The notion of who we are, questions of personal identity and the expression of self are all important, but as the world around us becomes digitized, these questions become even more difficult to answer. Reconciling existence with our sense of self is difficult largely because of the technology that we grant control. We can see this phenomenon embedded within the technologies that we interact with on a daily basis, whether it be through social networks, music and artistic expression. However, cryptocurrencies and their associated anonymous digital networks, have the potential to challenge the way we conceptualize artistic expression and the way we interact with other peoples self expression.
Digital networks, in their current form like Instagram, Facebook, OnlyFans, and even Youtube, control the perception of our physical and meta-physical self. Camille Kostek, who has ~1M followers on instagram, is known to her followers as a supermodel who spends her life having fun. This is our perceived notion of her self as its existence in a networked system creates the ability for mass consumption and export.
Before social networks, music was an expression of identity, an exposition of self through a unique medium. In the 1970’s in the Bronx, the musical style of hip-hop was borne out of resistance to mainstream, white culture. Rooted in the black struggle, hip hop provided a means to articulate criticisms of racial hierarchies. Even hip hop icons like Kanye West preserve these core ideologies, rapping,
“And what's a Black Beatle anyway, a fuckin' roach?
I guess that's why they got me sitting in fuckin' coach”.
Lyrics like these serve to place the black identity in the context of whiteness, highlighting the inequality in earnings between black and white artists who have achieved similar fame. But even these attempts at cultural identity are being wrested away by large corporations like Universal Music Group. Even the most famous artists, like Kanye, have little control over the production and consumption of their own music, with Universal Music Group releasing Kanye’s 10th studio album without his permission.
Whether articulated through social media or music, we can see self has become necessarily rooted and intertwined with capitalistic notions of identity. Self exists only for the consumption by others, and the articulation of self only as a feeder into a profit-based system. Herein is the power of cryptocurrency, a decentralized system that creates identity in a non-static fashion. Before, the creation of art (an expression of self) was tied to some corporate identity, some central authority, however, now, we see the rise of digital art where the consumption of this art is tied directly to the self of the creator. However, the completely decentralized nature of these networks forces us to re-conceptualize how we think about identity in a completely decentralized world.
We currently conceptualize self as something tied to an identity; when I think about Banksy and his art, I immediately and reflexively tie that expression of self to a person grounded in the material world. Digital identity requires no static tether to the material world as your identity exists only as an alphanumeric public key, but this does not alter the expression of self. Within this digital network, identity can be distributed through many public keys that each consist of their own distinct artistic expression. These digital networks then grant us the freedom to re-conceptualize self outside the structure imposed by society, if you so choose. It is the depersonalization of self; an anonymous digital ecosystem where the production and consumption of artistic expression carries no referendum or reference to an individual’s identity. It is the end of attribution, the beginning of freedom. In an interview with Kapil Gupta, Naval Ravikant describes the challenge of freedom,
“it’s hard for me to have freedom when I’m recording little gains and I’m creating this image around this person who is recording gains and getting better that traps me–that image.”
The image he describes exists because of the visibility attached to the process of expression; we create art that society interprets as an image / reference to ourselves. You are subject to the devices and machinations of society because the artist loses control over the re-production and consumption of his self. Banksy is famous not exclusively for his art, but for his anonymity, his ability to stay hidden in a highly transparent society. Digital networks offer a paradigmatic shift towards a world where images of self and expressions of self are divorced. A future in which the consumption of self (of which I am referring to an individual’s artistic expression1) is not influenced by race, age, religion or any external characteristics. A future in which everyone can be Banksy.
While the piece focuses on art, I use it as a placeholder for more broad expressions of self. To signify a world in which books are just strings stored on the blockchain associated with the creator’s public key (as an example).