In this special episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with Paul Seidler and Paul Kolling from art collective terra0 about their project Autonomous Forest (2025). They cover the nearly decade-long journey from white paper (2016) as university students to the project's NFT launch in December 2025.
The collective shares how the original idea in the white paper mutated with projects like Flowertokens, Premna Deamon and now Autonomous Forest.
They also cover why working through German law and smart contracts creates better frameworks than pure speculation, how the project evolved from startup pitches to nonprofit governance, and what it means to build living systems that exist outside economic (and human) exploitation.
Monday's Le Random Editorial on "Standout Artwork of 2025"
Thursday's Le Random Editorial: "Zero 10 Part 1: Beeple Casts a Spell" by Kevin Buist
Chapters: 📖
00:00:00 Intro: terra0 + “Autonomous Forest” (what it is)
00:10:01 The long arc: Flower Tokens, Premna Daemon, and the road to Autonomous Forest
00:17:02 The pivot: from “forest as economic agent” to removing ecosystems from the market
00:22:00 Why blockchain matters: voting, trust, governance, and accountability
00:26:03 Repeatability + policy experiment vibes — and where AI fits (and doesn’t)
00:29:01 Legal fictions: “corporations as slow AIs” and the problem of intention
00:32:04 Personhood for nature: who can speak for rivers/forests/nonhuman interests?
00:38:04 Protocol art roots: relational aesthetics, software art, and law as medium
00:41:01 World-building + generative art lineage (instructions → systems → protocols)
00:49:00 Guattari’s “Three Ecologies,” land art links, and closing reflections