In his work, Yoshinari Nishiki @inari : pays attention to the entanglement of economics and ecology. He is the founder of Technology of Future Utopia (TOFU), a company that focuses on artistic intervention in logistics and economic systems.
@inari is coming in residency at petites singularités this summer. @Inari has been working in using Japanese knotweed in different scopes
As for the residence theme, I would like to try the following:
[Experimental vending settings using GNU Taler and Japanese knotweed]
GNU Taler is an abstract form of monetary transaction that interferes with traditional value exchange (for the general public)
Japanese knotweed is a non-agricultural product (in Europe) to which no standards can be applied
4 vending settings:
Cash transaction - unbranded Japanese knotweed root extract
Cash transaction - branded Japanese knotweed root extract
GNU Taler - unbranded Japanese knotweed root extract
GNU Taler - branded Japanese knotweed root extract
Based on a decade-old paper titled ‘The Bazaar Economy or How Bizarre is the Bazaar Really?’, four vending settings can be tested in an open street bazaar environment (with the bar structure facing the street, stemming from your house?).
I would still like to join you there this summer, will figure out the travel from my company budget, thanks for re-checking with your colleagues.
Here is a copy of the cited article: The_bazaar_economy_or_how_bizarre_is_the.pdf (2.0 MB)
Welcome @inari! That should be fun. I expect @marie from Taler Systems will join us.
Yes I agree, however while it is indeed abstract GNU Taler does not aim to interfere with traditional value exchange, indeed contrary to blockchain and other currencies, it aims to blend within the existing economic system, it is a taxable resource that is comparable to cash and in set in collaboration with central banks.
This is amazing, and very well thought as we have the ambition to use promote GNUTaler in festival contexts… More to speak about…
I think we need to discuss this, because while I indeed the bazaar is a great setup the comparison of the bazaar as a metaphor for the larger market economy that would be self regulated is in my view an issue. I will read again this article (that I read a number of years ago) and feedback here.
Sure, the bar is there for that, absolutely!
Ok this is day 1 of je Japanese knotweed extraction.
We went on the river bench and chose the knotweed plants that were the greenest, they are the ones with the largest roots.
We dug a little into the gravel and unrooted quite large portions of roots. We are interested in the thick and lively roots that bear some red onto and inside it, it is the red color that proves the anti-oxydant presence. It has a notable smell also.
The root needs to be quite bulby and thick the small rhizome is not useful, but on the contrary we were at first very glad to find a very thick root, it looked like a tree branch growing under the ground; however this was too old it did not have any red on it, it was not energetic anymore.
We have taken care of putting all the leaves and branches we had broken into a plastic bag so that they do not end up into the river, and root elsewhere.
We will burn them later on.
We have decided to do a small fanzine presenting the recipe, and we will bring it to the market along with some beverage made from knotweed and kefir, so that people can reproduce the process and use the knotweed that is out there instead of having it proliferate.
The fanzine requires pictures 
A post was split to a new topic: Un guide pratique pour la fabrication d’une boisson énergétique à partir de renouée du Japon
I published both the English guide and its traduction to their own topics. The French version links to the printable file and the original version.
It would be nice to post the SVG file for the fanzine to allow for more translations.
We should also upload to several places, linking back…
couldn’t upload here so put the svg files on irational
