Helen Knowles

Trickle Down

Trickle Down - A New Vertical Sovereignty

23 Jan - 26th Feb 2020 @ arebyte Gallery, London

Trickle Down, A New Vertical Sovereignty is a tokenised four-screen video installation and generative soundscape attached to the blockchain, which explores value systems and wealth disparity. The artwork is composed of auction scenes, performances and choral interludes by different communities such as prisoners, blockchain technology employees, market sellers, and Sotheby’s auction bidders. Trickle Down, A New Vertical Sovereignty draws on technological and financial power structures which traditionally scaffold the disparity between a wealthy elite and everyday working people but looks to re-imagine our vertically stacked digital ecosystem to horizontally distribute wealth.

The installation commences when a visitor drops a pound coin into a machine designed to expose the mechanisms needed to convert fiat currency into crypto-currency. Each and every member of the Trickle Down community, who has helped the work come to fruition,  will receive a share of the ETH via a smart contract on the blockchain. What are the technological and financial power structures governing value and the distribution of wealth in our society? And who really stands to benefit?

Helen Knowles documented a series of auctions in widely different settings, which reflect the breadth of wealth and financial power individuals in different communities have. These include prisoners at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool, Ethereal Summit attendees, employees at blockchain company ConsenSys in NY, Mancunians at Openshaw market in North Manchester and the Russian community in central London buying their cultural artefacts at Sotheby’s auction house. Knowles captured images of people from these communities bidding, through documenting their attire rather than identities, and with musicians, Arone Dyer and Denis Jones made audio recordings of them singing. Ultimately, revealing the texture of the communities which represent such disparate economic groups.

A series of public workshops around the project, alternative economies and the blockchain have been taking place at the Whitworth as part of Economics the Blockbuster, an action research project and exhibition for late 2021/early 2022, in partnership with Alliance Manchester Business School.

A two-part edition of the Trickle Down work is available to purchase on the blockchain via Known Origin’s website

Trickle Down, A New Vertical Sovereignty is an artwork by Helen Knowles, supported using public funding from Arts Council England. The artwork is produced by FutureEverything with additional support from Whitworth Gallery, arebyte Gallery and FACT.

With thanks to Daniel Dressel, BlockRocketTech, Denis Jones, Arone Dyers, Pablo Galaz, Lewis Sykes, Howard Kennedy LLP, Ethereal Summit, Metamark, Dave Beech, Damien Mahoney, Known Origin and The University of Salford.

Read about the Ethereal Summit here.

Press :  Future Everything Blog
Who Pays the Muse by Ruth Catlow

We Make Money not Art

View PDF of the publication printed to accompany the exhibition.