“The fever dream”
An interview with Jonathan Monaghan
By Anna Seaman, curator, MORROW collective
A fattened cow, with disturbingly bulging udders, from whose back protrudes an urban metropolis and around which Super Mario’s Rainbow Road twists and turns, is upon the mothership. The ‘Mothership’ is an American Apparel (or is it American Airlines?) space rocket and hovers to a pulsing and somewhat ominous soundtrack against a champagne sky.
The fecund mammal (perhaps a metaphor for the giving of life) recedes as the camera pans upwards towards the cityscape within which three golden antelopes dwell. We follow the lens that takes us to a penthouse apartment in a black mirrored skyscraper where it seems that an invasive medical examination is about to take place. These fantastical, dystopian scenes are the content of Mothership, a video work by D.C.-based artist Jonathan Monaghan made in 2013. Mothership was the first artwork registered and authenticated through the Keidom SPOOL (Secure, Public, Online Ownership Ledger), later called ascribe, which interfaced with the Bitcoin blockchain, making it the first digital artwork recorded on a decentralized ledger, an important predecessor for modern NFTs.
For this reason alone, it is an iconic work, but its significance goes beyond the technicality. The unnamed city is a collage of high-rise buildings that collectively symbolize Western financial centres and its deer inhabitants call to mind the deities of ancient mythology: in short, here we are witnessing a world that worships money. Yet this piece, just as Bitcoin itself, emerged from the 2007/2008 global crash where the financial system to which most of the world are slaves began to crumble. At this point, we understand why the fashion-branded spaceship and the confused (cash) cow are poignant messages to the zeitgeist of the time.
“Mothership and all my works are dreamscapes in which a lot of fears and anxiety manifest,” said Monaghan. “Symbols of power and finance and corporations come together in a fever dream, which is mixed with ancient mythology and references to childhood video games. They are journeys through nostalgia but with a larger commentary on the situations that occur in the world.”
Out of the Abyss, a 2018 work, subversively combines imagery from modern consumerism and the surveillance state with symbols associated with the Apocalypse, eliciting anxieties about an increasingly uncertain future. The visually extravagant work re-imagines elements such as the seven-eyed lamb and the four horsemen as terrifying beasts of the present day, adorned with security cameras, riot gear, and consumer electronics. Created using CGI software, the imagery is highly-detailed and appropriates the slick visual aesthetics found in advertisements or commercials as a means to examine obsessions with material excess in the digital age.
“I intentionally maintain those glossy aesthetics because I want people to be drawn into my work but not to try to sell them something, rather to create a challenging and experimental experience and force a questioning,” he said.
There was also the Sentries series (2019–2021) of custom wall decals. Candy-colored, yet unsettling, the large installations take on a confrontational presence. With computer-generated imagery of soft fabrics juxtaposed near ambiguous electronic devices and surveillance cameras, these cryptic works draw attention to the increasingly blurry lines between the organic and artificial. “Our relationship with technology is all encompassing and we are over reliant on it,” he said. “As technology begins to advance, artists are in a good position to engage with it.”
As a pioneer of new technologies, Monaghan has reflected on the vulnerabilities of constructed societal systems and despite not being purposely provocative, his artwork remains avant-garde for both its content and its medium.
“As an artist I have always been interested in new innovative technologies,” he said. “I was working with 3D printing as early as 2007, and I’ve always tried to be at the cutting edge of 3D animation and rendering.”
It was for that reason that placing his artwork Mothership on the blockchain was appealing.
Monaghan was approached by Trent & Masha McConaghy who were behind a startup behind a blockchain-powered IP ownership platform called Ascribe. He was intrigued because it was a new concept. He became a pioneer of blockchain art with no idea that it would eventually evolve into the explosion of NFTs of recent years.
“I was drawn to the blockchain idea back then because of this hesitancy within the collector community to acquire a born-digital artwork. I saw blockchain as a way to break through the idea of selling someone a USB with a file on it. It was a way to give value to my work.”
However, perhaps he was too early. The world didn’t respond to it with enthusiasm that people have responded to NFTs over the past few years. But that didn’t deter him. Monaghan is an artist who “works very intuitively”. He infuses mythological symbols, structures of mythical narratives, and transposes them onto the modern world exploring power constructs and our relationship to nature.
His work is visually and conceptually layered; it is poetic and nuanced and deserves a deeper consideration. “I present a world that is a little dehumanized, where technology and other artificial elements take on a life of their own and the only other beings in these worlds are mythological creatures. I am critical of the world we are in but I am always hopeful of the path in front of us.”
This editorial is part of a series of essays and interviews contextualizing MORROW collective’s {R(Evolutionaries);} project, exhibition and sale commemorating a decade of blockchain art. Launched at Art Dubai Digital 2024 and brought to market in collaboration with SuperRare Labs Team and Sotheby’s.
For more info www.morrow-collective.com/revolutionaries
