Digital art, also known as new media art, has been a growing part of museums and contemporary art scenes since the 1960s. With the advancement of Blockchain technology, the emergence of NFT platforms allowed the commercialization of digital art at scale by providing a way to establish ownership and authenticity, allowing artists to sell their digital creations as unique assets.
Following the launch of Tezos’ first marketplace the hic et nunc in March 2021, some of the world's most prominent digital creators expressed a surge of interest in releasing art on the Tezos blockchain, many releasing NFTs for the first time. Since then, the ecosystem became home to new platforms such as objkt.com, teia, fx(hash) or emergent properties, and thousands of artists, collectors and curators.
magdorm, by @p1xelfool & @Nicolas_Sassoon, Minted May 24, 2021
At the same time, artist residencies, festivals and embrace of Tezos by traditional institutions such as MoMA, Serpentine, Musée d'Orsay, Museum of Moving Image and many others were supported to facilitate broader adoption, provide opportunities for creators and raise the cultural significance of the works.
Display of ‘b a r b i e ~ w o r l d ~ b r e a k d o w n’ by @sabatobox at Museum of Moving Image, NYC
Three years passed by, and the demand for iconic collections from the 'historic' early period is rising from individual collectors, art funds, and collector DAOs. In a series of episodes, I'll highlight (in no particular order) the collector's choice selection of artists' series.
Zancan
Lushtemples — Highlights of the Hike • Garden, Monoliths #156, by @zancan, Minted throughout 2021
Michael Zancan is a generative artist and oil painter who is among the best-known artists in the Tezos ecosystem. In July 2022, he made his first public appearance at the generative art panel I was fortunate to moderate, during which he shared more about his practice and work. Watch it here.
The most acclaimed collection of his thoughtfully crafted generative works is Garden, Monoliths released on fx(hash). A more unique series, which are now highly difficult to attain and in the hands of true aficionados of his work is Lushtemples, dating back to October 2021.
Kim Asendorf
Still from monogrid 97, by @kimasendorf, Minted Oct 9, 2021
Kim Asendorf is a German artist creating abstract visual systems, conceptually set and realized in algorithms. He’s been widely acknowledged in publications and his work was featured at The Photographers' Gallery in London, Transmediale and Office Impart to name a few.
One of his most prominent collections from 2021 is ‘monogrid’, consisting of 256 real-time animations. To truly experience the series one can interact with the works on this dedicated website and learn more about the project here.
Auriea Harvey
Minoriea v1-dv1, 2021, Digital sculpture by Auriea Harvey @auriea. AR on mobile. Minted Apr 16, 2021
American-born Harvey's work combines digital and physical processes to create sculptures in physical space and mixed reality. Harvey is a pioneer of the first wave of Internet Art, contributing to the first Internet project commissioned by a major institution (the Guggenheim Museum) and winning the first major prize given for an interactive work (from the SFMOMA).
Most recently, she was curated by objkt.one as part of MATTER & DATA exhibition at Digital Art Mile during Art Basel in Switzerland and has her first major survey My Veins Are the Wires, My Body Is Your Keyboard exhibited at Museum of Moving Image where visitors can collect a fragment of the larger work as an NFT.
Travess
Selection of work by Travess from the Pixel Rugs series
Travess Smalley specializes in computational generative image systems, developing painting software, computer graphics, digital images, books, drawings, and Pixel Rugs. He is an Assistant Professor of Print Media at the University of Rhode Island, and a Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Pixel Rug, originally released as part of a daily series of generated digital images on hic et nunc, is created from a computer script filled with chance actions and random number generators, so no two rugs look the same. This iconic ongoing collection has been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions.
John Karel
Window Still Life 042, .gif by @jjjjjjjjjjohn, Minted Apr 19, 2021
Countless internet users have seen artist John Karel's playful skeleton cartoon character (the artist's GIFs on Giphy have approximately 20 billion views). In 2021, he also released an NFT everyday life series titled Still Lifes, featuring dozens of Window Still Lifes in a consistent arrangement with unique thematic subject references.
The demand to own a skely from John Karel got so high that he also released a collectible series titled ‘randomly common skeles’ with nearly 38000 skeles collected. The windows series is now a hallmark of the early era, and his art on the blockchain.
die with the most likes
dying in the pacific northwest trash vortex, by @toadswiback, Minted Aug 6, 2021
Mark Wilson, more prominently known under his artistic alias 'die with the most', is an American artist known for his striking neo-expressionist art with satirical pop culture references. His series reflects the evolution of prominent moments in the global newsfeed and the crypto art community. At the same time, the artistic persona on X/ Twitter has developed into a dystopian storytelling narrative of its own.
In addition to the early work, Wilson released his first generative art series on fx(hash) titled ‘glory hole$’ in May 27, 2022.
Mario Klingemann
The Wallpaper is Watching I
Face follows function. A StyleGAN2 experiment by Mario Klingemann / @Quasimondo | Interactive WebGL | Original, Minted Apr 12, 2021
Klingemann is a German artist and a pioneer in the use of computer learning in the arts who was one of the first to explore and push the boundaries of creating coding on hic et nunc. His work has been exhibited at leading museums, and the piece Memories of Passerby I is the first work made with AI to be auctioned at Sotheby's in 2019. I was fortunate to interview Klingemann back in 2020 about his artistic journey, you can read here.
Following the evolution of Klingemann’s work one follows the evolution of AI technology. His work is always one step ahead from the mass market, with a culmination approaching as you read this. That’s what holds his first creations so valuable - they capture a real moment in time, now documented on the blockchain simultaneously.
Manoloide
caza, by Manoloide, Minted May 7, 2021
Manolo Gamboa Naon, known as 'Manoloide', is an Argentinean visual artist and creative coder whose interests focus mainly on exploring generative visual aesthetics based on plastic experimentation with code. His early collection is one of the most aesthetically beautiful collections of code-based art.
In 2021, Manolo would release his works without prior announcements, and persistent collectors returning daily to his profile were rewarded with an opportunity to acquire one of the editions. The aura of mystery and lack of promotion created an organic element of excitement in the discovery.
A. L. Crego
Hypnotic Machine 3, by @ALCrego_, Minted May 31, 2021
A.L. Crego is a self-taught digital artist from Spain known for his hypnotic monochrome GIFs, which he profoundly explores as an artistic medium. There are many prominent series, with 'Hypnotic Machines' being one of the highlights. The series was conceived considering the Visual Mantra feeling that seamless gifs generate and later evolved into Visual Beats, focusing more on the beat side of the seamless gifs.
Lorna Mills
Eighth Wanda, by @lm_netwebs, Minted Aug 30, 2021
Lorna Mills is a Canadian net art and new media artist who is known for her digital animations, videos, and GIFs. Her work explores how "the notion of public decency is anachronistic" featuring images that she pulls from the “non-professional” Internet.
Mills has been widely exhibited since the early 1990s and her work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Thoma Foundation and the Museum of the Moving Image among others. She has an upcoming solo exhibition with objkt.one during Paris Photo fair in November 2024.
Bird & Worm Society 🐥 🪱
I'm letting you in on an insider secret: The Bird & Worm Society. It's a society of collectors fond of works by qubibi and Iskra Velitchkova, among others. There are no rules, only appreciation.
Iskra Velitchkova
Psychedelic chicken à la mode, by @pointline_, Minted Jun 1, 2021
Bulgarian self-taught computer artist Velitchkova, also known as pointline, explores the boundaries and interactions between humans and machines. Among her series, is one of the all time high generative collections on fx(hash) titled ‘horizon(te)s’. Created with the legendary artist Zach Lieberman, horizon(te)s explores horizons as an organizing principle.
Velitchkova's work has been featured in many publications, exhibitions and galleries, including the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art and Sotheby's Auction House. One of her most striking works resembles a chik, which later reappears throughout selected pieces. Thus the "bird" in the Bird & Worm.
qubibi
Selected works from @qubibi leftovers series
Kazumasa Teshigawara, most commonly known under the label qubibi, is a Japanese generative artist and designer.
The iconic leftovers collection by qubibi, featuring code-based microorganisms in a distinct style, is one of the most sought-after collections from the early era. Due to the worm-like shapes, qubibi is the other half setting the Bird & Worm Society in motion.