"Two Heads" Art of Bitcoin by Ray Istre

rayzzz (51)in #steemit • 8 years ago

$10,000 US Dollars or equivalent in Bitcoin or Steem Power. Painting is acrylic on paper, mounted to an 11 x 14 canvas board. All pigment and materials are art quality to last for 500 years or so, given the hope that humanity lasts that long.

What do George Washington and Satoshi Nakamoto have in common? Well, they both created money... and that's about it. Washington worked with the Congress to create printed money for the purpose of fighting the Revolutionary War. Satoshi, or who ever it actually was who created Bitcoin, did not allow for the option to inflate Bitcoin with endless printing or creation.

Now to give Washington his due, he was fighting a war and it was a righteous one. The printing of money for the war eventually brought about a useless currency, inflated into oblivion. This was one of the reasons the writers of the US Constitution put in that wonderful document that all money was to be created from gold and silver coin, which was the most reliable technology of the time, to stop the creation of currencies only designed to be inflated and die a horrible death.

The Artists Statement

As an artist, I want to use paint, color, texture, design and icons to communicate. Logo’s and flags are popular images and everyone recognizes them very easily because they are simple and iconic. The “B” used in the Bitcoin logo is a take off of the “S” with the bar running up and down through the letter in the US “Dollar Sign” seen as “$”. Logos, like flags are created to capture the allegiance of a community, be they a country, business, movement or organization. In this case, the logo is used for a movement towards adaptation of a new currency which takes a lot of faith in the stability of the currency. If people will accept it in trade for commodities such as gold and silver, goods such as food and clothing or services such as an oil change in your car, the currency has stability. If this stability is questioned, sellers will stop accepting it as money.

In my art, I contrast the Bitcoin logo with other historical forms of money, such as coins and paper money. Anything can be used as money if the seller is willing to accept it as payment. I also contrast these icons of traditional money with the unknown abstractions of our human existence. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that there is much more that I don’t know about the Universe than what I do know. In that frame of mind, I paint in abstractions which is a realm of faith. I do not know every computation of math creating Bitcoin. I do not understand the intricacies of each and every communicating node of the blockchain. How many computers are needed to solve such mathematical algorithms? It’s all abstract to me, personally. Given the capabilities of computers, should we accept computers as an extension of our personality, like the proverbial “Hal” from 2001 A Space Odessy?

Is Bitcoin a trick of super hackers in collusion with governmental powers to expose and catch anyone who thinks they can “buck the system” like those on the Silk Road? Or, is it a real and independent form of money that can not be controlled or stopped? While my computer may not be personal, my art is very personal. I am an artist dealing with the bigger issues of governmental power and regulation over the citizen on a small planet in a huge universe. Are there bigger issues than currencies? Sure, but as a human, it is worth painting about.

I am painting icons surrounded by abstractions. What we know surrounded by what we do not know. It may be called an “Abstract Realism”. Allowing for the fact that we don’t know everything will be relevant until we do know everything.

Ray Istre
12/10/2014

Links to Art of Bitcoin by Ray Istre

Artist Web Site and Statement
http://www.rayistre.com/art-of-bitcoin/

Bitcoin Art Prints for Sale
http://www.artpal.com/ray#i3

BitPremier.com Luxury Items for Bitcoin
https://www.bitpremier.com/search?query=Ray+Istre

Emily Faber at CoinCafe.com
https://blog.coincafe.com/2015/12/04/ray-istre/

Victoria Turk at Motherboard
http://motherboard140.rssing.com/browser.php?indx=6898904&item=6442

Art4Bitcoin.net
http://art4bitcoin.net/ray-istre/

Reddit Post w/comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2msski/art_of_bitcoin_by_ray_istre/

SpendABit.co Bitcoin Search Engine
https://spendabit.co/blog/may-is-art-month

EbitLuxury.com
http://ebitluxury.com/4-fine-art-antiques4658.html?page=2#

BlockChain.com
https://blog.blockchain.com/2015/12/05/bitcoin-news-for-the-week-of-113015/