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ARTISAN PRINTING
THE CLOSEST PAPER WALLETS COME TO CASH
A CELEBRATION OF BETTER MONEY
LAS PARABOLAS
The events in the world are part of a grand dream we create for ourselves. Deep down, we all know the game we play: life is a series of experiments, designed to give us the best chance of personal evolution. In this way, each one of us contributes to the evolution of the whole.
The game I’m fascinated by is the game of money. For money is the place we put our hopes, dreams, limitations, self-worth, expectation, trust, and fears. It is a perfect reflection of ourselves. Most interestingly, when money simply fails to function, we are forced to stand as we are, without the facade we make for ourselves…
The time we’re living through is a like a compression of tests and experiments — like an evolution accelerator. Under these circumstances, incredible solutions are brought forward, and take off, parabolically. Under the same circumstances, projects that were doomed to fail, will run themselves into the ground, and fail spectacularly.
One incredible solution was cryptocurrency: an enticing experiment in decentralized and trust-less money creation, the answer to the question of unchecked debt-based money. One project doomed to fail, was Keynesian economics. That project failed just a few days ago, at the time of writing. We will look back at this time, and come to know that this was moment trust in the abilities of the Gods — the Central Banks — finally failed, and the free markets knew it. Now, today, we’re living through the finale of this great monetary experiment — debt-based money, versus private, decentralised Cryptocurrency. The winner will illustrate Humanity’s self-image, and determine the course of history.
IT'S ALL A GAME
All is a game, and whatever comes — virus, earthquakes, asteroids, pole shifts — they’re all challenges and hiccups to add colour and flavour to this game. We love a near-miss; a narrow escape; intrigue and stories within stories; this is our game, and we’ll play it to the hilt. We’re a race that loves a challenge, ambiguity and brilliant solutions that save the day at the last minute — and we’re about to get what we came for!
Las Parabolas is a series of artworks that hope to capture a facet of the dream of cryptocurrency — six portraits that tell a story. The story is down to personal interpretation, but its all grounded in the dream of the parabola — the exponential rise in price and acceptance of this brilliant solution. Portrayed, are six individuals who are tied in some way to the prophesy of the parabolic rise in cryptocurrency and human evolution. All are well-known — they are liked and disliked to different degrees, but are all united in their shared advocacy.
The importance of releasing this work now, is I believe we’re in a critical time in the history of this dream. The world deserves artwork that that expresses this dream, so it can be visually affirmed, commemorated, and celebrated, no matter what happens. The fiat price of cryptocurrency oscillates — the hopes and fears of speculation predictably ebb and flow — but art is forever. Art consecrates memories and commits moments to eternity. Here was my inspiration for releasing these crypto artworks, on the blockchain, and physically.
BACKSTORY
The most popular of my artworks of 2019 was the ‘Republica De Los Deplorables’ — a group of five banknote designs that featured celebrated whistleblowers and avatars of information dissemination, with the context of our unravelling social and political narratives. The series struck a chord in the crypto community, which motivated me to keep making work, and helped create the physical versions of these artworks — five ‘banknotes’ that represent something totally new in the field of art.
The theme of The Deplorables focused on a very specific time and place — the chaos of the 2016 presidential election, the surveillance state, the irreconcilable social differences of our age, all in the backdrop of the rise in cryptocurrency and the drive to self-determination that continues to propel its adoption.
The subtitle of the The Deplorables was much more broad: The Avatars Of The Great Awakening. In the months after completing Los Deplorables, I’ve found a lot more fuel for this broad phrase. Being the zeitgeist, I’ve found endless material. And so, I was inspired to return to The Avatars format, because I felt there were new avenues to explore.
BIGGER BOLDER BETTER
For the 2020 Avatars series, I’ve decided to return to the crypto-sphere, as a way of paying homage a facet of the crypto-moment. The world of 2020 is entering a period of vertical chaos — its difficult for artists to capture the ever-changing now in the hopes of remaining relevant, so I prefer to make art who’s relevance will last long into the future. I felt it was important to anchor a series in themes that are consistent, recognisable, but also throw in a few atypical surprises. In this way, I hope to honour the crypto space with a set of artworks that just had to be made!
My starting point for this series was the Parabola — a mathematically defined curve that is epitomised by the crypto markets. No other markets in history have displayed consistent parabolic tendencies like cryptocurrencies. The parabola defines crypto, and hodlers of crypto.
Republica De Las Parabolas (btw Parabolas in Spanish = stories/parable) features advocates, story tellers, pundits, colourful personalities, endorsers and pre-imaginers, who are in some way associated with the meme of the crypto parabola, speculation, bold price calls — sometimes literally ‘to the moon.’
It is impossible capture the totality of an idea with just a handful of portraits. I went through many potential choices before arriving at the selection that makes the series. If the series was simply about parabolic price increases, why not feature prominent investors, billionaires, with their lambos? — too obvious. The people selected are non-exhaustive mix of obvious and non-obvious choices, that I felt — when placed side-by-side — created a distinct story of crypto, and our world.
THE PORTRAITS
Canadian actor William Shatner – Famous for his role in Star Trek, the now prominent crypto advocate represents exploration, discovery, and venturing into the unknown – in keeping with the grand experiment of cryptocurrency.
Arthur Hayes – CEO if the Bitmex exchange. Hayes represents the rickety speculative environment of crypto, it’s soaring highs and devastating lows.
Elon Musk – bombastic entrepreneurship and aspiration, at the forefront of technology and exploration. He is also figure of parabolic speculation, given the rise of the Tesla stock price.
Max Keiser – long time cryptocurrency advocate and commentator. Keiser represents alternative media/financial punditry and activism.
John McAfee – represents the rebellious and libertarian spirit of cryptocurrency.
Terence McKenna – represents the transcendental potential of cryptocurrency – not a system of changing the present monetary system, but a means to completely transcend debt-based money. McKenna wrote and spoke extensively about Human evolution into the 21st century. His major achievement was his TimeWave Zero – a graph that depicted the entirety of Human history as oscillating between forces of ‘chaos’ and ‘novelty’. Cryptocurrency is the monetary bridge onto a new world, and a way of transcending a precarious and usurous debt-based money system, that has been responsible for the chaos of the ‘old world’.
THE PRE-SALE: NOW CLOSED
The series of six designs, printed in a limited edition of 50 each, were available to pre-order at a 30% discount.
The pre-order period closed on July 31s, 2020.
All pre-ordered paper wallets were loaded with their face value in Bitcoin!
Click below to order
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