What Problem Are We Addressing?

A key starting point is a shared frustration with existing models for organizing artistic production. Circus artists’ creativity is often limited by inflexible infrastructures that suffer from systemic inertia, restrict artistic expression and waste resources. We feel the need to propose an alternative organizing system that distributes power differently between actors and incentivizes artistic inventiveness. New forms of art can thus arise and inefficient bureaucracy is avoided.

The other main starting point relates to contemporary circus as an artform and its current reception. As contemporary circus artists and innovators, we are part of a movement where interdisciplinary, global and experimental work are essential parts of the practice. Nevertheless, the expanded notion of what contemporary circus could be is often held back. We have an urge to experiment with the art production framework itself. This is what brings us to imagine business models meeting artful propositions, pondering in tandem on their joint landing point.

We had no idea where this exploration process would end up at first. We approached the blockchain space as a new circus discipline – mapping different possible approaches, techniques and entry points to somehow interact with this hard-to-grasp apparatus. As we started to choreograph different economic flows and build an understanding of how the circus ecosystem could benefit from our design, we didn’t fully grasp the full potentiality of the meeting between these two forms of expression. Little by little, new ideas and possibilities started to unfold. What we finally had in front of us was something that potentially could change the way we engage with our artworks, how we share and contribute to each other's concepts and ideas. What if other curatorial models could be invented? Could audiences of dreamers and interested publics be invited to participate in the propositional stage of an art project? And could they all benefit from the new radiance of a circus culture that is actively involved in its own reinvention?

Circus is the art of presenting the vision. The art of doing. We have come to realize that the encounter with DAOs also invites us to fully grasp the art of organizing and accounting otherwise. We do not shy away from working in the unknown, collaborating with technologists, researchers, economists, philosophers and other artists in our journey towards a new contemporary circus expression, where our work with or against gravity meets experimental economic and organizational choreographies.

Enough complaining about the creative workers’ structural precarity! This is the age of monetary experimentation - the age of new squad wealth formation.