- What does your genesis artwork mean to you today?

The ReadyMadeToken was an extension of the Dadaist ethos encapsulated in Marcel Duchamp's ready-made concept. Duchamp disrupted conventional views of artistic creation by transforming ordinary items into art through the sociological act of selection and inscription Into the art world. The performative nature of Duchamp's signature, transforming a mundane object into art, underscores the sociological understanding that an artist cannot exist as a nobody because only the artist's "authorial function" gives his signature a performative power. The ReadyMadeToken's connection to Richard Prince, both the avatar and the established artist, serves as a commentary on the power of recognition within the art world. The work underscores the institutional dynamics that confer artistic status and the potential for manipulation within these structures. The subsequent controversy and reactions from the art community further emphasize the centrality of the artist's identity in shaping the reception and interpretation of an artwork. The shift in discourse from initial acceptance -at the very beginning we were told "the work is brilliant" -  to accusations of a "SCAM"  - once people discovered that our richard prince wasn't THE richard prince- highlights the fragility of artistic meaning when detached from a recognizable author. The ReadyMadeToken, in this sense, becomes a commentary on the economy of names and the impact of authorship on the perceived value of an artwork. We still remember Richard Prince's manager, Matt Gaugan, writing to us and saying "The ready Made Token could really have been Richard's work, there was no way of knowing." In essence, the ReadyMadeToken is not merely a digital coin or a piece of art; it is a reflection on the performative nature of art, the evolving dynamics of authorship, and the intricate relationship between identity and artistic value in our contemporary, technologically mediated world. Like the famous caricature of Peter Steiner published in the  le New Yorker in 1993 and named « On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog ». Well on internet nobody knows you're THE Richard Prince. 

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- What was a significant event that happened in the 10-year history of Blockchain art that influenced you as an artist?

Our subsequent works have always been physical at a time when NFTs were starting to catch on, something almost no one else does in the crypto art space. So we'd say the significant event for us was building the two chaos machines in 2018 for the Proof of Work exhibition organized by Simon Denny. The chaos machine project was a bit crazy, and to pull it off we teamed up with friends far from the blockchain ecosystem: carpenter, hardware hacker, electrician, etc. We all joined forces and end up with magnificent artwork that remains our most important work to date. 

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- What message(s) are you sharing in your new {R(Evolutionaries);} artwork?

We were asked to illustrate the year 2017. As it turns out, 2017 is the year of fake news, and our artistic journey began in 2017 with the spread of a rumor. We decided to go in that direction. Rumor is also said to be the world's oldest medium. So it is a very interesting subject to work on. So we contacted a friend and a great artist to ask him to help us create an artwork to illustrate the rumor phenomenon. For this artwork, Laurent La Torpille used LifeGraph, an algorithm he created that bears many similarities to rumor-mongering phenomena. LifeGraph functions as a pixel tracker, exhibiting parallels with the phenomenon of rumors in the propagation and transformation of information. Indeed, the algorithm views each pixel in a photograph as a living cell, undergoing stages of evolution and triggering a "viral propagation" that alters the image's 'genetic' structure.  This process, similar to the spread of rumors, leaves visible traces of the alteration in the medium. Both LifeGraph and rumors involve dynamic entities that propagate and evolve, introducing new concepts and altering the perception of the original source material. To produce these artworks, Laurent La Torpille firstly creates images of subjects looking up at the sky, with part of their organon made visible. The link between a sky-scouting subject and the phenomenon of rumor is quite simple as it lies in the human propensity to seek explanations in the face of the unknown, creating fertile ground for the propagation of stories and ideas, sometimes ambiguous or distorted in the process of social transmission. The fact that subjects photographed had part of their organs made visible was a way of reminding us of the parallel between rumor and bioweapons. Indeed, in the same way that biological weapons can impact the human body, rumors, through their ability to circulate and proliferate, can affect the collective consciousness of a society. Rumors, much like a virus, have the capacity to spread and influence societal perceptions. Studies on the subject have shown that false rumors spread faster (x10), deeper and more widely than true rumors.

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