Hi, I’m Wassim. You can contact me via this form (response may be slow), or book a consultation here.
Current & Upcoming
(lately) I’m currently working on several poetic and fictional texts developing last year’s ‘The Black Hole of Money’ storylore. Early preview here. An essay ‘Necroprimitivism Rising’ on the cult of proof-of-work is forthcoming on the Agorism XXI journal. The second and final part of ‘The Necroprimitivist Manifesto’ was recently published. Research is ongoing for ‘Prophet Motives’ works.
(book) I co-wrote a new foreword to Anna Greenspan’s Ph.D. thesis ‘Capitalism’s Transcendental Time Machine’, for a book edition now available via Miskatonic Virtual University Press. Read it here.
(presentation) I gave a ‘Prophet Motives’ lecture at the Philosophy Department at the University of the West of England recently. Watch here.
Prophet Motives Lecture @ UWE Philosophy, March'23 // Wassim Z. Alsindi
(AMA/interview) The AMA session I did with Collecteurs Academy is available here.
(panel) I recently joined old friend Mad Bitcoins and The Bitcoin Group on The World Crypto Network livestream, where we discussed proof-of-work amongst other things. Watch here.
(poetics) Ignota’s new ‘Mountain’ initiative invited me to recite ’The Necroprimitivst Manifesto’ recently, more info. Two recent poems: ‘Romance, Capital, Time’ and ‘Versus In Numinis’, alongside several recent CPRU pieces.
(articles) A short piece on Bitcoin eschatologies ‘In The State Machine of Nature, Nothing Will Be Lost’ was published on the occasion of 업체eobchae’s solo exhibition eoracle, at DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul. Some clippings here.
(music) My solo sound art project Essential Abstractions made music for several 0x Salon projects this year, notably ‘Rune With A View’ and ‘Runestone Immanence’. Twelve years in the making, find ‘The Art of Indifference OST’ here.
(events & presentations) In October, I was at the 20th edition of Unsound Festival, giving a new presentation ‘Prophet Motives’, as well as chairing a 0x Salon panel ‘Building Bridges Between Bubbles’ on web3 and the arts. Watch the panel on the Unsound Youtube channel.
(new lecture recording) I debuted a new talk ‘No Gods No Master(node)s’ on the thorny topic of ‘code is law’ at the New Centre for Research & Practice on Thursday 8th September, for the ‘Daemon & Discord: Anatomy of a DAO’ course. You can watch an expanded re-recording on the 0x Salon YouTube.
(exhibitions) The 0x Salon’s interactive storytelling environment ‘THE IMMACULATE MISCONCEPTION’ was exhibited at MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan in October. A video documenting our satirical play ‘THE BLACK HOLE OF MONEY’ will be presented at ZKM in Karlsruhe in November. More information here, and some mainstream press coverage.
(theatre premiere) The 0x Salon debuted our new satirical play about Bitcoin recently! ‘THE BLACK HOLE OF MONEY’ was presented by CLICK at the Kulturvaeftet, Helsingør, Denmark on Friday August 19th. Get in touch to discuss future presentations. More info here.
(podcasts) Social Discipline ‘₿etween Collective Salvation and Private Enrichment’, with Mattin and Miguel Prado. ‘Seed Phrase’ with Simon Denny, hosted by The New Institute. A special edition of the Mint and Burn podcast, recorded as part of the Digital Ethnography and Blockchain Reading Group where we discussed my MIT Computational Law Report article ‘(mis)adventures in Crypto-Governance I’.
(dialogue article) Over a few weeks in spring’22, I co-authored a dialogue entitled ‘Notes on Phygitality’ with Charlie Robin Jones. The end result was published in NXS WORLD, Issue#6 which is available in print from all fine outlets. You can now read it online here.
(presentations) Links to talks for Collecteurs (‘Futures of Art History’), and two for the Goldsmiths MFA Art & Curation lecture series: ‘JPEGing The Question’ solo & ‘Dissentralisation Theatre’ with Jaya Klara Brekke. An informal talk on governance of decentralised systems for the MIT Computational Law Report ‘B-coin: Ungovernable?‘.
(memes) I recently did an interview for Spectrum in Milan around Memetic Countercultures. Read here.
(consultations) Pleased to announce that I am now a Collecteurs Academy Mentor! This is the best way to reach me for discussions on creative, epistemic, and technical matters pertaining to digital art, tokens, peer-to-peer networks, and everything in-between. Book in with me here.
(radio play) The 0x Salon recently published ‘SWAN FAKE’ (February’22), an improvised radio play that was initiated by the Black Swan Working Group at Trust in early’21. Listen here.
(article) writings on the hows and whys of tokenised art ‘JPEGing The Question: Histories and Futures of Immateraliality’ (February’22) is now available on RightClickSave, a new critical discourse platform. Read here.
(article) my article ‘Bitcointingency: An Economics of Indeterminacy’ (February’22) has been published by Weird Economies, an art platform exploring idiosyncrasies of speculative finance. Read here.
(article) I wrote the feature essay ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Tokenised’ (January’22) for issue#70 of Spike Art Magazine, critiquing digital art. Read here.
(interview) Berlin Art Link interviewed me about the 0x Salon, memes, GANs and token art (January’22). Read here.
(newsletter) I co-write the Sweeping Statements newsletter semi-regularly, covering latest 0x Salon happenings.
(consultations) I work on economics, design, and philosophy of peer-to-peer systems at BlockScience, and am a crypto-art Mentor at the Collecteurs Academy. These are the best ways to engage with me on creative, epistemic, and technical matters pertaining to digital art, tokens, peer-to-peer networks, and everything in-between.
(residency) Myself and 0x Salon have jointly been awarded a S+T+ARTS Repairing The Present residency, funded by the European Commission. We have been in residence at Art Hub Copenhagen throughout ‘22, working on a critical programme of creative and speculative works titled ‘The Art of Indifference’. More here.
(pedagogy) I’m teaching courses, convening workshops, and giving lectures at universities, arts festivals, and conferences on three continents this year. These cover a wide range of technical, philosophical, and creative topics. Details upon request.
(journal) I’m Technology Editor & write a column ‘Tour d’Horizon’ at the MIT Computational Law Report. Currently working on an article series titled ‘(Mis)adventures in Crypto-Governance’. Read here.
(podcast) I host SalonCast audio reports, chronicling selected topics that we discuss in 0x Salon events. Listen via Soundcloud.
(interview) I did an extensive interview on Bitcoin and tokenisation which is in print in ‘The Speculative Issue’ of Awham Magazine (October’21). Now online here.
(articles) co-authored IPR Glossaries on Cryptoeconomics (April’21) & Mining (April’21)
(video) Vancouver-based 221a hosted a special streamed conversation for the Blockchains & Cultural Padlocks project on the theme of Patricia Reed’s recent piece ‘The Valuation of Necessity: A Cosmological View of Our Technologies & Culture’. I spoke on ‘Metrics, Limits and Externalities’ (June’21). Watch on YouTube.
(articles) 0x Salon collectively authored reportage: Epistemic Trespassing & Algorithmic Realism
(video) panel discussion on ‘Socialising Tokens’ (March’21) at Moneylab Berlin. Watch on Twitch.
(video) panel discussion ‘The Transdisciplinary Art of Token Engineering’ (May’21). Watch on YouTube
(monograph + video) TokenSpace: A Conceptual Framework for Cryptographic Asset Taxonomies (April’19)
(video) Research keynote ‘The Indifference Engine’ (Dec’20), Placemaking Solarpunk @ CCC’20
(articles) Towards An Analytical Discipline of Forkonomy (June’18) & Forkonomy Revisited: Where Are They Now? (Jan’19)
(articles) Reaching Everyone (‘18/’19) for In The Mesh on a dashed hope for radical humanitarian activism with cryptocurrency
(interview) TokenSpace, Bitcoin & Money (June’19)
Current:
Creative Director @ 0x Salon
Forensic Aesthetics @ Transmedia Bardic Abstractions {TBAstudio}
Philosophy of Cryptoeconomics @ BlockScience
Mentor @ Collecteurs Academy
Music @ Essential Abstractions
Technology Editor @ MIT Computational Law Report
Lecturer @ TouchEDU, in association with MIT
Previously:
Founding Editor, MIT Cryptoeconomic Systems journal & conference chair CES’19 & CES’20
Director of Research, Parallel Industries
Curator (arts & discourse), Norbergfestival
Co-founder The Centrifuge label / agency & Supernatant Laboratories discourse series
CEO TenHertz (creative engineering R&D)
‘MEDICI’ Postdoctoral Fellowship in Knowledge Transfer
Degrees in chemistry, astrophysics and finance
Wassim Z. Alsindi PhD
Wassim is the founder and creative director of the 0x Salon, which conducts experiments in post-disciplinary collective knowledge practices. A veteran of the timechain, Wassim specialises in conceptual design and philosophy of peer-to-peer systems, on which he writes, speaks, teaches, and consults. He has an editorial column at the MIT Computational Law Report, and he co-founded MIT’s Cryptoeconomic Systems journal and conference series. Wassim has curated arts festivals, led a sculptural engineering laboratory and published experimental music, satirical theatre, poetry, and speculative scripture. Wassim holds a Ph.D. in ultrafast supramolecular photophysics from the University of Nottingham.