03/07/2023 Melania Trump hawks $50 NFTs to ‘celebrate our great nation’ ahead of July 4

Former First Lady’s NFTs feature ‘patriotic’ symbols of Americana such as the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore

Melania Trumpis launching a collection of $50 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) featuring US landmarks in timefor the 4th of July.

The formerfirst lady’s“1776 Collection” includes images of Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell, set to patriotic-themed music.

Ms Trump’s office said in a statement that each NFT was designed to celebrate the “foundations of American ideals”.

“The 1776 Collection of artwork draws inspiration from several iconic landmarks of our nation, which I had the privilege of visiting during the time I served as first lady,” Ms Trump said.

“I am proud to celebrate our great nation and remain inspired by the words contained within the Declaration of Independence.”

An NFT is a blockchain-based certificate verifying ownership. The 1776 Collection was created on the Solana blockchain, and went on sale on Thursday.

Ms Trump’s office said a portion of the sale price would go to support foster children. The site did not immediately respond to a request for further details about what percentage of the proceeds would be donated.

Ms Trump has previously dabbled in NFTs since leaving the White House.

In 2021, she launched adigital watercolour paintingof her eyes for $180 each.

Then in 2022, Ms Trump faced accusations of bidding $185,000 in an auction for her “Head of State Collection 2022.”

An analysis of Solana blockchain transactions byBloomberg found the winning bid of 1800SOL came from a wallet that belonged to the entity that originally listed the project for sale.

Arts

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/melania-trump-nfts-july-4-b2367285.html

Interesting NFTs
Fuku-Shiva
The term “Fuku” refers to fortune or good luck. “Shiva” refers to the Hindu deity who represents strongly polar qualities, both severe and delicate. On a beach inspired by adventures on Phi Phi island in Thailand, three youths cavort. Two are representational figures and the third is psychologically rendered. A dynamic relationship ensues between the triad; a reciprocity of active and passive states. The boy on the right engages in maneuvers of evasion, defense, and is dressed in a speedo which reiterates the colors and symbolism of the caution tape on the left and upper right frame of the composition. In concurrent reaction the psychedelic figure shoots out a rocket powered paper airplane. The nude boy seated in the froth and sand approaches in passive repose, and is met with active attention but equal physical reserve by the psychedelic being. Perhaps the most naked figure is also the least representational. Looming large, dynamic, and active, it engages its companions playfully. Various symbols interject into the otherwise naturalistic scene, most notably a beach ball and two contaminated barrels nested in the sand. The upright barrel reads “FukuShima” in Kanji. The barrel laying down reads “Dharma”. To the left the scene is bounded by caution tape, reiterating the danger of the nuclear waste while also hosting alien archetypes, whose presence, as is the nature of these entities, runs up and just behind the consciousness of the psychedelic figure’s eggshell-like skull.
Glimmerfang
A character from The Beacon
Source Code for the WWW
OWNER: Sir Tim Berners-Lee Sir Tim Berners-Lee, b. 1955 Source Code for the WWW 1990-1991 Work includes: Original archive of dated and time-stamped files containing the source code, written between 3 October 1990 and 24 August 1991. These files contain code with approximately 9,555 lines, the contents of which include implementations of the three languages and protocols invented by Sir Tim; HTML (Hypertext Markup Language); HTTP (Hyper Transfer Protocol); and URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers), as well as the original HTML documents that instructed early web users on how to use the application Animated visualization of the code being written (Video, black & white, silent), lasting 30 minutes 25 seconds A Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) representation of the full code (A0 841mm wide by 1189 mm high), created by Sir Tim from the original files using Python, with a graphic representation of his physical signature at lower right A letter written in the README.md file (in “markdown” format) by Sir Tim in June of 2021, reflecting upon the code and his process of creating it Non-fungible Token ERC-721 Minted on June 15, 2021, ed. 1/1 Smart Contract Address: 0x86ade256037d80d6d42df8df96d5be21cd25bd8f
X*Y=K
・゜゚・:.。..。.:*・'(゚▽゚)'・*:.。. .。.:*・゜゚・* for more info see https://tinyurl.com/56unnr39
Classical Collage
voronoi fun with some well known art