Still Life
New Media (Onchain Non-Fungible Tokens)
200 WebP Files
June 2024

Still Life is a series of 200 works that combines time-honored techniques of drawing and sketching with the fluid possibilities of digital manipulation, creating a dialogue between these evolving forms. Taking from the venerable genre of still life, which has long depicted intimate arrangements of everyday objects, these works embody the personal act of capturing motifs in an ever-shifting existence. Through digital compression and inscription onto an immutable ledger, the series marries the tactile essence of traditional materials with the permanence of distributed technology.

Bitcoin, conceived amid the 2008 financial crisis, proposed a peer-to-peer electronic cash system independent of centralized authorities. The network launched in 2009 with the genesis block, introducing blockchain as a decentralized, immutable ledger for transactions across a distributed node system. This foundation disrupted conventional finance while inspiring cultural shifts in digital ownership and scarcity, influencing contemporary art by merging physical value with virtual permanence. The protocol's blocks became a medium for enduring data.

Bitcoin Ordinals, introduced in early 2023 revolutionized the protocol by allowing arbitrary data—like images, texts, or multimedia—to be inscribed onto individual satoshi’s, Bitcoin's smallest units. Inscriptions, the embedded data, have expanded non fungible token possibilities directly onto Bitcoin. Rare sats, distinguished by origins like early blocks, palindromic sequences, or ties to pivotal events, enhance inscriptions with added scarcity and narrative value, much like provenance in traditional mediums.

This series explores the evolution of artistic practice across blockchains, departing from established patterns to embrace transformation and growth in creative and existential dimensions. These inscriptions capture shifts in form and context, leveraging specific rare sats such as Block 9 (the oldest in circulation), Block 9 450x (the first bitcoin of the 9th block), First Transaction (from the 10 Bitcoins sent by Satoshi Nakamoto to Hal Finney on January 12, 2009), Nakamoto (mined by Satoshi; Vintage—from the first 1,000 blocks) and Common (not the first sat of its block—to emphasize themes of rarity, change, and perpetual legacy within the digital art realm).