Interspecies Cyber-Governance: BeeDAO and the Artistic Imaginaries of Blockchain for Planetary Regeneration

This article explores the relationship between artistic experimentation of technology and blockchain-based governance systems. It is based on a case study of the BeeDAO project. Imagining new forms of interspecies urban dwelling, the artists and activists behind BeeDAO proposed to create a blockchain-based governance model (a Distributed Autonomous Organization [DAO]) dedicated to improving the living conditions of bees. We analyze how artistic imaginaries of technology may envision new governance frameworks to shape sustainable futures. We characterize as techno-ecological agentivity the reliance on blockchain systems to design organizational models where other-than-human living entities would be integrated into the participatory governance of natural ecosystems. Our analysis highlights that BeeDAO enacts a cybernetic vision of governance, emulating a techno-determinist utopia of social transformation. The project faced practical challenges due to the intricacies of human collaboration, technological dependencies, and the complexities of urban ecologies. Yet as an artistic initiative, it significantly contributed to the urban renovation project of Haus der Statistik by using blockchain as a narration-building tool.