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<\/p>\nGenerative art is proving Web3\u2019s creative anchor in the traditional art world. Last month, New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) made headlines by acquiring Refik Anadol\u2019s \u201cUnsupervised \u2014 Machine Hallucinations\u201d (2022) alongside an edition from last year\u2019s \u201c3FACE\u201d project by Ian Cheng. These two mark the first-ever artificial intelligence (AI) and nonfungible token (NFT) additions to MoMA\u2019s collection, already home to relics such as Andy Warhol\u2019s soup cans and Vincent Van Gogh\u2019s \u201cStarry Night.\u201d<\/p>\n
The landmark acquisitions also supplement MoMA\u2019s longtime legacy of pioneering exhibitions at the intersection of technology and art, from its 1968 show \u201cThe Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age\u201d through this year\u2019s \u201cSignals: How Video Transformed the World.\u201d<\/p>\n
MoMA\u2019s announcement arrived in tandem with an outline of the institution\u2019s digital art programming for the fall and winter seasons ahead, including the debut of video artist Leslie Thornton\u2019s latest work, \u201cHANDMADE\u201d (2023), and an online exhibition with Feral File opening early next year. Weeks before, MoMA had announced its on-chain Postcard project, too.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThese new initiatives underscore MoMA\u2019s longstanding commitment to support artists who\u00a0experiment with emerging technologies to expand their visual vocabularies and creative exploration, increase the impact of their work and help us understand and navigate transformative change in the world,\u201d the Museum\u2019s release around their acquisitions states.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud to be included,\u201d Cheng told Cointelegraph. \u201cMoMA had previously acquired my \u2018Emissaries\u2019 trilogy of simulations in 2017. Their openness and enthusiasm for acquiring dynamic digital art is rare for an institution.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the screensaver heard around the world. Whether you\u2019re enamored or suspicious of this one-time Google artist-in-residence\u2019s prolific and mesmerizing machine-learning abstractions, the odds are you\u2019ve seen them. Anadol designed this one in particular with help from Nvidia. It feeds 138,151 pieces of visual metadata from MoMA\u2019s collection to an algorithm that produces an AI imagination of art history through Anadol\u2019s signature undulations. <\/p>\n
Since its release in November 2022, \u201cUnsupervised\u201d has been reviewed by critics at Vulture, Artforum and more. The time it took to write those reviews says more than anything about the work\u2019s import. Jerry Saltz\u2019s half-baked hot takes don\u2019t detract from the mental energy his writing requires. Haters alone haven\u2019t made Anadol famous \u2014 he has scores of devoted fans if not collectors. MoMA opted to extend the work\u2019s 24-foot tall display several times. It just came down on Oct. 29, but visitors who minted their proof-of-attendance protocol, or POAP, from the posted QR code still have a piece of the spectacle. <\/p>\n
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Noted NFT collector and founder of the club 1 OF 1 Ryan Zurrer made the work\u2019s acquisition possible, along with the \u201cRFC Collection,\u201d led by Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile and Desiree Casoni. <\/p>\n
\u201cI tip my hat to the folks at MoMA for understanding the cultural zeitgeist of the moment,\u201d Zurrer told ARTnews. \u201cUnsupervised went up two weeks before ChatGPT went public. AI is the defining topic of the moment, and MoMA captured that. I\u2019m excited to donate this work to MoMA. But I need to acknowledge that this isn\u2019t just a donation from me and [collector] Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile, but from Refik. He is bringing the servers and screens and the other components. The NFT is one part of this conceptual artwork that belongs to MoMA now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Magazine:\u00a0I spent a week working in VR. It was mostly terrible, however\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n While the Museum couldn\u2019t clarify whether Anadol outright donated the hardware that enabled \u201cUnsupervised\u201d to go on view, we can assume that\u2019s the case. Their release said Thornton\u2019s \u201cHANDMADE\u201d will go on view in the same Gund Lobby where they displayed \u201cUnsupervised\u201d on a screen the very same size, \u201cdesigned by and realized with thanks to Refik Anadol Studio.\u201d <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Cheng evades branding. A lifelong exploration of psychology through cutting-edge technologies defines his practice more than any single aesthetic. In fact, there are 4,096 unique editions of \u201c3FACE\u201d in existence, and not one of them was designed explicitly by Cheng\u2019s hand. Works in the generative project depict adaptive, ongoing visual portraits of their owners, crafted using data gleaned from their wallets at any given moment. MoMA calls it his \u201cmost ambitious experimental artwork to date to explore blockchain technologies and the decentralization of data,\u201d which expands upon \u201cthe artist\u2019s interest in the capacity of humans to relate to change.\u201d <\/p>\n In his efforts to represent and shape the ephemeral mind, Cheng told Right Click Save last year he believes \u201cart can play a role in upgrading the unconscious response we have to complexity.\u201d \u201c3FACE\u201d honors the depths of every person \u2014 and, because it\u2019s dynamic, their ability to change.<\/p>\n The NFT platform Outland Art donated its \u201c3FACE\u201d to MoMA\u2019s collection. \u201cJason Li and Chris Lew advised a lot and helped flesh out the team to turn the idea into a reality,\u201d Cheng told Cointelegraph. \u201cI would not have made \u20183FACE\u2019 without Outland.\u201d <\/p>\n The work\u2019s public entry on MoMA\u2019s website doesn\u2019t list what number out of the whole series it is or what wallet it belongs to. MoMA didn\u2019t respond to Cointelegraph\u2019s request for comment, but based on the way \u201c3FACE\u201d works and the fact that MoMA just started collecting on-chain artworks, this might be the \u201c3FACE\u201d interpretation of a wide open wallet populated only by Anadol\u2019s \u201cUnsupervised.\u201d<\/p>\n Carrying the torch from former contentious and pioneering art forms like photography, generative art has forced this generation of artists to reassess what exactly makes art valuable. <\/p>\n \u201cThe endgame of generative AI tooling is a new immediacy between thought and visual articulation,\u201d Cheng mused about what\u2019s next for AI art. \u201cWe\u2019re used to the immediacy between thought and written or verbal expression. A writer, with no intermediary help, can construct a novel. Imagine if you, with no intermediary help, could construct a movie. As with writing fiction, the filmmaker is capped only by their own imagination, their taste, the quality of their questions, their courage to pursue gray truths, and their understanding of human behavior.\u201d <\/p>\n Technology will continually evolve, but it\u2019s the evolution of artists\u2019 abilities in using it that divides what\u2019s merely eye-catching from what\u2019s impactful. Not that those two are mutually exclusive \u2014 even though MoMA\u2019s Anadol acquisition is akin to the institution buying itself a Louis Vuitton bag, what society calls luxury is history on its own. <\/p>\n Recent:\u00a0No CZ, no problem: Binance Blockchain Week showcases Turkish crypto industry<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Anadol and Cheng both work predominantly with data while making AI art. The emergent properties of their processes have implications. \u201cUnsupervised\u201d begs the question: What is art history?<\/em> \u2014 a fraught topic traditional art historians argue over without even breaching painting alone. By virtue of its premise, \u201c3FACE\u201d asks those who engage with it how they\u2019d quantify a gnarled human psyche. It\u2019s one of the few projects that uses the ledger as anything more than a manner of transacting.<\/p>\n Museums such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Centre Pompidou started collecting NFTs back in the boom days. MoMA\u2019s decision to lend credence to such works now marks a new watershed moment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe pinch our nose at \u2018AI art\u2019 right now because the first experiments look like experiments, but zoom out 10 years from now,\u201d Cheng said. \u201cThe ease of producing visually refined expression will unlock a lot of artistic agency from a greater plurality of people, and this is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n3FACE<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nAnother chapter in art history<\/h2>\n