They’re pushing the limits of what technology can do — and triggering a conversation about what it should not do. Imagine a forest: trees, birds, maybe a few deer. Suddenly loggers show up — only not on the orders of any human, but on those of the forest itself. This is terra0, a project that envisions a self-owning, self-governing forest on the blockchain. Terra0 is not some dark crypto project, but rather the latest work by Berlin artists Paul Kolling and Paul Seidler and British developer Max Hampshire. Collectively they have presented their work at places like Transmediale, Ars Electronica, FIBER Festival and Furtherfield Gallery, aiming to explore technology’s outer limits, while also hinting at its darker side. It comes at a time when even august institutions like Christie’s — which for the first time this week is auctioning a work created by an artificial intelligence algorithm — are pushing at the boundaries between art and technology. | 