BITkunst (BIT art): a new perspective

Some of you may know I studied and lived cryptocurrency (the digital currency) and blockchain (the tech that makes it possible) for about four years now. One of my focusses quickly became to connect art, creativity with these field of digital and autonomous value containment. Because I clearly saw that the added value of creativity and these new ways to make that value flow to meaningful purposes, were meant to cooperate in a new to invent marriage.

One of my projects thus became BITkunst (BITart) and a big amount of work went into creating funds for a producing festival with discussions, lectures, workshops, exhibition and production. Of course, the aim was to connect creative sector and bitcoin tech - the latter being a new sector, still undeveloped and thus has rough edges, no preset rules or quality standards, attracts people with ideas that don't know the slightest thing about entrepreneurship yet and developers claiming to do be able to do stuff they cannot yet... Many challenges presented themselves.

Now I was always attracted to sectors that are unofficially shaped - that of literary poetry for instance, art in a certain way too - and I even went so far as to eventually invent my own work completely without the traditional borders of professional sectors. Creativity is meditation as well as entrepreneurship to me - and art as well -, thus creating no distinction between personal wellbeing services and professional coaching, art and other sectors etc. BITkunst was no news in that sense, but it did complete my feeling for the scope of where I wanted to go with my work.

It was not money perse that was of great interest to me, but the capturing of value and the innovative power in that field of creative entrepreneurship fascinated me and I wanted to explore that landscape. Many perspectives came around ever since, one of them the search for the possibilities to make BITkunst a festival, another coaching entrepreneurs in that field that had cryptocurrency related ideas but lacked business experience.

Earlier, I held lectures in Amsterdam about how to make cryptocurrency attractive for the average consumer without making it about making money with money (which is not what I am about and as far as I'm concerned those currencies are also not about: one of the most wide spread misconceptions!), and about my intend to connect creative sector and blockchain tech under the title of BITkunst.

Next week I will be speaking in Rotterdam about everything I experienced the last four years in this topic, giving a new perspective on the concept of BITkunst and present new avenues to live up to it. We discuss a few problematic areas arising around it afterwards. This will be in an event with multiple speakers about Art & Tech meant for women professionals and students, organized by the Women in STEAM project from Deloitte. It will take place in The Cambridge Innovation Center on Tuesday October 10th, starts at 13h, is free but registration is being asked for. For more, read in the links below.

Petra Else Jekel

• Women in STEAM event where I will be speaking: http://tinyurl.com/BITkunstWomeninSTEAM
• Follow my Mission: http://tinyurl.com/FollowMyMission
• Creative Entrepreneurs, the place where we share valuable information related to the above, join us: http://tinyurl.com/CreativeEntrepreneurs