Kielekezi hakigawiki (a symbol is indivisible)

 

Gawa - 1 share, distribute, allot. 2 divide, deal. 3 separate, dismember.

Etymology:

From Proto-Bantu *-gàba.

Nominal derivations:

1.     gawo

2.     mgawo

Kielekezi - symbol, token, sign, mark; portent, beck, gesture, leitmotif; indication

When different symbols are arranged together, they form one composite symbol that is indivisible, hence fungible in utility but non-fungible in essence. These fungible items can be used in exchange/trade.

In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable, and each of whose parts are indistinguishable from any other part. Fungible tokens can be exchanged or replaced; for example, a $100 bill (note) can easily be exchanged for twenty $5 bills (notes).

As for gold, it is fungible because its value does not depend on any specific form, whether of coins, ingots, or other states. However, a unique item such as a gold statue by a famous artist wouldn’t be considered fungible. In short, a thing is fungible when all equivalent amounts of that thing are interchangeable.

Fungibility refers only to the equivalence and indistinguishability of each unit of a commodity with other units of the same commodity, which enables exchange of that commodity for another.

To be able to create distinguishability (non-fungibility), artistry is applied to the token. This makes it indivisible to various parts that have value in themselves or can be used to fill an equivalence.

In a deeper level, artistry is also applied to fungible tokens like banknotes to make them individually non-fungible. Therefore, one does not subdivide a $100 bill into five pieces and call each piece a $20 bill. The person would have to exchange it with five fully formed $20 bills which have their own artistry and dimensions in their form.

The concept of non-fungibility has also been incorporated into cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain, and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs can be created by anybody, and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. An NFT solely represents a proof of ownership of a blockchain record and does not necessarily imply that the owner possesses intellectual property rights to the digital asset the NFT purports to represent. Someone may sell an NFT that represents their work, but the buyer will not necessarily receive copyright to that work, and the seller may not be prohibited from creating additional NFT copies of the same work.

Nsibidi

https://okwuid.com/2018/02/07/meaning-of-african-igbo-symbols-in-kendrick-lamars-all-the-stars/

Nsibidi (also nsibiri, nchibiddi) is a system of symbols or writing developed by the Ekpe secret society. Excavation of terracotta vessels, headrests, and anthropomorphic figurines from the Calabar region, dated to roughly the 5th to 15th centuries, revealed "an iconography readily comparable" to nsibidi. Nsibidi is used on wall designs, calabashes, metals (such as bronze), leaves, swords, and tattoos. It is primarily used by the Ekpe leopard society (also known as Ngbe or Egbo). Aspects of colonial rule such as Western education and Christian doctrine drastically reduced the number of nsibidi-literate people, leaving the secret society members as some of the last literate in the symbols. Nsibidi was and is still a means of transmitting Ekpe symbolism. Nsibidi was transported to Cuba and Haiti via the Atlantic slave trade, where it developed into the anaforuana and veve symbols.

Nsibidi is used to design the 'ukara ekpe' woven material which is usually dyed blue (but also green and red) and is covered in nsibidi symbols and motifs. Ukara ekpe cloths are woven in Abakaliki, and then they are designed by male nsibidi artists in the towns of Abiriba, Arochukwu and Ohafia to be worn by members of the Ekpe society. Ukara can be worn as a wrapper on formal occasions, and larger version are hung in society meeting houses and on formal occasions. Ukara motifs are designed in white and are placed on grids set against an indigo background. Some of the designs include abstract symbols representing the Ekpe society such as repeating triangles representing the leopard's claws and therefore Ekpe's power. Ukara includes naturalistic designs representing objects such as gongs, feathers and manilla currency, a symbol of wealth. Powerful animals are included, specifically the leopard and crocodile.

This video attached (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxEegLIju54) contains an example of the making of continuous interlacing patterns using Nsibidi symbolism.

Arabesque

The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foliate ornament, used in the Islamic world, typically using leaves, derived from stylised half-palmettes, which are combined with spiralling stems". It usually consists of a single design which can be 'tiled' or repeated as many times as desired. Within the very wide range of Eurasian decorative art that includes motifs matching this basic definition, the term "arabesque" is used consistently as a technical term by art historians to describe only elements of the decoration found in two phases: Islamic art from about the 9th century onwards, and European decorative art from the Renaissance onwards. Therefore, arabesque is system not only peculiar to Arabic or Islamic art, but also used by Europeans and Asians in the wider Eurasian world. A major use of the arabesque style has been artistic printing, for example of book covers, page decoration, certificate decoration, stamp printing and banknote printing.

Printmaking and numismatics

Printmaking

Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine (a printer); however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking. Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix to a sheet of paper or other material, by a variety of techniques. Common types of matrices include: metal plates for engraving, etching and related intaglio printing techniques; stone, aluminum, or polymer for lithography; blocks of wood for woodcuts and wood engravings; and linoleum for linocuts. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screen-printing process. Printmaking processes have the capacity to produce identical multiples of the same artwork, which is called a print. Each print produced is considered an "original" work of art and is correctly referred to as an "impression", not a "copy" (that means a different print copying the first, common in early printmaking).

Printmaking techniques are generally divided into the following basic categories:

1.   Relief, where ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix, while carved or displaced grooves are absent of ink. Relief techniques include woodcut or woodblock, wood engraving, linocut and metalcut.

2.  Intaglio, where ink is forced into grooves or cavities in the surface of the matrix. Intaglio techniques include collagraphy, engraving, etching, mezzotint, aquatint.

3.   Planographic, where the matrix retains its original surface, but is specially prepared and/or inked to allow for the transfer of the image. Planographic techniques include lithography, monotyping, and digital techniques.

4.    Stencil, where ink or paint is pressed through a prepared screen, including screen printing, risograph, and pochoir.

5.   A type of printmaking outside of this group is viscosity printing. Contemporary printmaking may include digital printing, photographic mediums, or a combination of digital, photographic, and traditional processes.

Many of these techniques can also be combined, especially within the same family. For example, Rembrandt's prints are usually referred to as "etchings" for convenience, but very often include work in engraving and drypoint as well, and sometimes have no etching at all.

Numismatics

Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other means of payment used to resolve debts and exchange goods.

Artistry on banknotes:

Until recently, most banknotes were made from cotton paper with a weight of 80 to 90 grams per square meter. The cotton is sometimes mixed with linen, abaca, or other textile fibres. Generally, the paper used is different from ordinary paper: it is much more resilient, resists wear and tear (the average life of a paper banknote is two years), and also does not contain the usual agents that make ordinary paper glow slightly under ultraviolet light. Unlike most printing and writing paper, banknote paper is infused with polyvinyl alcohol or gelatin, instead of water, to give it extra strength.

Most banknotes are made using the mould-made process in which a watermark and thread is incorporated during the paper forming process. The thread is a simple-looking security component found in most banknotes. The thread comprises fluorescent, magnetic, metallic and micro print elements. The thread can be made to surface periodically on one side only. This is done by perforating same size holes on one paper, often the obverse-facing paper to expose the fluorescent elements glued on the blank of the reverse-facing paper. When these two are glued together, the fluorescent material appears like a thread along the width of the papernote. This is known as windowed thread and further increases the counterfeit resistance of the banknote paper.

The most common printing technique used in paper-money artistry is the intaglio technique.

Banknote portrait pattern made with intaglio printing. Denomination: 1000 Hungarian forint. Depicted area: 18.1 by 13.5 millimetres (0.71 in × 0.53 in).

Intaglio printmaking emerged in Europe well after the woodcut print, with the earliest known surviving examples being undated designs for playing cards made in Germany, using drypoint technique, probably in the late 1430s. Engraving had been used by goldsmiths to decorate metalwork, including armor, musical instruments and religious objects, and the niello technique, which involved rubbing an alloy into the lines to give a contrasting color.

In the 1940s and 1950s the Italian security printer Gualtiero Giori brought intaglio printing into the era of high-technology by developing the first ever six-colour intaglio printing press, designed to print banknotes which combined more artistic possibilities with greater security.

Today, intaglio engraving is used largely for banknotes, passports and some postage stamps.

 

References

Asante, Molefi K. (2007). The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony. Routledge. p. 252.

Chuku, Gloria (2005). Igbo women and economic transformation in southeastern Nigeria, 1900–1960. Paragraph 3: Routledge. p. 73.

Gallagher, Jacob (March 15, 2021). "NFTs Are the Biggest Internet Craze. Do They Work for Sneakers?". The Wall Street Journal.

Harrison, Charles (2006). "The printed picture in the Renaissance." In Kim Woods (Ed.), Making Renaissance Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 219.

Robinson, Francis (1996). The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press.

Slogar, Christopher (2007). "Early Ceramics from Calabar, Nigeria: Towards a History of Nsibidi". African Arts. University of California. 40 (1): 18–29.

"The Banknote Lifecycle – from Design to Destruction". De La Rue. 13 May 2012.

Thaddeus-Johns, Josie (March 11, 2021). "What Are NFTs, Anyway? One Just Sold for $69 Million". The New York Times.

TUKI (2001), Kamusi Ya Kiswahili-Kiingereza; Swahili-English Dictionary. Published by Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI), Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.