[NetBehaviour] Art Smart Contracts

Sun Jul 27 03:06:25 CEST 2014

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On 26/07/14 05:59 AM, ahanon wrote:
> Hiyas,
> 
> Rob, thanks for sharing!!
> 
> An interesting treatment for art-linked objects..

Thank you!

> Am wondering whether etherium in itself, both as used in code - as
> an object of an exchange algorithm - and as being a commercialy
> developed "platform", is not an object as well..?

The contracts (programs and data) that exist within the presumably
anarcho-capitalist worldview of Ethereum are the objects I'm
contrasting with the objects of the artworld. That doesn't involve
considering Ethereum itself as an object, I guess I'm treating it more
as a context? But I think treating it as an object opens up some
really interesting and useful critical possibilities.

> If etherium is an object, is there not a sort of dramatic 
> tension/connection between the etherium object and its coded
> art-linked objects?

Yes I hope there's a tension here, I'd like there to be a mutual
critique. I have some contracts that (claim they) are art in
themselves, or store or generate art, but there's another very large
class of art that requires digital proxies or identifiers.

I wrote about some of this for Furtherfield:

http://furtherfield.org/features/articles/abc-accelerationist-blockchain-critique

> (eg are these objects not always umbilicaly linked to the etherium
> "parent-ship" object?) Hummm..

I like the idea of art objects beaming down from the blockchain
mothership. :-)

This relates to the question of which historical and non-perceptual
properties of an art object are aesthetically relevant in its reception.

> Not sure how relevant these questions are for the process, Rob -
> and apologies if they are utterly nothing-todo-with.. However, the
> code does seem to offer a contemplation regarding objects in link
> with art..

I'm certainly trying to play with the ontology of art and
techno-capital under various ideologies. I hadn't considered this on
the level that you're suggesting, and it opens things up. So thank you!