⚠️ I no longer own the domain blockchainhub.net, which was acquired by an unknown third party in April 2026. Any emails from @blockchainhub.net claiming to be me or my old team members are malicious and should be reported as phishing.
ABOUT ME
I have spent over two decades living in different places and navigating different jungles—from art to cryptoeconomic algorithms to the literal, overgrown thickets of an abandoned olive farm. As an Austrian, with Iranian roots, I now live in Portugal where I work on the intersection of technology, agriculture, art & social science. The question that has guided my work is how invisible systems shape the way we think, live, and relate to one another—and how they might be redesigned. Whether economic, ecological, technological, or cultural, I explore these systems by working from within them rather than observing them from the outside. Each job, project, medium, and context served and continues to serve as a temporary lens. I strive to reduce complexity by revealing the hidden structures connecting seemingly unrelated phenomena.
Between 2004 and 2015, under my alter ego "kamikatse." I created a series of artworks, performances, and digital mutterings, started an art collective and organized an underground music festival in the desert of Iran. Between 2015 and 2025, I went down the crypto rabbit hole. I founded the Think Tank BlockchainHub Berlin, went on to launch & direct the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics, and wrote three editions of the best selling book Token Economy, before eventually moving to Portugal to reclaim an abandoned olive farm.
Ten years of cryptoeconomic obsession later, I stumbled back into the beautiful chaos of art both actively and passively—though I have to say that the split between “art” and “crypto” is an external fiction. Inside my brain and my soul, it was all the same creative process: the perception, composition, decomposition, and recomposition of thoughts, patterns, and complex systems.
I am currently working on two immersive, site specific installation, Money Patterns & Iranian Graffiti. I also opened the space on my farm in Portugal to other artists via an Artist in Residency as well as a Curator in Residency program.
RESEARCH Investigating systems through research and writing. More info 👇
RESEARCH & WRITINGSART Making systems visible through immersive installations. More info 👇
ARTCURATION Creating spaces to question systems through conversation, place and reflection. More info 👇
CURATIONAGRICULTURE Cultivating living systems through agriculture, ecology and experimentation. More info 👇
AGRICULTURE
My work explores the systems that govern money, technology, agriculture, ecology, institutions, and perception.
- Why do human systems produce outcomes that almost nobody consciously wants?
- Why does a monetary system create inequality, incentives, bubbles, debt?
- Why do democratic systems produce polarization, populism, disengagement?
- Why does a global economic system destroy the conditions for its own survival?
- Why do the people producing food often earn the least?
- Why do individuals act in ways that collectively produce outcomes they don't desire?
Disciplines are tools. Everything else follows from that.
- Blockchain networks? A coordination system.
- Money? A coordination system.
- Democracy? A coordination system.
- Agriculture? A coordination system.
The Farm in Alentejo is just another medium
- grazing management
- water systems
- fire prevention
- biodiversity
- retreat design
- hosting artists
- land stewardship
How do the systems we create end up shaping the people we become?
Institutions, incentives, technologies, narratives, and environments all influence behavior.
"How do the systems we create end up shaping us?"
Blockchain wasn't about crypto speculation. It was about designing institutions and coordination mechanisms.
Money Patterns isn't really about money. It's about how invisible systems shape our perception and behavior.
The farm wasn't just about owning land. You became fascinated by grazing systems, biodiversity, water management, olive trees, and rural economics.
The Liminal isn't really about retreats. It's about creating conditions in which people can step outside existing systems long enough to see them.
I always said I do something to learn, and then I move on, or move deeper in fact. I drill through layers of the same question. Almost like an archaeologist, or more like an antropologist. I dont abandon a laboratory because I am bored. I leave a topic when I have extracted what that laboratory could teach you. Then I find another laboratory. In the Liminal Residency I am inviting curators and people who are on the treshohold in their life to come and explore these questions with me, or for themselves and I provide the space and time for reflection and creation.