DisCO of Urgency

Introduce Cardano into an established, worldwide arts & culture ecosystem including queer & female communities with large social impact.

Board members, creators and artists from SpaceofUrgency, "Frei(t)räume" & "Stadt Nach Acht" conferences in Berlin, UnitedWeStream.

🔍 Details 

Goals:

• Establish a safe and highly accessible hub within the Cardano ecosystem and Catalyst Swarm Community for independent cultural communities consisting of autonomous, self-organized, grassroots arts and cultural producers. The Global Association for Distributed Arts & Culture (GADAC) Hub - is envisioned to close the knowledge-gap between those unfamiliar with cryptocurrencies and blockchain and raise awareness about the opportunities they could access through education of these topics and by being integrated into expert communities.

• Onboard a maximum of 8 international keyplayers and network leaders, which are established female & queer artists, activists, and cultural space organizers - to the Cardano Community through three educational workshops. Both groups would then collaborate to explore what potential the Hub has for local and transnational social impact.

• Enhance the representation of independent arts and cultural producers (including queer,) BIPOC (Black, Indigious and people of color) and female communities) within the Cardano Community and build new alliances and areas for collaboration between the two groups of stakeholders.

• Further empower communities of arts and cultural actors by building out the GADAC Hub into a Distributed Cooperative Organization (DisCO). WIth a DisCO governance structure, artists and other members of cultural communities can track contributions more effectively, allowing for the remuneration of care work and other intangible contributions. A DisCO also allows for autonomy from governments and other potentially repressive structures (particularly regarding communities and spaces within semi to fully authoritarian and/or corrupt political contexts), including the Game A, zero-sum status quo. 

Background and Overall Mission:

This proposal will initiate a three-month experiment in communication and understanding between existing Cardano Community members and artists, activists, and self-organized cultural collectives from the networks of Space of Urgency and United We Stream. The arts and cultural communities of Space of Urgency and United We Stream represent various social and cultural backgrounds from cities across the world such as: Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Budapest, Detroit, Lisbon, New York City, Mexico City, Paris, Kiev, Tbilisi , San Francisco, São Paulo, and Sydney. The network's foundation is comprised of subculture actors in night club communities, cultural grassroot spaces, and activist networks for feminist and queer rights in over 114 cities.

Self-organized, independent, grassroots cultural spaces and their vibrant communities - made up of autonomous collectives, artists and activists - are culturally determined social and political spaces created by and for a community. These are 'Space(s) of Urgency' and they are in a precarious position. Their survival is largely determined by real estate privatization and gentrification, yet these spaces play an important role by providing a shelter for cultural communities that lack support from the state or mainstream institutions. At the moment, spaces of urgency and the communities behind them are very compromised due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has only exacerbated pre-existing issues of lack of funding and resources, a politically disabling environment, corporate takeovers, gentrification, commodification, social stigmatization, and marginalization. We see a large opportunity for a meaningful long-term integration of these communities within the Cardano ecosystem, since they are self-organized by origin and driven to upscale/increase social impacts beyond their spaces on a more transnational level. We believe that the Cardano Community and the methods behind developing the blockchain from the bottom up and with well thought out, peer-reviewed research, is more in-line with the collaborative and community-driven spaces we're working with.

At this moment, there is little knowledge within those communities about the possibilities to leverage their social impact by building on the Cardano blockchain. We see a huge opportunity for cross-pollinating unique knowledge between the cultural actors and the Cardano Community, since the cultural actors can benefit in many ways from the tools Cardano has to offer and in return Cardano becoming part of a worldwide network of diverse subcultural actors and community activists - including artists, musicians, cultural organizers, feminist communities & queer communites - to eventually drive further adoption by young people and those outside of the tech community.

The Team:

We're a group of activists, community organizers, entrepreneurs, researchers, writers, and artists working together to establish a Global Association for Distributed Arts & Culture (GADAC). Through this networked system and platform our aim is to create tools for autonomous, nonhierarchical, self-organized communities to efficiently and fairly govern, track contributions (especially community care and pro bono work) and remuneration, establish scalability.

After working for 10 years directly with artist and cultural communities, primarily those which have been marginalized by mainstream society and the status quo economic system, we've come to understand that new resilience strategies are needed - strategies that eliminate the need for government dependence and redistribution structures with little ROI. During the last years, we have facilitated substantive dialogue and debates and organized numerous conferences and events with interdisciplinary actors such as political agents, local governments, artists, and cultural communities. Establishing GADAC Hub is a natural next step in the progression of our work and a method we believe will successfully bring in the arts and cultural communities into the Cardano Catalyst ecosystem.

• Space of Urgency (SoU): (Liese Kingma, Lucas Counter, Heather Brown): Space of Urgency´s mission is to empower the visibility and resilience of independent cultural spaces and their communities, by sharing stories, knowledge and tools for tangible solidarity in times of crisis. Expertise in designing and hosting workshops and knowledge exchange programs, and developing cultural community projects that brings collectives together, builds trust, and fosters deep knowledge exchange for social impact and community resilience. The project was founded in Berlin by a three person core team.

• United We Stream (UWS): (Anna Harnes & Danaja Volk): Expertise in marketing and global outreach media strategies for social impact. Project team includes six Berlin-based members. The cultural platform was initiated in Berlin in March 2020 as the club scene's response to COVID-19 and has since gone far beyond that to advocate for the preservation and sustainable development of club culture, diversity, and equality through streaming, partnerships, and campaigns. The global movement has involved over 2,200 artists in 117 cities. The Berlin-based association is the umbrella for the worldwide network of individuals, clubs, and collectives.

Liese Kingma

• FB: https://www.facebook.com/liesekingma/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/liese_kingma/

Heather Brown

• FB: https://www.facebook.com/ferociousrar
• Linkedin: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-brown-6410a9a/) 
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/evolayak)

Lucas Counter

• Linkedin: https://de.linkedin.com/in/lucas-counter-8b39631b1

Anna Harness

• FB: https://www.facebook.com/annakaethe/
• IG:(https://www.instagram.com/unitedwestream/?hl=de)
• Linkedin: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-k%C3%A4the-harnes-2b0051180/) Instagram

Danaja Antonija Volk:

• FB: https://www.facebook.com/danaja.volk
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danaja-antonija-volk-23778517a

📊 Milestone plan 

Timeline:

Project duration: 3 months (December 2021 - February)

Step 1: The project launch will take place at the Frei(t)räume (Envisioning Free Space) conference in Berlin (27.11.2021) - a nighttime culture conference organized by members of the Space of Urgency project in collaboration with United We Stream and the Stadt Nach Acht (City After 8) conference. A major focus of this year's conference is 'disruptive technologies', which should provide a fruitful environment for the initial engagement of cultural and community-driven spaces and connecting them with Cardano & Catalyst representatives and our project.

Step 2: After that, artists and cultural actors - including key figures from the feminist and queer scenes and BIPOC communities - will be onboarded via a purpose-built Discord server. This will be a starting point for building trust in the Cardano ecosystem and act as an accessible entry point where potential Catalyst Community members can gain baseline knowledge of Cardano, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain among their peers. Taking inspiration from the first Swam session online meetings - GADAC will develop in a similar community oriented way by starting small and expanded based on the needs of the community.

Step 3: Once we have successfully onboarded upto 8 members, we'll begin rolling out our program of three workshops, beginning with an introduction workshop, and followed by two workshops focused on specific projects (use cases) within the Cardano ecosystem that can be leveraged by the community hub. We will invite various members of the Cardano Catalyst Community to present specific elements of the workshop program that demonstrate the potential of Cardano.

Technical Information:

We'll be introducing the Hub for Independent Cultural Communities with a mix of digital tools, they include:

• Zoom: online communication and workshop hosting

• Miro: workshop aid and documentation

• Discord: for community building, information exchange & consolidating the Independent Cultural Communities Hub

• United We Stream (UWS): the live streaming network will take care of the recording and distribution of the workshop content to different channels (Facebook, YouTube Twitter, Discord) and also crosspost the stream via the global UWS network of stakeholders. UWS takes care of the communication campaign surrounding the project to create optimal understanding of the topics and to target audiences beyond the 8 workshop participants.

🦾 KPIs 

Definition of Success:

Within the 3 month project timeframe:

• Launch a Global Association for Distributed Arts & Culture (GADAC) Discord server (and give it more sexy name like DisCO of Urgency) and develop a presence on social media (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) that is supported by UWS, SoU, and the communities they work with.

• Build up and merge the networks and organizations involved (UWS, SoU, FTR, and Distributed Ledger Technology related) to create a new, strong GADAC Community Hub and social media channel which contribute to and disseminate information on the project.

• Public launch of the project strategy and vision of the GADAC will be presented at the Frei(t)räume conference in Berlin (27.11.2021), recorded and distributed to the GADAC Community Hub social media platforms (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Discord) and also via the Cardano Catalyst channels such as Youtube, Telegram, and Discord.

• Build a communication campaign with recorded and published content from the launch at the Frei(T)räume conference to create interest and raise awareness of the new opportunities that lie within the project. One of GADAC's main goals is to close the knowledge gap between communities unfamiliar with cryptocurrencies and blockchain, by feeding accessible information into the communities.

• Research and design a workshop program format with three different entry levels (basic, advanced, expert) to bridge the knowledge gap and guarantee low-threshold access. Execute the three workshops for each level and introduce diverse arts and cultural actors, including key members from the femminist and queer communities, to the potential of the Cardano ecosystem. Participants from each level are given the chance to choose where they want to start/enter into the program, based on their prior understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

• Detailed documentation of workshop outcomes (Miro collaborations, Zoom recording) and upload it to Youtube so that newcomers can also access the developing body of knowledge. Content will also be distributed on the other social media channels for maximum outreach.

• Successful onboarding of actors from the Independent Cultural Communities hub into the Cardano Catalyst Community, including Discord and the weekly Townhall.

After the Three-month project timeframe:

• Stable and growing user base on the Hub's Discord server.
• Maintenance and community management of the Hub's Discord server/community.
• Actively strengthening connections/alliances between the GADAC Hub and Cardano Catalyst Community. 

₳ Budget 

Use of Funds

Pay four project developers for three months to allow them to work part-time on the project: three months x $700 x 4 developers = $8,400

• Community administrator

• Secretary

• Administrator

• Workshop designer and moderator

Pay Honorare fees for four guest presenters at the workshops: four guest presenters x $300 = $1200

Zoom account = $262

-> Total = $9,862

🔗 Reference material

Space of Urgency https://spaceofurgency.com/

FTR - Frei(t)räume Conference in Berlin https://freitraeume.com/

Stadt Nach Acht Conference in Berlin 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV0PcQIPOAM

Stadt Nach Acht Conference in Berlin 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITFTY9QMAWQ&t=3s

United We Stream https://unitedwestream.org/

DisCo Manifesto https://disco.coop/manifesto/