Dev Harlan

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- What does your genesis artwork mean to you today?

I started on Tezos with the 'Basalt Mac' collection, a frivolous experiment in which I made 3D scans of rocks and mashed them up with a Macintosh Plus model to suggest a fossilized computer. To my surprise there was a warm and enthusiastic response from the Tezos community. I think these renderings also succinctly encapsulate a theme that has been recurring in my work recently which is to think through the long term consequences of techno-trash and consumer waste as it becomes embedded in the lithosphere over geological deep time.

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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?

The collapse of the crypto bubble in late 2021 and onset of the crypto winter were actually catalytic for me getting involved in blockchain art. As a digital and video artist of many years I was turned off by the hyper-capitalist spectacle that had typified the NFTs and was, to quote Hito Steryl, "the equivalent of toxic masculinity as a medium, because they take up way too much attention and use up all the oxygen in the room." After the noise died down I could start to hear real conversations around what this new digital art could be and how it could be more sustainable – for ecology, finance and mental health.

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

The work I am including in this collection speaks to themes found throughout my practice, including landscape, anthropogenic change and technological consumption. I often use technology to question itself and the narrative that human societies and technology are somehow separate from the natural world. Rather I ask, how are they entangled and embedded within each other?

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