Connect With Me
SUPERFLEX; Design Development and Production: KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes with Rui Alves, Rebecca Billi and Sara Cálem)
Engineering: Betar; Fabrication: Nupergo
16 November 2018 - 19 January 2019, von Bartha, Basel, Switzerland
Connect With Me is a series of sculptural works: initially perceived as five abstract blue steel objects, each has a certain viewpoint in which it appears as a graph. The graphs depict segments of the fluctuating value of Bitcoin during an 18-month period which contains the largest peak of value to date.
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be released into the market in 2009 and is the largest of more than a 1000 cryptocurrencies. Based on a mathematical principle of decentralised and distributed ledger, digital currencies allow for - in theory - unrestricted and free transactions, characteristics appealing to both anarchist and neoliberal agendas.
Paradoxically, Connect With Me translates the intangible substance of cryptocurrencies into sculptures by giving form to the only non-metaphorical image we have of them: progress over time. When initially viewed the artworks present themselves as modernist, minimal art objects. Seen from a bird’s-eye view the motive reveals itself as an image familiar from the world of economics.
The title suggests a personal invitation to join, to connect, to participate; but by whom and to what remains unclear. As an altered version of the slogan of a private bank, it underlines the suggestive language of capitalism and how we simultaneously experience intimacy as well as a commodified reality every day. Perhaps it is an invitation to a future dream of utopian freedom, perhaps to a capitalist nightmare. Perhaps to both at the same time.
SUPERFLEX; Design Development and Production: KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes with Rui Alves, Rebecca Billi and Sara Cálem)
Engineering: Betar; Fabrication: Nupergo
16 November 2018 - 19 January 2019, von Bartha, Basel, Switzerland
Connect With Me is a series of sculptural works: initially perceived as five abstract blue steel objects, each has a certain viewpoint in which it appears as a graph. The graphs depict segments of the fluctuating value of Bitcoin during an 18-month period which contains the largest peak of value to date.
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be released into the market in 2009 and is the largest of more than a 1000 cryptocurrencies. Based on a mathematical principle of decentralised and distributed ledger, digital currencies allow for - in theory - unrestricted and free transactions, characteristics appealing to both anarchist and neoliberal agendas.
Paradoxically, Connect With Me translates the intangible substance of cryptocurrencies into sculptures by giving form to the only non-metaphorical image we have of them: progress over time. When initially viewed the artworks present themselves as modernist, minimal art objects. Seen from a bird’s-eye view the motive reveals itself as an image familiar from the world of economics.
The title suggests a personal invitation to join, to connect, to participate; but by whom and to what remains unclear. As an altered version of the slogan of a private bank, it underlines the suggestive language of capitalism and how we simultaneously experience intimacy as well as a commodified reality every day. Perhaps it is an invitation to a future dream of utopian freedom, perhaps to a capitalist nightmare. Perhaps to both at the same time.
