Joe Pease, Zero Dollar Man, 2025 - Courtesy of the artist and Nguyen Wahed at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025.
TITLE_NAME :
zero dollar man
03/12/2025 - 07/12/2025
Nguyen Wahed
Miami Beach Convention Center 1901 Convention Cent
Miami Beach, FL 33139
https://nguyenwahed.com/
The new work Zero Dollar Man, commissioned for the solo presentation by Nguyen Wahed at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, extends this investigation through blockchain's probabilistic architecture. A custom smart contract enables public interaction, where viewers can attempt to trigger an alternate video version, yet with its agency remaining illusory. Employing Chainlink's decentralised oracle, the switching mechanism operates on pure randomness, indifferent to human intention. The work's protagonist, like the public, discovers that desire for transformation doesn't guarantee manifestation, where chance governs outcome. This technological fatalism mirrors the video's internal logic: a man who wants to change his destiny confronts systems, structural, algorithmic, existential, that remain fundamentally unmoved by individual will, where pressing one's luck to process might change nothing at all at the first attempt.
03/12/2025 - 07/12/2025
Nguyen Wahed
Miami Beach Convention Center 1901 Convention Cent
Miami Beach, FL 33139
https://nguyenwahed.com/
The new work Zero Dollar Man, commissioned for the solo presentation by Nguyen Wahed at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, extends this investigation through blockchain's probabilistic architecture. A custom smart contract enables public interaction, where viewers can attempt to trigger an alternate video version, yet with its agency remaining illusory. Employing Chainlink's decentralised oracle, the switching mechanism operates on pure randomness, indifferent to human intention. The work's protagonist, like the public, discovers that desire for transformation doesn't guarantee manifestation, where chance governs outcome. This technological fatalism mirrors the video's internal logic: a man who wants to change his destiny confronts systems, structural, algorithmic, existential, that remain fundamentally unmoved by individual will, where pressing one's luck to process might change nothing at all at the first attempt.