Sentimentite (Mt Gox Hack), 2022
9 s 40 ms, Fichier numérique (H264.mp4), couleur, silencieux
Launched by the platform Zien, the project Sentimentite is built on the responses elicited on social networks by political, economic, environmental, cultural and social events over the course of a decade. These events have been split into ten sections. Millions of online reactions were analysed and transformed into data by an algorithm. Using this data, the artist generated a hundred digital rocks in shapes representing the virtual volume of the data collected for each event. Created in NFT form, these rocks can be made tangible and re-enter the physical world: upon request, each sculpture is also cast in a “digital mineral” created by the artist, namely sentimentite. This material is a resin aggregate combining particles from some sixty items and materials that have been used as alternative currencies to money in the recent or distant past: shells, beads, cigarettes, metals, salt, soap, packaging etc. Mt. Gox Hack is the first NFT in the first chapter of Sentimentite, “Birth of Crypto”. The work references the massive hack that caused the 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox, the Bitcoin exchange based in Tokyo, which at the time was responsible for around 70% of global transactions.
Marcella Lista et Philippe Bettinelli, 2023