Re: <nettime> what does monetary value indicate?

Hi Felix & all,

I watched this documentary during the week, if you can get a chance to watch it I think you'll find it relevant and rewarding, in respect of the context of what society is dealing with; not in respect of incels and fascism, but also those crypto millionaires and they're ignorant of the damage (and extreme forms of misogyny) they do to the world via their actions.

"Pepe the Frog started life in 2005 as a cute cartoon character in Boy’s Club, an American indie comic on Myspace. Today, he is known as an international hate symbol after being hijacked by the alt-right. Pepe the Frog: Feels Good Man follows Pepe’s creator, artist Matt Furie, as he fights to bring back his lovable comic-book character from the dark forces who stole him.

As the internet exploded, memes of the benign and chill frog-dude started sweeping the internet with lightning speed. Once his image found its way into controversial online community 4chan – the anonymous, anything-goes forum rife with misogyny and racism - there was no turning back. Pepe re-emerged from the darkest corner of the internet decorated with swastikas and spewing racist slurs. He was even caught up in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Exactly how that happened is a wild journey into the heart of online life today and an exploration of how a character meant to bring joy and fun slowly morphed into something else. Maybe, just maybe, he can change again."

Worth watching to remind ourselves what we're all up against. It isn't just about the money, it's also about dysfunctional politics, combined with sexism and revenge. (Will unpack this another time ;-)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000nwrq/storyville-pepe-the-frog-feels-good-man

Wishing you well.

Marc

On Thu, 11 Mar 2021 at 16:46, Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com> wrote:

I'm sure many have followed the NFT art saga over the last couple of
months and seen today's headline that somebody just paid $ 69,346,250
for a NFT on a blockchain, meta-data to claim ownership of the
"originalcopy" of a digital art work.

https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/first-open-beeple/beeple-b-1981-1/112924

I don't want to start a discussion on the revolutionary vs reactionary
character of this emerging art market. All of that has already been
said. If you want a close approximation of my perspective, I refer you
to this:

https://everestpipkin.medium.com/but-the-environmental-issues-with-cryptoart-1128ef72e6a3

What I'm more interested in here is to ask two things.

What -- after a decade of quantitative easing and crypto-currencies
rising into the stratosphere -- monetary value is indicating for the
segment that profited the most from these developments and what does
that mean for the rest of us?

And, assuming that this is not a cartoon version of a potlatch where
wasting resources serves to put rivals to shame, how many different
scams -- money laundering would be an obvious contender -- are being
layered on top of one other to create this?

Quite puzzled. Felix

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Wishing you well

Marc

-------------------------------------------------------

Dr Marc Garrett

Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab

Furtherfield disrupts & democratises art and technology through exhibitions, labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking. http://www.furtherfield.org

DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0 technologies research hub for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now. http://decal.is/

Recent publications:

State Machines: Reflections & Actions at the Edge of Digital Citizenship, Finance, & Art. Edited by Yiannis Colakides, Marc Garrett, Inte Gloerich. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2019 http://bit.do/eQgg3

Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain. Eds, Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, Nathan Jones, & Sam Skinner. Liverpool Press - http://bit.ly/2x8XlMK