Visualising Decentralisation

Control over authorship and distribution is essential for art to endure beyond its creator. My search for a system that could support these principles led me to blockchain technology. After years of research, I recognised Kaspa as the most suitable platform for my work.

Kaspa is a Proof-of-Work network designed for speed, security, scalability, and decentralisation. Its architecture provides the necessary framework for creating a body of work that can remain relevant.

Inspired by its technology and transparency, I couldn’t resist the urge to visualise the network. Visualising Kaspa presented a unique set of challenges. It is a decentralised system without physical form: faceless, placeless, and untied to any culture, geography, or history.

Concept and Process

Kaspa’s intent is to function and serve as a digital currency. To that end, historical parallels with silver have become a conceptual anchor, chosen for its durability, divisibility, and scalability. The visual language draws from the Aramaic period, when silver’s durability was understood as a measure of usability.

My process begins with referencing the available Kaspa guidelines. From the documentation I was able to create digital assets by extruding vectors into usable 3D forms. The coin’s slender profile (thickness) was intentionally modelled to imply portability, creating a connection between the Aramaic and contemporary periods.

Material Creation

Materials presented a further challenge, requiring the design of a substance that does not exist and is not tied to culture, politics, or environment. Such materials were crafted manually, informed by historical processes and the constraints of digital modelling.

Silver, a utilitarian material long associated with exchange, storage, and permanence, is inferred as a point of origin. Combined with the official Kaspa HEX codes and a range of surface finishes such as smooth, worn, polished, and patinated, these materials imply usage and endurance. The combination of such traits informs a unique visual aesthetic.

Scene materials presented a similar challenge, requiring the design of a material that does not exist and that is wholly neutral. Water, with its dielectric and conductive properties, symbolises freedom, movement, and connectivity. These are essential qualities in expressing decentralisation.

Similarly, the chromatic visual effects seen in various textures and materials are in direct reference to the network’s chromatic emission schedule. Inspired by the mathematical and engineering ingenuity, I deployed subtle references from across physics, including metals, gravitational pull, constellation formations, and natural phenomena that are anonymous, decentralised, and continuous.

Subject and Lighting

Lighting appears organic. It sculpts the scene in a deliberately calculated manner that is singular, controlled, and precise. This reflects Kaspa’s mathematical consensus. A single point of light (Genesis) suggests an origin and introduces chiaroscuro, a technique that adds drama and references classical traditions of merit, grace, and balance.

The compositions, digitally represented by ‘kaph’ and ‘coin’, are framed as subjects and expressed in various ways using continuous themes. The individual subjects resemble something closer to a classical portrait, as if the coins have character and personality. Collective subjects have been composed to feel freely distributed, scalable, and singular.

In art and design there is no established terminology for visualising a decentralised system or currency. It is not entirely abstract, not figurative, not a photograph, not a landscape. It is based on mathematics.

The subject and theme remain undefined.