SAN FRANCISCO ART FAIR TAKES A CREATIVE LOOK AT BITCOIN
The event which was part exhibition and part bitcoin meetup held on the 6th of March at 20mission space which is a 41 room community in San Francisco for art and technology creators in the heart of the mission district. About 100-150 cryptocurrency newbies and bitcoin veterans who came to view the artworks of 14 artists whose art were displayed amidst free refreshments and mixtapes of old school hip-hop and electro tunes. The manager of the 20mission space and an organizer of the fair, Ana Muñoz said that they thought it would be fun to run an experiment and see how artists would express bitcoin because all the organizers are quite involved and interested in bitcoin hence the event. The art fair was created due to the predictability of past bitcoin events.
THE OCCASION
Unlike the regular art exhibition atmosphere, the fair had a party scenery and creativity was the main focus rather than the digital currency’s technical aspects- with a little bit of merchandizing thrown in too. Merchandise with bitcoin swag such as T-shirt, soap and even physical coins were on sale. While discussing and enjoying the arts on display, the guests mingled and exchanged comments and feelings. A generous part of earnings was given out for charity. Charity is very popular among cryptoprojects, for example I'm giving out 10% of my BitConnect lending profits for Journeys In Education Inc arts non-profit organization.
A lot of art pieces were up for sale with their price tags beside them; some of which were the digital currency-themed art pieces and you could pay for them with bitcoins if you had crypto-coins in your digital wallet. Fiat money which is a currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, but it is not backed by a physical commodity was also a negotiable instrument for payment.
ODD ROMANCE
There was a combination of arts and technology which is quite rare because it is not often that technology gets considered as art and are both distinctively unique, but at the event, creative work and the mathematical ingenuity behind bitcoin which was masterfully portrayed in the art pieces could only be described as brilliant. The normally very technical cryptocurrency concepts were looked at in a whole new light because of the themed event which gives attention to the fast growing bitcoin economy.
AN ARTIST’S VIEW
Of all the artists, one notable artist, Thomas-Joseph Carrieri who had a number of pieces on display at the bitcoin Art fair, one of which was based on Mount Gox which didn’t sell but got a lot of people talking and giving weird looks. The manager of the 20mission space promised that it will be available in their upcoming bitcoin meet ups which she concluded will now be held monthly. Carrieri’s “playing pieces” which is a display of aluminum- constructed physical bitcoins and his “Holy Trinity” piece which marries bitcoin and monopoly sold well at the show.
It would seem that the artist worked on a theme that viewed bitcoin in the prism of gaming. “The bitcoin ‘playing pieces” were inspired by the whole project and the gaming point of views that I was going for. I thought it tied the pieces together and shed light on another aspect of ‘place holding’, ‘tokens’, ‘ownership’ etc.” Carrieri said. Thomas-Joseph Carrieri believes that if inspired, he will create works in the future that are within the bitcoin theme.
THE 20MISSION SPACE
The 20mission space was the invention of Jered Kenna who was also one of the founders of the suspended bitcoin exchange tradehill. Kenna is an early investor in bitcoin and also a regular speaker at bitcoin events where he speaks on his experiences in the industry. Although the use of either is not mutually exclusive, 20mission offers co-working spaces and living quarters according to Jered Kenna. It also holds what is considered one of the largest bitcoin meetups in the world. In order to cover what the media doesn’t put out to the world about bitcoin, Kenna started the Money & Tech videocast site. Which he has been occupied with since the operations of Tradehills were suspended due to issues with Banks.
20Mission has since become a major attraction for San Franscisco based cryptocurrency activities by combining practicality and inspiration.
EVENT SCHEDULE
According to Muñoz, the San Francisco bitcoin meetup is hosted once a month in collaboration with Andrew Badrand and will be moved to a biweekly schedule very soon. Ana Muñoz also said “We would love to welcome anyone in the bitcoin and currency space to reach out and use 20mission for events.
More information on upcoming 20Mission events can be found on its meetup page.
