Bitcoin Art Project??

[thirdprize]

Been hanging around here a month or two now and just started wondering if there was something creative I could do with bit coin.  How about I deposit X amount of Btc in an address, and then incorporate the address in a picture somehow.  There are QR codes and keys.  It would probably be abstract tech impressionist (or a bit cyberpunk).  How much would the picture be worth?  Art is generally worth what someone is wiling to pay for it, but this has some actual value sitting somewhere.  Would you pay £500 for a picture (not unreasonable) if it had (at current rates) £100 worth of Btc in it?  Its an investment in either me getting famous, bit coin going up or both.

I guess the private key for the address would have to be included in the package other wise the Btc would be dead and worth nothing. 

[gjhiggins]

I guess the private key for the address would have to be included in the package other wise the Btc would be dead and worth nothing.  

Maybe you could render the work as a diptych, splitting off the quantitative BTC element into a separate piece. This piece alone, without the other piece, is worth "only" the BTC face value. But, when it is combined with the other piece of the diptych, its value is enhanced - as long as the pieces remain together, the work is complete. The insight is to sell the parts separately to different patrons and then they negotiate the respective values for the recombining of the pieces into a single diptych.

It's not an original idea, it'd be riffing off've Boggs' work, rotating it into cryptocurrency space but I think it's got to be worth a go. Dunno if you've come across Boggs' work,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs

Sadly, there's not much of Boggs and his work on Youtube, just a couple of snippets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ5x2-VUGXI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtKSqzpj0Q

I was lucky enough to catch the BBC's broadcasting of Milestone's "Money Man" video of Boggs at work, broadcast several years ago. Maybe worth asking your local library to get you a copy.

http://www.milestonefilms.com/products/money-man

It great to watch the penny drop for the guy involved as he realises that the hand-drawn $100 bill that he now owns would actually be worth significantly more than its monetary face value if it was combined with the transaction receipt (owned by the other collector), a realisation classically prompted by the receipt-holding collector trying to buy the $100 bill drawing to make up the complete piece.

Anyway, just a thought.

Cheers,

Graham

[thirdprize]

I guess the private key for the address would have to be included in the package other wise the Btc would be dead and worth nothing. 

Maybe you could render the work as a diptych, splitting off the quantitative BTC element into a separate piece. This piece alone, without the other piece, is worth "only" the BTC face value. But, when it is combined with the other piece of the diptych, its value is enhanced - as long as the pieces remain together, the work is complete. The insight is to sell the parts separately to different patrons and then they negotiate the respective values for the recombining of the pieces into a single diptych.

It's not an original idea, it'd be riffing off've Boggs' work, rotating it into cryptocurrency space but I think it's got to be worth a go. Dunno if you've come across Boggs' work,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._S._G._Boggs

Sadly, there's not much of Boggs and his work on Youtube, just a couple of snippets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ5x2-VUGXI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtKSqzpj0Q

I was lucky enough to catch the BBC's broadcasting of Milestone's "Money Man" video of Boggs at work, broadcast several years ago. Maybe worth asking your local library to get you a copy.

http://www.milestonefilms.com/products/money-man

It great to watch the penny drop for the guy involved as he realises that the hand-drawn $100 bill that he now owns would actually be worth significantly more than its monetary face value if it was combined with the transaction receipt (owned by the other collector), a realisation classically prompted by the receipt-holding collector trying to buy the $100 bill drawing to make up the complete piece.

Yes.  The public address is always visible so people can see the Btc is still there.  The private key needs to be made available in such a way that if value rockets up, "the owner" can cash it in but not in a way that "anyone" could cash it in.  Maybe sealed in a sealed envelope as part of a collage?  If the two parts are publicly visible then anyone could take the value. 

[gogxmagog]

Art and commerce are rarely friends.

[johnatan32]

Art and commerce is similar .. Both rely on out and demand

[thirdprize]

Maybe if I did three pictures containing 1,2 and 3 Btc but made sure the private keys were not in the same picture as the public one.  Then the owners would all have to agree to to sell/destroy their paintings to be able to cash in.  

[thirdprize]

Or do some classy paper wallets.

http://cryptoart.com

[Bitcoin Magazine]

what about a collaborative art project in Bitcoin, wher you have to donate a certain amount for each pixel

[scottsecret]

The world needs more tech inspired art. It is what our culture has evolved towards even if people still like more antiquidated art.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

http://netvvorth.com/Catalog/

The collection is offered to expose netart as a viable investment to serious collectors by establishing a shadow market, proving its ability to hide illicit profits and transfer them easily around the globe.

All works are supplied with provenance papers. All sales are in Bitcoin. The true counterfeiter is identified only to the owner of the piece.

[thirdprize]

http://netvvorth.com/Catalog/

The collection is offered to expose netart as a viable investment to serious collectors by establishing a shadow market, proving its ability to hide illicit profits and transfer them easily around the globe.

All works are supplied with provenance papers. All sales are in Bitcoin. The true counterfeiter is identified only to the owner of the piece.

Hhmmm ...most dodgy (artistically and ethicly).

[thirdprize]

what about a collaborative art project in Bitcoin, wher you have to donate a certain amount for each pixel

you mean like the old "million dollar home page"? 

Maybe turn the address into bits and the bits into an image.

[gjhiggins]

what about a collaborative art project in Bitcoin, wher you have to donate a certain amount for each pixel

Interestingly, when edited, that turns into something that is practically indistinguishable from an altcoin:

a collaborative art project where you receive a certain amount for each contributed pixel (share)

I'm working on some in-depth support for arguing that an altcoin can reasonably (and usefully) be viewed as a form of creative expression.

I've a feeling that there are some (yet to be fleshed out) parallels in Anthony Gormley's "Field" series of works, in which the public's own involvement with the creation of the pieces is something that confers value (for some arguable definition of "value").

If he chose to release an altcoin called "FieldX", would that be fundamentally different to any of the other, more tangible, works in the series?

I'm just not sure whether the artist's and public's respective contributions could ever be successfully quantified, which poses a bit of a computational conundrum.

Cheers,

Graham

[thirdprize]

I have one idea but I'm nor sure how it ties in with bitcoins.  It is along the lines that a computer could generate any picture that has or could ever exist.  Generate all the possibilities of a blank and white image of 2x2 pixels.  Then all the possibilities of a 4x4 image, then an 8x8 image.  That is around 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 images for the 8x8.  With two colours, each picture essentially becomes a binary number.  However crude, it would be versions of every picture painted, photo taken and thing ever imagined. 

10000000
01000000
00100000
00010000
00001000
00000100
00000010
00000001

Possibilities?
Hand paint each one and sell for 0.xxxxxxxx btc where the price equates to the binary representation of the picture?