This body of work is a living work of art that explores how trust is performed in a world where markers that normally point to what can & can't be trusted continue to be subverted.
It's now common knowledge that blue checkmarks are paid for & as such no longer serve as a way to tell who can be trusted. Yet, the subconscious urge to be more trusting of social media accounts with blue checkmarks still lingers, often leading to disastrous consequences for victims of sophisticated social network scams.
How do you trust anyone you meet online in a world where AI has become so advanced that it generates with increasingly high fidelity every aspect of how modern humans have evolved to tell what is real online (written word, voice, images & video)?
My submission is that the last frontiers of trust online are blockchain authenticated provenance & social proof; seeing someone you trust trusting someone else makes you more likely to trust that person too.
This is our best shot at PROOF OF LIFE.
This collection builds on the innovation of "patron editions" pioneered by the networked.art team to dramatize this very concept onchain.
A human network of patrons that develops around the art engages in rituals of trust that determine what/who gets minted on the blockchain
Here's how it works: The network is made up of two layers:
1/1 holders [10 votes per token]
Patron edition holders [1 vote per token)
Patron editions cost $1 to mint & are only available during the 24-hour window of each live auction. One per wallet.
When you pick up a patron edition, a masked portrait of you is created & added to a pool of portraits awaiting verification by the network
Win an auction & you get to select from this pool. Your selection is then presented to the network for deliberation & voting.
When the network reaches a consensus, the selected portrait is verified, minted & listed. This cycle repeats until the 100th masked portrait is minted.
Through this process, the network actively shapes how the collection evolves over time
You're not just joining a community. You're building one.
The artwork is the network making itself using the blockchain & the novelty of patron editions as its medium.
The reserve price for 1/1s in the collection starts at $10 and for each new listing it is increased by $1 until the 100th piece is minted
Each new auction allows new patrons to join the network and old ones to increase their voting power by acquiring more patron editions
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Please Note:
To participate in the social layer of this artwork, your twitter account needs to be linked to your networked.art profile.
Masked portraits are made on fcfs basis & preference is given in this order: 1/1 collectors > patron edition buyers > bidders.