Imperfect Lovers

Nathaniel Stern

Artwork description:

Imperfect Lovers performs two coded, on-chain Lovers, each giving the other 'everything they have,' until there is literally 'nothing left to give.' Even then, they continue to attempt trans-actions to and for one another, failing unless and until they are replenished by an external participant. At its core, Imperfect Lovers is two smart contracts, seeded with initial balances. Up to once per day, one online participant can enact random and unknown gifts between the two.

When they do, they receive a generative and fully on-chain portrait, or snapshot, of the Lovers. If funds are still available in their balances, participants’ gas fees are mostly refunded, making the NFT costs minimal, and also acting as an overall balance deduction. With Imperfect Lovers, as in life, the potential gift means more than the reality.

To give beyond our own capacity is an impossible yet beautiful promise: that of forever. Forever can only exist in potential - if I promise to give, if I attempt to share, even when I can't. It's that combination of promise beyond failure that is precisely what makes love so precious. What do we gain when we gift? When is loss fulfilling? How do we balance our time, energy, actions, and relationships? Here, the Blockchain is leveraged to show intimacy and care, time and mortality, imperfection and romance, despite (and not because of) all that glitters and shines. Once initiated, these Imperfect Lovers will always trans-act, together and apart, successfully or not.