MERGE
Simon Denny’s (*1982) exhibition ‘Merge’ results from the artist’s longstanding engagement with different technologies and politics of extractivism, the mining and monetisation of raw materials. The project explores the supposed logic of economies that make screens glow and computers calculate, cars drive, and trade fairs trade on a worldwide basis. What mechanisms and ways of thinking shape the global on- and offline industries that determine the consumption of natural resources as well as post-colonial power relations? In Denny’s work, the question of how alternative models can be generated through the use of the internet always resonates.
The title of the exhibition, ‘Merge’, alludes to the long-awaited and recently realised merge of the Ethereum network with the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. Prior to the merge, Ethereum used Proof-of-Work, the method made popular by Bitcoin, for validating virtual transactions—one which consumes massive amounts of energy. With PoS, it is no longer the computing power of the miners and extra hardware, but the share of coins they hold on the network, that determines their validating power. Thus, ‘the merge’ will drastically reduce energy consumption—some say by up to 99.95%.
The title of the exhibition, ‘Merge’, alludes to the long-awaited and recently realised merge of the Ethereum network with the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. Prior to the merge, Ethereum used Proof-of-Work, the method made popular by Bitcoin, for validating virtual transactions—one which consumes massive amounts of energy. With PoS, it is no longer the computing power of the miners and extra hardware, but the share of coins they hold on the network, that determines their validating power. Thus, ‘the merge’ will drastically reduce energy consumption—some say by up to 99.95%.
