Brief: Design a way to materialise the blockchain
Teammates: Gabrielle Bennett, Ines Yin, Manali Panchal
Context
In this Unit, our group get the chance to collaborate with This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll, we would be expected to design for blockchain transactions of Brixton Pound, as well as gain an understanding of blockchain technologies at a micro level. Charlie and Clive proposed three keywords to explain the context: Kindness, technology and participation, encouraged us to transect the paradigm, reimage the value of the currency and apply blockchain tech to create an ecofriendly community or even a new version of life (Figure 1).
Figure 1: first meeting with CC Boys
The Texture of Everyday Life
This week's reading-Smartphone: The networking of the self exposed the truth of while smartphones have convenient our lives, they have altered our daily behaviours into unremarkable acts. Not just smartphone, network digital information technology shaped our experience of time and space, those infrastructures have turned human interaction into digital transactions before we are aware of it, in other words, it tends to dematerialize. Nevertheless, the project brief asks us to ’materialise‘ the blockchain, I assume this verb implies more than simply visualizing or physicalizing. Rather, it gives us more scope for imagination, expects us to rethink the possibilities of interaction with money, as John said, it could be digital materialisation, social materialisation or material materialisation. As for the answer, I don't know yet.
Alternative Currency, Cryptocurrency and Brixton Pound
In addition, this brief made me think about why people create different currencies, relating to the post-truth theory, I wonder if this is an act of questioning science. National currency issued by the central bank, symbolising authority and truth. However, in the practice of history, some people realised that the government may no longer be the only measure of authority, therefore, they created supplementing currencies as an alternative. With advances in technology, developers utilized crypto to evolve the paper currency into decentralized digital currency.
Brixton Pound was launched in the face of the financial crisis in 2008. The Currency designed to support the local community economy. However, as time progressed, paper money gradually fell into oblivion, until now, due to pandemic, the crisis is once again upon us, Brixton Pound chooses the Algorand Foundation on which to develop a tokenized version of their innovative complimentary local currency, that gives a globe promising blockchain technology with a pure Proof-of-stake approach.
Blockchain technology
The most common interpretation of blockchain is a distributed ledger, it is built in a fully open and decentralised network, designed in such a way that every single account has a copy of data and transactions (Deshpande et al., 2017). Called “blockchain” because individual transactions get grouped together in larger “blocks” that are chained together in a sequence (Figure 2). However, the individuals cannot edit or erase this list once other transactions have been added on top of it. This ensures that only validated transactions can be recorded and that all transactions can be traced back from the ledger.
Figure 2: blockchain simply explained from youtube
Blockchain technology has been used in many fields, includes healthcare, media, energy, voting, IoT etc. I found that the role of blockchain in different areas is to make transactions transparent but anonymous, make the business more efficient by making the data needed visible to the public, and protect user privacy by keeping data involving personal data well hidden. The core operational principles of Blockchain technology are decentralisation, transparency, equality and accountability (Al-Saqaf and Seidler, 2017). I gave the examples of blockchain application and considered how to use these mechanisms in Brixton, one initial idea was "dream town", I refer to some construction games I have played, noticed that they all have one element in common, and that is self-sufficiency. The restaurants in the game can get vegetables directly from the farms, and electricity can be generated in the city. These rules are a good demonstration of efficient resource allocation and cost savings, yet these ideal concepts are difficult to implement in reality, so I wondered if blockchain technology could be used to visualize and allocate resources. There are already technology companies that have proposed the concept of future cities, for example, IKEA's research lab Space10 has crafted a miniature wooden village to demonstrate how communities could create their own circular clean energy system (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Blockchain applications and potential use, made bu Svaney
The metaphor of value
The core operational principles of Blockchain technology are decentralisation, transparency, equality and accountability (Al-Saqaf and Seidler, 2017). As we started discussing its relationship with Brixton, we gave a thought on blockchain technology for social impact. We have broadly decided on the aim of using blockchain technology to help create a more equal, more inclusive and more diverse community. Ines and I were looking at alternatives for currency from fiction films and TV series (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The alternatives for currency from movies and TV series: time, merits and trust
As we decided, our concept revolved around incorporating human values into the idea, including local culture, time, love, or understanding. We took this as our starting point of the project.
Figure 5: The metaphors of value, made by team
Presentation & Feedback
The first presentation focused on explaining blockchain clearly and introducing project direction. However, some participants commented that the concept of blockchain was still vague even after our presentation. John pointed out we seemed to give too much description rather than explanation, and the features of blockchain should be introduced in different hierarchies. People liked our ideas about the kindness value but questioned us on how to materialize and localise those abstract concepts. I admitted the way we explained the blockchain was kind of in the sky, it would be more understandable if we could do an interactive experience or physical prototype, on the other hand, I was glad about our direction.
References
Al-Saqaf, W. and Seidler, N., 2017. Blockchain technology for social impact: opportunities and challenges ahead. Journal of Cyber Policy, 2(3), pp.338-354.
Challener, C. (2019) Why the Industry Is Moving Toward Blockchain Technology. Available at: https://www.pharmasalmanac.com/articles/why-the-industry-is-moving-toward-blockchain-technology (Accessed: 28 April, 2021).
Chen, G., Xu, B., Lu, M. and Chen, N.S., 2018. Exploring blockchain technology and its potential applications for education. Smart Learning Environments, 5(1), pp.1-10.
Eleks Labs. (2018) How to Craft a Better UX Design for Blockchain. Available at: https://labs.eleks.com/2018/08/better-ux-design-for-blockchain.html (Accessed: 28 April, 2021).
Laclau, B. (2020) Why the energy sector must embrace blockchain now. Available at: https://www.ey.com/en_uk/digital/blockchain-s-potential-win-for-the-energy-sector (Accessed: 28 April, 2021).
McCauley, A. (2020) Why Big Pharma Is Betting on Blockchain. Available at: https://hbr.org/2020/05/why-big-pharma-is-betting-on-blockchain (Accessed: 28 April, 2021).
The Free Library., 2019. BLOCKCHAIN EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION. [Available at:https://www.thefreelibrary.com/BLOCKCHAIN+EQUALITY%2c+DIVERSITY+AND+INCLUSION.-a0591836629] (Accessed: 28 April, 2021)
Weird. (2017) Blockchain Expert Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty. 28 November, 2021. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYip_Vuv8J0 (Accessed: 28 April, 2021).