The Art of Tokenization: Blockchain Affordances and the Invention of Future Milieus

International audienceTen years after the introduction of the Bitcoin protocol, an increasing number of art-tech startups and more or less independent initiatives have begun to explore second-generation blockchains such as Ethereum and the emergent practice of tokenization (i.e., the issuance of new cryptoassets primarily to self-fund decentralized projects) as a means to intervene in the structures and processes underlying the rampant financialization of art. Yet amidst the volatility of the cryptocurrency market, tokenization has been critiqued as a way to reinscribe and proliferate current financial logics in this new space. Acknowledging such critiques, in this essay I foreground the novelty of cryptotokens and blockchains by exploring different examples of how tokenization has been deployed in the art market-milieu. In spite of recent attempts to extend the scarcity-based paradigm to blockchains, I argue that cryptotokens do introduce differences in kind in the ways in which value generation and distribution are expressed and accounted for in digital environments. In this context, artistic approaches to tokenization can illuminate new aspects of the affordances of these technologies, toward the disintermediation of art production and its networked value from the current institutional-financial milieu. This can open up new ways to reimagine and reprogram financial and social relations, and gesture toward new opportunities and challenges for a practice of digital design focused on the ideation and realization of cryptoeconomic systems

Agent-based distributed manufacturing control: a state-of-the-art survey

Manufacturing has faced significant changes during the last years, namely the move from a local economy towards a global and competitive economy, with markets demanding for highly customized products of high quality at lower costs, and with short life cycles. In this environment, manufacturing enterprises, to remain competitive, must respond closely to customer demands by improving their flexibility and agility, while maintaining their productivity and quality. Dynamic response to emergence is becoming a key issue in manufacturing field because traditional manufacturing control systems are built upon rigid control architectures, which cannot respond efficiently and effectively to dynamic change. In these circumstances, the current challenge is to develop manufacturing control systems that exhibit intelligence, robustness and adaptation to the environment changes and disturbances. The introduction of multi-agent systems and holonic manufacturing systems paradigms addresses these requirements, bringing the advantages of modularity, decentralization, autonomy, scalability and re- usability. This paper surveys the literature in manufacturing control systems using distributed artificial intelligence techniques, namely multi-agent systems and holonic manufacturing systems principles. The paper also discusses the reasons for the weak adoption of these approaches by industry and points out the challenges and research opportunities for the future

Towards a machine enabled semantic framework for the distributed engineering design

The overall aim of this thesis is to identify and propose a suitable architectural framework for supporting cooperation processes and therefore enabling semantics within the distributed engineering design environment. The proposed architecture is intended to\ud characterize a software-based management of design related data, information and knowledge flows in the distributed engineering design organization. The aim is to provide a computational context for implementing ICT tools that would: (i) Minimise the effect of user and resource dispersion (particularly temporal and geographical dispersion), the misunderstandings that might be generated by the\ud (otherwise beneficial) functional and semantic distribution, the time spent for searching and retrieval of information, the effort of information translation between different tools and the administrational and organisational efforts not directly related to the design process (e.g. revision control) (ii) Maximise the quality of information (i.e. relevant information at relevant and appropriate times), knowledge sharing and reuse among distributed design\ud actors, the flexibility of the user interfaces and the designer’s time spent in the actual designing process.\ud In order to achieve the overall aim, the research work supporting this thesis was carried out along the following objectives:\ud 1. To investigate and characterize the engineering design process performed in a distributed environment and its problematic aspects;\ud 2. To research and study alternative theories for thinking and modelling the distributed engineering design process;\ud 3. To investigate current research in information and knowledge management for identifying supporting technologies for a possible solution to the identified\ud problematic aspects (from point 1);\ud 4. To analyze the requirement needs for a solution according to the findings from previous objectives, i.e. the driving problems (from point 1), the research and\ud therefore the thinking approach (from point 2), and available supporting technologies (from point 3);\ud 5. To synthesize the architectural framework along the identified supporting technologies (from point 3);\ud 6. To instantiate a software system along the underlying computational context as described by the architectural framework (from point 5)

The General Artificial Intellect

In passages of Marx’s Grundrisse known as the Fragment on Machines, Marx suggested that advanced capitalist development leads to the production of autonomous machines that replace labour-power in the direct production process. Autonomist Marxist interpretations of this text have emphasized that the proliferation of immaterial labour is the historical condition that is leading to a crisis in the measure of value based on labour-time and that will lead to a future communist mode of production. Further, Mario Tronti posited that as capitalist development unfolds, it subsumes both the state and society, a concept known as the ‘social factory thesis’. This integrated article analyzes Marx and autonomist Marxist perspectives in relation to the advanced development of information technology. The approach contributes to the field of library and information science (LIS) by introducing Marx’s materialist conception of history to the study of social consciousness, information and information technology and materialist conceptions of information. The thesis statement posits that the total replacement of labour-power with machine-power leads to the development of what I refer to as the autonomous mode of production while network information technologies have become capital and the bourgeois state’s means of subsuming and producing ‘the social factory’. Case studies of Industry 4.0, Uber and smart cities support the thesis statement. The conclusion examines the social and political implications of capitalist development of the autonomous mode of production and capitalist and bourgeois state control of network information technology, offering instead the alternative path of communisation

The future of Cybersecurity in Italy: Strategic focus area

This volume has been created as a continuation of the previous one, with the aim of outlining a set of focus areas and actions that the Italian Nation research community considers essential. The book touches many aspects of cyber security, ranging from the definition of the infrastructure and controls needed to organize cyberdefence to the actions and technologies to be developed to be better protected, from the identification of the main technologies to be defended to the proposal of a set of horizontal actions for training, awareness raising, and risk management

GROUND<C>: A METAVERSE LEARNING STRATEGY FOR THE CREATIVE FIELDS

An alternative download link for the appendix of the thesis is here: http://www.citrinitas.com/PhD/2012Ayiter390522phd_appendix.zipIn this thesis I cover the theoretical framework and the practice based implications of bringing the fundamental principles of a cybernetic art educational strategy, the Groundcourse, which was developed and taught during the 1960’s in England by Roy Ascott, into the virtual, three dimensional builder’s world of the metaverse; to be implemented there as a non-institutional, voluntary, self-directed, adult oriented learning system for avatars – one which is expected to be taught by avatar instructors who will formulate the specifics of their curriculum and their methods based upon the cardinal tenets of the Groundcourse, which have been summarized by Roy Ascott as a flexible structure, “within which everything can find its place, and every individual his way,” which would give dimension and substance to the will to create and to change. In order to be able to set the groundwork for the adaptation of the Groundcourse’s principles to my model I have conducted literature reviews in experiential learning theories, with an emphasis on self-directed learning; as well as cybernetic learning. These I have combined with a survey of play theory and virtual world studies, particularly those focusing upon the avatar and metaverse creativity. From all of these I have woven together a foundation which I have combined with a visual documentation which may serve as case studies for my proposal. The new knowledge embodied through this thesis is a learning system for the creative fields that is designed specifically for the residents of online virtual worlds, and yet has its foundations in an earlier, well established and well regarded model

Software curating : the politics of curating in/as (an) Open System(s)

The thesis examines how Information technologies have changed the practice of curating. It proposes an Interdisciplinary approach that directly links curating (often understood as an activity of artistic programming), computing (the activity of computer programming) and a relatively recent Interest In software art (in which programming Is understood as artistic practice). Although there Is much contemporary critical work and practice that Is described as art-oriented programming or software art, the thesis aims to explore a perceived gap In discussions around software curating. Curators working with online technologies are presented with the challenge of how to respond to new artistic forms that Involve programming: for Instance program-objects that display dynamic and transformative properties, and that are distributed over socio-technological networks. Although there are many examples of social platforms and highly relevant examples of online 'art platforms', these still largely operate In display mode replicating more conventional models of curating and the operations of art Institutions In general. The tendency Is for these curatorial online systems to concentrate on the display of executed code and pay less attention to source code. New sensibilities are required that simultaneously reflect the significance of source code as art, and software not as a production tool or a display platform but as cultural practice that Is analogous to curating. What Is distinctive about the thesis Is that It speculates on a curatorial model that emphasises the analogy to programming. Consequently, the thesis argues for online software systems that display properties of curating but reprocess established definitions by deliberately collapsing firm distinctions between the fields of programming, artistic practice and curatorial practice. To consider these Issues, the thesis brings together a number of Inter-related fields of critical Inquiry and situates curating In the context of theories of immateriality, a critical discourse around software art practice, and an understanding of open systems. The key Issue for the thesis becomes how power relations, control and agency are expressed In new curatorial forms that Involve programming and networks; In other words, the thesis Is concerned with the politics of curating In/as (an) open system(s). Indeed, curating Itself can be described In terms of open systems, Implying a state In which there Is continuous Interaction with the soclo-technological environment. The system Is opened up to communicative processes that Involve producers/users and to divergent exchanges that take place and that disrupt established social relations of production and distribution. Thus, and Importantly for an understanding of the power relations Involved, software opens up curating to dynamic possibilities and transformations beyond the usual Institutional model (analogous to the model of production associated with the industrial factory) Into the context of networks (and what Is referred to by the Autonomists as the 'social factory'). The suggestion Is that the curatorial process Is now closely Integrated with the dynamic soclo-technological networks and with software that Is not simply used to curate but demonstrates the activity of curatIng In Itself Consequently, the thesis offers an expanded description of curating with respect to software In which agency Is reconstituted to Include alternative dynamics of networks. The curatorial model Is not only theorlsed but also deployed In the production of experimental software for curating source code (kurator) that forms the practical part of the doctoral research. in addition to a written thesis and software, two further projects produced during the registration period 2002-2008 are Included in support of the overall thesis: a conference CuratIng, Immaterlafity, Systems (CIS) (Tate Modern, London 2005) and an edited book Curating immateriality: The Work of The Curator In the Age of Network Systems (CI) (Autonomedia, New York 2006). The kurator software Is a further development of the conference and subsequent book, and offers an online, user-moderated curatorial system for further public modification. In so doing, the argument Is that the curatorial process Is demonstrably a collective and distributed executable that displays machinic agency. This Is what Is referred to in the thesis as software curating.Faculty of Technology and Faculty of Arts, University of Plymouth

A Middleware framework for self-adaptive large scale distributed services

Modern service-oriented applications demand the ability to adapt to changing conditions and unexpected situations while maintaining a required QoS. Existing self-adaptation approaches seem inadequate to address this challenge because many of their assumptions are not met on the large-scale, highly dynamic infrastructures where these applications are generally deployed on. The main motivation of our research is to devise principles that guide the construction of large scale self-adaptive distributed services. We aim to provide sound modeling abstractions based on a clear conceptual background, and their realization as a middleware framework that supports the development of such services. Taking the inspiration from the concepts of decentralized markets in economics, we propose a solution based on three principles: emergent self-organization, utility driven behavior and model-less adaptation. Based on these principles, we designed Collectives, a middleware framework which provides a comprehensive solution for the diverse adaptation concerns that rise in the development of distributed systems. We tested the soundness and comprehensiveness of the Collectives framework by implementing eUDON, a middleware for self-adaptive web services, which we then evaluated extensively by means of a simulation model to analyze its adaptation capabilities in diverse settings. We found that eUDON exhibits the intended properties: it adapts to diverse conditions like peaks in the workload and massive failures, maintaining its QoS and using efficiently the available resources; it is highly scalable and robust; can be implemented on existing services in a non-intrusive way; and do not require any performance model of the services, their workload or the resources they use. We can conclude that our work proposes a solution for the requirements of self-adaptation in demanding usage scenarios without introducing additional complexity. In that sense, we believe we make a significant contribution towards the development of future generation service-oriented applications.Las Aplicaciones Orientadas a Servicios modernas demandan la capacidad de adaptarse a condiciones variables y situaciones inesperadas mientras mantienen un cierto nivel de servio esperado (QoS). Los enfoques de auto-adaptación existentes parecen no ser adacuados debido a sus supuestos no se cumplen en infrastructuras compartidas de gran escala. La principal motivación de nuestra investigación es inerir un conjunto de principios para guiar el desarrollo de servicios auto-adaptativos de gran escala. Nuesto objetivo es proveer abstraciones de modelaje apropiadas, basadas en un marco conceptual claro, y su implemetnacion en un middleware que soporte el desarrollo de estos servicios. Tomando como inspiración conceptos económicos de mercados decentralizados, hemos propuesto una solución basada en tres principios: auto-organización emergente, comportamiento guiado por la utilidad y adaptación sin modelos. Basados en estos principios diseñamos Collectives, un middleware que proveer una solución exhaustiva para los diversos aspectos de adaptación que surgen en el desarrollo de sistemas distribuidos. La adecuación y completitud de Collectives ha sido provada por medio de la implementación de eUDON, un middleware para servicios auto-adaptativos, el ha sido evaluado de manera exhaustiva por medio de un modelo de simulación, analizando sus propiedades de adaptación en diversos escenarios de uso. Hemos encontrado que eUDON exhibe las propiedades esperadas: se adapta a diversas condiciones como picos en la carga de trabajo o fallos masivos, mateniendo su calidad de servicio y haciendo un uso eficiente de los recusos disponibles. Es altamente escalable y robusto; puedeoo ser implementado en servicios existentes de manera no intrusiva; y no requiere la obtención de un modelo de desempeño para los servicios. Podemos concluir que nuestro trabajo nos ha permitido desarrollar una solucion que aborda los requerimientos de auto-adaptacion en escenarios de uso exigentes sin introducir complejidad adicional. En este sentido, consideramos que nuestra propuesta hace una contribución significativa hacia el desarrollo de la futura generación de aplicaciones orientadas a servicios.Postprint (published version

Interaction dynamics and autonomy in cognitive systems

The concept of autonomy is of crucial importance for understanding life and cognition. Whereas cellular and organismic autonomy is based in the self-production of the material infrastructure sustaining the existence of living beings as such, we are interested in how biological autonomy can be expanded into forms of autonomous agency, where autonomy as a form of organization is extended into the behaviour of an agent in interaction with its environment (and not its material self-production). In this thesis, we focus on the development of operational models of sensorimotor agency, exploring the construction of a domain of interactions creating a dynamical interface between agent and environment. We present two main contributions to the study of autonomous agency: First, we contribute to the development of a modelling route for testing, comparing and validating hypotheses about neurocognitive autonomy. Through the design and analysis of specific neurodynamical models embedded in robotic agents, we explore how an agent is constituted in a sensorimotor space as an autonomous entity able to adaptively sustain its own organization. Using two simulation models and different dynamical analysis and measurement of complex patterns in their behaviour, we are able to tackle some theoretical obstacles preventing the understanding of sensorimotor autonomy, and to generate new predictions about the nature of autonomous agency in the neurocognitive domain. Second, we explore the extension of sensorimotor forms of autonomy into the social realm. We analyse two cases from an experimental perspective: the constitution of a collective subject in a sensorimotor social interactive task, and the emergence of an autonomous social identity in a large-scale technologically-mediated social system. Through the analysis of coordination mechanisms and emergent complex patterns, we are able to gather experimental evidence indicating that in some cases social autonomy might emerge based on mechanisms of coordinated sensorimotor activity and interaction, constituting forms of collective autonomous agency