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supermoneydesign · 7 years ago

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coining

How to evaporate to the heavens / omnipresence

The coin unified matter and representation: precious disk and rounded number. This would allow the solid coin to slowly melt and even evaporate. To be not bread for broken bodies, but breath for broken souls. This is its story.

I. MINT

BANG was the sound of the hammer that marked my birth. The birth of me, metal disk with a price tag, and the epoch of symbolic value. I was born Turkish. Strong and handsome I must have looked, shining in the setting sun over a river in the lands of Lydia. My brilliant body, a water-stirred mix from silver and gold particles, revealed a relief in the light. This birthmark of smooth ridges on my face spelled out my name: 2k E. The mouths of those hands fortunate enough to behold me spoke my full name: Two Kilograms Electrolyte. It was undebatable who I was. It was tangible in my body. It was written on my skin. I am both what I am and what my name says. My value could by no one be mistaken. And it wasn’t. I was so reliable, swift and outspoken that I quickly unchained societies from their suppressive systems of trade. Gone were the days of barter. A bucket of milk for two dozen eggs? Fine, unless you only need four. The Egyptians would engrave “a credit for eight eggs” in their administration of stone tablets. A fine means of social control, to regulate those at the bottom of the pyramid. In following centuries your egg credit would be measured in Greek grains of salt, Roman cattle, Persian spices, or portable bars of precious metals. Trade with anyone! That is, only when people trust your scales. No, it was me who freed the many. Solidifying the abstract debt into the concrete number on my face. No need to remember what he owes you. Nor to make another engrave it. Nor to weigh any goods. My face showed my gravity. My beauty sealed my integrity. Any imposter would miss the finesse and traits to uphold sufficient similarity. Soon I was minted en masse. To give unbarred access to the good of mankind to any hand that beheld me. What is any power without the power to use the skills of others? It was me who brought it to the masses.

Just a bit too soon.

Hard times came. Evil times. Medieval times. People didn’t want me anymore. As the area for goods to circulate was confined to the few acres of the landowner, I was of no use.

I thought it was the end of me.

II. MELT

On an early spring morning a ray of sunshine caught my golden locks. I was in a dark space. Damp cool air. Smells of leather. Almost calming, if it weren’t for the cacophony of jingles caused by the rhythmic tremble. The only light source in the pouch was the hole torn in the escape. Two fingers took me. They were free, as was the fugitive hand to whom I was given, and the sensation of brightness that met my face. Casts and castles had started crumbling, and from an age long winter��s sleep I awakened. Yes, trade was reborn, and so was I. Yet I was not alone anymore. I was many. In every nation I had a different face. And it was when my different sides met, that I started to melt.

Some of my faces were deemed more desirable than others. People would give five en profile French kings for a single embossed English queen. Even though my silver body was equally massive in France and England. No longer it was my body that granted me value, but the eagerness of people to lay their hands on me. But desire is a fluid phenomenon. It comes and goes. And so my self-worth became the plaything of the glance of others. It was the superficiality of my face that gravitated attention. Even when I felt desired, it was less and less about my precious body and more and more a numbers game. I got packed, stacked, and counted. Not to spend, but to have. When people had too much of me, they locked me up cold and darkly behind thick steel walls with uncrackable locks. It was not me anymore who passed from hand to hand, but a mere paper note that granted access to me. I became a number on a bill stating how much the owner could get in return. Although he never did.

Again, I thought it was the end. But it was only the beginning of melting.

The portemonnaie never fully turned portefeuille. The wallet was still a purse. My metal may have lost its value, but not its shine. While big bills handled big numbers, I found a steady place between the global tectonic plates of currency. The crumbling cracks. The margin of manoeuvre. The precious of the poor. In other words, the glue of the everyday.

I took a dive for a wish. Freed a shopping cart. Made you a philanthropist. Caused a coin wave in the casino. Got a homeless human a tea. Thanked a waiter. Locked a winter coat in the opera.

But also. Fixed a camera to a stand. Flattened a chocolate wrapper. Nudged the guy to approach that girl. Spinned longer than a dime. Fooled the grandkid. Hid the hickey. Transformed into a souvenir. Revealed that she won a theme park ticket. Surprised a kid with the color of the gumball. Granted the condom in the loo.

I was lost. Missed. Found. And I made his day. I was the holiday memory. I was the birthday present.

A mundane friend. An intimate lover. A third hand, helping out when needed. The modern man was a moneyman, a coinman, a human-metal alloy.

How could human and I ever be separated, if not by the magnetic swipe of a piece of plastic.

III. MIST

The descent of my liquid body came with the ascent of a new society called cashless. What use is a coin when all value can be piled up to a single score? People got access passes to their scores. Wallets shrunk to the size of plastic. I became annoying. A beggar a relieve. My metal corpse remained a memory. Memories of grandparents. Of times when economies of metal functioned like mechanical motors and majestic machines. The rolling disk, the wheel of progress, the never-ending circle, had suddenly lost its materiality. I am no more disk from metal alloys, but mere lines and circles, zeroes and ones.

Only a symbol was left of me. But as a rocket that shook off its solid and liquid support engines as ballast. I’m so fast and high now, I don’t need a physical manifestation as a seductive shiny canvas for the projection of desire. Yes, the virtual is material too. But more like gas. CO2. More expansive, harder to grasp. Harder to see, feel, hold on to. And harder to contain, control, avoid. I am all around. Freed from my heavy body I travel the globe in instants. Past evaluations make future speculations. Constructed confidence inflates boundless bubbles. When the gold rush became a metaphor, I became more real than ever. I have become the milieu. You cannot point at me. I’m everywhere. I’m your language. Your thoughts. Your life goals. Still. Or even more. Like a game. High score. I am your score and your life. Only when you take your thumb to pay you see if I’m still there.

How long still?

I may resurrect in the Cloud. Bits and ideologies condense in small drops of cryptocurrencies. Coins from bits. Coins for bots. Or my gaseous state so light I may lift up high into space itself. The object of desire becomes nothing. Or nothingness. Negative space, negative desire. I don’t know if I die or rebirth. But it’s ok. Whether it will be space or the Cloud, I’ll be waiting in heaven.

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