Value of Values, 

When transactional aesthetics meet neuro-design on the Blockchain

Speculative Speculation on Values

Value of Values (VoV) is a blockchain-based art project. It aims to find out the real, economic value of human values through a neuro-design process, and NFTs generation. VoV is an extension of the Brain Factory project where exhibition visitors (aka the "Brain Workers")  give – straight from their brain waves – a three-dimensional shape to abstract concepts, and more specifically, to Human Values like FREEDOM, PEACE, MONEY, LOVE, POWER.

In VoV, the resulting shapes are brought into the context of an “ethical realism”, an objective representation of the individual and collective hierarchy of values. The neuro-designed shapes, produced by individual visitors, become named and numbered digital 3D models: FREEDOM 0001, FREEDOM 0002… FREEDOM 000X. Each numbered item is an artwork registered on the Blockchain as a new NFT.

At the end of the process, the Brain Worker - the shaper of the value - becomes the owner of the Blockchain VoV Token and the owner of the 3D model, the “geometric abstraction” of the value. VoVs NFTs can be traded. The owner can sell or barter them, or even freely use the 3D model to produce artifacts, artworks, or goods.

During the process, the visitor of the art show has become an artist giving shape to ideas, a curator validating the model according to the abstract concept, a collector preciously keeping the freshly minted token, an art dealer selling or bartering pieces of one’s collection of values for more “valuable” ones.

The transaction is the only way to know the objective value of a given value.

If the owner of the VOVs PEACE0404 + LOVE0002 decides to barter them for MONEY0088, he or she defines the value of the value.

With up to 420,000 similar transactions, we can monitor in real-time the relative value of human values, for a person, a region, a country, or a continent. If the median price of MONEY (i.e. the median price of all minted MONEY tokens) is 3 ETH or 1200 USD and the median price of LOVE is 240 USD, we get a clear idea of the relative value of these values. The observation of the trading process produces real-time monitoring of human values in their transactional milieu.

VoV is at the same time a real currency, a critical metaphor of the art production narrative, and a dynamic reflection on its founding ontology.

Value of Values (VoV) explores the nexus of human creation, the value systems of artistic production, and our insatiable desire for reified (commodified) representations of human thought.

The result is a Global Art Project based on what the author calls Critical Fusion, the speculative and convertible merging of Fiction and Reality.

Value of Values is an art project by Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen), in collaboration with Tobias Klein and Nicolas Mendoza Leal, produced with the support of City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media, ACIM Fellowship and MindSpaces, a S+T+Arts LightHouse EU project, and MindSpaces HK.

Transactional Poetry 

In a world where human transactions mostly reflect on human values, we may find very peculiar layers of truth that make sense in an unexpected way.

Transactional Poetry is automatically generated out of actual transactions happening in Value of Values.

When people give LOVE for MONEY, TIME for POWER, INTEGRITY for SUCCESS. They make a statement!

Let’s share the unheard music of human transactions when they address the real things, those that are not just things.

Every bartering happening on Value of Values is automatically converted and interpreted into statements displayed on the vov.art home page.

The data generating the Transactional Poetry come from effective transactions, therefore, they will reflect on the reality of individual beliefs, collectors' motivations, and ethical principles.