The Making of Guide to DAOs
Hannah-Katharina Chabbani and Marc Bredemeier discuss their project Guide to DAOs: Decentralised Autonomous Organisations for the Cultural Sector, which will be presented as an interactive installation at HEK (House of Electronic Arts) as part of Kunsttage Basel on the 30th of August 2025. The Guide will appear as a Live Annotation Wall, becoming a collective comment board projected onsite, which invites response and reflection on digital and institutional participation models. Berlin-based DJs Sloush and Zarrt will remix an ambient soundscape with excerpts from the Guide into sonic form. Participants will also receive a one-year membership in the Friends of HEK Discord server to continue the exchange, propose projects, and participate in collective decision-making.
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Hannah: Is there something that you would like to jump into straight away, or that stuck to your mind after yesterday?
Marc: What do we actually need to build a DAO? Just to explain for someone who doesn’t know at all about DAOs?
Hannah: The abbreviation DAO stands for Decentralised Autonomous Organisation. It’s horizontal in structure, and autonomous in the sense that once the system is set in motion, it can’t just be changed at will. If you want to make changes, it has to happen collectively through voting mechanisms. That decentralised approach means decisions are shared. But importantly, DAOs don’t have to be fully on-chain. An organisation can experiment with DAO-like values, such as participation and shared governance, without using blockchain tech at all. We call this being off-chain. So, DAOs exist across a spectrum: from fully on-chain, blockchain-based legal entities to informal, analog collectives experimenting with decentralisation.
Marc: A hybrid, in the usage of a DAO?
Hannah: Yes, in the usage of its technology. The Guide has a section called FUTURES with a map asking: Where does your project sit? Is it off-chain or on-chain? Institutional or grassroots? It’s not so black and white, it’s more grey. You can gradually implement DAO ethos without ever touching blockchain technology. That’s already impactful.
Marc: So DAO is less about replacing systems and more about offering tools for experimenting with structure. It can be handy for voting, decision-making, or responding to real-world issues.
Hannah: Yeah, and maybe it doesn’t even matter if it’s called a DAO. What’s important is that it offers tools and ideas that can help us solve real-world problems in collaborative ways.
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Guide to DAOs: Live Annotation Wall on Figma, 2025 ……………………………………………….………………………….………………………….…
Hannah: Let’s talk about ourselves a bit.
Marc: It goes back to our time working at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. We were sitting next to each other, and started having conversations about overlapping interests. I remember you already being into blockchain tech, and I was more focused on AI at the time.
Hannah: Yes! And you were actually the one who encouraged me to join the Black Swan DAO Hackathon at KW in 2021. There, we simulated DAO governance through a LARP (live action roleplay) where we got into the role of different characters with pre-set personality traits and competed to win various assets. The organisers grouped us into different approaches to organisational governance structures. That experience really inspired me.
Marc: And later, in 2023, you became part of the other AI exhibition I was curating in Berlin, even though you had already moved out of Berlin by then.
Hannah: Right. You messaged me and said, “I know you’re into these concepts, let’s talk.” So we picked up our old conversation about blockchain, DAOs, AI, and how they intersect. That conversation turned into me joining the other AI project, where I exhibited a continuation of my on-chain artwork titled ‘KEY’ which I distributed to participants during a 3-day IRL checkpoint at KW.
Marc: Yeah, and then some time after, the Friends of HEK Open Call landed in my inbox. I thought of you immediately. We submitted the proposal together to Friends of HEK, and here we are.
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Installation view of the artwork by Hannah-Katharina Chabbani, EXPERIMENT SERIES: #2 UNLOCKED from the exhibition other AI, Lobe Space, Berlin 2023; Photo: Jacopo La Forgi ……………………………………………….………………………….………………………….…
Producing the Guide to DAOs
Hannah: For a long time, I had been wanting to create an onboarding resource, something that helps people learn about DAOs, what they are, and how to get involved. The idea was to create something educational, but also to spark conversations. The Guide could take many forms, and formats were really important to us.
Marc: Exactly. We spoke a lot about onboarding and accessibility. These were recurring themes. We wanted to remove the intimidation factor. Most people hear about DAOs and think it’s too technical, or are unsure of complex policy realities.
Hannah: From the start we knew we wanted to include the Friends of HEK community in the process, to not just write about them, but with them as a collaborative process. That’s why we reached out to Frances Liddell, whose previous project titled ‘Fostering Digital Cultural Participation’ was a three-month research study on barriers to participation within Friends of HEK. Her work was super aligned.
Marc: Yeah, it became what we called the participatory process. Frances joined our calls, engaged with us in the conversation, and hopefully will join us on-site in Basel for the launch. We wanted to get the ball rolling to build something that isn’t extractive, but embedded.
Hannah: She identified things like the need for better onboarding, clearer communication in Discord, more events, and ways to make participation visible. And that last part you said was important! We talked a lot about experimenting with publishing models that reflect the labour behind the project. Like, how can all those hours and contributions be made visible?
Marc: The Guide started as a 75-page research document…
Hannah: …which quickly became inaccessible! So we returned to the core idea: let’s make something short, clear, open. Around 20 pages. And then explore formats. We’re presenting it as a Live Annotation Wall at Kunsttage Basel, where people can leave comments directly on it.
Marc: And additionally the DJs Sloush and Zarrt will mix excerpts of the Guide into an ambient soundscape, turning it into a sonic DAO immersion.
To view the Guide to DAOs: Live Annotation Wall, scan the QR code. ……………………………………………….………………………….………………………….…
What are the challenges?
Marc: Let’s talk about some critical reflections we had. For me, the concern is what happens when we (meaning you, me, and others actively engaged in the cultural sector) don’t stay informed. Technologies won’t wait. They’ll be adopted by corporations, policymakers, or tech developers outside our networks, sometimes without much scrutiny, and sometimes with risks. We already see how digital infrastructures affect our lives massively, even more so than in the 80s or 90s. There’s a need to be active, not passive.
Hannah: Right. And within our field of cultural stewardship, we need to ask: what’s the purpose of an institution today? Is it still doing what it’s meant to do, namely; fostering public good, freedom and access of information, learning, and inclusive participation?
Marc: These values feel under attack. And symbolic gestures around diversity or access don’t always translate into structural change.
Hannah: DAO ethos and rapidly evolving technology (such as AI) can help reimagine governance, re-establish those core values. But we also need to acknowledge that this is not just a technological issue, it’s a human one. What kind of future are we designing when automation takes over key decisions? And who’s included in those decisions?
Marc: There’s excitement about it, but also real concerns. I’m skeptical, honestly, about the real-world impact if we’re not also addressing structural privilege. The whole Western canon still dominates, and many other cultures around the globe are left out. So if we’re going to use tech tools, we need to think across borders and also ethically.
Hannah: So it’s crucial to approach this responsibly. Not to celebrate tech uncritically, but to ask how it can serve the public good. Cultural institutions exist for that purpose. Can these tools help us defend those values?
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Marc: What makes you personally so motivated to work with DAOs and these digital tools?
Hannah: I’ll never forget when I discovered the blockchain art platform hicetnunc.xyz in 2021. The founder called it a socioeconomic experiment; 24/7 voice chats, international community, learning together by doing. That experience showed me that these tools could be powerful for culture, governance, memory, and connection.
Marc: And it was peer-led. Everyone learned together. That’s very different from top-down models.
Hannah: Yes. That’s what we try to do in the Guide by showing different lenses for understanding and applying web3 tools. As cultural practitioners in this day, our time is the time of the digital age so therefore anything to do with the digital realm becomes our culture.
Marc: And what do you hope institutions will take from this?
Hannah: That they become more inclusive for participation. That they reflect more realities, more voices. That they see decentralisation not as a threat but as a path to relevancy.
Marc: I think many institutions still only reflect a narrow slice of society. They inhabit the norms of societal behaviour and show what is valued. There’s a lot of gatekeeping. So maybe these tools can help shift things, if used with care.
Hannah: I think that’s good, I’m happy with that.
Marc: Alright, so I will stop the recording.
Hannah: Mm-hmm.
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