Blockchain Future States maps the myths, dreams, winners and losers of the global game of governance design. The project, which began in 2016, just months after the Ethereum Frontier Launch, looks at three companies that were then at the forefront of cryptocurrency: Ethereum, 21 Inc, and Digital Asset. They proposed radically different visions, all seeking to transcend existing political and financial constraints; through blockchain technology, they promised novel, decentralized modes of organizing and governing. Equally central to this future is the hope that market logic could triumph over state-regulated monetary policy, catalyzing a turn towards not just decentralization, but privatization.
Denny imagined a trade fair booth for each company, highlighting the differences in their respective ideologies and approaches to the blockchain. Together with the GDR-born postage stamp designer Linda Kantchev, each was also given a stamp, literalizing the idea of image-as-capital. Artworks across the project borrow their forms from mainstays in the tech and business industries, alongside the hardware of competitive gaming – with oversized special editions of the board game “Risk”, personal computer cases turned corporate “deal toys” and cartoonish entrepreneurial “players” in a land-grab for the decentralized, encrypted infrastructure of possible self-governing future worlds.
Exhibitions
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Petzel Gallery, New York, US2016Blockchain Future States
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9th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, DE2016Simon Denny, Linda Kantchev: Blockchain Visionaries
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Francisco Carolinum, Linz, AT2021Proof of Art
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34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, SI2021Iskra Delta
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Altman Siegel, San Francisco, US2021Fair Use: What’s Mine is Yours
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Chronus Art Center, Shanghai, CN2020crypto_manifold
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Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, US2018I Was Raised on the Internet
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CIVA, Brussels, BE2021Institution Building
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Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg im Breisgau, DE2018Your North is my South
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Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, US2017Hammer Projects: Simon Denny
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Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New YorkArt Basel 2016
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10th Festival Chromatic, Montreal, CA2019Art Contemporary Club
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Bureau Europa, Maastricht, NL2019Digital Dilemma – The Architecture of Trust
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Hessel Museum of Art, New York, US2017Dark Clouds Silver Linings