de.RtB_Initiative
A Decentralized Right to Breathe
As advocates of social and environmental justice, we are committed to developing a decentralized right to breathe. We believe that blockchain technology can empower disadvantaged communities, enable new modes of commoning, and help sustain their work in creating a more equitable and breathable atmosphere.
Breathing clean air is a human right and is essential to human health and well-being. Individuals that live in low-income, minority communities should enjoy the same air quality levels as their counterparts in medium to high-income areas.
LIONEL BRADFORD
President / Greening of Detroit
Featured:
de.RtB was recently featured on Episode 17 of the “Let’s Talk Culture & Technology” Podcast hosted by the Vienna Business Agency. Listen below:
Recent
World Omosiroi Award
17 FEB 2024_Osaka
Osaka-based international forum and award program Omosiroi showcases Loph’s mission of bring together environmental advocacy, blockchain activism, and community empowerment. ⇢
Koami Art Festival
01 SEP 2023_Gothenburg
LoPh presented its approach towards blockchain-art-informed breath activism and explored the digitalization of the art industry over the festival’s two days. ⇢
10-19 MAR 2023_Austin
re_publica
At Europe’s largest annual festival on digital society, LoPh presented on the potential for web3 and SocialTech to empower marginalized communities suffering from breathing injustices. ⇢
Projects
A Thousand Breaths:
LoPh+ & MCS Data Labs
10 MAR 2024_Austin
Can we together make a case for a right to breathe through the potential of Web3 and the power of community-action?
de.RtB_A Thousand Breaths is an NFT collection developed by a diverse team of social justice advocates, web3 developers, legal experts, technical engineers, and digital artists. It integrates individual breath data with environmental metrics in the production of dNFTs. Our mission is twofold: to shed light on the disparities in breathing conditions across various locations and simultaneously fundraise for local communities committed to driving positive change. Impact follows meaningful collaboration. We are proud to announce our partnership with MCS Data Labs - a pioneering Berlin-based leader in health technology and sensing devices. Together, we are forging a path towards progress by integrating health data, real-time air quality monitoring, and blockchain-based governance. Our aim is to develop an application that empowers individuals to monitor, share, and nurture each(other's) breath.Collaborator:
Supported by:
The new collection launches during Austrian Night @ SXSW in Austin, Texas. Supported by WKO and the Vienna Business Agency, the launch promises to be a celebration of innovation, collaboration, and the collective commitment to a world where every breath matters.
Workshops
Aerocommoning
in the Digital Age
23-24 JUN 2023_London
Exploring a ‘Right to Breathe’ at the Intersection of Digital Humanitarianism, Decentralised Rights, Spatial Justice, and Science Journalism.
Since first launching its inaugural investigation entitled “Gas Exchanges & the Right to Breathe” in March 2020, LoPh has been working across spaces of the academy, grassroots organizations, regenerative finance, web3 and digital tech, science journalism, and artistic advocacy to investigate matters of breathing injustice across continents, with the ultimate goal of developing sustainable, community-driven models that best position the affected communities themselves in addressing them. Building upon this work, the 'Aerocommoning' workshop brought together diverse forms of expertise, including that of law & governance, investigative journalism, citizen science, political theory, Web3, engineering, and art, to interrogate, unpack, and collaborate on building such models. Participants included Dean Luke Mason (Westminster University Law School), Prof. Massimiliano Tomba (University of California, Santa Cruz), Prof. Patricia J. Williams (Northeastern University), Prof. Monika Halkort (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Lawyer Christoph Schmon (Electronic Frontier Foundation), Web3 Expert Paul Depraz, Science Journalist David Rennert (Der Standard), and Scholar Andrea Pavoni (University Institute of Lisbon).Co-organizer:
Supported by:
Infinitude:
Ad Coelum & Beyond
29-30 SEP 2022_Boston
The claim to real property, understood as the “right to exclude,” is commonly thought of as extending horizontally across territory conceived as a flat plane.
But legally, whoever owns a plot of land also owns a vertical interest in it—or a right to all that lies beneath that ground as well as to the air and sky above. This principle undergirds laws governing everything from mining law to water rights to the construction of skyscrapers. Recently, the "space" imagined by such jurisprudence has been vexed by the infinitely expansive economic imaginaries of cyberspace; by the largely unaccountable landscape of cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens; and by the whimsical colonial adventurism of monopoly-techno-kings. Built upon the question of a right to breathe, the 'Infinitude' seminar brought together scholars from a cross-section of disciplines to consider the social, legal, environmental, and expressive complications posed by powerful new conceptual architectures of ownership, symbolic power, typological assortment and incursive surveillance that direct what we see and that have come to regulate nearly aspect of our material and digital lives. Convened by Harvard Radcliffe Fellow Patricia J. Williams, participants included artist David Birkin (Visible Justice), Prof. Max Houghton (University of the Arts, London), Prof. Jonathan D. Kahn (Northeastern University), Prof. Stefan Helmreich (MIT), Autumn Womack (Princeton University), and data artist Josh Begley (Columbia Law School).Part of Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s esteemed Exploratory Seminar Program.
Exhibition @ Slought
10 MAY-24 JUN 2022_Philadelphia
How to create a right to breathe in times of global capitalism, climate change, and Web3?
Breathing is governed by a complex of legal, political, technological, and physical structures. Some breaths are considered worthy of protection, while others are rendered worthless. What determines its value?The Logische Phantasie Lab, in collaboration with Slought, is pleased to announce the first exhibition advocating for a Right to Breathe in the physical and cryptospace.The “Gas Exchanges & the Right to Breathe” exhibition brings together multimedia and crypto-artists, including Code-x-Diagrams, Raviv Ganchrow, Amy Yao, and Elia Vargas. Their work engages in both conditions of breath-ability on Earth and ways in which breath is captured, commodified, and exchanged. Included are ceramic and mixed media sculpture, 16mm film diptych, digital projection, life-feed audio recording, photographic portraiture, and NFTs.
Media
21.OCT.22 | Article
“MEDIA FORENSICS IN WEB3”
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LoPh was invited to curate an entry for in media res on the topic of ‘Critical Media Forensics.’ read
04.MAY.21 | Video
“GAS EXCHANGES & RIGHT TO BREATHE”
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LoPh launches video production of research behind de.RtB. watch
31.JAN.21 | Special Issue
“MATTERPHORICAL”
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LoPh co-directors publish special issue of esteemed academic journal Theory & Event. read
Press
21.OCT.22 | Interview
GO GREEN!
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Interview with Trending Topics on law and justice in times of climate crisis. read
26.AUG.22 | Podcast Episode
LEXICON OF CHEMISTRY
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Interview with Ö1 Radio Program on air pollution and ‘Breath for Sale’ project. listen
15.DEC.21 | Interview
RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
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Interview with preeminent Austrian Newspaper Die Presse on the failures of law. read
25.FEB.21 | Interview
PROFILE FEATURE
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Interview with Austrian Newspaper Der Standard on breathing, space travel, and rethinking law. read
03.OCT.23 | Podcast Episode
LET’S TALK CULTURE & TECHNOLOGY
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Interview with Viennese creatives and experts on the right to breathe. listen
Seminars
Fall 2020
Angewandte
VIENNA
Fall 2022
The Cooper Union
NEW YORK
Talks
_Association of Austrian Trading Companies Colloquium_Austrian Embassy, London_Austrian Research & Innovation Talk (ARIT)_Austrian Scientists & Scholars in North America (ASCINA)_Cardozo School of Law_Columbia University_Creative Days Vienna_De Ceuvel Experimental Zone Festival_ESG Transparency Initiative Kickoff ('Jetzt Tun!')_Northeastern University_Queen Mary University of London School of Law_University of Applied Arts, Vienna_University of Gothenburg_University of Kent Law School_University of Manchester Law School