Cipher

“Cipher is arguably Seidler’s most radical response to an ostensibly monopolistic but recently collapsing secondary digital art market on the one hand, and algorithmically curated feeds on the other. ART GOING DARK. Cipher introduces a new type of token, created by the artist, that contains secret metadata stored on the blockchain that is verifiably encrypted using zero-knowledge proofs. The work can be understood as a protocol that is at once an extension and redefinition of the NFT standard. While a standard NFT (ERC-721) can be viewed at any time and is therefore necessarily public, Cipher is private by default – encrypted and only viewable by the owner. Each transfer of the token involves decryption and re-encryption of the metadata, which contains the seed and components of the program code that generates the visual output. The current state of the artwork remains unknowable to outsiders – yet publicly verifiable through zero-knowledge proofs – while remaining accessible to the owner. After a transfer, the respective owner has the option of modifying one of the parameters of the generative visual output, contributing to an ongoing visual lineage and development for each individual work. When, after Broodthaers, artistic theory itself becomes the advertisement of the artist, and when the communication around this is read – in an abridged interpretation – as the real artistic ‘surplus value,’ then this artwork points toward a generative logic of “refusal to work”. Cipher insists on the primacy of the viewer and the viewing collective. The artwork demands and enforces a specific context of interaction, reproduction, and engagement, collectively developed and hidden from the frictionless logic of the open feed.”