objkt labs

🥁 …please welcome the second objkt labs Residency cohort! ▪️@Merzmensch ▪️ @_pixellare ▪️ @OriginalGoldCat ▪️ @Olga_f2727 ▪️ @paranoidhill ▪️ @adhd143 ▪️ @Rabbunnitt ▪️ @vandaloruins ▪️ @omgidrawedit ▪️ @RebeccaRose ▪️ @AugursNFT ▪️ @chepertom ▪️ @Simulacroo ▪️ @Micah_Alhadeff ▪️ @alexmayarts Let’s kick things off!

Electric Mom in Cannes... 🎞️ C'est fabuleux ❤️ Thank you @objktcom for this honor✨

We've discussed yesterday with @BorisEldagsen during our @objktlabs artist residency this topic: when the artwork becomes culturally significant? By hitting the critical mass, by changing the game, by shifting paradigms, by entering art market, by entering art history lessons?

Here are the additional questions from our @objktlabs warm-up discussion last night, that I had to drop because time was running out: · When AI can produce masterpieces on demand, what becomes the purpose of art education? · What creative skills should we teach today if most technical execution can be automated tomorrow? · If creativity becomes cheap, what will still be worth paying for? · Why should society financially support human creators when machines can produce culture for free? · Will future audiences care about authorship — or only about experience?

A long one but appreciate you getting a tea and settling in. Last night on our @objktlabs residency call we were talking with @BorisEldagsen and @postanika and had an extremely interesting conversation about where artists are going to end up with AI. Are you going to use it as an equal collaborator, genuinely working alongside it as a creative partner? Are you going to use it separately, running in the background while you work elsewhere, almost like it's doing its own thing while you do yours? Are you going to reject it completely? Or are you just going to use it as a way of connecting the dots, figuring out who you are as an artist, understanding your own practice better, using it almost as a research or reflection tool rather than a making tool? All of those feel like valid places to end up. I just know where I'm headed personally. But before I get into that there's something that keeps coming up for me in these conversations that I don't think gets enough consideration in the AI debate. And that's the individual experience of creativity. As in what making actually feels like for a specific person or creative. My wife is a photographer. I've sat and watched her shoot and edit and there is absolutely no way she isn't in a flow state when she's doing it. That's where her creativity lives. That's her place. Yet for me it's completely different, and I've only really started to understand why recently. About a year ago I found out about Aphantasia and that I have it. No visual imagination. When I close my eyes there's nothing there, just verbal noise, very loud very constant often negative noise. I spent a while not really believing it applied to me, kind of rejecting it refusing to believe I have it especially as i’ve had many ‘dudes you don’t have it how can you with what you make’ chats with friends and artists. But I've sat with it a lot now over a long period, used meditation to really investigate it, and I've started to understand how much it's shaped everything about how I work and how I feel when I work. For me it's about something more specific than discovery. When I'm making, really making, hands on screen, marks appearing, it's like my mind has this constant stream of noise, and the act of creating is how I filter it. I catch what I can from that stream and pull it into something I can control, a kind of reservoir, and then it flows out of me visually onto the page. That's the experience. That's what I'm doing when I'm working. And I can't get that from AI. Not because AI doesn't offer its own kind of back and forth, its own kind of discovery. I'm sure for some people that collaboration feels very alive. But for me the filtering is the work. The catching of thought is the work. That moment where the noise collapses into one stream and something comes through, that's the most human I feel and most creatively at home. That's the place I'm trying to get to every time I sit down to make something. And I haven't found a way of getting there through a prompt. But that is MY personal experience. That's not a universal statement about AI and creativity. My wife gets into that state through photography. Others obviously get there through prompting, especially if they're not someone who's generally been a visual maker and AI is suddenly opening something up for them. There's no reason that can't be real. We just don't talk about that spectrum enough. We debate AI in these huge broad strokes about what art is and what making is and we skip the question of what making actually feels like for an individual person. So I don't use AI for making my images. That's just where I am. But that doesn't make me anti-AI. I'm genuinely obsessed with forward thinking technology, I find all of it interesting. I'm just being honest about where it fits for me (now) And then there's the argument. Well you use tools, so isn't AI just a tool? Why is it any different? I used to think that. I genuinely did. But I don't anymore. A tool is a hammer. A chisel. A paintbrush. A pencil. Those things that extend you. AI is not a tool. AI is a factory. An everything factory. And we can't compete with a factory, in fact throughout history every human endeavour to compete with the factory has unravelled. What i’m actually looking for in the making is a certain kind of feeling, a certain kind of small scale truth I guess. The personal touch, the me’ness in things. We talked about where all of this is going more broadly. And one of the directions that came up is this idea of fully personalised experiences. The Netflix example where eventually you just say make me a show that's Bridgerton meets My Little Pony and you get exactly that and you watch it that evening. And I don't disagree that we're heading there. I just think when we actually get there there's going to be a hard rejection. Because I love talking about films with my friends. I love talking about TV shows. That conversation you have afterwards, debating it, picking it apart, that's one of my favourite parts of experiencing something. Art is the same. What happens to that when there's no shared experience left? When everyone's watching their own version of everything? All pushed into our tiny little box separate from each other. And what happens to art when the line between viewer and artist blurs so completely that everyone's making their own art exactly how they want it? Will people even need art from artists anymore? I think there'll always be the people who want the intellectual dimension that art brings, who need that thing of encountering someone else's vision. But the world likes pop music. That's why it's called pop music. It's just human nature to eventually settle into what's easy and personal and made just for you. To just become one with the slop. A few years ago I made a piece called 4 Player Split Screen. It was about how much shared experience has just quietly disappeared. And I don't think people stopped wanting those things. I think technology and profit pushed us away from them. Going to the video store. Buying a record and bringing it home. Four players on one screen. All of these things that used to be these shared social rituals just got eroded, not because people didn't want them, but because the economics and the technology pushed in a different direction. And around that time I started talking about what I coined the Return to Video Store Theory. Which is basically just this belief that when everything gets personalised to the point where there's no shared experience left, people are going to remember what they're missing. And there'll be a breaking point. A hard rejection. And we'll find ourselves going back. Back to the video store, back to the record shop, back to the dark room. Because those things matter to people. They just don't always know that until they're gone. So where does that leave us as artists right now? I think the most important thing is authenticity. The me-ness of what i'm making, that's what matters and that's what no factory can replicate. I've been trying to be honest and authentic throughout my whole artist career and I do believe that's the thing that protects you. Not the style, not the platform, not the tools. The you-ness of it. And for me personally I'm at a turning point, with my explorations and ideas. I've built OMGiDRAWEDIt around a very specific thing, maximalist, illustrative, digital painting, and that's been my world. But I have so many ideas that exist outside of that to complete my universe and something has always held me back from sharing them. I think finding the confidence to go outside of that, to explore what else is in there, is the most authentic thing I can do going forwards. Will Ai be in the mix...in some form probably. But as always we will see. We're headed somewhere strange. But I think we'll end up back at the video store. And I'll see you there. Attached my piece 'Do Computers Dream Of Touching Grass'

✦ objkt lands in Cannes on 30 March ✦ presenting 12 artists from @objktone + @objktlabs a 360° art show during TezDev ⟟ Hotel Martinez see you there - RSVP below ￬￬ 𓂃 ོ⋆☀︎𓂃⛱

Each session of the @objktcom labs art residency stretches my brain in new dimensions. I walk away zealously jotting down ideas and storyboards for fresh animations. Deep gratitude for @postanika, @BorisEldagsen, and the cohort of artists for these juicy, delicious discussions.

Except when you have a residency program with @BorisEldagsen to discuss about being an artist in the age of AI 👾 (with a entire crew of artists) Thanks for creating this moment @postanika 🔻

★ I grew up with bands like Fugazi and still listen to them regularly, but regarding my own artistic practice, the relevant field of reference lies somewhere between "Anohni and the Johnsons" and "Aphex Twin’s" experimental approaches. I am looking for ambivalence. Links in the comments. → Sound layers and musical fragments are a important parts of my artistic approach. The spatial and affective qualities of soundscapes extend my networked sculptures from the digital space into the physical. (Works: RAW MATERIALS – A column of random numbers & crystalline from my exhibition "gestures – songs of algorithm" with @objktlabs curated by @postanika

Looking back at our first minted piece, 🕛Two years since our first mint! This throwback isn't just about the art, but about the community we've built. From our debut to our current residency at @objktlabs , our practice continues to mutate and grow 🌱

You bring your mess. You watch it go round. Maybe as sound of the drum spinning whirs your mind whirs too and you start to hear the voices again. You tremble and the world trembles with you. We're all just waiting for the cycle to finish. Laundrette is the third piece in the Disordurance series. 15 editions available now for 100 tez. Link below 👇 As always please head to objkt to see the work have a zoom and find some secrets, it wasnt made with x crops or compression in mind. 💚

Thank you @DagieDee for purchasing a very special piece... one that captures a small fragment of a story slowly being built 🍃

Gn Me navigating under rubbles after being sick and disconnected for a while... How is everyone? 📷Anna#14, on @objktcom

I grew up having to constantly adjust who I was depending on the room. I was either not Latino enough in some spaces or too Latino in others. Algorithmically Safe Latino comes from that tension. Part of Downloadable Artist. On @objktcom curated by @_second_guess 🔗 ↴

„Ultimately, "data" has become a bloodless word; it disguises both its material origins and its ends.“ → Currently re-reading Kate Crawford's book "Atlas of AI" → In my artistic work, I not only want to make visible the data’s material origins and our embodied behavior, but also work toward concepts of how this transformation into data offers emancipatory potential for the networked subjects we have already become. #Embrace #fragmentation. A good example for this is my release "gestures – songs of algorithm" on with @objktlabs .

Some days being an artist online feels like updating software. New persona. New tone. New version. Downloadable Artist is about all the versions of myself I upload just to stay visible. @objktcom @_second_guess @postanika 🔗 ↴

"How will networks transform human perception of space and social relations?" → Questions like this drive my artistic practice focussing on how human affects and decisions are shaped by machines. Today we will discuss its political implications in my lecture @univienna. Looking forward! (work: "sweet spot" part of the exhibition "gestures – songs of algorithm" with @objktlabs this January, link below)

Art on Tezos Friday Recap 🔔 → Bar CodeX by @WenNew_Atelier opened at @macLyon, curated by @MarleneCorbun, ft. a collaboration with @agoriamusic. The MAC Bar becomes an interactive space for language, sound, and participation. On view March 6–July 12. Watch out for the secret codes on coasters to claim your unique NFT. → @artontezos_ launched “Mind the Gap.” Collectors @basileus_eth, @WAPSHOP_ETH, and @JacCourtney are actively supporting and collecting women artists throughout March, helping bring more visibility and recognition to their work. → #collectHERobjkts ramps up ahead of International Women’s Day. @objktcom encourages women artists to mint with the tag while collectors amplify and acquire. The homepage will spotlight women artists this weekend. → @TezosCommons highlighted @TeiaCommunity as gem of the week → @objktlabs introduced the mentors and guest speakers for Residency II, including @KevinAbosch, @BorisEldagsen, @margaretonline, @postanika, @KikaNicolela, @aljaparis, Margit Rosen and Mirjam Baitsch supporting the next cohort of artists. → Art on Tezos After Dark at TezDev Cannes has been announced. A 360° art show on March 30. Lineup coming soon. RSVP open 👀 → @artcommissiontz revealed the selected artists for the March Album Cover edition. → objkt Collector of the Week #35 spotlights @tinoch, a Singapore-based collector supporting digital artists in the space since 2022. → @normalistoxic extended the deadline for Voices of Iran submissions by one week due to ongoing internet disruptions affecting artists in Iran. → Art on Tezos spotlighted five years since Hic et Nunc launched on Tezos, reminding how open minting, low fees and experimentation helped shape the ecosystem. → New TezTalks episode with @malsheep56 discussing multidisciplinary practice and community-driven art ecosystems. → @fabriziobrarez published another Seen by Brarez, this time spotlighting @oandrshchnk and her work. → Artz Friday guest this week is @catswilleatyou, an artist who has created daily works across mediums for over 7,000 days. Join the conversation. Hosted by @YinYangYoeshi & @Crypt0nio. Don’t Miss: → @micalnoelson's “Seven Works of Mercy 1606–7 (4 in Butter, 4 in Oil)”. Chiaroscuro-inspired works blending photography, sculpture, and 3D. → “research” by @loved_orleer, a new collection of 15 video works. → The third PONDER collective drop, "Essential Threads", bringing together 58 artists and artworks on objkt. Curted by @demonegoo. → "that feeling" by @manta_timing on @objktone, a response to the escalating absurdity and instability of contemporary reality. → “METAMORPHOSIS.” A collective exhibition of 32 women artists curated by @CinziaGabrielPH & @muriellondon. → "SLOTH #46" by @slothzine, the monthly clean NFT comic zine featuring 15 artists across 20 pages. → p5.js 2.0+ Artist Series Drop #1 with @Licia_He. The work explores Bézier curves through a generative font system for plotters and creative coders, in partnership with @ProcessingOrg and @TezosFoundation. → “Don’t Read the Comments” by @natrixian, a 25-piece series built from P-Hub comments and famous artworks, reflecting absurdity and darker sides of online culture. → New on @dropdotart: - "you are not SPECIAL" by @Revolue - "People" by @CmasTien - "Mashed Grid 1" by @boyinthemumble Image: Private Party by @esraeslen, collected by Wapshop

📁 Art on Tezos Let’s have a weekly look at items of interest across the @artontezos_ ecosystem: Top sale of the week is ‘The Thinker’ by @RJ16848519 - covered here two days ago. Right behind it is ‘Baboon’ by @DVKtheartist, a 1-of-1 work acquired for 3,800 XTZ ($1,484 USD) by @SarantuyaSimone. It is part of the collection ‘Little pieces of my soul’, which now contains 4 artworks in total. The third collective group release by PONDER, curated by @demonegoo - ‘Essential Threads’ - has now seen 5,050 XTZ in total volume. Its top sale is ‘Private Party’ by @esraeslen for 1,000 XTZ ($378 USD) to @WAPSHOP_ETH, and edition of 25 ‘items’ by @ttiimmees sees its sixth sale today, totaling 120 XTZ thus far. @objktlabs announces mentors and guest speakers involved in their upcoming Residency II: - Kevin Abosch - Aleksandra Art - Mirjam Baitsch - Boris Eldagsen - Anika Meier - Margaret Murphy - Kika Nicolela - Margit Rosen Last but not least, the next "2-4 Minutes" video from @RogerDickerman will feature #collectHERobjkts. Stay tuned.

I truely loved the exchange with the amazing bunch of artists of the first residency. Looking forward to be a mentor again and meet the new objkt labs residents soon!