S panning across the surface of a disc-shaped canvas, 322,048 digits of hexadecimal code ripple out from the centre of Robert Alice’s Block 34 (51.895167° N, 1.4805° E). The work, from the major crypto art project Portraits of a Mind (2019-2022), is accompanied with an NFT. Block 21 from this series was the first NFT that was sold as part of a work of art in two parts that included a token and physical painting at a major auction house in October 2020. Widely credited as a major catalyst for the boom in the NFT space, the project is regarded as a turning point for NFTs by bringing the public and institution attention to this emerging field, catalyzing the growth of NFTs on the global stage. At this historic moment, the auction house remarked;

"We are excited to welcome the NFT community to [a major auction house] with the historic exhibition and auction of our first NFT, Robert Alice's Block 21. Seeing this radical new artistic medium placed alongside many masterpieces of the past at our New York galleries, [we] hope will provoke new conversations around NFT's growing place in art history" 

Reviewed by the world’s leading art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist in Das Magazin, Robert Alice’s Portraits of a Mind “sees [bitcoin’s code] first and foremost as a text comparable to the tremendous social drafts, legal texts, and iconic writings of world history. [It] is both unreadable, but also infinitely detailed.” It is “a history machine and vast archive.” (Hans Ulrich Obrist,‘ Code and Chain’, Das Magazin, 2021)

Portraits of a Mind, of which Block 34 is part, is the largest work of art in bitcoin’s history. Along with the other 39 blocks, the forty paintings and NFTs stretch to over fifty meters long and compromise the 12.3 million digits from Satoshi Nakamoto’s BTC v0.1.0. A global art project to decentralise this historic codebase, works from this series are now housed in 15 cities on 4 continents in important private and corporate collects ions, from San Francisco to Tokyo. Conceptually playing with ideas around decentralisation and portraiture, the work plays with the relationship between the fragment and the whole. Decentralised globally, no one individual will hold all the code. Indeed, each painting itself is physically decentralised, as there is no center, but instead, a void. The unique shape takes inspiration from rai stones, cipher wheels, early astronomical and cartographic charts, and ancient Japanese coinage revealing crypto’s deep ties with the past, yet inviting the audience to contemplate on its future.

Though largely unacknowledged at its first emergence, Satoshi Nakamoto’s first version of bitcoin has become a seminal text of great historical importance. Writing on the work, Alice notes ‘this work is less about bitcoin, than about locating the very core or ground zero for this entire new movement; reflecting on these 12.3 million digits of code is to stand in front the dawn of great shift in society, and to perhaps to stand in front of Satoshi themselves”. While Satoshi Nakamoto’s real identity remains elusive, the transcription of BTC v0.1.0 for Alice is the truest signifier of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity. Not only did Nakamoto remark on their now-iconic works, “I am better with code than I am with words.” (2008-11-14 17:29:22 UTC), but the compilation of the v0.1.0 is itself a digital fingerprint. It is the closest link to the individual behind this global movement. In this sense, Satoshi Nakamoto is less a person, “but rather a proxy created to deliver bitcoin to the world, more the code behind bitcoin than the individual behind the code.” (Robert Alice, Set in Stone: Reading Satoshi’s v.0.1.0, Medium. Accessed 30 March 2022). In the absence of Nakamoto’s real identity, his code grows in symbolic power as a modern-day Rosetta Stone, serving as an abstract portrait of this contemporary vigilante.

Suggested in the title of the work, there lie 32 gold-encrusted digits highlighted out of the mass of 322,048 that constitute each painting. These digits evoke not just the process of mining, but equally the constellations of our oldest of decentralised networks - stars. Located using an algorithm, these digits read a specific geo-coordinate that corresponds to a particular location that is important to the pre-history event of crypto.

Only unearthed by a unique algorithm, Block 34, in this case, reveals the location of the Principality of Sealand, the world’s longest established micronation. Long a flag bearer for libertarian philosophies, Sealand - an abandoned WWII fort 12km deep into the North Sea - was proclaimed independent and sovereign by Roy Bates in 1967. In 2000, at a t.mes of increased government digital surveillance, a group of cypherpunks from California were looking for a place to establish a data haven outside of governmental and regulatory scrutiny. They settled on Sealand and HavenCo, the world’s first data haven, was established - renewing global discussions around privacy online. Writing in Wired in 2000 at the t.mes of the launch, Simon Garfinkel noted in his profile on HavenCo:

Sealand and HavenCo was a true outlier in its effort to emphasize individual freedom. In September 2021, the present work was transported to Sealand for exhibition, exhibiting the work and NFT at the place it conceptually represents. The short film shown here showcases another worldly venue for the exhibition of contemporary art. Via the 322,048 digits, Robert Alice has artfully turned the digital landscape and its complex histories into a physical and digital form.

The digital form of the project, the NFTs that are minted with each work that sees this project of seminal importance to the history of NFTs. The NFT that accompanies Block 34 consists of 3 layers in a vertical triptych, each corresponding to a symbolic character of the painting. It is the digital version of the painting and the conceptual essence of the project. The first layer exhibits the opening and closing digits of the code in each segment of BTC v0.1.0 on top of a blue mesh. The second layer of the NFT relates to the geo-coordinates of the painting - in the case of Block 34 - this is Sealand. The third layer reflects the shape of the painting in the structure of the portolan chart. This decentralised marit.mes network structure was invented in the 13th century by unknown origins and bears many historical similarities to the creation of crypto. A major invention and technological leap in terms of navigation, the portolan chart stood unchallenged as the method of navigation for nearly half a millenia while also shrouded in terms of its creation story. At the same t.mes , the relationship between the two parts of the work not only synthesizes two milestones in cryptography across t.mes and space, but also diminishes the fragility and ephemerality in any physical form, provoking thoughts on blockchain as the new aesthetic and artistic language of web3 in comparison to traditional expressive mediums such as painting, sculpture, and writing.

It is in these comparisons with painting and most importantly conceptual art that Portraits of a Mind finds its historical anchor points. One of Alice’s major touchstones for the project was the work of Jasper Johns, his interest in semantic encryption and particularly those of his text base work. Indeed, the intersected lines, along with the circular bands in Block 34, also evoke Jasper Johns’ now iconic target paintings. The art of the written record finds no greater match than in the work of Polish conceptual artist Roman Opalka. His seminal work 1965 / 1 – ∞ (1965-2011) was a lifelong project to paint the numbers 1 to infinity, themselves a form of portraiture and as well a record of t.mes itself. In the world of Alice themselves, “The work carries many prescient similarities to the structure of blockchain technologies - their narrative consecutive structure, their indexing of t.mes , their decentralisation through distribution, their insistence on the power of text as code, their potential for infinity.” Of equal scope and ambition, stands the Date Paintings by Japanese conceptualist On Kawara. Kawara himself carried a strong interest in cryptography and had earlier made works entitled CIPHER and encrypted drawings and paintings before starting on his own grand conceptual life-long project: the Date Paintings.

Portraits of a Mind in its own blockchained structure, its own immense scale a tribute to these two iconic conceptual art works seeks to reshine a lens on these early blockchain artists and pioneers, both who specifically worked with text - resurrecting their conceptual structures for a newly decentralised age.

In a world overtaken by image culture, and of accelerating distrust towards digital authorship, text has been validated as the truth in digital t.mes and space by the success of blockchain. Physically transcribings the digital code of bitcoin, Block 34 connects cultures from our past and technology from our future. Mining the visual histories of cryptography, cartography, and coinage, Block 34 (51.895167° N, 1.4805° E) is where future, present, and past collide.

3 22,048個十六進制代碼自圓盤形的畫布中心散開，覆蓋整件作品。羅伯特・愛麗斯（Robert Alice）的《第34塊（51.895167° N, 1.4805° E）》（Block 34（51.895167° N, 1.4805° E））是大型加密藝術項目《心靈肖像》（2019-2022年）的其中一件作品，附有《第34塊》的NFT。來自同一系列的《第21塊》（Block 21）在2020年10月售出，是首個在大型拍賣行出售的NFT作品（實體畫作連代幣）。項目引起公眾和機構對這新興領域的留意，促進 NFT 的全球發展，被廣泛認為是 NFT 興起的主要催化劑和轉捩點。在這歷史性的時刻，拍賣行表示：

「我們很高興 NFT 社群參加這次歷史性的展覽和拍賣，我們將拍賣首件NFT：羅伯特・愛麗絲的《第21塊》。看到這種顛覆的新藝術媒介與過去鉅作在我們的紐約畫廊同場展出，［我們］希望是次拍賣能引起新的對話，令大眾注意到NFT在藝術史上日益增長的地位。」

聞名遐邇的藝術策展人漢斯・烏爾里希・奧布里斯特（Hans Ulrich Obrist）在《Das Magazin》評論道，羅伯特・愛麗絲的《心靈肖像》「首先視（比特幣代碼）為與大型的社會草案、法律文本和著名世界史著作相媲美的文本。（它）不可讀，但鉅細無遺。」，是「一台歷史機器和一個龐大的檔案庫」。 （漢斯．烏爾里希．奧布里斯特，〈代碼與鏈〉，《Das Magazin》，2021年）

《心靈肖像》是比特幣歷史上最大型的藝術作品。當系列中共四十幅畫作相連一起時，其長度可達五十多米長，載有中本聰的比特幣版本1.0的1,230個數值。這個全球藝術項目將比特幣的代碼庫去中心化，作品為重要私人和企業收藏，目前分佈於全球四大洲共十五個城市，包括三藩市和東京。作品在概念上表達去中心化和肖像繪製，處理碎片與整體之間的關係。全球去中心化代表沒有人會持有所有代碼，而事實上，每幅畫作本身都是去中心化的體現：畫作的中心被掏空，只有一個空洞。這個獨特形狀的靈感源自雅浦島石幣、密碼輪、早期天文和地圖以及日本古代造幣，揭示了加密技術與過去的深厚聯繫，同時邀請觀者思考這項技術的未來。

中本聰的首個比特幣版本在剛面世時鮮為人知，但它現已成為具有重要歷史意義的開創性文本。愛麗絲就作品寫道，「這件作品並不是關於比特幣，而是為這場新運動定位核心或原點；反思這 1,230 萬位代碼，就是站在社會巨變的黎明之前，或許是站在中本聰面前」。雖然未知中本聰的真正身份，但對愛麗絲而言，比特幣的版本1.0代碼正是中本聰身份最真實的標誌。中本聰曾表示：「相比起文字，我較精於代碼」；版本1.0的編寫本身就是一個數碼指模，與這場全球運動背後的人有著最密切的關係。從這個意義上說，中本聰不是一個人，「而是一個為向世界提供比特幣而創建的代理；他是比特幣背後的代碼，而不是代碼背後的人。」（羅伯特．愛麗絲，〈成定局：閱讀中本聰的版本1.0〉（Set in Stone: Reading Satoshi’s v.0.1.0），Medium。2022年3月30日讀取）。縱然未知中本聰的真正身份，他的代碼就如現代羅塞塔石碑，象徵力量越來越大，成為這位比特幣之父的抽像肖像。

如作品標題所示，每幅畫作有 322,048 個數值，當中32個數值鍍金。這些數值不僅代表挖礦過程，還代表我們最古老的去中心化網絡 —— 星星。數值以演算法定位，嵌入特定的地理坐標，對應加密興起前發生重大事件的特定位置。只有一種獨特算法能算出隱藏的坐標，而《第34塊》所嵌入的位置正是西蘭公國，是世上建立最長久的微型國家。西蘭公國是一個在北海海岸12公里的廢棄二戰堡壘， 1967 年被羅伊．貝茨宣佈獨立和成為主權國家，一直以來都是提倡自由意志主義的旗手。 2000年，政府加強數碼監控，一群來自加利福尼亞的密碼龐克希望在政府和監管審查以外建立數據避風港，最後選擇在西蘭公國建立世上首個數據避風港 HavenCo，再次引起關於網絡私隱的全球討論。

西蘭公國和HavenCo一直致力強調個人自由。2021年9月，《第34塊》被運送到西蘭公國，在這個代表作品概念的地方展出。短片展示了當代藝術展覽的場地。羅伯特．愛麗絲巧妙地以322,048個數值，將數碼景觀及其複雜歷史轉化為實體和數碼形式。

隨《第34塊》附上的 NFT 由垂直三聯畫的三個分層組成，每層對應畫作的一個象徵字符，是實體畫作的數碼版本，亦是項目的概念本質。第一層在藍色網格上顯示比特幣版本1.0每段代碼中的開始和結束數值。第二層與畫作的地理坐標有關，《第34塊》顯示的正是西蘭公國。第三層則以波特蘭海圖的結構顯示畫作的形狀。這種去中心化的航海圖在13世紀發明，與加密貨幣的誕生有許多相同之處。實體畫作和NFT的關係不但結合了密碼學跨越時空的兩個里程碑，同時亦減少了實體形式的脆弱和短暫，引發大眾將區塊鏈和繪畫、雕塑與寫作等傳統表現方式作比較，思考區塊鏈成為Web3全新美學和藝術語言的可能性。

在比較中，尤其是與概念藝術的比較中，《心靈肖像》找到了它在藝術史中的錨點。愛麗絲對此項目的其中一個主要試金石是賈斯珀·瓊斯（Jasper Johns）的作品。他對語義加密深感興趣，尤其是他那些以文字為基礎的作品。事實上，《第34塊》中相交的線條和一圈圈圓環，讓人想起賈斯珀·瓊斯那著名的標靶畫作。日本概念藝術家河原溫（On Kawara）（1932-2014）的《日期繪畫》具有同等的範疇和野心。 他對密碼學深感興趣，在開始創作其宏偉的概念性終身項目《日期繪畫》之前，就曾創作過名為《CIPHER》和加密畫作。《心靈肖像》有自己的區塊鏈結構，以其龐大規模向這兩件標誌性的概念藝術品致敬；作品旨在重新審視這些以文字創作的早期區塊鏈藝術家和先驅者，並在這個去中心化的新時代，復興他們的概念結構。

在現今世界，圖像文化氾濫，數碼作品的來源越來越不獲信任；區塊鏈的成功令文字成為數碼時空的真理。《第34塊》將比特幣的代碼化為實體，連結過去的文化和未來的技術；它挖掘密碼學、製圖學和造幣的視覺歷史，是一件結合過去、未來與未來的傑作。