Good Enough Ancestors for Digital Worlding

In the last 10 years (or so), the advent of distributed ledger or web3 technologies has triggered an age of experiment in participatory governance and decentralized collective worlding — a sort of cooperative renaissance of the web for the exploration of new ways of achieving consensus in digital ecosystems and revitalizing our aging representative democracies. What if politics worked like an open-source project, where everyone could contribute? How might digital tools give people real power over their neighborhoods, work environment, bioregions and global cities? Can we design participatory systems — both political and economic — capable of cutting through the gloom of the coming warfare state and the threat of authoritarianism?

Join RadicalxChange, IFILNOVA, Voqua & friends at Well Read bookstore for a screening + book presentation followed by a conversation addressing these questions.

FILM

Good Enough Ancestor (2025), by Cynthia Wade, tells the story of Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s first Digital Minister and world acclaimed digital peacekeeper. Filmed over ten days in the lead up to Taiwan’s historic 2024 elections, the poetic documentary threads together Tang’s reflections on her own life—overcoming bullying, a life-threatening heart condition, and gender dysphoria—with the story of Taiwan’s evolution from martial law to its most recent election.

BOOK

Artists, Activists, and Worldbuilders on Decentralised Autonomous Organisations: Conversations about Funding, Self-Organisation, and Reclaiming the Future (2025, Institute of Network Cultures)

Inte Gloerich in conversation with Erik Bordeleau, Ruth Catlow, Aude Launay, Yazan Khalili, Penny Rafferty, and Stacco Troncoso (free PDF here)

This book contains conversations with artists and activists that engage critically with the socioeconomic setup of their sector. They activate communities and collectively build tools and infrastructures to prefigure different futures. Sharing their views on the potentials and pitfalls of DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations), the interviewees invite readers into the important and exciting space of artistic-activist reflection on, critique of, engagement with, and (re)imagination of these (and other) complex technologies.

CONVERSATION

The conversation will bring together Erik Bordeleau, a researcher at IFILNOVA / NOVA University Lisbon exploring new economic models beyond capitalism; Laura Lotti, a researcher studying how decentralized networks could reshape governance and labor; Brian Wong, a creative technologist working at the intersection of sound, AI, and community; Kaitlyn Davies, a curator and festival organizer connecting art, technology, and public discourse; and Leon Erichsen, a technology entrepreneur rethinking collective decision-making.

Where: Well Read Bookstore (Calçada de Sant’Ana, 92/94)

When: April 10th, 19h–21h

REGISTRATIONS

The event is free, but registration is required in advance. Register here.

ORGANISATION

RadicalxChange is a vibrant and diverse global community of forward-thinking technologists, social scientists, artists, activists, and entrepreneurs dedicated to a shared mission — to modernize and innovate the basic institutions of democracy and markets through a radically egalitarian and participatory vision for the future.

The IFILNOVA Art and Technology Working Group focuses on exploring the relationships between artistic practices and the development of new technologies. Its main aim is to critically analyze, assess and discuss the ways the alliance between art and technology poses new challenges and offers new ways to respond to contemporary issues related to social, political, and economic paradigms, such as social justice, ecological sustainability, and economic development.

Well Read is a bilingual art & design bookstore, event space and meeting place in Lisbon.

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