dissertation_06

"…now and then, by a lucky accident, men arise whose senses or whose consciousness are less adherent to life. Nature has forgotten to attach their faculty or perceiving to their faculty of acting. When they look at a thing, they see it for itself and not for themselves. They do not perceive simply with a view to action; they perceive in order to perceive - for nothing, for the pleasure of doing so." - Henri Bergson

Here we arrive at the final dissertation - the end of this long essay about nothing in particular. 2022 is over, and the people still making art in the space are living in what crypto memes "goblin town." That’s not to say the market is non-existent, or that everything has changed on a fundamental level: it just means that the mad euphoria of the boom has clearly passed and we are in another phase.

There stumbles through most people’s lives, probably, only a few artists that match the above description. Special kinds of people, people who simply take in the world around them as it is, and not for how it is useful to them or their survival. Maybe it’s bending the analogy too far (what else are analogies for?) to suggest that some of the enduring luminaries of crypto art will be people who care a bit less about just how useful it is to them. Like someone who can see a tree and appreciate the buds in the spring and lush growth in the summer and then still find pleasure in the wiry bones of winter - who has no regard for fruits or shade or shelter, but simply sees the tree - perhaps those will be the kinds of artists that don’t fade or drift or disappear.

Maybe that’s ridiculous, though. It could be that the professional enjoyer is just a fool, and no provisions for winter means it is savage and empty and the will to carry on is simply sapped by lack of sustenance. What are even the most beautiful orchards for, after all, if not the fruit?