FILTHY Money
$1,000 cash, letterpress printed in metallic gold ink, then spent and recirculated. Now minted as an NFT.
We know how much things cost, but no idea what things are really worth. What is value? What is valuable? How are we deciding, and who is the we that’s deciding? There is this endless layer of proxies of proxies of proxies. How many layers do we have to drill down into before we get to something real?
As I watch the cash grab of the burgeoning NFT art movement, I have to step back and ask “what is driving this?” It’s still early, but from my limited view I see a gaggle of collectors laundering their crypto into pixels and code. I see an eager group of emerging artists with dollar-sign eyes, rushing to mint their (sometimes gaudy) works—a process with costs that are a barrier to many talented artists. In the middle of it all, business have popped up, poised to glean a profit at each interaction as art becomes a proxy of a proxy, as it’s passed on, re-proxied, exchanged, repeat, repeat.
Is the digital art becoming a new placeholder for digital money? Is it best for it all to be locked onto a blockchain instead of admired and shared? Is being fungible such a bad thing?
I don’t know. And I am honestly not sure if this is any different from the previous creator/patron/vendor relationships. But I think we should be asking questions and having conversations about all of it.
The paper was free
One of the big costs for any letterpress project is the paper. So I found some free paper—at the bank. We don’t think of cash as being “free” because it has value. But we don’t buy it. And when I had finished printing “FILTHY” onto 110 sheets of high quality paper, I had the same amount of money as I’d had beforehand.
So, what was the difference between the $1 FILTHY and the $100 FILTHY? The art is the same, almost identical, printed with the same ink, wood type, on the same Vandercook letterpress, in the same print run. And what about the value of these “prints?” Is there a value to be assigned to the ink? Is it the idea? Can it all be line-itemed?
It still spends
After printing my money, I took a trip and used the cash for purchases along the way. I went to New York City, spent some in Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland. People who heard about the project wanted to collect it, and some suggested I sell each bill for some amount plus the face value on the bill. In the end I traded the cash for equal value bills and asked people to spend it. I wanted it to be recirculated.
As I spent it, the reaction was mixed. Some people refused to take it, feeling it was now marred and worthless. Others asked for additional bills, declaring their intention to frame it.
So what? Does the art layer add value or take it away?
Regardless, almost everyone paused, looked at it, felt the ink with their thumb, flipped it over and inspected it. They thought about it. They asked questions. The considered it. And that is really all I wanted.
It’s been a few years and I have spent most of the cash, and unfortunately I have yet to hear if anyone got a FILTHY bill back as change.
Minting the money
So now, with NFTs on the rise and the internet scrambling to make sense of this new method of collecting art (or making money), I am putting out my own crypto art piece. And while we can’t touch it, or flip it over in our hands, or hold it up to the light, or fold it and stash it in our wallet, or spend it (well, actually…), I really just want us to talk about it.
You can see the NFT version here.
Thank’s for reading. Please considering following on Twitter. My DMs are open for questions about this or any other works I’ve done.
