TENDER Insights #16

Project Love

Spazio/Colore by Alessandro Fiore

Alessandro Fiore has consistently delighted us with his playful perspectives on geometric forms and painterly mark-making across dozens of projects dating back to the earliest days of fxhash. This time, the artist who we first grew to know and love as whitekross turns to the short-lived Futurism movement for inspiration as he explores dynamism and movement in this long-form series.

Futurism was an early twentieth-century art movement that originated in Fiore’s home country of Italy and sought to encapsulate the energy of the new modern world. Artists associated with Futurism aimed to break away from traditional expressions of art and instead aimed to represent the technological advances and pace of change happening during the Industrial Revolution. The movement is known for its celebration of technology, machinery, urbanization, and speed, often featuring elements like cars, airplanes, and industrial cityscapes. Futurist art often utilized a Cubist-inspired style, with fragmented forms and intersecting planes, to emphasize the energy and fluidity of the modern era.

Ah, if only they could see us now! We've replaced the steam engine and the railroad with the computer and the internet, but those feelings of newness, change, and uncertainty remain the same. Just as those early Futurists sought to convey the feeling of the rapidly changing, industrialized world through their innovative techniques, generative artists reflect our contemporary digital and information age by creating artworks that could not be realized by traditional means.

Spazioo/Colore succeeds in not only reimagining Futurist conceptual and formal constructs, but also creates something quite unlike anything we’ve seen from generative art – richly detailed with an evenly distributed asymmetry of wild movement, textured fields of flat-feeling shapes, a wide span of cohesive and unique palettes – all contributing to a highly under-appreciated series… at least for now. 😉

Dopamine Machines by Steve Pikelny (Art Blocks)

The internet is many things, especially these days. But sometimes, it’s just one giant dopamine machine. It responds to triggers, it prompts for triggers, it makes people yearn for the next hit – scanning desperately for the highest impact trigger in our never-ending scrolling view.

Steve Pikelny leans way, way into that concept in his new release on Art Blocks. If you think the screenshot above is a lot, wait until you click the link and see it move. Or mouseover the various panels and watch them change color. Or browse the other 776 outputs, each of which celebrate the gusto of the bang-marketers that have circled the web since the days of

Oh, and did we mention the sound? 😉

Some parts of this project are pure nostalgia for the capital-”I” Internet of the 1990s. “Click Here!” banners and web-surfing references abound. But other parts of it operate as a direct critique of the hype cycles of our own time.

Pikelny’s scrolling banners that scream "Crypto!" and "NFTs!" and "Not Financial Advice!" are deliberately designed to look like they were created by a teenager cobbling together a GeoCities webpage who just discovered CSS for the first time. Placing those all-too-familiar words and phrases against a stark backdrop of juvenile absurdity challenges us – especially the more self-serious of us! – to step back and evaluate what we’re really up to here.

After all, who can resist a good dopamine rush?

KRILLER by James Paterson and Stephen Ramsay

For KRILLER, visual artist James Paterson (presstube) teamed up with musician Stephen Ramsay to create "an eternal seven day looping art broadcast."

As if that weren’t ambitious enough, here's the thing: that seven-day broadcast is divided into 6,300 "cassettes" – 900 for every day of the week. Over the past few weeks since the project’s release, collectors have been "fabricating" (purchasing) those cassettes one-by-one.

Here’s where we stand:

Once all the cassettes have been fabricated, the entire audiovisual production will stream continuously at https://kriller.com/broadcast. For now, the page simply says "n0t y3t" in plain black text on a white background, but we’ve heard whispers that there will be an interim performance of this massive work, as it stands.

We love how ambitious and new this project is, and the individual cassettes are entrancing to listen to. It is also a beautiful evolution of James’s drawing style that’s graced us on the internet for many decades now – stemming, in Kriller, from a massive library of unique animating micro-works, to yield wild and hypnotic compositions. Head over and spend some time watching the recent additions at the bottom of this page – and when you like what you see and hear, mint your own. 👊 

Don’t Miss This

• June 1: Speak To Me by Lisa Orth (Art Blocks; floor: 0.11 eth). “Speak To Me experiments with layering and interrupting repetitions of basic geometric shapes, exploring their interplay and movement when placed in relation to one another. Drawing loose inspiration from historic art movements such as Suprematism and Constructivism, [Lisa is] seeking to investigate the potential of these simple forms to create dynamic and complex visual arrangements.”

• June 9: Slice of Life by elsif (fxhash; floor: 110 tez). We have long loved elsif's colorful palettes and unique textures, and Slice of Life may be her best yet. Using everything from icy blues to soft pinks and gentle greens, the artist plays on the idea of tree rings as reminders of cherished memories and the passage of time.

• June 12: Generative Architecture. The making of a room. (Verse). This exhibition was curated by Alejandro Campos and ismahelio, who drew on their professional training as architects to provide us with some glimpses of the burgeoning GenArch field.

• June 17: Machine-hearted by Ivona Tau (K011 - Kate Vass Gallerie; minting: 0.24 eth). Some things are easy enough for AI systems to classify. “Cat” or “Not a Cat”? No problem. But what about emotions? That’s the question Ivona pushes in her new collection, which features outputs ranging from pure abstract color to extraordinarily evocative pseudo-realistic human figures.

• June 19: Nuages possibles by Joanie Lemercier (fxhash; minting – with very few left – 2000 tez). Leveraging not only fx(params) but also the platform's brand new Redeemables feature, Joanie Lemercier brings us a hundred new "possible clouds." Each digital dot-patterned cloud piece can be redeemed for a corresponding physical plotted work – a connection reinforced by the presence of a pen in those digital pieces.

• June 20: Save & Preserve by sivash (Foundation; minting: 0.05 eth). We’re fascinated and perplexed by this “ethereal AI drop … that effortlessly weaves together modern style trends, sustainability, and archetypal symbolism.”

• June 26: Rad by Barry Sutton (minting: 0.1 eth). Black-and-white photography has never looked quite as sunny ☀️ as it does in Barry Sutton's new AI project Rad. Sutton, who has been a photographer for over thirty years, offers us a third "synthetic extension" of his traditional work. This new collection combines his own photos with the power of AI to give us a vibrant celebration of beaches, skate parks, music, and a nostalgic youth culture .

• June 27-29: Self, Id/Ego/Superego Trilogy by Ty Vek. Our favorite “artist in reticence” is back with not one, not two, but three new works. As the title suggests – and as the artist describes in their delightful companion article – these pieces are designed to draw on Freud’s three competing versions of the self: Id (in Ty Vek’s paraphrase, “a fucking mess”); Superego (“a bit more structured, maybe even architectural at times”); and Ego (the warring combination of the two).

Coming Up

• July 14-15: NFT Show Europe in Valencia. This blockchain and web3 conference is back for its second edition – this time on the eastern coast of Spain. Full lineup of artists here, including plenty of our favorites like Zancan, Piter Pasma, Studio Yorktown, Ivona Tau, Danielle King, Ana M. Caballero, and Jacek Markusiewicz.

• July 18: Jenni Pasanen and the Paris-based artist collective Obvious release new AI works on K011, a recently launched platform from Kate Vass Galerie, a leading contemporary art gallery based in Zürich, Switzerland.

• July 26: Sotheby’s kicks off its brand new Gen Art Program with a Dutch auction of as-yet-unannounced work from Vera Molnár. The legendary auction house’s new initiative will feature work from 2-3 generative artists per year.

• August: Studies in color, light and geometry by Zach Lieberman on Verse. Zach draws on the work of Gottfried Jäger as he continues his exploration of light and movement. This exhibition will feature something for everyone: “video works, print works, and exclusive in-person-only NFT mints [in Verse’s gallery in London].”

• Late Summer: TONIC’s second season launches with Pointila by Phaust and, later, new work from Lars Wander.

• Fall/Winter 2023: launch of fx(hash) 2.0, which will integrate with Ethereum & on-chain minting. Full details in the team’s June 29, 2023 Twitter thread announcement here.

• As always, a quick reminder to go check on & use any fx(params) mint tickets you have sitting around before they expire.

  • There are still some unused mints tickets out there for Slice of Life, Pensado a mano, Charcoal Seeds, and YYYSEED, and other fx(params) projects – see if you can snag one!

  • Here’s quick reminder on how the ticket system works.

Hot Picks of the Week

The Piece: contrapuntos #518 by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez
The Price: 2200 tez (near floor; standout white background piece)

The Piece: ORI #417 by James Merrill
The Price: 0.72 eth (near floor)

The Piece: Sparkling Goodbye #83 by Licia He
The Price: 0.625 eth (floor)

The Piece: Ceramics #30 by Charlotte Dann
The Price: 0.32 eth (near floor; very nice texture)

The Piece: Speak To Me #214 by Lisa Orth
The Price: 0.11 eth (floor; iconic Lisa Orth palette)

The Piece: Cosmic Rays #147 by Melissa Wiederrecht
The Price: 0.1 eth (floor; very radiant)

The Piece: Axiomata #106 by Vazk0
The Price: 99 tez (only listing with the Mondrian palette)

The Piece: Love #248 by Tyler Boswell
The Price: 95 tez (near-ish floor; fun combination of colors & motion)

The Piece: Penumbra #67 by Rich Poole
The Price: 37 tez (above floor, but a dynamic piece)

Movements

“Brands” aren't just logos or marketing initiatives.

A brand is more than an organization’s logo or public image. It's also more than a dressed-up marketing persona tacked on to an existing product or company.

The concept of “brand” is much broader. It applies to and is informed by everything about its subject, and it it grows out of a continuous cycle of individual experiences – leading to an aggregate consensus – then back to individual interpretations or consensus+experience.

Service businesses, product businesses, entertainment groups, cultural institutions, and individuals all have brands. Companies that sell commodities have brands, just as exclusive labels that sell premium luxury products do.

A brand is an intangible synthesis of everything an organization does and is: the experiences it provides, its look & feel, reputation, audience relationships, and everything in between. The quality of a brand at any given moment is simultaneously an amalgam of everything it has been in the past and the embodiment of everything that's expected of it in the future.

Each individual can define their own perceived value of a given brand, and so the overall definition of a brand's quality is only made up of aggregate common perceptions. But those "average perceptions" in turn influence individual opinions about a brand, which cycles back to effecting the aggregate perception.

In short, a brand's value is a qualitative metric of perceived quality with massive implications.

Brands in Art: a good thing!

The art world is full of recognizable brands, and global communication increases the influence of every individual action those brands take. From Artsy and Sotheby's to LACMA, Gagosian, bitforms, Damien Hirst, and Ai Weiwei, when you hear certain names, you think certain thoughts.

The presence of brands in the world of fine art is not antithetical to the “purity” of art. Instead, brands serve to propel artists’ missions and the collective benefit of everything art brings. To ignore the concept of brand or deride it as a “marketer's toolkit” misses its potential for positive impact and the reality of the world in which art exists.

In our own world of generative art: artists, collectors, curators, platforms, and galleries each have their own brands – whether they like it or not. Consciously building those brands is key to the success or failure of any individual or institution.

As individuals, we all constantly evaluate brands.

“Brand” is neither inherently good nor inherently bad: it is simply an aggregate measure of perception.

Evaluating brands as an individual is a worthwhile endeavor, as it helps build your awareness of what factors matter to you, what is verifiable, and results in an opinion true to your values that can then be shared with confidence. When evaluating a brand, individuals might consider factors like its authenticity, influence, quality, innovation, trustworthiness, value, interactions, support, access, and/or reputation.

These types of isolated factors are helpful to consider when considering a brand, or building a brand – but you should also not underestimate the power of your overall “feel” for a brand. Your “System 1”-style intuitive perception of a given organization is often an effective gateway to understanding your specific opinions and a worthy complement to a "System 2"-style rubric of different specific qualities.

As the recursive effect of brand love between individual spread, we can then see the power or a strong core audience. Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired Magazine, famously wrote that even in an internet-enabled long-tail age, we don't need to attract everyone at first – we just need a truly dedicated audience of "a thousand true fans." And as Kelly himself then readily admitted, the number isn't really even the point: it's the ethos of devotion to a brand and the desire to stick with it.

Once you have a brand that you're dedicated to and that you believe is doing good work, there’s a special opportunity to embody it it in your interactions and magnify its impact – and therefore the benefit that comes back to you and its other true fans. Share what its up to, discuss its initiatives, represent it in your social circles, and see where you might be able to fit into its overall mission. Leveling up from there, brands can align with each other and combine forces – not just platforms + artists (which is obvious), but various other combinations of curators, collectors, and artists as well.

Executing on these exponential combinations is neither easy nor quick nor straightforward. As we wrote last time, patience is a superpower, and that's especially true for something as abstract and important as building a powerful brand – but together, its full power can be unlocked.

For Tender, so much of our brand has been grown by the community through shared interactions and hands-on contributions over this mere year and a half –and we are so thankful for it! We're grateful to all of you who are here, and we're equally excited to meet those who will join in next. We also know how much more there is to come, and can’t wait to share some exciting next evolutions in the coming weeks!

Collector Spotlight: mithrandir14!

Hey, thanks for chatting with us!

So, “mithrandir14” – what's the origin of the name? I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and "Mithrandir" is the elvish name for Gandalf. Then I had to add "14" because thirteen other people were apparently also huge fans.

What is your current state of mind? It's a little bit of a roller coaster at the moment. At times, I find myself reveling in the opportunity to buy art at heavy discounts – and the next day I'm asking myself whether I'm crazy. Honestly, I feel that now is the best time to be hunting grails. I suggest really trying to be selective in your collecting and stretch to get that keeper piece that you will hold for the long term as opposed to minting everything and hoping for a flip.

I also think that crypto wallets have a Dropbox-type problem at the moment. NFTs are too often "dropped in a folder" and not really appreciated daily in the same way that a piece of art on the wall would be. I really love what some of the recent physical + digital projects are doing to change that.

What is your most treasured piece in your collection, and why?

Position and Momentum by Lars Wander:

At its best, art evokes an emotional reaction. This piece does that for me. I am also a huge fan of Lars and Verse, the platform the project was released on. Having the physical plot also means I get to enjoy this piece daily.

If you could own any artwork, which would it be? On the generative art side, a Charcoal Meridian. If we are not just talking digital art, then it's definitely a Rothko. Any one would do – but if I could choose, maybe No. 14:

What is your idea of the perfect drop? One where the folks that want to collect purely because they love the art and where everyone gets the opportunity to do so. I think the very rare “slow mint” drops that happen on fxhash are the closest we get to this. It's evident in the secondary action following that type of mints that most people who collected have no intention of flipping.

Really, it's so bizarre to me that instant-mint outs have become the baseline expectation. In the gallery world, it is a really big deal for an artist to sell out a show – and especially on the opening night. I'd love to see the digital art world trend in that direction: one where folks have time to sit with a project and a piece before buying instead of rushing into gas wars

As a collector, what’s been your greatest success? The relationships I've built along the way. I've made some life long friends with other like-minded collectors and also with some of the artists I love most.

What about your greatest regret? I wish I was more focused in my collecting early on. There is definitely a certain joy to just minting everything. But like most people, I am by no means a “whale”; my funds are limited. As a result, I’ve often missed opportunities to collect pieces I really love when they pop up.

What three artists, dead or alive, do you most want to have dinner with?

Lars Wander, Sam Francis, and John Coltrane.

Lars Wander is my favorite digital artist and someone I've developed a friendship with via Twitter and Discord, so having the opportunity to meet in real life would be rad. His work How You See Me reminds me so much of one of my favorite traditional artists, Sam Francis, so it would be awesome to chat art and color theory with two of my faves.

Finally, I love jazz and I love math. John Coltrane went through some effort to compare the two, so that would also lead to some stellar table talk. Plus we'd definitely end with a night cap at the closest open mic.

What's the most important quality in an artwork to you? Evoking some type of emotional reaction in the viewer.

How do you like to relax? I have two toddlers, so I don't get much time for that! It's not always "relaxing," but when the surf is up I spend as much time as I can in the water. Being in the ocean has a real grounding effect for me, and I can’t recommend it enough!

Thanks for chatting with us! What two collectors should give this questionnaire to next? tinbane and MrKrabs.

TTFN 👋

We’ll see you out there on Discord & Twitter and will be back next month with another issue of our TENDER Insights Newsletter. Feel free to reach out anytime with comments or suggestions. 🙂

— Adam, Stephen, and the whole TENDER family