Backstory

For quite a while, I have felt like the world was doomed. While I am quite good about doing my day-to-day routine and not really focus on it, Earth is pretty much fucked. On top of the world falling apart around me due to many factors out of my control, I also lived in a small mountain town in “fire country.”

In 2020,As part of my SHTF (shit hits the fan) preparation which included a massive bug out bag and emergency food rations, I buried a box that held a variety of valuable items that could be used to help me get by for a few days, should something catastrophic happen.

These items inlcuded:

- 200 $1 United States Dollar Bills.
- 2 10oz silver bars
- .15oz gold coin
- .38 caliber bullets
- Family photos
- 1 pair paper 3D glasses

After two years went by, I was curious how my box was doing as I had never buried a box of valuables in the ground. I sent out to exhume the box, just to check that I had buried it correctly. After digging around for about 30 minutes in my parent’s backyard, I found the box.

The box that held the valuables had been duct taped and wrapped in another bag to keep it mouisture free. As I began to open the layers and pealed the duct tape off around the sides of the box, I found that water and dirt had found its way inside the box. Instant panic rose over me when I saw the bag of money was a thick white brick of stacked bills, not resembling the fresh stack of bills that were in there originally. The money was a solid brick of mold and was totally unspendible. Good thing I didnt realize this after an emergency. I would have been totally screwed.

I took the brick of molded money to my local Chase bank to replace it with fresh bills.
Sounds easy enough, right?
NO!

I walked in like any other time. Seemed like a routine request so I waited my time in line. As I walked up to the counter I said,

“Hi, I need to trade in these bills that got messed up for some fresh bills.”

The bank manager at this point is looking visibly shook as he awarkwardly runs over with his hands in the air saying,

“You need to get out of here right away. That is live mold and a biohazard.”

(That was pretty exciting to hear, and the overall vibes of all those workers was priceless panic. I really wish I had video taped that, but it lives rent free in my head forever. We’ll have to re-enact that.)

The bank manager had me give my information to the bank as they were going to have the US Treasury send me a bag that I could use to send the filthy bills to be exchanged for fresh notes. Well, that bag never arrived and I was left with the useless bills.

Some time went by as I was focused on other projects, but always was thinking about what to do with the filthy bills.

One day as I studied this brick of nasty moldy paper bills, I realized I had inadvertenly created a generative art collection. All the elements were there; time along with natural forces (water and dirt) created the assets and the metadata of traits.

I never planned for this project to happen. The fact that it did happen is why I am creating this project. I want to tell the story of the impermenance and fragility of fiat currency, and explaining it all through my own experience.

The Digital Collection