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I started this series (about the history of modern exhibitions), when I was in deep research for the show I was invited to curate at NODE: an exhibition on CryptoPunks by @larvalabs. I was thinking about the ways early digital art and blockchain-based projects transformed how we understand art in a networked capacity and how to encounter art in the 21st century. Now, seeing 10,000 come to life, I can trace the arc from that curiosity to the fully realized show opening this weekend at @nodefnd
Over the last year I had the pleasure of working with the most amazing team, learning so much along the way working with @NaughtalieStone, @loudsqueakmedia, @q2design, VTV, @philmohun, @yungwknd, and so many others. First and foremost, we listened to the artists, @matthall2000 and @pents90. From its inception, we knew we wanted a show that would clarify that CryptoPunks is a work of living software, not static images. The exhibition needed to reflect the real-time nature of the artwork and its marketplace (a shout-out and huge thanks also to @michael_connor and his brilliant essay on this topic and its history)
Rather than attempt to explain "What are CryptoPunks?", we wanted to see if it would be possible to capture the wonder that first claimers must have felt when coming across this project in 2017. That question shaped the exhibition’s first principle: Free to Claim. Early CryptoPunks asked only for curiosity: You could opt in—or walk away….but curiosity will be rewarded.
The second principle of the exhibition is: Learn by Playing. I decided to minimize didactics on purpose. Good exhibition design, like good UX, should guide a user (or viewer) intuitively. The visitor should learn by looking, moving, and if they want to dive further, there's always CryptoPunks.app (a visit to that URL is a measure of success for this exhibition).
Another decision that was crucial: Show the code. There are no CryptoPunks without it—no images, no marketplace, no community. The code isn’t just infrastructure; it’s the form. (Thanks to @visualizevalue and @jalilwahdat whose amazing essay on this subject I’ve referenced a hundred times)
CryptoPunks are animated by 10,000 pixelated portraits that represent a typology of the 21st century. There are 5 Types with 87 possible attributes, each composed of a palette of 221 colors within a grid of 576 pixels. 4 possible actions on 1 marketplace, which refreshes roughly every 12 seconds on the Ethereum blockchain. CryptoPunks are where quantitative scarcity meets subjective value.
10,000 is also the first time all CryptoPunks have been shown together in their digitally native form in an exhibition. While a new viewer may be overwhelmed by the number, I hope that something counterintuitive emerges: the realization that 10,000 is intimate, it's finite. As we move deeper into the 21st century — into a fully networked, computational, and interplanetary way of thinking — our sense of scale has shifted. We now understand numbers differently. We live inside systems that regularly operate at millions, billions, even trillions. To be one of 10,000 in a global, networked culture is not overwhelming,it’s rare. And to be part of that network is something unusually human.
English
