[NetBehaviour] The Unreasonable Ecological Cost of #CryptoArt (a not very deep reading of a high price piece of cryptoart)

Sat Jan 30 13:05:11 CET 2021

thanks Edward (and Alan) for this
made me understand something more
( the fact that in this, art is still about producing an object that can be
sold is not to my liking )

Best
Annie

On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 11:08 PM Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour <
netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

> I think this is a wonderful analysis and increases the depth of the work.
> I want to point out that these small differences over time have been a
> mainstay of a lot of art; I'm thinking of some Bill Viola pieces for
> example, or even La Monte Young, both of whom work/worked with almost
> imperceptible differences. In all of these cases, audience interaction's
> essential; if the time difference is months, it wouldn't be noticable; if
> it's within an extended viewing time, it would be meaningful and even
> amazing. There's also the imperceptibility of speed; if I play fast enough,
> the sound of the nails and imminent production/onset increasingly dominates
> - the playing increases in "noise." All of this is fascinating. Then as we
> know there are compositions that are being automatically played, that won't
> repeat for thousands of years.
>
> Seriously, these considerations of time should be foregrounded more than
> they are I think - and we live accordingly in exciting times!
>
> Best, Alan, running from thinking about Republicans to better things!
>
> On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 4:31 PM Edward Picot via NetBehaviour <
> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>
>> Ruth and everyone,
>>
>> I've been spending some time looking at this image and thinking about it.
>> The first thing that struck me about it was its horribleness. It's a bit
>> difficult to put your finger on exactly where this horribleness comes from,
>> but I think it's got something to do with the fact that different sections
>> of the picture - different layers, rather - are in completely different
>> styles. The butterfly, for example - one wing's in shadow and the other is
>> in light, but apart from this nod to three-dimensionality it's just a flat
>> shape, a cut-out. The Ethereum logo kites in the background - likewise
>> these have got panels in light and panels in shade, but they don't actually
>> make sense as three dimensional shapes, and the really infuriating thing
>> about them is the way the 'strings' on which they're supposed to be
>> 'flying' don't join up accurately with the corners. Then you've got the
>> chair, the ruffs on the Harlequin costume, and the boy's hat, hands and
>> feet - all lifted straight from Picasso, but the way in which they're
>> painted no longer makes any sense because of how they've been cut and
>> pasted out of context. Actually one of my first thoughts about the
>> painting/artwork was 'he doesn't look as if he's properly sitting in that
>> chair, it's almost as if he's been draped across it or he's leaning against
>> the edge of it' - and when I look at the Picasso original there's some of
>> that same feeling. But Picasso is deliberately doing something with the
>> pattern of the Harlequin costume, making it too bold and slightly wonky and
>> playing it off against the wistful and lost look on the boy's face - all of
>> that gets lost in this reworking. The painting of the face - Vitalik
>> Buterin's face, Vitalik Buterin being one of the founders of Ethereum - is
>> in a different style again. It almost feels as if his face is going to
>> split open into a toothy grin, and we're going to realize that we're
>> looking at one of the older and more painterly front covers of Mad
>> magazine. And that may even be deliberate, because the writeup alongside
>> the picture makes it apparent that there's some kind of satirical intent
>> here.
>>
>> The effect of these different layers, different fragments, different
>> styles all being put together in one picture is jarring and banal.
>>
>> That writeup: 'Leaning against a large chair, the boy genius fiddles
>> with his fingers in a somewhat nervous manner; nevertheless, he stares
>> directly at the viewer with what appears to be a confident, ‘Mona
>> Lisa-like’ smile. Vitalik has no idea what the future has in store for him,
>> but he’s prepared to face any obstacle ahead as he begins life's
>> adventure'. The satirical intent is most apparent in the phrase 'boy
>> genius'. I think what Trevor Jones, the artist, is trying to convey is a
>> sense that Vitalik is out of his depth but determined to front it out. But
>> there's a clumsiness in the phrasing - is 'confident' really the right
>> adjective for the Mona Lisa's smile? Shouldn't Vitalik be overcoming
>> obstacles rather than just facing them? Don't obstacles belong to a path
>> rather than an adventure? And is he really just beginning life's adventure
>> when he's already become so famous and made so much money? The metaphors
>> don't quite work, and the clumsiness of this piece of writing seems to be a
>> kind of parallel with the clumsiness of the artwork.
>>
>> But the other thing this writeup is doing, apart from telling us that
>> this is a piece of art about Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum and blockchain
>> culture in general, and that it's got a vague satirical flavour to it, is
>> making connections with the canon of 'great art' and 'great artists' - most
>> obviously Picasso, but also the Mona Lisa. And if you look at Trevor
>> Jones's website, and other examples of his art and how he describes them,
>> this is obviously a concern of his.
>>
>> Then you've got what might be termed the new media aspect of the artwork.
>> When I came back and looked at it again after a day or so, it had changed.
>> The butterfly was in a different place. The background had changed - there
>> used to be a rainbow behind the chair, but now there were some chains of
>> blue cubes; and there used to be some seagulls, but now there were some
>> Pokemon-style creatures. This is where it gets interesting. It turns out
>> that the picture consists of a number of different layers, and some of the
>> layers move over time, and their movements are determined by what's
>> happening to the value of Ether and the price of oil. It was when I started
>> to find out about this aspect of the artwork that I started to wonder
>> whether it maybe wasn't so bad after all. After all, anyone that creates
>> art digitally will be familiar with the process of working in lots of
>> different layers. When you've finished the process of creation what you
>> normally do is meld all these layers together to create the illusion that
>> the finished piece is a single flat image like a drawing, a painting, a
>> print or maybe a photograph. But the difference is always there, and
>> actually you can see that difference in artwork that's been created
>> digitally if you know where to look for it. So what Trevor Jones is doing
>> in Ethboy is putting this use of layers into the foreground, instead of
>> trying to pretend that it's not there: he's conceptualising it and
>> developing its digital potential. He's created a piece about Ethereum and
>> the workings of the blockchain that actually brings those workings into the
>> artwork itself as a form of animation. That's kind of funky.
>>
>> And if you look at Trevor Jones' website, there's actually some quite
>> good stuff on there. He did another earlier artwork called Ethgirl, which I
>> actually much prefer to Ethboy - much more cubist in style, incorporating
>> the Ethereum logo again, along with other things such as the Twitter logo,
>> a smiley face, a cat face and so forth. It's much more unified as a picture
>> because the style is less disparate and it's painted in the greys and
>> browns that are characteristic of a lot of Cubist pictures. There's another
>> one called 'Picasso's Bull' which I also like. Both of these are animated
>> like Ethboy, but in a slightly different way - sections of the Cubist
>> structures swing apart to reveal other parts beneath, rather than the
>> Ethboy process of different layers simply moving while the central image
>> remains stationary.
>>
>> There are also some paintings on the website based on QR codes (the
>> paintings are scannable), and some earlier ones on the theme of
>> synaesthesia (music translated into mainly-abstract art). I like all of
>> these more than I like Ethboy.
>>
>> There's a lot of explanation on the website, and it gives quite a strong
>> sense of how Jones has found his way to the space he's working in now. 'I
>> consider myself a traditional painter but one who is also absolutely
>> fascinated with art and tech collaboration.' He starts his story with
>> the synaesthesia paintings, and then describes how he seemed to lose his
>> audience when he became fascinated with QR codes: 'very few really
>> understood why I, as an artist, would be so excited about these odd looking
>> squares'. Then in 2012 he 'discovered Augmented Reality' and 'I felt
>> rejuvenated because I was no longer creatively constrained  to these
>> seemingly arbitrarily patterned squares'. But on the other hand the sense
>> of being at odds with his audience continues: 'It's been a long and
>> arduous process pursuing my passion for technologically inspired paintings
>> while at the same time gradually coming to the realisation that these works
>> would struggle to be accepted into the more conservative Scottish art
>> establishment and commercial galleries.' As a result, 'Since 2015 I've
>> slowly distanced myself from the local art scene I've been focusing on the
>> tech world and connecting with fans of my new work on an international
>> level.' The contrast of 'art establishment' and 'local art scene' with 'the
>> tech world' and 'fans' seems significant, as does a comment he makes
>> elsewhere on the website - that when he discovered Bitcoin he 'fell down
>> the rabbit hole'. You get the impression that here's a 'traditional
>> painter' who has gradually found his way into very different territory, but
>> without being able to completely lose his desire to be judged in terms of
>> old school artistic values - hence his desire to make connections between
>> his work and artists such as Picasso or great paintings such as the Mona
>> Lisa. When you go back to EthBoy, you find yourself wondering whether it's
>> really Jones himself who is the central figure, out of his depth but trying
>> to front it out, not really sure of his bearings any more but trying to
>> forge ahead nevertheless.
>>
>> I don't like EthBoy, but I do think it's got some interesting ideas
>> behind it, and I do find Trevor Jones an interesting figure. I suspect that
>> he'd be a more successful artist in aesthetic terms if he could dump some
>> of his preoccupation with pre-digital art - but on the other hand the sense
>> of tension and uneasiness in a work like EthBoy seems to come from the way
>> in which his 'traditional art' references jar against his digital
>> experimentation - and I suppose you could argue that that's what makes it
>> interesting.
>>
>> Time for supper!
>>
>> Edward
>>
>>
>> On 23/01/2021 11:28, Ruth Catlow via NetBehaviour wrote:
>>
>> Hi Graziano,
>>
>> These are the things I observe about the Cryptoart scene - and that
>> puzzle me
>> - no one talks about the imagery, meaning, concept - evva!
>> - and prices are always given in $$$s not a cryptocurrency
>>
>> Anyone want to volunteer do a deep reading of a piece of high-price
>> crytpoart? Perhaps this one
>> https://async.art/art/master/0xb6dae651468e9593e4581705a09c10a76ac1e0c8-807
>>
>> [image: image.png]
>> It would be great to know if these artists are cashing out their crypto
>> immediately after the auctions. If not why are we not hearing about the
>> prices in the cryptocurrencies with which they were bought?
>>
>> warmly
>> Ruth
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 4:53 PM Graziano Milano <
>> grazmaster at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In 2020 the crypto artist "Beeple" (Mike Winkelmann), that is mentioned
>>> in “The Unreasonable Ecological Cost of #CryptoArt (Part 1)”, has broken
>>> records on Gemini’s Nifty Gateway platform by selling a collection of 20
>>> artworks for a sum of $3.5 million:
>>>
>>> https://fullycrypto.com/digital-artist-beeple-sells-nft-collection-for-3-5-million
>>>
>>> By the end of this century the value of these 20 Beeple’s artworks may
>>> increase or completely collapse as it may happen to Bitcoins and other
>>> crypto currencies.
>>>
>>> On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 10:50, Ruth Catlow via NetBehaviour <
>>> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> re: http://cryptoart.wtf
>>>> I mean... It's a great troll but it's not good enough!
>>>>
>>>> The meme of blockchain's outrageous energy use is a barrier to more
>>>> diverse people entering the development space.
>>>>
>>>> Blockchain technologies are important because species collapse and
>>>> climate emergency is an effect of the global political economy. Blockchains
>>>> tech like cryptocurrencies, tokens, and smart contracts are the only tools
>>>> we have (as yet) to organise directly p-2-p at a planetary scale.They are
>>>> still new but they offer a way to imagine and realise both money and
>>>> governance at a global scale, independent of states and corporations.
>>>>
>>>> The debate about blockchain's environmental impact usually focuses
>>>> around its high energy use.
>>>>
>>>> [EXPLAINER: Blockchains' level of energy use are due to the consensus
>>>> mechanisms (CMs) they use to verify transactions, and to "mine" currency.
>>>> The amount of electricity used varies according to the CM. The two dominant
>>>> CMs are Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS)
>>>> Bitcoin uses PoW and infamously consumes the same amount of electricity
>>>> as 159 countries. Ethereum (the platform for programmable money - and
>>>> therefore the focus of a lot of work on new forms of governance) is moving
>>>> to Eth2 a PoS system which uses far less energy. But this is still 2 years
>>>> off.]
>>>>
>>>> Questions about the environmental impact of blockchain are important
>>>> and difficult to answer.  It's right that we assess the impact of
>>>> Blockchains but we need better ways to compare all emerging digital
>>>> infrastructure ecosystems - including other financial techs, IoT, ML AI,
>>>> 5G.
>>>>
>>>> A focus on reducing energy use is not enough. As @alsodanlowe put it
>>>> "It would be crazy to ban or dissuade colleagues from participating in an
>>>> effort to decentralize money away from the forces that create the priority
>>>> for fossil fuels (much of it built on debt) just because those forces
>>>> exist. PoW is agnostic. Banks and existing oligarchy is not."
>>>> https://twitter.com/alsodanlowe/status/1317444999361957891
>>>>
>>>> Blockchain is a future technology. It is built for use in a world of
>>>> clean, limitless, renewable energy.
>>>>
>>>> Efforts need to focus here...and on the political economies and the
>>>> cultural adoption patterns that they can support and grow beyond
>>>> accumulative self-interest and extractive capitalism if we are avoid
>>>> accelerating climate collapse.
>>>>
>>>> This morning I retweeted this from Sarah Friend "If I hadn't spent the
>>>> past five years working in crypto, I'd probably be moralizing about it too,
>>>> and this is perhaps part of why I am so profoundly annoyed by its
>>>> superficial detractors - my shadow selves, who know so much less than me
>>>> and are so much more sure they're right"
>>>> https://twitter.com/isthisanart_/status/1352288565850492928
>>>>
>>>> There's so much more to  say about all of this. Especially about the
>>>> role that art has to play.
>>>>
>>>> Soon!!!!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 9:35 AM Annie Abrahams via NetBehaviour <
>>>> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The website http://cryptoart.wtf pulls in random blockchain-based
>>>>> CryptoArt from the web, and estimates the ecological impact of each
>>>>> work
>>>>> in terms of energy consumption (kWh), and greenhouse gases released
>>>>> (KgCO2) as a result of blockchain-based transactions relating to the
>>>>> work.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://memoakten.medium.com/the-unreasonable-ecological-cost-of-cryptoart-2221d3eb2053
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>>>>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
>>>>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised
>>>> Arts Lab
>>>> +44 (0) 77370 02879
>>>>
>>>> *I will only agree to speak at events that are racially and gender
>>>> balanced.
>>>>
>>>> **sending thanks
>>>> <https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2019/november/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid.html> in
>>>> advance
>>>>
>>>> *Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through exhibitions,
>>>> labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking.
>>>> furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/>
>>>>
>>>> *DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0
>>>> technologies research hub
>>>>
>>>> for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies
>>>> now.
>>>>
>>>> decal.is <http://www.decal.is>
>>>>
>>>> Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee
>>>>
>>>> Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
>>>>
>>>> Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane,
>>>> London, EC1A 9ET.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>>>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
>>>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts
>> Lab
>> +44 (0) 77370 02879
>>
>> *I will only agree to speak at events that are racially and gender
>> balanced.
>>
>> **sending thanks
>> <https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2019/november/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid.html> in
>> advance
>>
>> *Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through exhibitions,
>> labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking.
>> furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/>
>>
>> *DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0
>> technologies research hub
>>
>> for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now.
>>
>> decal.is <http://www.decal.is>
>>
>> Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee
>>
>> Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
>>
>> Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane, London,
>> EC1A 9ET.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NetBehaviour mailing listNetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.orghttps://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>>
>
>
> --
> *=====================================================*
>
> *directory http://www.alansondheim.org <http://www.alansondheim.org> tel
> 718-813-3285**email sondheim ut panix.com <http://panix.com>, sondheim ut
> gmail.com <http://gmail.com>*
> *=====================================================*
> _______________________________________________
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20210130/c9e76d20/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 695646 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20210130/c9e76d20/attachment.png>