Tag Archives: nft

Fabio Catapano: the beauty of simplicity

Pau Waelder

Fabio Catapano is an Italian digital artist and designer who works with code, CGI, and motion. Encouraged by the possibilities that the NFT market has opened to digital artists, he is developing a growing body of work inspired by Japanese aesthetics and creating generative art that moves away from strict geometry and explores the poetic side of creative coding. On the occasion of his solo artcast A Theory of Color, we had a conversation about his creative process and his views on the future of digital art.

Fabio Catapano. Colorem 221201, 2022

What took you to create your artworks using generative algorithms and how would you describe your creative process?

It was the result of a series of choices. When I was younger, I worked for a long time as a VJ making visuals for clubs and musicians. In that process, you need to create a lot of video content, and I used a software called Quartz Composer, which is pretty much one of the first node-based generative system software programs. Besides my work as a VJ, I have always been passionate about programming languages and I learned some Visual Basic as a hobby. So I had both the interest and the motivation to use this software and explore the creative possibilities of generative algorithms. Since what I did is write the code and then the system would generate the outcome, I found it fascinating to ask myself who is the creator, me or the machine? I feel that we are co-creators, and the software is not just a tool, it is something else.

“I take cues from the way software developers think and collaborate, how they create iterations and updates of the same program.”

The initial idea for an artwork can originate in a shape, the feeling of motion, or a texture, colors, or the combination of two or more elements together. The process in itself is very, very experimental, a form of research in which every outcome is a good outcome. How the project develops is very spontaneous: for instance, I started two years ago with the series Colorem and I wasn’t expecting to create so many pieces. But I ended up creating day after day a different iteration of the same system in a way that felt as a journal of the whole process. I take cues from the way software developers think and collaborate, how they create iterations and updates of the same program. This is why the artwork titles include a reference number that indicates the date of creation and are therefore similar to the versions in a computer program. 

Working in iterations. Diagram by Fabio Catapano.

Every day there is a different outcome and a different exploration, that may be driven by a series of colors, or shapes, or something that I did before. Sometimes I want something that is a bit more grainy, or a bit more clean. But none of those, in my opinion, are the correct answers. They are just moments in time, part of an exploration. That’s pretty much how I started to work with generative art. 

Ideas lead to other ideas. Diagram by Fabio Catapano.

Color plays an important role in your latest series of works. This is an element that is crucial both to designers and visual artists. How do you work with color in the different facets of your professional work? What led you to make it a central part of your artistic research?

It’s funny, because many years ago –I was 17 back then– when I started to create digital art with Photoshop and other programs, it was very colorful. After that, I discovered generative art, and I shifted to black and white. I did so because I was more focused on learning the system and how to create genuine art. So I was more interested in how to create shapes and decided to remove the colors from the equation, and everything became black and white. But then I realized that there was nothing really creative about it. Many other generative artists at that time were creating very geometrical, black and white art that, to me, looks only like a lazy version of a work by Bridget Riley. So I was learning but it felt like I was bringing nothing new to the conversation. 

That’s when I started to shift to colors. I also did so because I wanted to do the opposite of what you expect from computer art, very geometric and strict, with shapes but not colors. I wanted to show that a computer can dream. So I created these shapes that are fluid and can move from one color to another. Also at that time I became interested in the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which deals with appreciating the simplicity, imperfection, and mutability of things. I took inspiration from the book WA: The Essence of Japanese Design by Rossella Menegazzo and Stefania Piotti, which shows how Japanese artists such as Takeshi Hara or Koichi Ogawa, among many others, manage to bring such quality in the designs they create. I was also inspired by the Polish artist Wojciech Fangor. I love the way these artists deal with simplicity, structure, and color. 

Japanese inspiration. Images collected by Fabio Catapano.

I also want to show that generative art can be something else, not just the geometrical art that is usually represented by the cyberpunk community. Generative art does not need to be futuristic, it can be something else: it can be white, it can be slow, it can be dreamy… Slowness is also important to my work because nowadays everything goes very fast in our digital lives, social media promotes content that grabs attention in the first three seconds, and I intentionally try to go in the opposite direction, towards a calm and slow contemplation.

“I wanted to do the opposite of what you expect from computer art, very geometric and strict, with shapes but not colors. I wanted to show that a computer can dream.”

While you work with generative algorithms, the outputs of your work are usually still images, videos, and prints. How do you work with these different formats? What makes you choose which will be the final shape of a particular piece?

I have released only one project as a software, Origami, that generated a new output every time it was minted, in a limited edition. This was on (fx)hash, last June. I have never released an artwork as a software that someone can run on the computer, mostly because I find it complicated to explain and distribute. However, I think that, for instance, Colorem as work shouldn’t be a video, it should be software. Because the idea is that it can run there and just constantly change and never be the same. But that’s pretty much true for any generative artwork. So if one day I find a way to distribute those ideas through software, I will be happy to explore further and introduce a new layer of variability and new layer of randomness that is informed by an external factor. I would like the artwork to be detached from me at some point. 

Creating with a computer. Diagram by Fabio Catapano.

In my work I try to think in a more fluid way where I don’t care much about, for instance, the ratio, because ideally with a few clicks I can change the format. And if I work in a print on paper, then I choose a particular moment in the process which to me is interesting, and that can stand on itself as a static artwork. There is also an important process taking place when I create a print, which involves choosing the paper and seeing how the pigments react to the paper, and how the texture of the paper gives a new dimension to the colors. Actually, working with paper inspired me to introduce grainy textures in my digital artworks and try out gray backgrounds, which is something I am still experimenting with.

In this sense, something that is interesting is that artists today can work in a way that artists before couldn’t: today we can use social media as a lab, by posting tests and experiments and getting a response from your audience. To be honest, it is important for me what my followers say, to have that feedback, because I don’t create the artworks to just put them in a drawer, I want them to be seen.   

Another format that I want to work with is projection. As a VJ, I worked a really long time with a projector. And I’m missing right now that in the equation: I have a screen that emits light. I have a paper that receives light. But the projector does something else, it throws light on a surface. That is way more interesting because that again becomes not just an image, it becomes a lighting solution. And the reason why I haven’t tried that yet is because you need the right projector, the right space with the right amount of light, the right attention from the audience, and stuff like that. It’s nothing new, of course, but I would really like to explore that other avenue.

Fabio Catapano. Colorem 221025, 2022

You have been nominated as one of the ten most influential NFT artists in Italy. What has the NFT market brought to your practice, what do you find most interesting in distributing your work in this format?

There is this well-known saying: “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I’d say that also value is in the eye of the beholder. What this means is that, after NFTs, even JPEGs have gained value, a value that is supported by a collective agreement and a collective trust. So we decided that the JPEG from now on is not just a JPEG that one can find on the internet, but is a JPEG that can have a $1 value and tomorrow can increase that value to $2 and so on. So, what the NFT market brought me as an artist is a community and a collective trust that turned digital art into something valuable. We know that digital art has existed for many years, and that it has had its value, but suddenly, we have more attention. And it’s a good thing, because there are many projects, many museum shows, and many new things happening. To me it has also meant being able to proudly say: “I’m a digital artist,” and that people can understand what that means.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. Diagram by Fabio Catapano.

On the other hand, the NFT market brought me some revenue and the opportunity to focus on the practice itself. I launched my Genesis with SuperRare. The series was called Data Collector, and it referred to the fact that nowadays collectors are actually collecting data, a bunch of information that moves from one wallet to another. And suddenly this data has value, because we all agreed that it has. So I took these classic statues and made them into particles that move like data moves from one wallet to another. Beyond art, I think that NFTs and blockchain technology will be very important in many more aspects of our lives.

“What the NFT market brought me as an artist is a community and a collective trust that turned digital art into something valuable.”

Having participated in exhibitions in museums, galleries, and also metaverses, what would you highlight in these spaces as the most interesting for the presentation of your work?

I would say that the one space I don’t like is the metaverse as it is designed right now. I see no reason why I need to have a puppet moving in a digital world, watching very low resolution JPEGs. Why do you need a room at all? Additionally, what is being offered now looks like a cheap version of a video game. In fact, I’d say that Fornite and Minecraft are better “metaverses” than most projects I’ve seen.

Then when it comes to galleries, I have to say that most of the people running these spaces don’t know how to display digital art, because they don’t understand the medium. They don’t understand its physicality and the technology behind it. Now everyone wants to jump on this trend, but there are so many things that you need to consider: choosing the screens, the right environment, the lighting, and so forth. Still, I believe this will change and it will get better.

Fabio Catapano. Colorem 221207, 2022

How would you compare your creative process when working with a brand as a designer and when you are creating as part of your own artistic research?

An artist today has to be many things at once: a designer, a photographer, a marketer… There are a lot of things that probably have been there before, but today even more so because the market is more competitive. In my commercial projects, I didn’t actually create the work for them. Rather, the brand bought an artwork I had made and licensed it to use it in their communications and design. It is more and more common that art and design are combined or fused in some contexts. Design is great, but it can be very dry from a storytelling point of view, while art can push those boundaries and can explore new visions.

Fabio Catapano. Colorem Fragments v1, 2022

You have expressed interest in the possibility of displaying digital art on any screen, in a way that can be compared with street art taking over public space. From the perspective of sociology and anthropology, how do you see this presence of digital art evolving in the future?
It is clear to me that we are increasingly surrounded by screens and digital devices. We have quickly switched from having one television set per home to having multiple TVs, smartphones, tablets, and computers. These screens are also closer to us than the television set ever was, and they are not in one room anymore, they move with us and invade every space we inhabit, also the public space. Looking at films like Blade Runner, I see a future with screens everywhere, in which the content will be customized to every user. This can also happen from an artistic point of view, so for instance the content is actually related to the person that is looking at it. Similarly to what is happening now with NFTs, every person is identified by their wallet and carries their art collection with them, wherever they go. With connected screens, we will be able to take our art with us and enjoy it wherever we are.

Moodies: the anti-emojis by Asaf and Tomer Hanuka

Pau Waelder & Roxanne Vardi

Emotions are complicated, much more than a set of emojis can ever convey. “By one estimate, more than 90 definitions of «emotion» were proposed over the course of the 20th century,” stated psychologist Robert Pluchnik [1], the author of one of the most widely cited theories of basic emotions. In 1958, Pluchnik suggested a structure based on eight basic bipolar emotions: joy versus sorrow, anger versus fear, acceptance versus disgust and surprise versus expectancy. Later on, in 1980, he developed this classification further into a more complex “wheel of emotions,” analogous to a color wheel, in which primary emotions were placed forming a circle, with opposites 180 degrees apart and other emotions placed between them, as mixtures of the primary emotions in the same manner that primary colors can be mixed to obtain secondary colors.

Pluchnik’s wheel of emotions. Source: Wikipedia

Inspired by Pluchnik’s diagram, in early August 2022 visual artists Asaf and Tomer Hanuka created Moodies, a collection of 7,401 artworks generated from a set of 32 original illustrations depicting human emotions in the form of a portrait of a fictional character whose face is a big hole (which the artists call “the cave”), filled and surrounded by different elements that build a visual metaphor of each emotional state. Notably, the brothers Hanuka have updated some of the terms in Pluchnik’s diagram, adapting it to the type of emotions that are prevalent in a society where human interactions are mediated by social media and messaging apps.

For instance, the term “annoyance” in Pluchnik’s wheel becomes FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), a particular kind of annoyance we all experience in the fast-paced “present” built by mass media. Similarly, “aggressiveness” is described as “bullish,” an attitude that is at once celebrated by those who identify with toxic masculinity and frowned upon by those who decry a behavior that preys on the weak and can have fatal consequences (such as cyberbullying). Other changes may seem a matter of semantics, but they are nonetheless significant. Take “serenity”, which becomes “nostalgia,” a feeling particularly connected to Asaf’s and Tomer’s generation, whose childhood was deeply influenced by the culture of the 1980s, which has since been constantly repackaged a resold to them as adults, cashing in on their longing for the past. Additionally, “admiration” becomes “proud,” signaling the growing importance of the self in our highly individualistic society.

Moodies emotion map. Source: moodiesnft.io

These subtle changes illustrate the attention that both artists have put into creating a depiction of human emotions that speaks to the specific context of social media and the NFT art scene. Moodies stems from the Hanuka brothers’ desire to re-imagine the profile picture or selfie as it is used in today’s world; the image that has come to define us in the social world. Asaf and Tomer therefore describe the Moodies as ‘anti-emojis’ and aim to re-introduce to our social lives conversations about emotions and the inner-self rather than just creating pictures of perfect lives that are usually experienced as cover-ups. 

‘FOMO’, for example, portrays an eyeball with a knife poking down its middle where the face is supposed to be, in the background we see a broken down backyard that looks out on Hollywood Hills. The person in the image has a bad hairdo with bald spots on the top of his scalp, and the grass that makes up his body and the background is far from being green. ‘Nostalgia’ depicts an old tape recorder in place of a face, the figure wears a Duran Duran 80’s hairdo and a jean jacket, and the background is a retro gas station. 

“Our mission is to expand the conversation of feelings. These are the anti-emojis. There is an astonishing beauty to the complexity and intricate structures that govern our moods. This esthetic quality has been erased by outsourcing our social lives to platforms like Instagram”

Pluchnik’s diagram not only provided inspiration but also the blueprint for an algorithmic creation based on combining the elements in each of the 32 original drawings. These illustrations, termed “Pure Soul Moodies,” are each composed of 6 elements: Aura (head), Body (clothing), Cave (face), Environment (backdrop), and Skin (color or texture of the skin). These elements are then associated with the emotion that the Pure Soul represents, thus creating several thousands of mixed emotions artworks, in which each part of the drawing corresponds to an emotion. The compositions resulting from this process, alongside the original 32 Pure Souls, constitute the Moodies NFT collection, each artwork being minted as a unique piece.

One-page story by Asaf Hanuka explaining the making of Moodies.

A meaningful PFP project

Moodies belong to a type of NFT projects known as PFP, which stands for profile picture: these are illustrations intended to be used by their collectors as profile pictures on social media. Increasingly popular thanks to the success of early projects such as Larva Lab’s CryptoPunks or the ubiquitous Bored Ape Yacht Club, that have inspired an endless array of copycats, PFP NFTs combine the uniqueness of the artwork with the desire to create a personal identity on social networks that is at the same time distinctly individualistic yet belonging to a group. However, Moodies stands out for introducing a narrative and an underlying concept that is lacking everywhere else. Award-winning illustrators and storytellers, Asaf and Tomer Hanuka have succeeded in creating a series of artworks that respond to the driving aesthetics of the NFT space but also introduce a reflection on the need to express one’s personality and emotions. As Pluchnik stated:

“Although personality is usually taught in universities as if it had little or nothing to do with emotions, words such as gloomy, resentful, anxious and calm can describe personality traits as well as emotional states. An individual can feel depressed, or be a depressed person, feel nervous or be a nervous person. […] Thus personality traits may be conceptualized as being derived from mixtures of emotions.”

In this sense, the Moodies aptly connect the depiction of a combination of emotions with the construction of one’s personality, and more specifically, one’s persona in a social environment like those provided by Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and so forth. The chaotic combination of elements in a surreal and somehow uneasy relationship becomes a perfect illustration of Pluchnik’s description of emotions as unstable processes: 

“Emotions are not simply linear events, but rather are feedback processes. The function of emotion is to restore the individual to a state of equilibrium when unexpected or unusual events create disequilibrium.”

The artists have therefore succeeded in creating a series of artworks that reflect on our digital identity and our need to belong to a group, which nowadays can be made of a large number of geographically distant and anonymous people, but also invite expressing our inner self in a playful way: “We wanted to create a group of people that care about feelings,” state Asaf and Tomer. “Instagram is about looking good and feeling happy: this is manipulation, forcing you aggressively to be happy. For us this felt fake, and we wanted to turn this inside out. Inside you have darkness, pain, love, we are made up of a cocktail of good and bad.”

Into the Moodieverse

Moodies goes beyond the depiction of mixed emotions in a set of algorithmically combined portraits. The artists are currently developing a larger story that builds a whole world around the initial idea of bringing the wheel of emotions to life. Central to this story is a character known as The Great Moodie, “a brilliant physician turned mentalist who modeled the principles of electromagnetics to uncover the mysteries of the unconscious mind.” This enigmatic character, which according to the story created a machine capable of tapping into the collective unconscious, known as the Soul-Ray, is said to have disappeared and will soon resurface in the Metaverse. 

The Soul Ray. Source: moodiesnft.io

The Hanuka brothers consider this character essential to the plot that unites the whole Moodies project and will lead its continuation beyond the initial launch of the NFT series, which quickly sold out and is now only available in the secondary market.

“The relationship between the great Moodie and the Moodies is that first we wanted to create generative art, something we wanted to control mixed with random decisions, and then we needed to define a concept to justify this loss of control, which brought us to creating mixed emotions. The Great Moodie is us trying to visualize feelings. There is this visual metaphor: The Great Moodie is what it means to be an artist.”

Just like The Great Moodie, the Hanuka brothers have big plans for this project which they keep under wraps for the moment, but that will unfold in a fully developed narrative and a growing community experience for their NFT holders. The project has already expanded beyond the blockchain to create experiences with people in the real world: the Moodies have been touring the world, making appearances in Los Angeles and at NFT NYC 2022. Their latest stop is Tel Aviv, where the Hanuka brothers have displayed a selection of the collection at SAGA, a cave-shaped gallery in Jaffa.

Moodies LA Takeover. Source: moodiesnft.io

Asaf Hanuka is based in Tel Aviv and serves as the Head of Department at Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art. He is also an illustrator and comic book artist. He has won multiple international awards including the Eisner for best US edition of international material for The Realist, an autobiographical weekly comic, and recently published I’m Still Alive with writer Roberto Saviano (Gomorrah). 

Tomer Hanuka is based in New York and has most recently worked in visual development with Netflix and Sony for live-action and animated projects. He is an illustrator and cartoonist who regularly contributes to magazines such as The New Yorker, Time Magazine, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone. Tomer has exhibited at international museums such as The British Design Museum and has won multiple industry awards including Gold medals from The Society of Illustrators and The Society of Publication Designers. 

They have also co-created, with the collaboration of writer Boaz Lavie, The Divine, a graphic novel which made The New York Times bestseller list, was nominated for a Hugo, and won the International Manga Award. Publisher’s Weekly described it as “Heady, hellacious, and phantasmagoric”. In addition, the brothers Hanuka have contributed a story to the Attack on Titan anthology, published by Kodansha Comics.

[1] Robert Plutchnik. The nature of emotions. American Scientist ; Research Triangle Park Tome 89, N.º 4, (Jul/Aug 2001): 344-350.

Niio in 2022: the artists

Niio Editorial

As we reach the end of 2022, we look back at a very busy year, and forward to an even more intense 2023. In this series of posts, we have selected some of our favorite artcasts, artists, artworks, articles, and interviews. They outline an overview of what has happened in Niio over the last months and highlight the work of artists and galleries with whom we are proud to collaborate. However, there is much more than what fits in this page! We invite you to browse our app and discover our curated art program, as well as our editorial section.

Five artists from 2022

We created Niio for artists. As the creators of the artworks, which are the key element around which revolves the whole art world, they are fundamental to the existence and the development of contemporary art. Digital artists have long faced a lack of recognition and understanding of their work, paired with the difficulties of disseminating art in a digital format while retaining control of it. At Niio we help them share their art with a wider audience, sell it with the assistance of their galleries, and explain their creative process, all while keeping full control of their work. This year our curated art program has dedicated 42 artcasts to present the work of a single artist, and we have carried out almost 40 interviews that dive deeper into their practice.

We have chosen five artists from more than 80 featured in our curated art program this year. Click on their names to find out more about their work.

Dagmar Schürrer

Dagmar Schürrer, We are already history, and we don’t know it, 2021.

Dagmar Schürrer is an Austrian digital artist based in Berlin, Germany. She holds a degree in Fine Art from Central Saint Martin´s College in London, UK. She assembles digitally generated objects and animations, text and sound to form intricate video sound montages, presented on screen, as installations or combined with new technologies such as augmented reality. She is a research assistant at the University for Applied Sciences Berlin, where she teaches AR technologies and supports the production of AR applications in the field of art and culture. As a board member of the Berlin media art association (medienkunstverein) she is committed to supporting new forms of presentation of contemporary new media art. This year she has presented on Niio the solo artcast Parallel Realities.

Dagmar Schürrer is represented by Artemis Gallery (Lisbon).

Andreas Nicholas Fischer

Andreas Nicolas Fischer, Nethervoid 07 L 2180, 2022

Andreas Nicolas Fischer is a multidisciplinary artist from Berlin. Fischer started his artistic career as a traditional artist working mainly with painting and drawing, but became interested in generative art upon his visit to artist Casey Reas’ Process/Drawing exhibition in 2005 at DAM Gallery in Berlin. While he did not have a background in computing, Fischer was motivated to teach himself code and started creating animations with Processing. He also worked briefly with fabrication and sculpture to adapt to the demands of the market at a time when the interest in digital art was not yet mainstream. However, he considers himself a purist and likes to create systems that operate autonomously, something that he can achieve by working with generative algorithms.

This year he has presented on Niio the solo artcast The Art of Hypnosis.

Eva Papamargariti

Eva Papamargariti, As they were drifting away, their bodies turned into waves, 2022.

Eva Papamargariti is an artist based between Athens and London with a background in Architecture and the Visual Arts. The artist’s artistic practice focuses on creating 2D and 3D rendered spaces that ultimately blur the boundaries between physical and digital environments. Moreover, her practice focuses mainly on the moving image but she has also worked with prints and sculptural installations. Papamargariti’s works deal with the interactions between humans, nature, and technology which define our identity and everyday experiences. The artist’s works have been exhibited at different institutions on an international level including at The New Museum in New York, The Whitney Museum, New York, and Tate Britain in London.

This year she has presented on Niio the solo artcast Things Will Become Weirder.

Matteo Zamagni

Matteo Zamagni, Unison – 02, 2022

Matteo Zamagni is a multi-disciplinary artist who works across the visual arts, electronic music, multimedia installations, and film production. Using analytical geoscientific tools, VR/AR/MR, real-time generative imaging, photogrammetry, and CGI techniques Zamagni explores the complexities of the different crises that define our contemporary age and society. Zamagni’s artistic production is characterized by the exposure of the interrelations between nature and technology through machine-driven visual artworks. This year he has presented on Niio the solo artcasts Experiences of Synchrony and Thought Experiments.

Matteo Zamagni is represented by Gazelli Art House (London).

Fabio Catapano

Fabio Catapano, Colorem 221201, 2022

Fabio Catapano is an Italian digital artist and designer who works with code, CGI, and motion. He has a degree in digital sociology and anthropology, and with his work focusing on the relationship between society and technology, he attempts to create digital images that feel poetic and meditative. Fabio’s expansive work has been exhibited in Paris, Brussels, London and many other cities. He has also been part of the first Italian NFT auction organized by the auction house Cambi and SuperRare. And, he has been nominated as one of the ten most influential NFTs artists in Italy. Fabio collaborated with brands such as Nike and Apple.

This year he has presented on Niio the solo artcast A Theory of Color.

Julian Brangold: the computer error as a great revealer

Pau Waelder

Julian Brangold (Buenos Aires, 1986) is one of the leading names in the growing digital art community in Argentina. Through painting, computer programming, 3D modeling, video installations, collage, and a myriad of digital mediums, he addresses how technologies such as artificial intelligence and data processing are shaping our culture and memory, as well as our notion of self. An active participant in the cryptoart scene and NFT market in Argentina he has been exploring art on the blockchain since 2020 and is currently the Director of Programming at  Museum of Crypto Art, a web3 native cultural institution.

Coinciding with the launch of his solo artcast Observation Machines, which brings together a selection of four artworks from a recent series exploring classical sculpture and computer glitches, we sat down to discuss his work and views on the digital art scene. 

Julian Brangold, Observation Machine (Bifurcation), 2022

Every artist studying Fine Arts is confronted with classical sculpture as a model and a source of inspiration, to the point that this particular period in the history of sculpture has become intrinsically associated with the concept of Fine Arts and academia. Is it correct to see in your work a reaction to this?

I see the aesthetic territory of Greco-roman classical statues as a marker for how contemporary imaginaries are constructed today. Our cultural identities are shaped by this legacy, and my interest resides in a sort of ontological anchor to this node, and how it connects with the now, how it has an impact on our collective cultural memory. More specifically, I am fascinated by how information storage technologies today shape our relationship to that legacy that exists in the form of data, and how it makes us connect to that information so differently from how we could in the past. 

“My approach is mediated by error aesthetics, the computing error as a sort of visualizer of the hidden side of technology, of a great revealer of what commercial technology tries to hide.”

My bond to this imagery began when I came across an overwhelmingly enormous Russian database that stored hundreds of thousands of photographs of ancient Greco-roman culture (art, architecture, ornaments, technical objects). I wanted to explore how appropriating this complete sea of information as a subject matter would look like. The first exploration came from creating a data scraper that stole all the images of sculptures from the website and then grabbing small bits from that huge span of data and developing an intimate relationship with just one cutout to create something very human, very handcrafted and detailed. In this case a drawing, or a series of drawings. In the process, I also explored how technological tools would facilitate a sort of mishmash of the aesthetic “trigger” of these classical imaginaries (we know immediately what we are seeing when we come across these images) with modern computer aesthetics. 

Physical mixed media artworks such as the Anonymous Elements of Cultural Memory (2019) series already show an interest in classical sculpture, a form or rendering (as a drawing) and duplication. These elements are clearly present in your digital artworks, what does working with 3D rendering bring to your original intentions in these series?

This is a very interesting question because for years I worked with flat images, as you mention, in drawings, and then translated them to physical large-scale collages where the process of printing and then hand-pasting the different parts of the composition was part of the work itself. The jump to 3D was in the same line, a large database of 3D scanned classical sculptures (in this case one that is meant for people to be able to print out their own versions of this classic statuary), but I became very enticed with the idea of manipulating these object in 3D space because the visual possibilities expanded enormously. My approach is mediated a lot by error aesthetics, the computing error as a sort of visualizer of the hidden side of technology, of a great revealer of what commercial technology tries to hide. So error was a big part of the transition from 2D to 3D, in the sense that the manipulations were about destroying these 3D models, breaking them, bending them, and then seeing what happens when I tried to put them back together. 3D models have a lot more potential for destruction, at least in my mind, because there is simply more data to work with, more possible iterations of the same object when, for example, you can rotate 360 degrees. 

Julian Brangold. Observation Machines. A Song of Rubble, 2022 (detail).

Your digital drawings bring to a tangible medium (paper) a single fixed composition that stems from your exploration of 3D models. How is the process that goes from the 3D model to the drawing? Do you build the composition “manually” (intervening in every step) or do you let the software decide on certain aspects of it?

I love to use randomness in my work. I am very fond of serendipitous findings in the process of building an image, especially when working with computers, because this error aesthetic shines through. I use a lot of procedural tools in 3D to create the destruction and decomposition of these 3D models, and the outcomes are usually very surprising and accidental. The first explorations based on photographs from 2019 and 2020 were digital but hand drawn, because I was looking to convey a more intimate relationship with the material. Even the return to the physical outcomes (the printing and then collaging these drawings on a canvas) was also related to that same intention. The later 2021 and most recent drawings are created with 3D shading tools that imitate a flat style, a technique called “Toon Shading”, mixed with a tool in Blender called “Freestyle”. I find it funny to go back to 2D using 3D tools, it’s like the flat, drawing aesthetic is somehow calling me. 

Julian Brangold, Fade, 2022.

In your video works there is often an atmosphere of decay and decomposition, the latter being also present in Observation Machine, albeit as something fluid and reversible. Is this a comment on our society, or rather on the ephemeral nature of 3D renderings, despite appearing “real” and “solid” to the eye?

It is definitely more related to the ephemerality of 3D objects. It has to do with this notion of “showing what is behind”’ the tools we are using, of using technology to reveal more than what we try to hide. I use industrial and commercial tools that always invite us to orbit closer to streamlined aesthetics that tend to deny the fact that they are being used, to “cheat” the eye into realism, or hide the process happening behind. This is a constant in all artistic disciplines. Film montage for example works very hard to hide itself, to give a feeling that you are “not watching a film”. I think (and this is not a very new notion) that there is a form of subversion in using the tool in ways it is not intended to be used, and thus the outcome is not about cheating the eye, but more about revealing what hides underneath. This is where error, destruction, decay, and “untidiness” come to play.

Julian Brangold, Observation Machine (Bifurcation), 2022

In the Observation Machine series, we see several classical sculptures that are used as raw material for digital manipulation. Which sculptures did you use for these artworks? Are these 3D scans that you made yourself, or that you took from an online library? If so, which one? Is the iconography or original placement of the sculptures relevant to you, or have you chosen them mainly for their aesthetic appeal? 

The 3D scans come from an open-source library called “Scan The World”, as I mentioned before, meant for people to be able to print out their own versions of classical sculptures. The process of selecting which sculptures I use for each work varies from series to series. In this case, I wanted to explore different possibilities of the 3D tool I’m using (Blender), and ended up choosing the sculptures using very visual parameters (scale, shape, amount of information). Sometimes I like to empty the sculptures of their cultural meaning and just look at them as pure subject matter, almost like an abstract object, particularly to see what happens if I do that, what happens to the archival baggage. It is kind of paradoxical, but I like that it’s all intertwined in the same process.

A common trait of the artworks included in this artcast is that, unlike previous works, they play shadows and contrast to appear flat, going back and forth between what could be seen as a digital painting and a 3D object floating in a virtual space. Color also plays an important role in creating this perceptual effect. Can you elaborate on these aspects of the artworks? 

“Observation Machines” is a series of time-based works that present an emulation of a machine learning process being operated on these sculptures. The movement and sound are inspired by a machine’s logic of movement. It is an imagination exercise: what would it look like if a machine were trying to study this object? In the works included in this artcast (a subset of this series), I wanted to explore how when using color alone within the 3D software the image would transition from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. The only thing changing in these pieces besides the sculpture is the color of the background, which makes the shadows and the textures react differently and thus reveals the depth of the object being observed.  

Julian Brangold, Observation Machine (Iteration), 2022

You have come to prominence in Argentina as a leading figure in the contemporary art scene linked to NFTs. Can you tell us how this scene is evolving and how do you participate in it? What have NFTs brought to digital artists in Argentina, and is it different from other art scenes, as far as you can tell?

I have a background in the traditional art world, where I spent almost 12 years, so for me entering the crypto art world had a very strong influence on how I see my practice and my career. Argentina hosts one of the largest, more organized communities of crypto artists in the world, called Cryptoarg. I was part of the conception of this community from the start, and the relationship with other artists that came from very diverse backgrounds in art and the creative industries, intertwined with a novel art world that had very new dynamics and potentials, was a very impactful experience for me. Argentina already has a very close relationship with crypto technologies, being one of the “capitals” for Ethereum development, for example. I think we are very prone to adopting alternative means for the distribution of labor, information, and capital management, mostly because of our very precarious economic conditions. 

“The crypto art scene is very different from the traditional art scene. The tools for the experimentation, collaboration, and distribution of art make it a very fertile landscape for exploration and experimentation.”

The crypto art scene is very different from the traditional art scene. The tools for the experimentation, collaboration, and distribution of art make it a very fertile landscape for exploration and experimentation. Honestly, I find the traditional art world quite stagnant in its approach to technology. It is almost as if traditional art curriculums turn their back to our contemporary technological realities, and if they adopt some sort of look or introspection that relates to technology, it is usually quite a few years late. It is crazy to think it is still hard in some traditional circles to have technological art considered a valid art form. This is why, for me, the crypto art environment is interesting, it is very technology-native, and so the attention to what is happening with technology is very novel and updated, it is fast-paced in the same manner that technological development is, and it provides an honest, accurate look at contemporary culture, in a way that the traditional art world can’t keep up with because of its interests and scale. I don’t renounce the traditional art world, I’m very much interested in a lot of things that it has that the crypto art scene doesn’t, so I keep advocating for a cohesive intertwinement of both, a mutual nurturing. Even the distinction between both feels a bit silly sometimes. It’s all art we are talking about in the end. But the crypto art world developed so fast and came out of the underground so quickly that I feel it missed a bit of depth in its contextualization and organization. 

Julian Brangold, Observation Machine (Fragmentation), 2022

You are now director of programming at the Museum of Crypto Art. Tell us about this entity and your role in it. How do you define crypto art, and what do you find more interesting about it?

The Museum of Crypto Art (MOCA) is in my mind the very first web3 native proper art institution project. It began as one of the largest crypto art collections and became a space for empowering, contextualizing, and displaying digital art in experimental new ways that were in tune with web3 technologies. Decentralization plays a very important role in the museum’s ethos, and so my role as director of programming is to create a cultural output curriculum that follows that ideology. This is why, beginning next year, we will begin to experiment with the museum’s DAO and have the community of art enthusiasts, collectors, and artists participate in the construction of that curriculum collectively. 

We are looking into ways of creating an art program that escapes the top-down dynamics of traditional institutions, which are inescapably mediated by political and cultural bias, without losing the paramount power of cultural resources such as expert curation, historicization, critique, archiving, and the creation of artistic experiences. It is a very challenging project and holds a great deal of responsibility, but it is one of the most exciting ones I’ve ever been involved with. 

“The fact that an artwork can be sold as unique to one individual at the same time that it is readily available for anyone to experience in its native form is very powerful.”

I find the definition of crypto art as challenging as the definition of art itself. I am a big advocate of definition by context, both in the notions of art and crypto art. So, I guess I would define crypto art as whatever art exists in the context of blockchain technologies. The same goes for art in general, which for me is whatever exists within an “art-appointed” context. As an artist, I find crypto art interesting in its nativeness to technology, and in its potential for experimentation and the exploration of distribution and commercialization. The fact that an artwork can be sold as unique to one individual at the same time that it is readily available for anyone to experience in its native form is very powerful.

As an Argentinian, I’ve struggled a lot with the accessibility of art (my artistic idols had exclusive exhibitions in London and New York all the time, so I simply didn’t have, and still don’t have, access to their works), so the fact that crypto art is an ecosystem that hosts art that is naturally networked and accessible to anyone with access to the internet is very captivating to me. The problematizing of certain arbitrary boundaries established by the traditional art market, between “the high arts” and other creative disciplines, is also something I find quite appealing. In general, I have to say that the disruptive nature of crypto art, and the fact that it challenges an art world status quo, is one of the most interesting things for me. It kind of fucks things up a bit, and I find that quite exhilarating, and honestly, quite necessary too. 

Out of the grid, into your screen: display your NFTs anywhere

Pau Waelder

The NFT revolution has brought an unprecedented attention to digital art, which is now easier to collect than ever before: once you sync your wallet to the marketplace, you only need to browse, pick your favorite NFTs, and in two clicks you’re the proud owner of a rare gem that just dropped. It is so easy that many collectors have hundreds, if not thousands, of digital artworks in their wallet. The excitement of owning something beautiful and unique, paired with the immediacy of the transaction, can become addictive. As the collection grows, it fills row after row of an endless grid that you can see on any web browser. With a simple copy and paste, you can also share your collection with anyone and brag about your possessions, your taste, or your ability to seize the opportunity and get that coveted artwork that is now out of reach of most wallets.

The excitement of owning something beautiful and unique, paired with the immediacy of the transaction, can become addictive. As the collection grows, it fills row after row of an endless grid that you can see on any web browser.

In the heyday of its market boom, NFTs were seen as quick investments that provided those who arrived earlier and were faster to collect an opportunity to multiply their earnings by buying and reselling quickly: this is what in the art market lingo is known as “flipping.” But art flippers are frowned upon in the art world: what artists, galleries, and also art lovers want are serious collectors. A serious collector is someone who buys art out of a deep appreciation for the artwork, and wants to keep it. Someone who likes to support artists and learn from their work, and obviously someone who enjoys experiencing the artwork, not just storing it somewhere.

As the NFT market has begun to attract serious collectors, a specific question has risen to the surface: how to display the NFTs in your collection? This is a concern that was usually ignored by those who intended to keep the artwork in their wallet for just a few minutes. But now that art flippers, discouraged by the drop in value of cryptocurrencies and many hyped collectibles, have begun to look elsewhere for investments, those who remain and are really interested in the art they collect are considering how to enjoy the artworks as they would if they owned a painting or a sculpture.

From browser to room

Typically, marketplaces focus on providing artworks for sale and securing the transactions. They can also provide additional files that only the owner of the NFT can access, countering the argument “why buy something anyone can download?. In some cases, the platform is not just an endless grid displaying every artwork that users have uploaded, but something more. This is, for instance, the case of Feral File, which features NFTs in curated selections that focus on a particular subject or format, and put together artworks by emerging and established artists, oftentimes produced specifically for the platform. Feral File also stands out from other marketplaces in that it provides collectors with detailed information about each artwork, its format, and the associated files that will be transferred after the sale. As I mentioned in a previous article, it is very important to know exactly what you are getting when you buy an NFT. 

Beyond securing the means to collect NFTs and preview them in their own website, most marketplaces do not offer any means for collectors to display the artworks they own elsewhere. Here again, Feral File is an exception with the development of the smartphone app Autonomy, which allows bringing to a single interface all NFTs collected in different wallets, on Ethereum or Tezos, and viewing them on the device’s screen. The artworks are collected from their IPFS addresses, which at first might cause some delays in loading and viewing the artworks, particularly for a large collection. The app also offers the possibility of connecting to a smart TV or projector and viewing a single artwork on a screen of projected surface, although this relies on a previous synchronization with the device that is not always easy to achieve: while Chromecast and AirPlay are increasingly used, not all screens and projectors support them properly. Solutions like Autonomy respond to the need that NFT collectors have of managing their collection and displaying the artworks, but they are still not fully developed.

Niio has a robust system for storing and managing collections of video and digital art, that is paired with a curated art program, and an app for iOS, Android, and Apple TV, also directly available on Samsung and LG screens, that allows to display a continuous stream of artworks, full collections, and curated selections with information about the art and the artists. The system also provides full integration with NFT collections by allowing users to synchronize their wallets and import the NFTs to their Vault, where a copy of the IPFS stored file is saved and can be immediately displayed on any screen using the Niio app. In this manner, the solution provided by Niio finally fills the gap between buying an artwork minted as an NFT and enjoying it on a high resolution screen at home, or anywhere. Once the wallet is connected to the collector’s personal account, they can buy NFTs on any marketplace, choose which ones to store in their private vault, create their own playlists, and view them in the app or on a screen.

This is the future of collecting, as gallery owners Valérie Hasson-Benillouche (Charlot, Paris) and Wolf Lieser (DAM, Berlin) recently pointed out: collectors are traveling a lot, and they like to have their collection with them, and also to share it with others. This brings a different way of buying art, as it is not only meant to be placed somewhere, but it becomes part of the collector’s daily life and interactions with others, wherever they go.

Moodies LA Takeover. Photo courtesy of Moodies by Hanuka

Formats and behaviors

A question that comes out when displaying NFTs usually is: how do I display my square NFT in a 16:9 screen? Certainly this is a common issue due to the paradoxical fact that TVs have evolved from being square to rectangular, while digital art, that usually adopts the format of a screen in portrait or landscape orientation, has usually adopted square formats in the NFT market. The explanation for NFTs being square can be found in the grid established by most marketplaces, which has become the field of battle where artists compete to show their work, the latter being limited to a square thumbnail. The square format has also proven to be the most successful on social media, and particularly apt for PFP collections, the type of art that one buys to use as a profile picture and signal one’s belonging to a community defined by a particular NFT project such as CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, or more recently, Moodies by Hanuka.

While some square frames exist, not all artworks minted as NFTs follow this rule, so it is up to each collector to decide whether to use a regular screen for all the art they own, or find a place for an additional screen in this particular format. Certainly, just as most collectors have artworks in different sizes that fit certain spaces of their homes, it is possible to have a series of screens (one in landscape orientation, another one in portrait orientation, and finally a square screen) to display different kinds of artworks. In this case, it is important to use a system that allows controlling the art displayed on all of the screens from one app, which is something that Niio can uniquely do.

Just as most collectors have artworks in different sizes that fit certain spaces of their homes, it is possible to have a series of screens to display different kinds of artworks

Not all NFTs are the same or have the same purpose. As previously mentioned, some are meant to be used as a profile picture or distributed online, which does not mean they can´t also be displayed on the wall. But others have a particular behavior, they can be generative, or interactive, which means they require a software to run continuously and sometimes an input in the form of a mouse click, movement captured by a camera, and so forth. Digital art has many forms beyond what is usually associated with NFTs, and since artists can mint any digital artwork as an NFT, it must be remembered that some can only be experienced with a specific software and hardware setup. In these cases, the collector must take into account that they need to setup a computer with the software provided by the artist, and connect it to a screen. Some companies, such as FRAMED*, sell a digital frame with an integrated computer that can run software-based artworks, but the collector must make sure that the software of the artwork they own is compatible with this type of device, as well as the size and orientation of the screen (FRAMED* currently sells a device named Mono X7 which is a 17.3-inch portrait orientation display). For video artworks, there are also solutions like Infinite Objects, which provide a customized small screen to display a single video in a continuous loop. Described as “video prints,” these screens have been used by some artists to turn an NFT into a unique object.

Autonomy lets you access your NFT collection and display it. Niio allows you to store, manage, distribute and display video, digital art, and NFTs on any screen.

A collection that lasts

The NFT space wants serious collectors that do not engage in art flipping and hold to the art they own. But collectors also demand a lasting solution for their art collections, which at first the NFT art market, immersed in constant dropping and transacting, did not care much to provide. Most NFTs are stored in IPFS, a peer-to-peer network system that is expected to keep artwork files safe and at the same time publicly available. However, the best option to ensure that one will be able to preserve the artwork is to download the file and keep copies in different locations. This is particularly true for unlockable content that is only available to collectors and usually consists of larger files and additional material. Most marketplaces rely on links to IPFS and store unlockables in their servers, but a safer choice is to keep everything at hand, in a private space. Niio provides collectors with a vault where they can store the artworks and manage all the information about them, including additional files that will be kept private and can always be downloaded. The artwork can be displayed and shared, but it is also securely stored.

Most marketplaces rely on links to IPFS and store unlockables in their servers, but a safer choice is to keep everything at hand, in a private space.

NFTs show that art collecting is entering a new phase in which collectors want flexibility, ease of use from their smartphone or any other connected device, and the ability to take their collection anywhere. But they still want reliability and a way to safely preserve their artworks. The solution that aptly responds to all of these needs will become the standard in the art world.

Steven Sacks: 20+ years at the forefront of new media art

Pau Waelder

Photo: Joanna Holloway

Steve Sacks founded bitforms in New York in November 2001, at a time when digital art was getting attention among the contemporary art institutions in the USA as well as Europe. Major exhibitions held that same year, such as Bitstreams and Data Dynamics at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and 010101: Art in Technological Times at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art were particularly inspirational for him.

Photo: Joanna Holloway

The name of the gallery (always spelled in lowercase) merges the words “bit”, understood as a basic unit of information, and “forms”, referring to any art form, as a statement of its commitment to art and technology. At 529 West 20th Street, the gallery was initially located in the heart of Chelsea, the epicenter of New York’s art scene. In 2005, bitforms opened a second gallery in Seoul, but the market for new media art was still far from consolidated, and this space closed its doors in 2007. In 2014, after thirteen years on a first-floor space in Chelsea, bitforms relocated to a ground-floor property on the Lower East Side. 

Over two decades, bitforms has achieved an influential position in the contemporary art market as a gallery devoted to digital art, participating in major art fairs and representing some of the most recognized artists in this field, such as Manfred Mohr, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Casey Reas, Quayola, Auriea Harvey, Refik Anadol, Gary Hill, Claudia Hart, Beryl Korot, Marina Zurkow, Daniel Canogar, Daniel Rozin, Siebren Versteeg and many others. On the occasion of the third series of Niio Commissions, which was curated by Sacks, we sat down with the gallerist to discuss his views on the development of the contemporary art market and the role that digital art is now playing in it.

Installation view: Manfred Mohr: A Formal Language. bitforms gallery, New York, 2019. 

How would you compare the general awareness of digital art when you opened your gallery in 2001, and today?

In 2001 there were things happening in the art world and underground scenes, but media art was not accessible or exposed as it is today. There is no comparison. Today it is now mainstream, thanks to three letters, NFT.

Installation view: Claudia Hart, When A Rose is Not a Rose. bitforms gallery, New York, 2011

The initial statement of the gallery read: “bitforms will position digital art as an influential and innovative art form that is evolving and warrants recognition.” Would you say that you have achieved this goal?

The goal of the gallery from the beginning was to present artworks from all generations of artists that were experimenting with media. It took a few years, but we were able to build a diverse stable of artists, each having a voice and a vision tied to their generation. History was essential. We purposefully worked with artists of historical significance to enhance the credibility of the younger generation of artists and the genre itself.

“The introduction of software art through our program was one of the more significant moments at the gallery. Generative, interactive and immersive art opened up innovative ways of creating, experiencing and appreciating art.”

In your gallery, and in collaboration with your artists, you have developed methods for selling digital art, and particularly software art. What was your experience with these formats?

The introduction of software art through our program was one of the more significant moments at the gallery. Generative, interactive and immersive art opened up innovative ways of creating, experiencing and appreciating art. As with video and photography before, there was apprehension and doubt about the validity and credibility of using technological media to create works of art. Today, software or generative art is among the most popular art being purchased today. The use of software in the creation of art has expanded conceptually and revealed many new art forms using digital technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI), to name a few. None of these artistic practices would be possible without the mastery of code.

Installation view: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Voice Array. bitforms gallery, New York, 2012.

Twenty years ago, you envisioned the possibility of collectors having a dedicated screen for digital art and experiencing a rotating collection of artworks. Do you see our present moment as the right time for this vision?

Very early on I felt people would have screens in their homes devoted to media art. The idea of having a single location with a curated selection of works was necessary in order for the medium to thrive. Of course NIIO has a similar vision which is why I chose to work with them from the start. There were no tools at the time that allowed for the collection and management of media art, and my collectors were demanding it. Today, with the massive popularity of NFTs, millions of people are now aware of media art and many are looking for elegant ways to present their works. Screens have also come down in price, gotten larger and have greatly improved their resolution. It’s a very good moment for media art to enter the “art” dialogue for the masses.

Installation view: Casey Reas +
Jan St. Werner. Alchemical. bitforms gallery, New York, 2021

Over the last two decades, bitforms has become a beacon of digital art in the contemporary art market. In your experience, has the position of galleries devoted to digital art changed in the contemporary art market?

I would say over the past 10 years we have seen the integration of media artists into mainstream galleries, and in the past few years there have been others more devoted to media art. Also, museums began to witness the popularity of media art installations drawing large crowds across many generations. Again, when the NFT explosion occurred there was a much broader audience that became very curious about how they could purchase and live with non-traditional art forms.

Installation view: Refik Anadol. Quantum. bitforms gallery, New York, 2021

In 2021, you launched bit.art to showcase NFT drops by your artists in an online platform. Did you create this space as a reaction to the endless thumbnail grids offered by NFT marketplaces? What is your opinion about how NFTs are commonly displayed and curated?

When NFTs started to show up everywhere, the gallery needed to take a stance. We were unhappy with how people were defining quality media art and how little was known about its context and history. The majority of NFT platforms gave no context, they were just marketplaces, primarily focused on buying and flipping. No emotional attachments. No conceptual rigor. It was all about the money. Which is fine to a degree, but not when the entire basis of NFT/digital art was to define a new type of commodity to be traded, not appreciated or intellectually challenging. 

“Niio gives my artists more exposure and it’s much easier for collectors to view and manage their artworks”

bit.art tried to connect with how artists conceived the presentation of their work, both on a cultural and market level. The site never really succeeded financially, but we needed to make a stance and present our views of this nascent marketplace. Things are changing. More artists are creating serious work and thinking about presentation, and more collectors are excited about the art instead of just looking to flip artworks quickly and make a profit.

Installation view: Beryl Korot, Selected Video Works: 1977 to Present. bitforms gallery, New York, 2012

Niio has recently launched its third series of commissioned artworks with artists represented by bitforms. Can you tell us briefly what you find interesting about the platform?

I have very much enjoyed curating on the NIIO platform. It gives my artists more exposure and it’s much easier for collectors to view and manage their artworks. As I said earlier, there is no other platform in the market that gives artists and collectors this type of control and freedom.