Blockchain Graffiti: TD Ameritrade's Old School tagging, Impermanence of Satoshis.place and Pompeii

antimetica (51)in #blockchain • 6 years ago (edited)

Earlier this year (April 2018) financial services company TD Ameritrade created an ASCII art Flag of TD Ameritrade on the Bitcoin blockchain¹. For most people it was just a bit of a laugh and not significant - something TD Ametitrade would be well aware of and stated they expected a modest reception.

For me I viewed this as very enlightening about TD Ameritrade's marketing and advertising team and my feeling was: They're really good.

Image source TD Ameritrade, which is publicly accessible in the blockchain

Why TD Ameritrade's ASCII Art is Meaningful

Graffiti has been around since ancient times and sometimes it is humorous and often offensive. Graffiti can be poignant and sweet or banal territorial pissing. But, there are times street art can be packed with some kind of message or provocative activism such as famous street artists Shepard Ferry or Bansky are known for.

TD Ameritrade's ASCII flag² did a couple of things for me:

Planting a flag is the symbol of exploration and discovery firsts
ASCII art is something Gen X'ers in particular are familiar with - nostalgia
It's an "old" style graphics embedded in something so new and very much hyped as ultra futuristic
... which is pretty audacious
It didn't cost them that much and they didn't seem to care who saw it. It seems they just wanted to have fun. I really liked that part of it. Play is an important part of innovation, invention and discovery.

The above was what I found meaningful about it. I think the point about it appealing to my nostalgia is very strong for me. This was clever on the part of TD Ameritrade whether they intended it or not.

Satoshis.place and Impermanence

Where the TD Ameritrade flag is permanently preserved on the blockchain, Satoshis.Place is not. I first heard about Satoshis.Place on Twitter from Bitsonline.

At Satoshis.place you can overwrite other people's pixel art and it is pretty cheap, costing a satoshi per pixel.

I'm not super clear about this but I don't think it's permanent if your art can be overwritten? That is why it is called a Game I guess so you are paying to play it. The Lapp (Lightning app) is designed to demonstrate the power of the Lightning Network which admittedly I know zero about. Still, it's interesting.

Satoshi's place is a type of Lightning Network powered app (Lapp) that runs an open, permissionless and collaborative art board. Each pixel costs 1 satoshi to paint and can be painted over and over again. If you haven't seen it yet, go check it out first. (source, Satoshis.Place GitHub docs)

I wrote "BRAZIL" next to the puppet strings. I don't know why. I just thought that image reminded me of the Terry Gilliam movie as he's been on my mind.

Snapshot Satoshis.Place

I didn't actually purchase the pixels though since like I said I know nothing about the Lightning network and I did not research how to purchase the pixels.

Impermanence

The non-permanent nature of Satoshis.Place is a sticking point for me. I do realize it's a game and the point is to play and have fun. I guess I just would want something to "stay" if I were to spend time on it.

Maybe the fact that it costs money, even a few cents, also nags at some part of my internal programming that I've yet to contemplate. People do sometimes feel a sense of entitlement when they pay for things and maybe that's a part of my code I need to unravel and rework. Become Buddhist?

Satoshis.Place can seem a bit sterile and contrived. I'm reminded of those feeble graffiti slates in bathroom stalls i.e. a way of sanitizing the surface, the forbidden canvas on which it is subversive to write. This worry about data or asset loss is something I feel about digital things in general but which blockchain mitigates at least psychologically.

However I can also see the benefit of it not being permanent. Some things should not be preserved and are just plain trash which I know is subjective.

These feelings about digital things are just my feelings by the way - but I'm not alone with it. I'm a holder of digital assets and I've purchased digital goods. I know they have value but have concerns about how to keep them.

In graffiti street culture it is OK and acceptable to paint over another's work and in that way Satoshis.Place is like "true" graffiti. And a lot of bathroom stalls, city walls, subways are scrubbed down. Art is erased and that's part of the transient nature of it. It's very wabi-sabi³ and I get it.

Watching the Satoshis.Place artboard is entertaining in itself. People will place something serious, like the puppet master image in my screenshot, but then at other times the board is filled with penises. There's a lot of BCH bashing going on as you might imagine - a bit of a "turf war" going on.

Speaking of penises...