Design Dialogues No. 51 with Fingerprints DAO – SURFACE

During Miami Art Week 2021, Surface hosted the 51st installment of the Design Dialogues series in partnership with Fingerprints DAO. The conversation, which took place at the Surface Showroom and Showroom in the Miami Design District, featured the founder of Fingerprints DAO Luis Ramalho, Artist Harm van den Dorbl, artist and creator of Bitchcoin Sarah Meuhas.

To start the discussion, Ramalho provided an overview of Fingerprint DAO– An organization focused on coordinating, collecting and promoting smart contracts as art – built and managed by individual stakeholders ranging from curators, entrepreneurs, artists, lawyers, financial professionals, and more. Fingerprints DAO operates as a form of venture capital without a typical management structure or board of directors; Instead, the funds collected by the DAO are collectively outsourced, and decision-making authority is automated by the group. The token is exchanged for the money invested, which leads to voting rights for the decisions of the DAO. As Ramalho explains, “It is an organization where people own their stakes through tokens, and own a small portion of the DAO with their tokens. One way to describe it is that it is like an online community with a bank account.”

The overarching theme among the participants was the sense of community, direction and overall amplification offered by Fingerprints DAO. Miohs, the creator of Bitchcoin, considered by many to be one of the oldest token art forms, spoke about the influence of the DAO Fingerprints, saying that joining the group is what puts it on the map in the eyes of serious collectors. Meyohas also shared the challenges and opportunities she sees as an artist and innovator in the crypto community compared to the traditional art world. “You can be anyone in crypto…what I look like isn’t necessarily who I am,” says Meewas, “Crypting frees you from that, but there are real risks to that as well, because the audience now is basically male…and that’s reflected In the taste of what is collected.”

Meanwhile, Mutant Garden Seeder creator Van den Dorbel shares his views on the metaverse, saying he is currently creating for flat surfaces but will rethink his approach if the world continues to move toward 3D artwork. “I love flat surfaces; as an artist, I want to respond to user interfaces,” he says, “if we’re all working in some kind of 3D world at some point and have new databases for interacting with things, I might have some kind of artistic desire to respond.” on it.” Talking about how the digital art world has affected art viewing spaces, Van den Dorpel says “It is often said that traditional gatekeepers are gone…but I think galleries, museums, and art institutions will always be important. They filter the huge amount of stuff that is being produced. “.

In addition to Van den Dorbel and Meuhas, Fingerprints DAO has the world’s third largest Autoglyph collection (starting with 20 Autoglyphs – with rarities from #1 to #7), and digital works by DEAFBEEF, Mitchell F. Chan (IKB Cachet de Garantie), Oxmons and Loucas Brannier (SALT), and Arihz (Avid Lines, incubated DAO Fingerprints project). Also recently launched RAW DAO, a new project focused solely on photography.

Surface is proud to partner with Fingerprint DAO In this design dialogue board, we are excited to continue our work in digital art and NFT.