Power vs Meaning is a conceptual blockchain artwork based on historian Yuval Noah Harari’s idea that modern society is a deal in which humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power.
Playing on the idea of utility and collector rewards as prevalent themes in the NFT space, holders of Power will be granted the power to reward themselves with an additional edition of their NFT whenever they wish. Meaning, on the other hand, is simply a piece of art, and holders will not be granted any sort of utility or rewards.
A social experiment that will only be able to fully tell its story as people interact with it, Power vs Meaning asks viewers to confront their own motivation for collecting NFTs in the first place. As time goes on, how will the collection change, and what will it say about us?
As long as you hold at least one edition of Power, you can mint a new edition of Power whenever you'd like at www.powervsmeaning.com.
There is no limit to the number of editions you can mint. You are free to keep them, sell them, or give them to friends.
Editions of Power can also be exchanged for NFT artworks by Gavin Shapiro.
Editions of Power can be burned to redeem new Gavin Shapiro artworks for free. Earlier editions of Power are rarer and can be exchanged for rarer artworks.
See what's available at www.powervsmeaning.com.
Power vs Meaning was exhibited at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art in 2025 as part of the exhibit "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that," selected as a pioneering example of NFT art.
Since holders of Power can mint a new edition whenever they wish, a simple rarity system was implemented to ensure that tiers of scarcity will always exist within the collection, even if it expands to an infinite number of editions. Every time Power reaches an edition number that is equal to a power of 8, a new rarity tier is created.
For example:
Editions 1-8: 8^1 rarity Editions 9-64: 8^2 rarity Editions 65-512: 8^3 rarity Editions 513-4096: 8^4 rarity
