New York Times "The Lasting Lessons of John Conway’s Game of Life" by Siobhan Roberts
New York Times publishes an article ‘The Lasting Lessons of John Conway’s Game of Life’ by Siobhan Roberts feat. artworks by generative artist Kjetil Golid, who is also a part of the ongoing art exhibition Game of Life-emergence in generative art at Kate Vass Galerie.
Fifty years on, the mathematician’s best known (and, to him, least favourite) creation theory ‘Game of life’ confirms that “uncertainty is the only certainty.”
Read full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/science/math-conway-game-of-life.html
Kate Vass Galerie featured in Jing Culture & Commerce
Might Blockchain Technology Revitalize the Art Market?
by Victoria Stapley-Brown | January 1, 2021
The boom of the crypto art market in 2020 bodes well for the growing ties between art and blockchain technology. Image: Shutterstock
The intertwining of art and blockchain technology has been underway for years. But with a pandemic fallout that has dramatically impacted institutions and decimated artists’ income, that relationship has grown and thrived in 2020 — providing digital artists a much-needed avenue to present and sell their creations, and collectors an innovative way to discover art. As our world grows increasingly virtual, this surge of the crypto art market should come as no surprise.
Read Full Article HERE.
A Platform-Agnostic ERC-1155 NFT Contract for Artists
An exercise in throttling the potential of an exciting protocol to do just what I wanted.
by Kevin Abosch, January 4th 2021.
My first non-fungible tokens, NFT’s $YLAMBO & $MDAV, created March 15, 2018 & March 27, 2018 respectively, were each unique works represented by indivisible ERC-20 tokens. Almost three years later the NFT landscape for artists is robust with numerous platforms dedicated to the management and marketing/sales of NFT artworks and collectibles (SuperRare, OpenSea, Rarible, KnownOrigin, Portion, Enjin, etc). Thousands of artists across the globe have chosen to present their work in NFT form. For artists who might be looking for a platform-agnostic option (your NFT not tied inextricably to a particular platform) and to save a bit of money on ETH gas when transferring multiple tokens, my approach might appeal to you.
A recent project led me to consider how I would produce an edition of NFT artworks today and I was faced with the decision of which protocol to use, the de facto NFT protocol ERC-721, or the newer kid on the block, ERC-1155. The latter’s development, which I have followed for the past couple years, seemed more elegant and with greater functionality. But upon its recent progression to final status (congrats to: Witek Radomski, CTO of Enjin), many of the popular NFT platforms and crypto-wallets have yet to integrate the protocol (this will change very soon).
Continue reading full article HERE.
暗号戦士 / CRYPTOSENSHI LIMITED EDITION CRYPTOSENSHI NFT ARTWORKS BY WORLD RENOWNED CONCEPTUAL ARTIST KEVIN ABOSCH
TOKYO, Japan - World-renowned conceptual artist Kevin Abosch (kevinabosch.com) is the creative director for Japanese anime/manga brand CRYPTOSENSHI. Coinciding with the public announcement of the manga (comic book) which will be released Spring 2021, Abosch has created two limited edition digital artworks in the form of NFT(Non-fungible token) on the blockchain.
The two artworks “Impossible” and “Reigai” are both editions of 20 and are available through Kate Vass Galerie (katevassgalerie.com) in Zurich, Switzerland.
Abosch is one of the pioneers in crypto-art and his work has been exhibited in many of the world’s most prestigious museums including The State Hermitage Museum (St Petersburg, Russia), ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany) & Jeu de Paume (Paris, France).
In February 2018 Abosch’s NFT artwork “Forever Rose” sold for US$1 million with the proceeds going to the RaspberryPI/CoderDojo Foundation. Later in 2018, Abosch neon- sculpture of 42 alphanumerics “Yellow Lambo” sold for US$450,000, more than the cost of a new Lamborghini Aventador motor car.
As creative director of CRYPTOSENSHI, Abosch is responsible for the development of the characters and artistic direction of the brand’s anime and manga departments.
ABOUT CRYPTOSENSHI
CRYPTOSENSHI (暗号戦士, pronounced “Ango-senshi” in Japanese) are cryptographic warriors that battle in the digital realm while a proxy war takes place in the “real world.”
Abosch explains: “We are living in a world in which truth can be subverted by those leveraging technology to weaponize data — Humans with the help of benevolent AI are in the midst of a war to mitigate the deleterious effects of disinformation. It’s epic, it’s romantic and it’s our future. Cryptosenshi are heroes that empower us to find a truth, even if it’s fleeting.”
PRESS ENQUIRIES: press@cryptosenshi.com
CRYPTOSENSHI.COM
DEC. 9TH Curators' Talk: Jason Bailey and Alex Reben in conversation with Kate Vass
Join our Curators’ Talk on December 9th at 1pm PST | 4pm EST | 10pm CET!
Jason Bailey and Alex Reben will be in conversation with Kate Vass as a part of the ongoing exhibition 'Game of Life - Emergence in Generative Art'. We will discuss exciting topics around generative art, what is John Conway’s Game of Life theory and how this was of inspiration for the artists - and much more!
The Talk will take place as an online event, the link will be shared closer to the date. Stay tuned!
Here you can register your interest to attend.
Upcoming events - St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum & #BitBasel Miami
We are happy to actively join the following events in the upcoming weeks!
St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum 26 November 2020 18:00 — 19:30
Works of contemporary artists have developed into the field of science, technology, biology and sociology for a long time already. Therefore, it seems natural the Blockchain Art emergence as a separate artistic movement. The ability to originate an autonomous, self-sustaining and self-reproducing work with which it is possible to interact is extremely attractive to the creators. However, why are the Blockchain Art works still not accepted by many? Will the bitcoin works achieve the high art level? What prevents the museums and galleries from taking Blockchain Art seriously?
Blockchain makes it possible to make the system of buying and selling the works of art more transparent. Use of the smart contracts, obligations under which are fulfilled automatically facilitates direct interaction of the artist and the client without the intermediaries' participation. Will Blockchain open up new options for funding the artistic endeavors? Will it make the works of art more accessible to the middle class people?
To the greatest extent, Blockchain is able to influence authenticity verification and proof of origin artwork history. Nowadays, most sales in the art world account for luxury class works, which high cost generates a spread of fakes and fraud. The systems for evaluating, documenting and certifying art and digital works with the help of Blockchain will make the art market unified and legal. Will it contribute to lower the prices and cheapening the art? And is an open art market appearance possible in the near future?
#BitBasel Miami Exclusive Crypto Community Art Event
DEC. 5th , 2020 Panel discussion: “Curators of cutting edge art. The act of displaying, promoting and selling digital art assets”. Panelists: Kate Vass- Kate Vass Gallery, Jason Rosenstein- Portion IO, David Moore- KnownOrigim, Superrare - Jonh Crain
You can view the full recording here https://www.pscp.tv/w/1dRKZNomqMwKB
#BitBasel Miami
Panelists: Kate Vass - Kate Vass Gallery, Jason Rosenstein- Portion IO, David Moore- KnownOrigim, Superrare - Jonh Crain
#ARTPROJECT2020 Vancouver Biennale panels
It was a real pleasure being part of #ArtProject2020 within Vancouver Biennale!
For the ones who missed it, below you can find the panels we’ve been happily joining.
At The following link we invite you to visit our #womensupportingwomen dedicated page on Ephimera and browse beautiful works by selected female artists: https://www.ephimera.com/account/0xb91f32958c4c6a775f882439c5b8d3b4a36e9cdc/
COINTELEGRAPH | Mysterious ‘cat burglar’ pilfers CryptoKitty from digital art installation
Crypto-artist Kevin Abosch on a recent ‘crime,’ the state of digital art, and a new generation of art collectors.
On Friday, Kevin Abosch — an Irish conceptual artist who was among the first to use blockchain technology as a medium — reported that a dastardly heist had been committed in one of his on-chain installations, an Ethereum wallet-turned-artwork titled "Stealing The Contents of This Wallet Is a Crime" (2018).
In a Tweet the artist, whose work has been exhibited at The Hermitage, said that a CryptoKitty had been swiped from the freely-accessible address:
“Stealing The Contents…” is one of what Abosch calls his “social experiments challenging value systems” — a conceptual framework especially fitting for the crypto world. Part of "Stealing The Contents…” included tokens deposited to the wallet from his “I Am A Coin” (2018) piece, in which Abosch tokenized himself in a process involving the artist’s own blood to distribute 10 million tokens with the ‘IAMA’ ticker.
He described “Stealing…” as a mutual playground for explorers, and participants largely responded with goodwill and good humor: Ethereum-savvy art fans played with the blood-tokens’ occult implications — for instance moving .666 of IAMA in and out of the “Stealing…” wallet, among other hijinks.
“I think people just wanted to interact with and therefore become part of the art in a sense,” said Abosch.
These ideals are precisely what made Friday’s theft seem so cruel. Even for a space rife with scammers, charlatans, and crooks, stealing a CryptoKitty — one named in honor of his work, no less — from a freely accessible wallet seemed unusually mean-spirited.
When asked in an interview if the theft upset him, however, Abosch began to laugh.
“Actually, I stole it,” he confessed.
CLOT MAGAZINE | ‘AI Am I? Yeah, We Are. Alexander Reben and the Machine’
Interesting article which we invite you to read here!
FriDAI Brunch | DIGITAL ART IMMERSION
We are happy to join the conversation next Friday Oct. 9th @10am CEST! We invite you to the event at the following link:https://www.crowdcast.io/e/fridai-brunch-5 .
A Nasty Boy: How Africa's Foremost Crypto Artist Is Changing The Way We Perceive Masculinity
‘It is the end of an era for Osinachi. On the day we meet, his closest friends are in his now-stripped apartment after days of helping him move the belongings he hastily left behind in Nsukka. “Welcome to this apartment that is no longer mine. I’m moving to Lagos, where it’s all happening,” he says, laughing. He will miss the cold weather of Nsukka, where he spent the last ten years as a student of English Language and Library Science before resuming as an Academic Librarian at the University of Nigeria. “It’s the cultural capital of West Africa. I want to be closer to the market.”
The decision to leave the security of a government job and focus on his art in the city that never sleeps is not only a career strategy but also a testament to his success as a digital artist. It is almost unbelievable that this success began two years ago with a decision to find opportunities to showcase his work. “People look at the surface and often think I jammed luck,” he says. “But this is not something I started 2 or 3 years ago. Before I got into the University in 2010 I was already creating art. It's the work I put in over the years that everyone sees now.”’
Read full article here.
UPCOMING DIGITAL EVENTS
Art — A Value Preserving Asset with Conscience?
September 24, 2020 | 12:00 - 15:00 GMTThe Art Dialogues convenes a niche community of art investors, financiers, insurers, art funds, family offices, foundations, endowments, collectors, creators, curators, gallerists, and designers at the intersection of cultural impact for knowledge-sharing, inspiration, collecting and investing in Art.
In these uncertain times, investors and high-net-worths are turning to value-preserving art assets to either provide benefits of diversification that can help them weather market volatility or raise cash from their art assets to meet margin calls on their investment portfolios. However, many still argue that the perception of art as an investment-grade asset class may have been overdone. Citing the illiquid and opaque nature of the art market, as well as the limited data available for accurate investment analysis.
How investable is modern and contemporary art as an alternative asset class? To what extent has COVID-19 shifted the perception of modern and contemporary art as an investable asset? To what extend will digitization and emerging art technology make the art more transparent and accessible as an asset class? How can this impact art valuations and benchmarking with other asset classes? Beyond art acquisition and investing - Whats does sustainability and impact mean for the art industry?
The Art Dialogue series places emphasis on curating an ecosystem of professionals with an appetite for noteworthy and emerging modern and contemporary art.
Find out more & register here.
Deloitte’s Art & Finance Panels
ArtCity 2020
23 - 28 October 2020 - Every day from 15:30 to 17:00 (Central European Time Zone) onlineDeloitte Art & Finance panel series is held in conjunction with the first edition of ArtCity*, a novel interactive platform available in 8 languages, which replicates the in-person experience of a live art fair.
Every day, from 23 to 28 October, Deloitte Luxembourg will lead 7 online conference panels, organized in collaboration with Deloitte China, Italy, Japan, Monaco, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland and USA, on various subjects.
Open call for AR artists for #DigitalartMonth with program by KVG
The Digital Art Month is a creative celebration of digital and new media art kicking off October 1, 2020, in New York. #DigitalArtMonth
The inaugural edition presents curated exhibitions located in various public locations and online.
Are you an artist creating Augmented Reality Art or Video Art? Then apply with KVG! If selected, with us you will have the chance not only to see your work exhibited during the DaM but also featured for sale on our online platform!
Top Locations:
Fifth Avenue, NY
Flatiron & NoMad, NY
Madison Avenue, NY
Mana Contemporary, NJ, Chicago & Miami
Meatpacking District, NY
SoHo’s Broadway from Houston to Canal, NY
The National Arts Club, NY
393, NY
What is Digital Art Month?
A month-long celebration of digital and new media art presented by CADAF
Augmented Reality and Video Art Exhibitions placed in public spaces and online
An interactive map on the Digital Art Month site with all participating locations
Where is Digital Art Month?
Participating locations in NYC and other cities
Online on the CADAF website and on social media under the hashtag #DigitalArtMonth
When is Digital Art Month?
October 1 - October, 31, 2020
What type of art will be shown?
Public exhibitions will consist of Augmented Reality (AR) art that can be viewed using QR codes and Video art screenings
For Augmented Reality artists:
Make sure that your artworks can be activated via QR Codes!
CADAF will print the QR Codes and the artist will provide the link to connect to the artwork
For the artists applying with AR works please specify what app you are using. Please note that Instagram & Snapchat are the ones that work best for this event.
Please keep in mind that the QR Codes will be placed in public locations, so it’s not possible to accept artworks that are activated or rely on physical objects.
How can I view the AR art?
QR codes will be scanned with your smartphone using the camera app or Instagram
Use the interactive map on www.digitalartmonth.com to see all participating locations and works
Digital Art Month team members will rotate between the sites to give tours and answer questions
Here you can see an example of AR work by amazing artist Sofia Crespo and each 3D artwork is listed for sale on SuperRare, make sure to check them out!
The Game of Life exhibition featured in 'The Brooklyn Rail'
Our current online exhibition ‘The Game of Life - Emergence in Generative Art’ curated by Jason Bailey has been reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail!
You can read the article here.
The Art of Collecting NFTs (August 27th, 5PM CEST), panel discussion with art collectors and enthusiasts Judy Mam (Dada.art), Kate Vass, Anne Spalter and Matthew (Cent).
The Blockchain Game Alliance invites you to attend a panel conversation with art collectors and enthusiasts Judy Mam (Dada.art), Kate Vass (Kate Vass Gallery), Anne Spalter (https://annespalter.com) and Matthew (Cent).
The art of collecting NFTs takes into account a number of factors collectors would most probably consider when acquiring an artwork. These factors normally include and refers to: artist reputation, art medium, press coverage, quotation, provenance and condition, use of technology (in some cases) and overall the art sentiment value. According to art critic, curator and historian Hans Ulrich Obrist “to make a collection is to find, acquire, organize and store items’’. Often collectors have multiple meanings for building an art collection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDCjbI4m2yY
During this panel conversation our speakers will discuss the nature of what motivates art collectors, their reasons for collecting and how they approach the selecting process when acquiring an art piece. Obrist carries on saying that “collection-making […] is a method of producing knowledge”. If the non fungible art space still represents a small portion of the art market size, it is true that the market is progressively growing and grabbing the attention of non crypto collectors. In recent weeks we have seen crypto art platforms hitting a weekly volume in sales of just under $93.000 despite the incredibly costly transaction fee on the Ethereum Blockchain where most crypto art sales occur.
In a recent tweet contemporary and crypto artist Pak asked: “What’s the most important attribute that cryptoart will bring to the art world? Can you imagine the transition from the traditional art world happening soon?” This tweet captured a number of comments from fellow artists from the crypto and non-crypto space.
A distinctive comment came from artist and programmer Jeff Davis who believes that the “certification/provenance could be a likely starting point for crossover. Where the token serves more like a record of ownership which passes from buyer to seller whenever a work of art is sold”.
Join our live conversation on August 27th at 5PM CET on the Art of Collecting NFTs on the Blockchain Game Alliance Twitter and Youtubechannels
Our speakers
Kate Vass
Art Collector and Art Gallery focuses on generative & new media art (Blockchain, AI, Crypto Collectibles, digital art). Mrs Vass, as owner and creative director of Kate Vass Galerie, focusing on generative arts (new media art, digital, crypto). Kate Vass Galerie is the first physical gallery in the world, headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, which specialises in art and technology (blockchain, crypto, AI). KVG is a pioneer gallery, whose mission is to link traditional and digital art. The gallery lies at the intersection of art and tech with the purpose to serve as a “portal” between these two coexisting realities.
Mrs Vass has excellent contacts to museums, private collectors and artists’ estates all over the world and has been organizing many art exhibitions (photography, contemporary, generative and blockchain art). As a freelance exhibition curator and experienced specialist in the art market, Kate, has experience advising private collectors and companies since 2013. She is a certified Curator, by Sotheby’s Institute of Art and has a Master’s degree in Arts Studies from the University of Zurich, as well as Business Management at the European Business School London (EBS) and Swiss Business School (MBA in Finance & Banking). She has built up her own private contemporary art collection (focusing on generative art) as well as an extensive library, with a particular emphasis in the field of generative photography and contemporary art. Ms Vasilieva has worked for UBS with private collectors and advised many years on wealth planning, followed by opening of her own advisory firm F.A.R.E Consulting, offering one of the services on art consulting in the filed of the regulatory changes, implementation of digital marketing as a sales strategy for art galleries and building/integrating e-commerce platforms.
https://www.katevassgalerie.com/blog
Judy Mam
Art collector and the co-founder of dada.art. Judy Mam is the cofounder of dada.art, the only visual conversation platform where people from all over the world speak to each other through drawings, creating collaborative art. DADA is building a token economy with a gamified incentive framework to create a new economic paradigm for artists in which making art is separated from sales transactions, allowing artists to create freely while they receive a passive income for their contribution to the community.
Judy writes an opinion column for The Americano and she writes about film in her blog I’ve Had It With Hollywood. Before devoting herself to DADA, she was a creative director in advertising. Originally from Mexico City, she lives in New York City.
Anne Spalter: Digital mixed media artist, Spalter Collection, founder of RISD’s and Brown’s original digital fine arts programs.
Spalter’s decades-long goal of integrating art and technology includes founding the original digital fine arts programs at Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the 1990s. While there, she authored over a dozen academic papers and the widely used textbook, The Computer in the Visual Arts. Work on this book led to an interest in collecting digital work and the Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection (spalterdigital.com) is now one of the largest private collections of early computer art. Spalter is also on the Digital Art Acquisitions Committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Recently, Spalter has been working on large-scale public projects in an effort to bring digital art to audiences beyond traditional museums and galleries: In 2016, she created an MTA Arts 52-screen digital art installation, New York Dreaming, which was on view in the Fulton Center through Fall 2017. From Dec 2018 — early 2019, her video work, Turning Festival, was on view in the Hong Kong Harbor, displayed by LED over 47,000sq feet on the Tsim Sha Tsui and Empire Centre buildings. A new body of work, further developed at a Winter 2019 residency at MASS MoCA, combines artificial intelligence image algorithms with oil paint and pastels. Her work is included in a number of public and private collections.
https://annespalter.com/about/
Matthew: Crypto art collector, podcaster, co-founder of CENT.co and also the creator of the weekly WIP Meetup, a VR meetup that showcases NFT projects, crypto artists and DeFi projects.
About the Blockchain Game Alliance
The Blockchain Game Alliance is an organization committed to promoting blockchain within the game industry.
Our goal is to spread awareness about blockchain technologies and encourage adoption by highlighting their potential to foster new ways to create, publish, play, and build strong communities around games.
The BGA also provides an open forum for individuals and companies to share knowledge and collaborate, create common standards, establish best practices, and network.
OSINACHI: “MY BODY, MY CRIME” on Cultural Weekly
OSINACHI: “MY BODY, MY CRIME” on Cultural Weekly
“’Black Lives Matter’ simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African-Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability.” — Barack Obama
KVG Exclusive Interview with Espen Kluge on SuperRare Editorial
We are happy to share that our exclusive interview with Espen Kluge is now featured on the SuperRare Editorial. Don’t miss it!
We thought that it would be a good idea to introduce Espen to the blockchain community and ask him a few questions around some interesting themes such as the creative and technical process behind his work, the blockchain art environment from the artist’s perspective and much more.
VISUAL: In Conversation With Visual Artist Osinachi For His Latest Body Of Work – ‘COVID-19: A General State Of Anxiety’
We are happy to share this cool interview by VISUAL Magazine with Osinachi about his latest series ‘COVID-19: A General State Of Anxiety’. The pieces were part of a larger exhibition at CADAF Online 2020 as facilitated by Kate Vass Galerie in collaboration with the artist.
The series is exploring the effects of the pandemic as it concerns keeping safe, social distancing, and religion. With five powerful illustrations, the artist i is exploring the various states of anxiety that has been prevalent as a response to the pandemic.
You can read full interview here.
The works are currently available exclusively at Kate Vass Galerie as unique NFTs on the blockchain and as beautiful prints.
Stanford Seminar: Online Art for the Age of Plague
We are glad to share that artist Alex Reben will be giving a virtual lecture for Stanford next week on his new artwork series which we will feature at Kate Vass Galerie in our upcoming show in July!
The event will take place on Thursday, June 25, 2020 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm and is open to everyone.
Additional details can be found on the Stanford official page of the event and for those interested in joining, they can RSVP here.
Alexander Reben’s work probes the inherently human nature of the artificial. Using tools such as artificial philosophy, synthetic psychology, perceptual manipulation and technological magic, he brings to light our inseparable evolutionary entanglement to invention which has unarguably shaped our way of being. This is done to not only help understand who we are, but to consider who we will become in our continued codevelopment with our artificial creations.
Alexander Reben is an artist and roboticist who explores humanity through the lens of art and technology. Using “art as experiment” his work allows for the viewer to experience the future within metaphorical contexts. “With a new generation of technology comes a new generation of scientists, scholars, engineers and artists exploring the relationship between people and machines. At the heart of this nexus is Alexander Reben, an MIT-trained roboticist and artist whose work forces us to confront and question our expectations when it comes to ourselves and our creations,” reports NPR’s Tania Lombrozo. Reben’s artwork and research have been shown and published internationally, and he consults with major companies, guiding innovation for the social machine future. He has exhibited at venues including The Vitra Design Museum, The MAK Museum Vienna, The Design Museum Ghent, The Vienna Biennale, ARS Electronica, VOLTA, TFI Interactive, IDFA, The Tribeca Film Festival, The Camden Film Festival, Doc/Fest, and The Boston Cyberarts Gallery. His work has been covered by NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, Fast Company, Filmmaker Magazine, New Scientist, BBC, PBS, Discovery Channel, Cool Hunting and WIRED, among others. He has lectured at TED, SXSW, TTI Vanguard, Google, UC Berkeley, SMFA, CCA, MIT, and other universities. Reben has built robots for NASA, and is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab, where he studied human-robot symbiosis and art. He is a 2016-2017 WIRED innovation fellow, a Stochastic Labs Resident, and a recent visiting scholar in the UC Berkeley psychology department.