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Navigating the Slippery Fusion of Entertainment, Documentary and Indoctrination

ByRichelle SteynJun 6, 20258 mins

If the 20th century taught us to be literate, the 21st must teach us to be perceptually sovereign. In an era where belief is engineered and perception curated, our deepest freedom lies in our ability to hold the line between story and truth, between being moved and being manipulated.

Slow-Profit DAOs and Cultural Infrastructure: A New Commons for Systemic Change

ByRichelle SteynMay 23, 202512 mins

At the heart of Art Stoke Commons is a quiet but radical belief: You cannot have sustainable systems change or social impact without a decentralised, slow-profit social economy. This isn’t ideology. It’s structural necessity.

Composting the Bypass: Entanglement, Grief, and the Pitfalls of Post-Anthropocentric Movements

ByRichelle SteynMay 15, 20255 mins

Are some post-anthropocentric movements — from mycelial networks to rhizomatic thinking, biomimicry to planetary intelligence — bypassing cultural healing by retreating into nature metaphors?

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Generative Art, On and Off the Blockchain

ByRichelle SteynAug 6, 20236 mins
Generative blockchain art often engages a new audience of collectors who are interested in owning unique digital items with verifiable scarcity. The NFT ecosystem fosters a sense of community among artists, collectors, and enthusiasts, with interactions often taking place on social media and blockchain platforms.

Ideas Too Dangerous to Share, Digital Censorship and Cultural Hegemony

ByRichelle SteynSep 13, 202411 mins
Antonio Gramsci developed the concept of cultural hegemony to describe how dominant classes maintain power, not solely through economic control, but by shaping culture and ideology. By framing the accepted norms, values, and beliefs, they secure consent from the public, even when these structures work against the public’s own interests. Gramsci’s insights remain deeply relevant, […]

The Quiet Extractive Machine: How Soft-Power Art Non-Profits are Rewriting Africa’s Future in VR

ByRichelle SteynNov 21, 20256 mins
There is a new kind of extractive industry rising quietly across the African cultural landscape—nothing as obvious as mining, nothing as brutal as the colonial museum raid. Instead, it arrives with friendly logos, “innovation labs,” creative grants, workshops for emerging storytellers, and the promise of global visibility.
Art Stoke Commons Public Goods for collective impact and systems change using decentralised frameworks
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