Bitchcoin # 9.026, 2015 - 2021
5 sec, Fichier numérique vidéo (H264.mp4), 1080 x 1080, couleur, silencieux
The work Bitchcoin was one of the very first examples of “tokenised” art, offering collectors the opportunity to invest in a digital currency backed by physical works – the photographs of the Speculations series, for which it could be exchanged. This currency was launched in February 2015, five months before Ethereum, which would become the primary cryptocurrency for purchasing digital artworks. Bitchcoin was a pioneering project in many ways: the use of blockchain to track ownership of artworks, fractional ownership of artworks, and blockchain itself as an artistic medium. In 2021, Sarah Meyohas relaunched the Bitchcoin project by attaching the tokens to rose petals from her project Cloud of Petals. This involved digitising 100,000 petals one at a time in order to train image generation software using artificial intelligence. The people responsible for the digitalisation also had to choose the petal that they considered to be the most beautiful on each rose, which was then preserved under glass and could be exchanged for this new edition of Bitchcoins.
Marcella Lista et Philippe Bettinelli, 2023