Chain Reaction

March 7, 2023 - March 17, 2023

Feral File

Curator: Christiane Paul Featured artists: Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Ira Greenberg and Marina Zurkow, Alfredo Salazar-Caro, Stephanie Dinkins, Sara Ludy, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy The exhibition Chain Reaction strives to underscore the inherent connections between the blockchain as a list of data blocks facilitating the recording of transactions and tracking of assets, and the generative social, aesthetic, and environmental contexts and networks in which these assets are embedded. The works in this exhibition explore their existence as “tokens” beyond just being technological records of a transaction: they function as catalysts in precipitating events or actions, from environmental preservation and sustainability of a creative process to aesthetic choices. NFTs are functionally defined by their non-fungible status. They are capable of encapsulating and proving ownership of digital artworks that are often characterized by malleable, generative, untraceable, or imperceptible qualities. The artworks in Chain Reaction highlight the porous boundaries between NFTs as a mechanism for unique identification, on the one hand, and as a common “keepsake” of a social contract and commitment, or collective action, on the other. Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s “Public View / Private View” opens up the artistic process of creation to a group of donors and art supporters connected to them and makes participants in the “art ecosystem” a formal part of the art.