VIKI SANDOR
VIRTUAL BLUR BITCOIN AVENUE At the dawn of a new era when crypto currencies show the potential for shifting the world into a new economic and social phase, architecture also has the responsibility to integrate such new directions into its dynamics. As an early attempt (2014; 1 BTC = $400-$700) to understand how virtual currencies can affect and motivate physical space - the VIRTUAL BLUR project investigates relations between the notions of the physical, digital and virtual. The project proposes a vertical avenue which carves out its functional spaces from the existing UBS headquarters on 299 Park Ave in order to provide
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storage hubs and pick-up spots for the physical products - payed by bitcoin - while it creates a new type of storefront system which binds the pedestrians together with the ordered objects through “optical lens-distorted� visual connections. In a world where the medium of exchange is immaterial and mono-informational (numeric) the value becomes directly projected onto the product. Until the products lose their physicality we need to provide them portions of the space to occupy. The virtual blur project tries to solve the exchange of physical products efficiently while in its behavior questions the definition of virtuality.