HOW ARE WE:
A SMART CONTRACT

HOW ARE WE is a collectively-created performance consisting of fifteen 90-second solos made in quarantined isolation during the first wave of COVID-19 in May of 2020. In the week prior to LA's first scheduled reopening date, artists made work that responded to ten prompts proposed by Emily Mast and Yehuda Duenyas. HOW ARE WE is an artifact that at once captures a now seemingly distant moment in time and also engages with a wider set of questions cracked open by the conditions of the pandemic. The final work was uploaded onto the blockchain as an immutable digital “artifact.” Artists, writers, programmers, and a lawyer co-own the work through a “smart contract” ensuring transparent and equal distribution of wealth, thus upending traditional notions of the art market and exchange. HOW ARE WE asks how artistic imagination can come together with technological innovation to reimagine the world at a time when value, equality, and humanity are demanding radical reconsideration.

A smart contract is an immutable piece of code that lives on the Ethereum blockchain. It has its own address (like regular users do) but its interactivity is limited to the set of functions which are included in the code. This creates a foundation of trust upon which people can transact and collaborate in new and more efficient ways.

On the Ethereum network there are two major types of tokens: ERC20 tokens (which are fungible, often used like money) and ERC721 tokens (which are non-fungible, and are often used as collectibles). HOW ARE WE uses both of these tokens — one single ERC721 token represents the singular immutable unique art work, and 100,000 ERC20 tokens, called HOW tokens, represent ownership of the artwork. The HOW tokens are shared amongst all of the creators of the work: artists, administrators, blockchain developers, designers, and legal counsel.

The smart contract dictates a trustless, transparent dispersal of ownership shares. When any donations, royalties, or other payments for the work come in, the smart contract accepts the proceeds and distributes them to the token holders based on the proportion of the tokens they own. This means that these tokens can be freely transacted with, and makes the payouts trustless and fairly executed by the administrators of the project. HOW ARE WE combines a legacy legal contract drafted by the curators with an IP lawyer, and a smart contract written by blockchain developers to create a new system of governance over a collectively shared artwork.

Featuring works by
Barnett Cohen / Constance Hockaday & Faye Driscoll / Darrian O’Reilly / David Adrian Freeland, Jr. / Dorothy Dubrule / Emily Mast & Yehuda Duenyas / Hana van der Kolk / Heyward Bracey / Jay Carlon / Jennie MaryTai Liu / Jessica Emmanuel / Mireya Lucio / Shannon Hafez / Stacy Dawson Stearns / Terrence Luke Johnson

Blockchain Lead Developers
Mark Beylin / Rob Solomon

Blockchain Developers
Dean Eigenmann / Sylvain Laurent

Design Team
Janine Sun Rogers / Rudy Falagán / Saskia Clerckx

Legal Counsel
Cami Boyd

Writers
Andy Horwitz / Emily Gonzalez-Jarrett / Marie de Brugerolle / Mark Beylin & Rob Solomon