Letta Shtohryn

On 9th December 2018 the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga CX dies. Gerald Cotten personally held the passwords to customers’ digital wallets, thereby rendering $190 million lost or missing. Speculation continues about the truth behind his sudden death in India. Death has seemingly been unaccounted for in the cryptocurrency world. Here, the corporeal event of bodily death suddenly clashed with – and superseded – the immateriality and mathematical logic of the crypto world. The crypto-realm functions on a quasi-religious premise of belief in digital money – money that only exists when enough people assert and legitimates its realness via the blockchain. This work looks at crypto heaven and crypto haven as places where deceased crypto CEOs go. Leaving a space for speculation on whether Cotten can be found in the cloud of afterlife or in a safe haven with a new identity, the work looks into the similarities between our vision of heaven and places that call themselves crypto havens. (2400) Bio Concerned by our relationship to the digital realm, Letta explores our intertwined coexistence with it. As a method, she employs speculative strategies, poetics and metaphysical investigations that respond to aspects of digital development using new media, sculpture, video games, commercial goods and imagery. Being ceaselessly inspired by deception, Letta looks for the origins of the real and the artifice, exploring the fine line between truth and myth-making.

Recent shows : Algorithmic Oracle at Vanity Projects (by Daata Editions), Miami USA; Little Hell Gate group show by Daata Editions at Frieze Art Fair, New York, USA; Dream Catcher group show by Daata x Phillips at The Box @ Phillips, New York, USA ; An area of some importance at Digitalartistresidency.org; Textile Memory (AIR Wro residency) at Tętno, Wroclaw, PL; The Tension of Things Unsaid at Listastofan, Reykjavik, IC; Christmas at my parents’ house at Roundabout LX, Lisbon, PT; Now no longer - Now not yet at Spazju Kreattiv, MT.