⟵   Mine Your own Business

Mine Your Own Business living sculptures series. Microcomputers, live data—cryptocurrency values and miners, varied data—fruits, various objects, wires, dimensions variable.

The living sculptures are part of the ongoing series, Mine Your Own Business that explore networked society as part of a continuum of capitalist-colonial entanglements. Instead of using found objects, as earlier versions, they're made of fresh tropical fruit, and are decaying in real time along live data fluctuations that cross-examine global fintech dreams of deregulated empowerment and sovereignty—and what that means for the so-called global south. The whole of the series departs from the still lifes of Puerto Rican painter Francisco Oller, that has been described as a "visual bridge between the Old World and the New World''. The series comprises a contemplation that explores the far flung corners of crypto havens, ‘disruptive’ technologies, and the realities of countries striving to synchronize their ‘unstable’ economies to the rhythms of global accumulation circuits.

(Untitled) Tropical ?aradise, 2022, from the Mine Your Own Business living sculptures series. Coconuts, live cryptocurrency displays. Ideal overall dimensions: ~106 x 106 x 90 cm. Installation view, 'Give a Way' exhibition at Proxyco, New York.

(Untitled) Tropical ?aradise, is a 2022 artwork by artist Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, that consists of coconuts and microcomputers displaying real time data on cryptocurrency and decentralized technologies. The coconut got its name from the old Portuguese and Spanish word coco, meaning head or skull. Indigenous to Indo-Pacific Asia, the seed became dispersed and flourished around the tropical globe through voyages of trade, colonization and exploitation. Its endless usefulness made it a very desirable commodity both to those who live where it grows and to colonizers of all kinds; a symbol of everything idealized —better yet distorted— about the islands to Europeans.

(Untitled) Piñas, coladas., 2022, from the Mine Your Own Business living sculptures series. Pineapples, live cryptocurrency displays. Site specific install at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin. 72 x 24 x 18 in.

(Untitled) Piñas, coladas. is a 2022 artwork by artist Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, that consists of pineapples and microcomputers displaying real time data on cryptocurrency and decentralized technologies. Pineapples are indigenous to what is now known as the American tropics, and during the 16th century Western European colonization, the fruit was heavily desired and exoticised, turning into a prevalent symbol of power and wealth—and an early example of a global commodity. This was weighted by the connections to plantation slavery; the displacement and exploitation of local resources and millions of enslaved African and indigenous lives and indentured labour. The twist of the piece's title tries to distance itself a bit from the colonial drink as this tropical cliché—for the wealthy foreigner or the other's pleasure—and allude more to the colloquial use of the verb 'colado' (American Spanish), meaning to 'crash' a party uninvited, or to 'get in' but in a fugitive manner, inviting the viewer to question today's crashings on unwelcomed grounds and what are the material, historical, and societal realities behind.

Untitled (What a Crypton), 2022, from the Mine Your Own Business living sculptures series. Plantains, live cryptocurrency displays. Installation view with video projection, Kinzonzi exhibition at Acud Macht Neu, Berlin. 120 x 91 x 180 cm. Image: Chris Mukenge

Untitled (What a Crypton) consists of a plantain branch and microcomputers displaying real time data on cryptocurrency and decentralized technologies. The use of plantain speaks of displacement and exploitation, as well as connection and persistence; they reached the Americas and the Caribbean along the movement of enslaved African lives during the 16th century colonization, but unlike bananas, which became a global trade commodity, plantains flourished in ‘provision grounds’ as a very resourceful subsistence source for enslaved Africans and indentured labourers.

Untitled (What a Crypton), 2022, from the Mine Your Own Business living sculptures series. Plantains, live cryptocurrency displays. Excerpt of livestream installation at www.nmenos1.xyz

(Untitled) Still Alive..., 2023, from the series Mine Your Own Business. Coconuts, pineapple, manzano bananas, sugar cane, found objects, live data displays, wires, dimensions variable. Site specific install, 'notes on power' solo show at Embajada, San Juan. Images: Raquel Pérez Puig