on the blockchain through spheres. Ignoring networks and contract addresses with zero gravity.

Skating Through Spheres

The top of the folder hierarchy of The Sphere as Creative Europe project

Meta Folders

Saloranta & de Vylder explaining The Sphere

The Sphere Intro

A short video of what the Anarchiving Game could look like when multiple organizations document their practices - not only branching in and out of themselves, but in a broader relationscape.  

This was inspired by Lene Vollhardt’s vectors that were prompted to Beth McCarthy, Alessandro Y. Longo, and Jacob Hühn during the pre-launch open conversation at Karuna on June 19th, 2024.

A future vector: broader relationscapes for the Anarchiving Game

Changes on `zora.co/create` (the absence of attributes/properties options) challenged us to make a custom token creation page for a smooth onboarding experience. **The Sphere** and **Uint Studio** are very thankful for the generous feedback received from Dan Oved (senior developer from Zora), who has guided us during the creation of `anarchiving.thesphere.as/create` - our very own token creation page.
  
The creation of a token involves several steps, from uploading media and thumbnail images to IPFS, to generating a metadata JSON file on the fly, and finally, setting up the token configuration on Zora and deploying it to the blockchain. Through our `/create` page, anarchivists can navigate this process smoothly and quickly, thanks to a customized and minimalist UI that handles all these steps in the background.
  
Welcome all to this new step on our journey. We invite all the community to try our token creation page and populate our relationscape with their memories and inventions.

Introducing a new creation path

The Sphere green as seen outside from our window during development of beta 0.2 for the Onchain Summer Buildathon (winter just started here). 


20240630

🌿

The collective Endnotes writes "We know we're not alone". How much is this true? What loneliness do they suggest is upheld in that "knowledge"? May experimentation like The Sphere explore ways of unlone subjectivities caught in the isolating process of identity capitalization. The broken container turns into a looking glass onto Pierre Klossowskis so far still untranslated essay La monnaie vivante – The Living Currency, reflecting on the triangle body-simulacra-currency...

Living Currency

A presentation of The Sphere and the Anarchiving Game by Erik Bordelleau at the Jubilee summer school From Commons to Coop in Ghent, Belgium. In the picture, Erik is introduced by Ronny Heiremans on behalf of Jubilee.

The Anarchiving Game in Ghent

" Kinetic geometric sculpture perpetually flying in a constant column of air. Caught in the infinite flow, it delights us with its dance, showing us the invisible lines in space and its dynamics within the abstract aerodynamics that the object possesses. "

The figure is made of polystyrene, measures about 45cm by 45cm and flies thanks to several fans. It was digitized to be appreciated on the screen.

Flying Geometry

The visual logic of spirals and swirls offers a compelling entry point for understanding the dynamics of both participatory design and economic systems. These shapes illustrate not just movement and flow, but also the cyclical nature of returns on investment, emphasizing how resources loop back to enrich and transform the initial inputs. Oftentimes, this looping back takes the shape of an accounting structure. 
And yet, one thing is for sure: the looping back of accountability is never an end in itself. As we strive to keep ourselves accountable, something always exceeds. 

Article published in Lo Squaderno #68 www.losquaderno.net

The Visual Logic of the Swirl

"They collect both experiences and dreams, as well as plans for the future. The ability to collect plans for the future is an interesting possibility, one that hardly affected the traditional collector/curator, but one which becomes unavoidable for the art collector of the immaterial."

LIVE FOREVER! Collecting Live Art

In a blockbuster paper in 1948, Claude Shannon introduced the notion of a "bit" and laid the foundation for the information age. His ideas ripple through nearly every aspect of modern life, influencing such diverse fields as communication, computing, cryptography, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cosmology, linguistics, and genetics. But when interviewed in the 1980s, Shannon was more interested in showing off the gadgets he’d constructed — juggling robots, a Rubik’s Cube solving machine, a wearable computer to win at roulette, a unicycle without pedals, a flame-throwing trumpet — than rehashing the past. Mixing contemporary interviews, archival film, animation and dialogue drawn from interviews conducted with Shannon himself, The Bit Player tells the story of an overlooked genius who revolutionized the world, but never lost his childlike curiosity.  www.thebitplayer.com

The Bit Player - biopic about Claude Shannon

We didn't win any of the prizes of the Onchain Summer Buidathon organized by Base on Devfolio. But in their QV round, we received 0.00175 ETH.   

To express our gratitude, we sent you this fragment. Thank you! Topping up our treasury (no matter how little) allows us to get things going.  

0x55A5705453Ee82c742274154136Fce8149597058 [papajams.eth] - (5 votes)  
0x1023f5D1cFe4EEBf33391Ec6808645DEA925230e (10 votes)  
0x2F30998C61b21179aA237f77Fd578Ba8679eB43D - [elfounder.eth] (5 votes)  
0x9dd4f6fFc20367aF0Fb251fb3396365BeD45F3F1 - (10 votes)
0x206EAA58D3B233DF352297A11e0E81A881d64d48  - (17 votes)
0xF5226f23063F3a40Ef21cdA06EB0226d72cfB57E - [basedmc.eth] - 5 votes



QV Round of Base's Onchain Summer Buidathon Breakdown

The relay of what happened back at ConTempo Festival Kaunas 2022. To test an alternative way of a spherean assembly meeting,  we created protocols with what we call Embodied Mechanisms, as a practice of collective divination.

Sphere x 2033 – Against the datafication of flesh

Everything you want to know about the Sphere, its network of imaginative doers-thinkers, its Karmic Funding Cycle, and all the rituals, protocols and soul-searching techniques that constitute the Sphere into a vibrant collective staking machine and a regenerative commons for the live arts. 


Digital Soul-Searching: The Sphere Book 

Prompts for three teams: Team Love, Team Gift Sacrifice, Team Dissipation