Mimesis is the means by which culture flourishes!
2021 has been one of the most extraordinary years of my life. I’ve been a working artist for over a decade, largely without reward beyond the satisfaction of answering the call for expression within myself. This year, a confluence of events has led to my work being recognized on increasingly grand stages.
Not only am I grateful, but I am undeniably changed by the experience. I have spent this time steeped in the culture of our burgeoning community, as well as witnessing the pushback from those outside of it.
It’s only fitting, then, that I would end the year by debuting an artwork borne out of this feedback loop at Art Basel Miami – on my birthday, no less.
“You Can Save This” is a signature VideoThought – a statement with an open-ended context, visually manifested so as to allow for meaning to blossom.
I feel that one of my gifts as an artist is the ability to take ugly sentiments and transmute them into works that are transcendent and meaningful.
“You Can Save This” has become one of the rallying cries of those who reject NFTs. They believe that the ability to save and share our artwork is somehow proof that it does not hold value.
And yet, we who prize incorporeal art know that the ability to save and share it is a feature, and not a flaw. Its ability to network itself and spread is the very aspect which makes it valuable. We have a word for this, which we use also to describe the web-building tendencies of mycelium in the forest, or micro-organisms in a petri dish.
We call this “culture.”
And so, with this piece, I seek to alchemize this critique into a badge of honor. What we are doing here is a direct evolution of the human culture which has led us to this point. We are laying the groundwork for a new networked humanity.
As with most of my VideoThoughts, there are multiple interpretations. I don’t wish to squash the viewers’ experience by being overly prescriptive, but I do want to speak to an additional personal viewpoint.
Much has been made of the rapid growth of the NFT space, and its inevitable correlation with speculative finance. My feeling is that this will sort itself out, as it always does. My great hope, and intention, is that NFTs serve as a Trojan Horse, allowing for new digitally-native forms and voices to permeate mainstream consciousness.
The fiscal elevation of the artist class that we are experiencing is analogous to that of both the Renaissance and the Zombie Formalist movement – we get to determine whether we develop these markets around our aesthetics, or if we develop our aesthetics around the markets.
Ideally, the relationship between the collectors and the artists is one of glorious symbiosis – each plays a crucial role in the endeavor of the other. We risk losing the greater cultural meaning of this movement if we allow this dynamic to become unbalanced and favor only the desire for “number go up.”
And so, I see this piece as being both a statement of fact as well as a plea – You Can Save This. Decentralization affords us a degree of agency that’s new to us – we must reckon with the power of our will, and wield it with great responsibility.
The use of video feedback as a visual motif is central here, as it reflects the delicate paradox of intention we are all dancing with as we establish the nascent Metaverse.
I created this work in a rare 9:16 ratio specifically designed for IRL display. It will debut at The Gateway, the first large-scale presentation of Crypto Art at Art Basel Miami from NFTNow x Christie’s.
I was curated into the show by SuperRare, my OG and still most-used Crypto Art platform. I am putting the work on reserve auction there on December 2nd. Bids can be placed here.