The Original Cryptoartist was also the Original Cryptoleftist

For this interview I spoke with Rhea Myers (@rheaplex),  an artist, hacker and writer originally from the UK now based in Vancouver. Her work places technology and culture in mutual interrogation to produce new ways of seeing the world as it unfolds around us. She’s been involved in the blockchain art world probably for as long as it has existed and has had her art recently featured in Sotheby’s first NFT auction sale.

What I've found incredible about her work is how prescient it was around art and includes the first writings attempting to synthesize blockchain with left politics. For example, her piece Crypto 2.0 and DAWCs: Dawn of Decentralized Autonomous Workers Councils  was published in 2015, right at the start of the discourse around DAOs, and already she had the foresight to see the implications this could have for left organizing.

She is also a longtime collaborator with Furtherfield, a not-for-profit international community hub for arts, technology and social change in London, and you can find much of her work with them here.  She is one of the authors who contributed to the Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain book published by Furtherfield which is a must read for anyone, not only artists, who want to rethink blockchain. I previously also interviewed Ruth Catlow, one of the founders of Furtherfield on the podcast if you want more context.

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ICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking.

The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.