Commissioned by the Biennale Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence , Liu Chuang presented an in-depth research across several disciplines with a triptych video-installation Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities. Many seemingly unrelated matters could find its link to bitcoins, which is a controversial topic in its own. Bitcoin and blockchain technology provide the basis for anonymous, decentralized economic activities, but the production and circulation of virtual currencies has yet to successfully escape a world based on materialism and social politics. By investigating the operational status of Bitcoin miners, Liu unearthed some baffling connections between periods in history, which are distance apart. The installation work displays empirical research that Liu has conducted in the past two years involving sociology and anthropology. At the same time, he employs a sensuous artistic language to build links to with literature, films and music.

Art critic Wang Huan believes that Liu Chuang’s triptych video-installation Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities is highly compatible with the theme of this Biennale. It’s a response – under the umbrella concepts of “re-envision” and “technology” – to rural village, ecology, archaeology, and the future. Liu utilizes a great deal of field research and historical data, along with a persuasive presentation, to illustrate the deep connection between the two, as well to discuss the inherent logic at a technical level. In Liu Chuang’s view, the marginal distribution of the Bitcoin mining machine is similar in structure to an anthropologist’s fieldwork survey. This similarity draws its origins from the act of conversion; Bitcoin takes energy and converts it into a cryptocurrency. On the other hand, an anthropologist converts cultures, languages, and sounds into a museum archive, drawing the comparison between digital technology and cultural technology.

(Text Provided by the Artist)