Checks (2023)
“This artwork may or may not be notable.”
Originally available as an open edition for 24 hours, 16,031 pieces were minted on Ethereum.
Captioned “This artwork may or may not be notable.” (a modified version of the disclaimer that accompanied legacy accounts as paid verification was rolling out on Twitter).
Checks is centered around the transition from top down to bottom up consensus, in a culture and economy that runs on the internet.
The coveted blue checkmark meant something very specific, until it didn’t.
Once a symbol of someone verifying you, now a symbol of you verifying yourself.
These ideas are foundational to the success of decentralized technologies and networks, and a central thesis of the work of Visualize Value.
The second iteration of Checks was built in public on Twitter, evolving from an identical artwork to a protocol that gives its collectors agency over the outcomes of both their own experience and the structure of the entire collection.
During the buildout of the second phase of the project, Checks challenged many of the assumptions in the world of NFTs, most notably, an artist's ability to completely change the image associated with the token.
On February 12 2023, Checks launched a mechanism for “migrating” editions to originals – removing them from the control of the artist entirely and storing them trustlessly on the Ethereum blockchain.
At the time of writing, 5,340 of the 16,031 remain unmigrated.
The other 10,691 have either been converted to an original artwork, or combined to create a smaller composition of checks as shown below.
The final piece in the collection is the Black Check — it can only be created by compositing 4,096 of the original editions, and only three will ever be possible.
