Where 6: Prediction
Book Launch, Exhibition, and Conclusion
Oct 28 - Nov 23, 2016
Opening Oct 28, 7-10pm
On view at Meyohas
181 East 90th St #28B
New York, NY, 10128
To whom it may concern:
In January 2014, Where invited Sarah Meyohas to collaborate on an installation inside the Where shipping container. The theme was “prediction” and the outcome was BitchCoin. Nearly three years later, Meyohas has her own gallery, and we will be her guests. We close the loop of this project with four open source, essay-outline stacks on prediction: surviving Niagara Falls, shopping on Ambien, the NSA’s recycling program, and Stanislaw Lem’s “The World As Catastrophe.” We will also celebrate the release of Where 6, a book that documents and critiques these endeavors. We warmly anticipate your presence.
Yours,
Lucy Hunter, R. Lyon
Where
Where 6 on Amazon
color/b&w
Where 6: "Prediction," with Sarah Meyohas
Bitch Coin Release Party:
Sunday, February 15th, 2015 8pm
Trinity Place, 115 Broadway, New York, NY
We rarely have an opportunity to invite our colleagues to as well-appointed an affair as will transpire on the evening of Sunday, Feb. 15 at Trinity Place in Lower Manhattan. This turn-of-the-century bank can easily be navigated by the landmark of Zucotti Park across the street.
Our splendid event celebrates the launch of “BitchCoin,” a digital currency developed with Sarah Meyohas, a young artist who, fresh out of Wharton Business School, headed straight into Yale's MFA program. BitchCoins can be bought online with US dollars, much like any currency; more importantly, BitchCoins can be exchanged in perpetuity for Meyohas’ future photographic prints, at a fixed rate of 1 BitchCoin to 25 square inches. Investing in BitchCoin is investing in Meyohas.
After consulting all of our trusted indicators, Meyohas emerged as one of the most bankable future voices in contemporary art. We are so confident in our prediction method that Where will be quite literally investing our exhibition budget directly into her practice, through the purchase of the BitchCoins. We invite you to get in on the ground floor at the BitchCoin launch party. Join us for refreshments as we toast this compelling opportunity.
BitchCoin is at the heart of Where 6, an exhibition that investigates prediction. Where has acted as the incubator and adviser for Meyohas’ unique financial product, and our shipping container is the base station for the cryptographic “mining” operation which produces the BitchCoins. Only 200 BitchCoins will be in this initial offering—act fast.
What is BitchCoin?
BitchCoin is a digital currency backed by the photography of Sarah Meyohas at a fixed exchange rate of 1 BitchCoin to 25 square inches of photographic print. This rate of exchange will not change, even if the value of the photography increases. As her work changes in value over time, so will the relative value of BitchCoin.
How did BitchCoin get started?
BitchCoin is the focus of “Where 6,” an exhibition on prediction at Where, a gallery and publishing house headquartered in a shipping container in Brooklyn. Where invited Sarah Meyohas to “mine” her coins in the gallery and work with Where on an infrastructure for how BitchCoin would operate. The installed mining rig can viewed through Where’s live-streaming webcam. In addition as part of the exhibition, Where is jumpstarting the currency by investing directly in BitchCoin itself.
Why would I buy BitchCoin?
BitchCoin allows art collectors to invest directly in Sarah Meyohas as a value producer rather than investing in the artwork itself. For investors, BitchCoin is like any currency tradable on the open market. It’s a bet on Sarah Meyohas with no expiration.
How do Bitch Coins Work?
Investors can always exchange their BitchCoins for photographic prints by Meyohas. BitchCoins can be exchanged for these or any similar editioned photographs that Meyohas produces in the future. By purchasing BitchCoin, the investor is buying credit for a future work that Sarah Meyohas has not yet produced.
How is Bitch Coin Backed?
For every new release of BitchCoin, Meyohas sets aside an unframed archival chromogenic print in a bank vault, so that 25 square inches of photography backs every BitchCoin.
Once the print is locked in a vault, an equivalent number of BitchCoins—corresponding to the size of that BitchCoin-backed print—is then released into circulation.
BitchCoin is fully asset-backed, much like the former U.S. gold standard, which once linked paper money to gold reserves in Fort Knox. When a BitchCoin-backed print is purchased with BitchCoins, the coins are destroyed since they are no longer asset-backed.
How do I invest in BitchCoin?
BitchCoins can be purchased in person at the launch party or on Bitchcoin.biz after the initial launch. BitchCoins will ultimately be available for trade on a currency exchange.
When is the BitchCoin launch?
The BitchCoin launch party will be on Sunday, February 15, 2015 8 PM, at Trinity Place in the Financial District of Manhattan. 115 Broadway, New York, NY, 10006.
How many BitchCoins will be sold at the launch?
200 coins will be sold at the launch to back the edition of one photograph, titled Speculation. It will be an unframed, digital chromogenic print, 21 ⅝ x 28 ⅞ inches, edition of 8. At the conversion rate, each print is valued at 25 BitchCoins.
Where can I use BitchCoin?
BitchCoin can be exchanged in perpetuity for any of Sarah Meyohas’ editioned, unframed archival chromogenic photographs. BitchCoin will ultimately be available on a currency exchange for conversion into US dollars or other monies. In addition, BitchCoin can also be bought and sold privately by transferring possession of the physical BitchCoin certificate.
What is the Bitch Coin Certificate?
When you purchase a BitchCoin you will receive a physical certificate. The certificate is an engraved piece of paper with two unique strings of numbers and letters, called “keys.” The certificate and corresponding keys are called a “wallet,” because they allow one to access an encrypted account that holds one’s BitchCoin balance.
The BitchCoin account is encrypted with two keys. One is a public key which describes the address from which you may send and receive coins. The private key is the password which verifies ownership. Transfer of the certificate or the keys transfers ownership of the corresponding BitchCoins in the account.
The account is anonymous, and only accessible via those keys. Anybody with access to both keys can steal the balance. If both keys are lost, the coins are also lost. Keep your certificate safe and your private key secret!
What is the BitchCoin client?
In addition to transferring certificates, one may also use the BitchCoin client - a free software program (for MAC and PC) that will be downloadable from Bitchcoin.biz. that can be used to send and receive coins electronically. The client allows investors to buy or sell partial balances without relinquishing their entire certificate, or “wallet.”
Why would an artist produce BitchCoin?
Visual artists generally don’t receive royalties like musicians or writers. An artist’s work might fluctuate wildly on the market, changing hands between collectors several times without any permission of, or compensation to, the artist. BitchCoin gives Sarah Meyohas a stake in the supply, demand, and price of her own work.
What is special about BitchCoin? How is it different from other digital currencies?
BitchCoin is different from other digital currencies in that it is backed by an asset. BitchCoin is different from other backed currencies in that the asset is photography.
How is BitchCoin unlike other traditional currencies?
There are two schools of thought regarding money. “Chartalism” sees money as simple tokens of credit relationships—the tokens themselves, e.g. paper money, have no value. “Metallism” sees money as a commodity, like gold or silver, whose value is inherent. BitchCoin conforms to both Chartalist and Metallist readings: it is a dematerialized network, yet backed and mined.
How will BitchCoins be released in the future?
Coins will be released to satisfy demand and create enough volume for the market to function. The web site will always list the current number of BitchCoins in circulation and if any are available directly from Sarah Meyohas.
How much does BitchCoin cost?
For the launch, BitchCoin is fixed at an exchange rate of 100 US dollars. Thereafter, the exchange rate will float, influenced by the demand for the coin and the relative value of artwork by Sarah Meyohas. Some of the factors that may influence the price include the volume of the coin, the edition size of the photographs, and of greatest correlation, the success of Sarah Meyohas’ career.
What is the BitchCoin Block Chain?
The BitchCoin blockchain is a public ledger available through the BitchCoin client that records all transactions. Through this mechanism BitchCoin is fully transparent.
The blockchain also records the “genesis message” encrypted in the first one hundred BitchCoins. It reads: “in the pink.”
Who is Sarah Meyohas?
Sarah Meyohas is an artist. She studied finance and international studies at the Wharton School of Business, and is currently finishing her Master of Fine Arts at the Yale School of Art. You can see more of her work here: http://www.sarahmeyohas.com/
