CryptoZR (Jiaying Liu), <Red & Blie> (2019-2020)

Single-channel video / Color / Sound, 18 sec

싱글 채널 비디오, 18초

Red & Blue extends into an NFT-based project, where two primary colors—red and blue—are positioned at opposite ends and connected through one hundred algorithmically generated gradient color blocks. Each block is issued and auctioned individually as an NFT on OpenSea, with no predefined explanation provided to collectors. As participants select and bid on specific colors, their preferences and actions become integral to the formation of the work’s meaning, transforming the act of collecting into a constitutive element of the piece.

Over the course of a year-long auction, the eventual acquisition of both the red and blue endpoints by a single collector revealed the participatory logic underpinning the work. Only after the auction concluded was the conceptual framework disclosed: the two colors were derived from the national flags of China and the United States, while the gradient spectrum represented varying degrees of alignment with differing values. Emerging from the context of heightened tensions during the China–United States trade war, the work situates geopolitical polarization within a distributed system of individual choices, where meaning is not fixed but gradually produced through collective engagement.

빨강과 파랑이라는 두 색 사이의 그라데이션을 알고리즘으로 생성하고, 각각을 NFT로 발행하여 경매에 부치는 참여형 작업이다. 관객이자 수집가는 색을 선택하고 입찰하는 과정을 통해 작품의 의미 형성에 직접 개입한다. 가장 극단적인 색이 가장 많은 선택을 받는 과정은 가치의 양극화를 드러낸다. 이후 두 색이 각각 중국과 미국 국기에서 추출되었음이 밝혀지며, 색의 스펙트럼은 정치적 입장과 가치의 수용 정도를 상징하게 된다. 결과적으로 이 작업은 시장 행위 자체를 작품의 일부로 전환한다.