published 18 years ago today
& the implications & affordances for art are still sinking in.
Bitcoin introduces the capacity for digital objects to have defining characteristics of physical objects
creating a new kind of objecthood that is native to the digital era, an objecthood whose meaning is not reliant on the brittle force of decree, but continually emerges from the relationships and interactions that constitute its existence.
This is, in my view, one of the most important things that Rutherford Chang's CENTS embodies and expresses. A systems artwork that performs the processes through which objects acquire identity, meaning, and value in digital reality.
Satoshi says:
"We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures."
Chang's CENTS says: We define a chain of digital signatures as an object whose substance is its history.
This is not simply a new way to own or distribute art, but an expansion of what an artwork can be and do.
And I find it striking that this quality of Bitcoin art (and of blockchain as a medium in general) is still largely under-recognized, even among the Bitcoin art scene (let alone the Bitcoin scene overall). But I have no doubt that it will be known, because it posses the structural integrity of truth. (If you don't believe me or don't get it...)
And a fun fact: the Bitcoin whitepaper refers to the smallest unit as a "cent" (it was not until nearly 3 years later that they became known as "satoshis").
HBD BTC WP