FRESCO Welcomes New Advisor Joseph Scheer
Today, we are welcoming Joseph Scheer, a Fulbright Scholar, Professor of Print Media, and Co-Director/Founder of the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University to FRESCO’s advisory team.
Scheer has exhibited widely internationally and his work is represented in numerous public and private collections. Recently, his work was part of the exhibit, American Printmaking Now, which traveled to five major Chinese museums. His most recent work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the National Museum of China (Beijing), and The Field Museum (Chicago). Two books have been published about his work: Night Vistions, he Secret Designs of Moths (Prestel Publishing) and Night Flyers (Nexus Press). His work has been written about in over 120 books, exhibitions catalogues and periodicals including: National Geographic, Nature, ArtForum, ArtNews, Science and the New York Times.
The moth story starts when Scheer, a professor at Alfred University, began working with a high-end scanner at the initiation of Alfred’s Institute for Electronic Arts in 1997. Casting about for something to scan to see how the scanner worked, he snatched teeny gnat out of the air. The ensuing scan showed striking iridescent colors on the wings and complex compound eyes, all hidden from normal view. He was hooked and began collecting moths at night and scanning them during the day. He discovered that there are thousands upon thousands of species and that much less is known about moths than the more accessible members of the Lepidoptera family, butterflies. This is in part because moths are nocturnal and some are considered to be pests.
At first sight the show seems to present a slice of entomology. The moths are identified by their Latin names and individual moths are presented symmetrically with wings spread out as if on display in a natural history exhibit. But Scheer’s intention is firmly lodged in the creation of art. He refers to the “poetics” of moths: their nocturnal nature, their bad rap in popular culture, their life cycles, their host plants, the incredibly large number of species (estimated to be as many as thirteen times larger than that of butterflies).
The Chinese mulberry bark paper (called Cloud Dragon) on which they are printed confirms that they are works of art. The translucency and slight imperfections of the paper lend a subtle, ineffable softness to the images, not usually associated with digital printing. And they are done with a complex and expensive Iris printer that is becoming obsolete.
Scheer writes of his work:
“My artwork of the last decade has been a continuing dialog with the natural sciences. My hope is that the work explores the inherent basis of the human need for nature. This need was coined biophilia by E.O. Wilson. Wilson defines biophilia as the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living things. I believe that we live in a time in which it is highly critical to promote our respect for, and redefine the delicate relationship to, the many living things on our planet. I have chosen moths to study and create work from because of their diversity (approx. 14,000 species found in the United States) and their rich mythology in history. They are also a family of insects that most people know so little about, both visually and environmentally. A goal of my artwork is to bring this information to a diverse audience who may not normally be aware of, or come in contact with the beauty and diversity of moths.”
Scheer’s current scanning process is complicated, unlike his first attempts that parallel the use of a common office or home scanner. Because moths are three-dimensional rather than flat, multiple scans of separate layers in a depth of 2.5 millimeters are needed in order to accomplish crisp focus. In his recent artist talk at the gallery, Scheer said the scan of a single moth might take half a day.
Scheer’s work contributes to a better understanding of natural history and was the subject of a 2002 feature in National Geographic magazine. Fortunately, as an artist, he is not constrained by the need for underlying scientific reasons to justify his pursuit of the beauty in this fascinating niche of the natural world.
Joseph Scheer is an adviser to the FRESCO team. His experience, bold approach to advancing technology will help us guide FRESCO to become the universally adopted blockchain trust distribution platform in the art industry.
FRESCO is the world’s first blockchain art trust value distribution network.
Through blockchain technology, FRESCO enables artists, investors, dealers, galleries, and administrators around the world to demonstrate their artworks and evaluate collection strength, eventually creating an efficient and intuitive art value measurement system. FRESCO tokens (FRES) represent the level of trust distributed to each artwork.
Transactions and circulation of art have been under myriad regulation for more than five centuries. On the operational level, however, the opaqueness of the transaction, the ambiguity of authenticity, the highly concentrated power of pricing and the exclusive collector’s circle along with a lack of access to prestigious artwork have together formed a formidable barrier that kept most art investors from the market. FRESCO, a revolutionary art trust evaluation and information sharing network, creates a decentralized art ecosystem. Unlike the traditional primary and secondary art market, all artworks in the FRESCO network are systematically archived on the blockchain. This offers an assurance of anonymity, transparency, and liquidity, while potentially solving issues such as appraisal, authentication, and information asymmetry.
FRESCO, the world’s first blockchain-based ecosystem serving art collectors, practitioners, and related organizations, connects the realms of technology, finance, and art market and create a decentralized platform for the trade, investment, research, archival, and management of artworks.
The FRESCO Operations and Advisory Teams include leading figures in the global art scene, the blockchain industry, and financial realm. Our engineering team has extensive experience in developing blockchain projects. The FRESCO team will release our testing network, FRESCO Alpha Net Version One (FANVO), among the world’s mega-galleries, museums, and private collectors within nine months. Collaborations at this scope will enrich the FRESCO database and facilitate the art trust tokenization.
Whitepaper: http://fresco.work/whitepaper/
Explainer Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TumCob7-g5I&t=1s
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