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Artist Statement

The artwork Cabinets of Curiosities for the Postcolony unique knowledge, how objects can help us the process of writing a digital item to the blockchain”
II: Tokens, Collections I-V (Tokens) follows on from my understand this question and how we assign through which “its immutable record of authenticity
work Dead Living Things: A Cabinet of Curiosities in value to such new knowledge. Working from and ownership” is established (https://opensea.io/
the Postcolony, which was shown in 2021 at the FADA the premise that the existence of things IRL and in learn/what-is-minting-nft). The conversion of a physical
Staff Exhibition - Interventions in Practice. My intention our minds are understood and expressed through object into an NFT requires that the object be digitised,
with the work, manipulation of found objects, and naming and language, I present five collections of in this case into jpeg format, and assigned a unique
creation of new objects, distinguishes Tokens from the unique things, created through the combination of identity number (ID) The act of digitising an object into
2021 work – which presented a curated collection of existing things, or manipulation of materials. I then pixels, means that it can be endlessly reproduced
found objects, without intervening into the nature of name these things with pseudoscientific names in online. Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of
the objects, which aimed to explore how a cabinet Latin, loosely following scientific naming conventions. Mechanical Reproduction (1935) pointed out how the
of curiosities can be used to tell stories informed by The genus name refers to the dominant colour or reproduction of an original work of art by mechanical
postcolonial theory that confront colonial narratives in material of the object, and the species and variety means, such as photography, robbed the artwork of
the contemporary South African context. names are derived from other significant features its “aura” or uniqueness. It is therefore ironic that
Tokens takes the form of five entomology of the objects. I include an x between the names in the NFT marketplace the act of placing a digital
cases, accompanied by an artists’ book in leporello to indicate that the object is a hybrid. Therefore, copy of my original object, and assigning a unique
form, which exist in real life (IRL), and a collection of Rubisco x polypus, literally translated means pink token ID to the copy, renders the copy unique. The
51 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) offered for sale on octopus. I have no knowledge of Latin and used infinitely reproducible image of the original, with its
Opensea, an NFT marketplace. Each entomology case Google translate to create the names, so there is a accompanying ID, becomes the “original” work of art
displays a collection of unique, handmade objects high probability that the names may not mean what I which accrues value in the digital space, whereas the
which are documented in the artists’ book by way of intended them to mean. true original, the physical object IRL is of less value due
51 photographs captioned with the object’s name. To ensure that these objects can be viewed to the absence of a token ID.
With Tokens I am interested in exploring as new and unique I “minted” the objects as NFTs,
what is considered the construction of new and which explains the naming of the work. Minting “is

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