Artwork Description:

Bittercoin is an old calculator machine hacked to be used as a miner validating the pending bitcoin transactions in the blockchain. Bittercoin combines Internet of Things (IoT), media archaeology and economics. It works as the most basic computer, increasing the time needed to produce bitcoins to almost an eternity. The operations are displayed on the calculator screen and printed afterward.

For the duration of its exhibition period, it seeks to produce money insistently and using an economic system wholly different from the traditional art market. Paper accumulates around the machine making visible the amount of calculation required, as well as, the natural resources expended in the process, often covering the whole room and the calculator itself. Bittercoin talks about the effort and the working time expended that is conditioned by technological devices. Bittercoin is a fully functional miner that connects to blockchain. Although it is very unlikely, in the event of successfully mining a block, the nonce would be sent back to the server, entering the corresponding bitcoins of the reward to our bitcoin Wallet.

Courtesy of the artist