After a long incubation period of summer craziness and year-end craziness, it’s time for VESA to return to the desert. We will be able to enjoy the much-lost sun first in Dubai during the gigantic event that is Token 2049, and later, for the first time during the VESA fair, in Riyad, Saudi Arabia, at the Outer Edge Stadium.
Token2049 will bring together over 300 keynote speakers for its premiere conference. The long list of FOMO-inducing side events could be as impressive as the official lineup as decision-makers and industry enthusiasts flock to the city.
Outer Edge in Riyad, Saudi Arabia is an exclusive invite-only event with an attendance list curated from the best Web3 and AI sites.
For the past few years in Dubai, VESA has been looking to connect with Saudi Arabia, so when Outer Edge’s Josh Kriger reached out to invite him to be the keynote speaker, the choice was simple.
In addition to meeting people at the top of their careers, this first trip also aims to better understand the Saudis and their culture.
It’s going to be something amazing, I can already feel it.
Million Dirhams Hotel
Mirror collection
$5,606.72
Million Dirham Hotel is the first image from the Mirrors series minted on order coins. Some of the earlier versions were implemented in art cars, for which we have the exclusive license to release these cars on the streets of Dubai. This work, if it reaches a certain amount, will have the same intellectual property rights that we will be able to apply to selected surfaces or objects. The work is created through painting, photography and digital collage over the course of a few days.
The subject of the work itself? Can you imagine what a hotel is like that charges a million dirhams per night? Over the last three years of living in Dubai, VESA has seen the attention, luxury and experience economy grow. The class of people who made rather than lost money during Covid-19 or any other recent disaster lead a very different lifestyle to most in the world. Recent luxury is a unique experience, unavailable to most. The world is moving even further away from ownership to the basis of access. The LV bag doesn’t make much of an impression on people. VESA’s recent Mirrors series explores value, experiences and identity in an novel way. The intellectual property of the work of art used constitutes another layer of the argument for the value of the work. How does art become something that constitutes our unique identity rather than a widely available commodity?
It used to be wired
Crypto art collection
$18,689.07
Very little of VESA’s early work from 2017-2019 on the Bitcoin movement has been minted as digital originals, even though he has been in the space full-time for almost 7 years now. It Used To Be Wired is a tribute to the likes of Nick Spanos, who pioneered the early cryptocurrency scene in Recent York and ultimately had to leave the land of the free, which wasn’t so free after all. The work is created through painting, photography and digital collage over the course of several days.
In this work of art, the panorama of the iconic Recent York Island has been transformed using blockchain code, but this time Philippe Petit is not walking between the WTC buildings as a man on a wire. He walks from the Freedom Tower into the digital unknown. There are many blockchain ventures in the city, but many are relocating from Recent York and the United States due to a lack of support for entrepreneurship. The question remains: “Will New York maintain its pioneering spirit, or will it overtake the future of finance?”
When conceptualizing this work in 2018, VESA first thought about Recent York’s enduring frontier spirit, the artists who lived there, and the pioneering movements in Bitcoin, actually starting with a humble transatlantic pizza transaction. No matter what you think of 9/11, part of its spirit is inevitably linked to the 2008 financial crash and the birth of digital currency. Knowing what we know now, most people involved in cryptocurrencies try to avoid doing any business in the US because it is one of the most restrictive countries in the world.
Stay tuned, because this will be the majestic prelude to this collaboration.
Also tonight, join us for the epic Tone Vays Halving party on Youtube.
Link to outer edge
Connect ordinal numbers
Link by half
See you in the desert and online,
VESA and Lotta
Cryptocurrency and NFT artist
You’ll find all the links to physical materials, NFTs, and more below
http://linktr.ee/ArtByVesa