BULL RUN #54/271

"Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" is dedicated to the mysterious creation of Bitcoin, and acts as the showcase artwork within Javier Arrés’ exploratory series "Bitcoin, The Origin". "Who is the creator of Bitcoin?" The artist, Arrés, explores this question, and the feelings of doubt and mystery that accompany it, through his unique artistic language. An unknown, an enigma. It should be remembered that the name Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym of Bitcoin's author or authors and gives us little insight into its true creator. For this Visual Toy, Arrés uses the signature claw machine, his famous half-operation, to symbolize our collective ignorance and unconfirmed belief: As soon as it has the stuffed animal within its grasp and appears to have solved the puzzle, the animal escapes again, and again. At present, there are three more public and studied possibilities who are either believed to be the creators of the currency or who directly claim the creation of it. It may be all or none of them, yet these three personalities leave us clues which are an important part of this interesting enigma. For this moment, it will remain unknown... In this artwork, Arrés elevates the claw machine from the apparatus, to an iconic pop art object serving as an important element to the Bitcoin creation narrative. Action is everywhere, with each movement serving an iconographical or metaphorical purpose related directly to cryptocurrency: Various ups and downs, roller coasters, mining points, robot, coins and more speak to a sense of hope, risk, mystery, randomness and possibility of pay out. Hundreds of manically thought out details make this creation one of the artist’s most complex Visual Toys to date. ------- "Bitcoin, The Origin" is a set of two Visual Toys, titled "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto" and "It’s Alive!" which reflect and explore the mystery and enigmas behind the creation of Bitcoin. Arrés presents these proposals to us in his signature style, full of iconography, fantasy, maniacal animations and a panoply of details (both subtle and overt) which simultaneously fascinate, hypnotize, and narrate this historical milestone through the singular vision of the artist. Through this series, Arrés freezes a crucial moment of cryptocurrency history, taking a still photo under his vision and turning it into two unique crypto artworks. ---- More info about Javier Arrés: https://javierarres.com/about.html

"I'm not smart enough to be an astronaut." That is what 7 year old Rayden told Micah the first time they met. How can a 7-year-old already feel limitations on his dreams? For centuries, the black community has been the target of a system designed to limit their power, their earning potential, their dreams. Now is your opportunity to help destroy the system. For the next 11 years, on each brother's birthday, (Rayden, Aug. 10/ Jacque Nov. 6), you the viewer, will be able to directly contribute Bitcoin to a wallet that will be given to each child upon turning 18. In what is one of the most powerful use cases for Bitcoin, 100% of your contributions and earnings will open all new doors for these special young men.

Back into the void

This still-life, titled after one of Pablo Picasso's infamous quotes, was made solely using 3D softwares and apps, in an attempt to bring this often forgotten artistic genre into the 21st century through the use of new artistic mediums and technologies. This piece is also an invitation to meditate on the role of "value" throught the ages and how it's been radically altered by the coming into existence of technologies and concepts like cryptocurrencies and digital scarcity.

The third piece is the Really Remote Working series, white sands and turquoise waters make this is a desk space like no other. Created during the lockdown period whilst being confined to the same place every day, this piece is part of a series of imaginary places that I dreamed of being able to work from.

Cypher::Prophet is an artwork dedicated to the punk origins of blockchain designed and realized by hackatao and hex6c. In the transposition into images we started from the iconographic canons of the hacker (hoodie, laptop, cryptographic elements) and associated them with the figure of the prophet, thus highlighting the predictive nature of the works of Eric Hughes (Cypherpunk Manifesto, 1988) and Timothy C. May (Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, 1993) as well as of the blockchain inventors Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta (How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document, The Journal of Cryptography, 1991). Read the full story on https://medium.com/@hex6c/cypher-prophet-the-punk-origins-of-blockchain-1e8fce311e72