"Modernity is a deal:
Humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power."
Humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power."
- Yuval Noah Harari
Power vs Meaning is a conceptual blockchain artwork based on historian Yuval Noah Harari’s idea that modern society is a deal in which humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power. The series consists of two looping animations (Power and Meaning), each minted as an edition of 8 NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.
Playing on the idea of utility and collector rewards as prevalent themes in the NFT space, holders of Power will be granted the power to reward themselves with an additional edition of their NFT whenever they wish. Meaning, on the other hand, is simply a piece of art, and holders will not be granted any sort of utility or rewards. During the primary sale, collectors must choose between one or the other and are not able to bid on both.
A social experiment that will only be able to fully tell its story as people interact with it, Power vs Meaning asks viewers to confront their own motivation for collecting NFTs in the first place. While Power offers utility, interaction, collector rewards, a rarity system based on exponential growth, and the potential for a community to organically form and evolve, Meaning offers nothing but the chance to own a digital penguin that infinitely waddles towards some sort of glowing metaphor for human motivation. As time goes on, how will the collection change, and what will it say about us?
"Power", edition of 8 (at time of sale)
"Meaning", edition of 8.
Power vs Meaning was sold on January 26th, 2023 through a 24-hour auction on powervsmeaning.com. The website and smart contracts were created by Manifold. Music by Tomas Novoa.