Today, the virtual world is expanding at the same pace as the real world, or perhaps even faster. And with this endless possibility of expansion, the human psychology of yearning for more and beyond gets deeper and almost questionable. The question that arises is – where does art fit within this yearning? Or is it just a medium to explore something larger than life? This quest led us to explore the conundrums of art making, viewing, and buying in the current scenario of the metaverse.
The phrase ‘Metaverse’ was foreign until 1992, when the American writer Neal Stephenson fabricated the term in his sci-fi novel ‘Snow Crash’. The word is a blend of meta and universe literally meaning more of the universe or an extension of reality. Metaverse further developed and manifested as what we know now as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.
Although, the concept of metaverse had already been existing since 2003, in the form of a video game called Second Life that inculcated avatars. As intriguing as it sounds, the game’s no virtual limitations were starting to spill into the reality of people which caused its further development to stop.
This was then, and here we are today, living a life dictated by our virtual reality – be it softly consuming 3D printed food, 3D constructions, or even art.
An evening by the beach with Refik Anadol’s MH- Coral Dreams. (Image credits- Refik Anadol Studio)
Dynamic NFT by Refik Anadol, Living Architecture: Casa Batllo, (Image credit- Refik Anadol Studio)
Metaverse in the realm of art
Art Viewing
“Viewing Art Online” – As convenient as it sounds, it is equally capable of creating discomfort in the real world. If we were to ponder on how the virtual world has altered our sensitivity towards art, would we know that our perceptions are being carefully and sophisticatedly twisted?
What we look at is the representation of an actual object. The urge of having everything neat and polished on screen like an installation placed neatly on the floor with ample amount of virtual space left to circumambulate the piece is slowly dissolving our capacity for acceptance and appreciation of disorder in real life. Hence, altering how we perceive aesthetics in art.
Art Buying
NFT (Non-Fungible Token) can be anything ranging from a drawing to your thoughts downloaded and converted into AI. NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain – the cryptocurrency like bitcoin – and have already made a prominent place in the art market (for buying and selling purposes). What we do not know or perhaps have been ignoring is its impact on the parallel existing art market, artists, and all their related environmental and cultural ponderings.
The reproduction of digital art is now traceable with the ownership and transaction being recorded. However, it still does not make it a responsible method of art buying as it directly impacts the environment by increasing the carbon footprint.
Art Making
The emergence of automation alternatives like AI (Artificial Intelligence) has put the concept of art-making under a different light, making it even more important today to emphasise this word and its connotation.
Though artmaking is evolving, the question is what is this evolution in favour of apart from monetization? What value is it adding to the existing artist community? What knowledge are we gaining apart from the invisible, prominent, and consistent pressure on artists for being tech-savvy?
These are the questions we need to ponder upon in order to have inclusivity and a better mechanism to navigate through art.
Here are some of the prominent artists making noise in the art fraternity globally as they become the NFT artists:
Refik Anadol’s Machine memoirs- space, (Image credits- Refik Anadol Studio)
# Refik Anadol
The renowned Turkish-American media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence in his recent Instagram post, unveiled the “Glacier Dream Project.” It is an AI-inspired research project presenting the beauty and fragility of the world’s glaciers.
The execution of this project required the accumulation and utilisation of 100 million photographs procured from institutes and the internet along with an additional dataset of 10 million glacier visuals from the artist’s personal collection from Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica.
Artificial Realities: Coral, commissioned by Julius Baer and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, is currently on display at Art Basel. (Image credit: Refik Anadol Studio)
In another recent experiment, the artist and his team revealed an XR Data Sculpture and painting series. In this experiment, the wind data collected from the virtual and physical space is transformed into immersive patterns giving a poetic layer to the otherwise still-looking object.
The artist’s preoccupation with AI, its sentience, and all the possible related experiments is endless. So far, he has been successful in inventing technology that analyses AI dreaming, thinking, perceiving, smelling, etc., and continues to restlessly work towards making AI experience its consciousness.
Also Read: The Ethics Of AI Art – An Insight Into The Indian Landscape
Federico Clapis, Grieving Conceptions Flooded exploring timeless emotional states, (Image credits: Federico Clapics)
# Federico Clapis
Federico Clapis, an Italian visual artist, set his long journey independently from being a sculptor to transitioning into an NFT artist, is the long journey the artist took independently. Abandoning the material art world, Federico Clapis in one of his interviews mentions the reasons being the uncertainty of monetary profit and the discomfort with moving, buying, and using heavy materials to make a sculpture.
Also Read: MAP Museum Of Art & Photography Signals A New Era For Museums In Bangalore
Federico Clapis, Digital Growing Flooded, (Image credits: Federico Clapics)
In another interview, he reveals his experience of exploring his inner journey in an ashram in India and continuing his research through various paths of existence.
Among his recent work is a video game, where the player is an artist who navigates through gallerists, buyers, museum directors, and other art delegates. The player gets to glue the gallerist or kick the curator or mute the director. In this game although you cannot die but can be silenced by monopolisation. And if you successfully win over all the hurdles, the prize you win is the artist’s NFT towards the end.
With NFT evidently gradually growing in the art world, the future-takeover of digital art is inevitable. Nonetheless the parallel art world of classic art making, viewing and buying will continue being imperishable.
Links
Refik Anadol
https://refikanadol.com/
Federico Clapis
https://www.federicoclapis.com/
