This Artwork is Always on Sale: A Crypto Story - Simon delaRouviere, C. Costinas

Please join us for a meetup around a re-imagination of the commercial art world and its incentives/alignments using crypto/blockchain technology as a backbone, featuring Simon de la Rouviere (ex-Consensys Engineer of Societies, Curation Market pioneer) and Cosmin Costinas (Executive Director Para Site art space), and moderated by Jehan Chu (Managing Partner Kenetic, Board of Directors Para Site) and kindly hosted by Para Site (www.para-site.org.hk)

As many of you know, I have always had a foot in the art and blockchain worlds, and this is one of the most interesting and viable models I have seen to re-align how artists (and really all creators of intellectual property), collectors, and auction houses transact in the digital age. Inspired by the Radical Xchange movement, "This Art is Always on Sale" is a revolutionary experiment by Simon that:

a) requires the buyer of an artwork to specify a price at which they agree to sell it, and
b) obligates the buyer to pay an annual 5% 'patronage' fee to the artist for as long as they hold the artwork

All payments are made in cryptocurrency, and terms are automatically enforced by smart contracts. This system raises important questions around ownership, price discovery, transparency, economic enforcement, artist support and more that I believe will eventually transform the art market as crypto/blockchain is now similarly transforming the financial markets.

This model can also be used by any artist as the format is open source, giving way for artists and creators to create sustainable models of creation.
I'm incredibly excited to have both Simon and Cosmin in conversation to interrogate these ideas from different perspectives, and I hope you'll join us!
-Jehan

More information here:
https://medium.com/@simondlr/this-artwork-is-always-on-sale-92a7d0c67f43

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/epicenter-learn/simon-de-la-rouviere-bonding-aCN1B45Vsyt/

https://www.coindesk.com/understanding-the-radicalxchange-movement-and-its-cypherpunk-appeal

About Simon:
Simon graduate with Master of Arts in Socio-Informatics (cum laude), researching information overload on microblogging services, and is currently pioneering the development of new societies based on blockchain technology.

He has a keen interest in how the web shapes our daily lives. This passion has sparked an interest in programming and researching sociology/psychology around the web. Creator of Tweekly.fm (last.fm social media mashup: 450k updates a month) and creator of TwimeMachine (easy way to read old tweets: used by people such as Paulho Coelho, Cesc Fabregas, ESPN, CNBC, Sega, NBA, Adidas and Buddy Media).

Tweekly.fm and TwimeMachine has been used by more than 1 million people.

About Cosmin:
Romanian-born writer and curator Cosmin Costinas is one of the most influential tastemakers in Hong Kong’s art scene. As executive director and curator of Para Site, a Hong Kong-based non-profit organisation dedicated to contemporary visual-art exhibitions, he not only runs the institution but plays an important role in developing a critical understanding of local and international phenomena in art and society. In addition, Cosmin is a member of Erste Foundation’s Patterns advisory board, a transnational programme that supports contemporary culture, and Asia’s first Outset curator of contemporary art. He also contributes to numerous magazines, books and exhibition catalogues around the world.