OPEPEN MANIFESTO

It all started when I rediscovered my paintings from 1990.

These paintings laid dormant for 35 years until I decided to reappropriate them into the Opepen Manafesto.

This Opepen Edition uses modular abstraction and minimalist geometry, treating form as both symbol and system — a visual code where simple shapes carry layered conceptual meaning. A merging of algorithmic design with expressive materialism. the collection being a contemporary visual manifesto of digital absurdity. — a bridge between code and canvas, between system and soul.

Connection to Jack Butcher’s Opepen Series

These images echoe Jack Butcher’s Opepen Editions in its use of modular abstraction and minimalist geometry. Like Butcher’s work, it treats form as both symbol and system — a visual code where simple shapes carry layered conceptual meaning. Here, however, the I inject painterly chaos into Butcher’s clean digital structure, merging algorithmic design with expressive materialism. The result feels like Opepen gone organic — a bridge between code and canvas, between system and soul.

Influence of the Dada Movement

Rooted in Dada’s anti-establishment spirit, hand in hand with cryptos anti-establishment spirit, the work rejects order and perfection. The geometric framework, normally precise, is filled with unpredictable swirls and spontaneous pigment flows — an intentional contradiction. This tension between control and absurdity mirrors Dada’s revolt against logic and aesthetic hierarchy, inviting interpretation through play, irony, and accident reflecting the decentralized state of crypto currency at the same time. Thus NFTs are kind of the modern DADA movement.

1. Rebellion Against the Establishment

Just as Dada erupted during World War I as a rejection of traditional art, logic, and bourgeois values, NFTs and crypto challenge traditional systems of ownership, currency, and gatekeeping. Both are anti-establishment movements born from disillusionment with centralized control — whether in art institutions or global finance.

2. Redefinition of Value

Dada artists mocked the concept of “artistic value” by presenting urinals and collages as art. Similarly, NFTs subvert value systems — a pixel, a meme, or generative noise can sell for millions. Both movements ask: What gives something value? The object, or the context? The market, or the mind?

3. Embrace of Chance, Technology, and Absurdity

Max Ernst used frottage and decalcomania to let randomness speak; NFT and crypto art use algorithmic randomness and code to do the same. Smart contracts are the new readymades — coded absurdities that make meaning through interaction, not intention.

4. Community as Performance

Dada thrived in salons and bars, where ideas were performed and debated in real time. Crypto’s digital spaces — Discords, X threads, mints — are its cabarets. The act of participation itself is part of the artwork.

5. A New Kind of Manifesto

Dada had Tzara’s Manifesto; Web3 has whitepapers, meme coins, and open-source roadmaps — a continuous, living manifesto of digital rebellion.
So in essence NFTs and crypto are not just markets — they are conceptual art movements.
They transform absurdity into currency, participation into authorship, and code into canvas.
Dada said “Art is dead.”
Crypto replies: “Long live the blockchain.”

Resonance with Max Ernst

The textured interior of each Opepen Manifesto recalls Max Ernst’s experimental Surrealist techniques — especially his use of frottage and decalcomania, where randomness and pressure reveal subconscious landscapes. The ridges and organic fissures seem almost geological, evoking Ernst’s fascination with the unseen forces beneath surface appearances.

DADA 3.0

Crypto isn’t finance.
NFTs aren’t collectibles.
They’re the new Dada — code turned chaos, art turned algorithm.
Each mint is a rebellion, each token a manifesto.
Value dissolves, meaning mutates, absurdity reigns.
Max Ernst scraped pigment into chance; we deploy smart contracts into infinity.
Dada asked what is art?
Crypto asks what is real?
Proof of absurdity is the new proof of work.

Welcome to DADA 3.0 — where art never dies, it just forks.

Overall

This collection stands at the crossroads of digital conceptualism and analog spontaneity. It channels Butcher’s clarity, Dada’s rebellion, my early works transformed for a new age and Ernst’s dreamlike chance — creating a work that feels both coded and chaotic, mechanical yet deeply nostalgic and human.