The Beauty Of Imperfection
Thoughts of a glitch artist: a conversation with Domenico Barra
“There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.” — Conrad Hall
Domenico Barra, aka Altered_Data, is an Italian artist, educator, and content creator working in the field of Glitch Art and Dirty New Media.
His practice is based on the creative misuse of hardware and software and his work has been featured on many websites and magazines, including Espoarte, Digicult, Hyperallergic, and Motherboard. Alongside his activity as an artist, Barra is an event organizer and curator. He has organized Tactical Glitches (2014), an exhibition curated by glitch artists Nick Briz and Rosa Menkman, which was the first Glitch Art group show in Italy. He has also participated in many curatorial projects and exhibited nationally and internationally. His latest solo show, Disordinary Beauty, was held in November 2021 at the Biffi Gallery in Piacenza, Italy.
Barra develops themes related to language, memory, and identity to draw attention to social issues by exploiting the glitch as raw material. For his influential work in the field of New Media Art and digital culture in Italy, he has been included in the list of “222 emerging artists to invest in” by Exibart (2021).
Beth Jochim (B): You are an artist working in the field of Glitch Art and Dirty New Media. How was your encounter with Crypto Art?
Domenico Barra (DB): I’ll be honest, it was somehow bizarre at first as I couldn’t really figure out what was going on or what it was all about. I wanted to see if there was a particular feature in crypto art that wasn’t just the simple fact of being linked to an NFT on the blockchain. I was looking for an aesthetic, which I then found in some works characterized by crypto-symbolism and icons.
I was very critical at first and probably still am. At the beginning, many crypto art communities shared a strong sense of decentralization and the will to disengage from the traditional art gatekeepers, but the more the environment expanded and became mainstream, the more it became trapped in the system it was supposed to fight. I still believe this space is awash with paradoxes. I say, a little jokingly, that in crypto / NFT art many prominent artists — the loudest voices of the digital renaissance — have gone completely in the direction of centralization. But, it comes as no surprise to me. I was expecting it from the moment I joined my first crypto art group on Telegram.
Money is sexy for even the most devoted crypto artist, I guess. Earning a lot of money from .JPGs is something hard to resist.
Personally, I’ve always struggled to make money from my art, so I am more into the art than in its floor price.
What I really appreciate about the crypto art scene is that many artists can make a living on it. Also, even a small sale gives satisfaction and confidence to the artist. I am happy to see art placed at the center of social relationships and many artists leaving their comfort zone to join a melting pot of art. Now we can find glitch artists working with illustrators or photographers with motion graphic designers. This artistic contamination is really important.
I believe, however, that the true spirit of crypto art has been betrayed by some of the major players and OGs who started this digital renaissance, but then entered exclusive art circles and ruined it. Luckily, there are still some independent underground realities experimenting with decentralized ways of curating, collecting, and publishing. They are often left out of the main narrative, but culturally and intellectually they are the real deal. Those looking only for the lucrative side make the news because, by adapting to the dynamics of consensus and fame promoted by social media, they give the public what they want, that is, success stories. Personally, I am more on the side of those who try new things, who struggle and sometimes fail, but who ultimately try to build culture.
On the bright side, I see Tezos artists doing work and projects that I like. The Tezos environment has a stronger sense of community, more inclusive events, and more accessible artwork for collectors, being less obsessed with floor prices or record sales and metrics.
B: Taking the sale of Beeple’s “The First 5000 Days” (2021) as the turning point, how has the NFT space grown in the last year?
DB: The space has outgrown too fast. People rushed into a previously unseen FOMO (fear of missing out), a frantic clamor that bordered on hysteria. I don’t think the sale for $69 million was healthy for this space, quite the contrary. It created unrealistic expectations in many, leading them to believe that it was possible to make a lot of money fast. I think it polluted the narrative about crypto art and what was really going on in this space. The stories of many artists from different backgrounds, walks of life, races and genders have been lost, as have the nuances and true spirit that prompted many to take this path. It all turned into a very boring and problematic conversation about money. Basically, I see it as another white American male success story that brought the artist into the limelight and left the Indian-born collector behind. I think many have perceived it this way.
The protagonist was money and little was said or written about the work itself. For sure, the auction at Christie’s popularized crypto art, NFTs and some artists, but I believe it has also discouraged some people from entering this space. Artists and collectors were described as gold-diggers and inclusiveness was sidelined. When the crypto market crashed, it soothed the rampant euphoria and drove many speculators away. With the collapse of astronomical prices, art has once again returned to the center of conversations, thanks also to new players who have joined the so-called crypto frens.
I think we should be more aware of what we are doing and stay grounded, not chasing after money. The phase we are in now goes in the direction of a more organic and realistic growth. People are more aware and carry out projects with enthusiasm and with the intention of making them last over time. Many artists are emerging and making themselves known. We have not yet reached an ideal condition, but I think that the transition from centralization to decentralization takes time as it is a cultural shift that goes beyond the use of blockchain technology or cryptocurrency.
B: The NFT ecosystem sometimes does not appear as democratic as it is portrayed. What are the obstacles that many artists still encounter?
DB: There are several and I think a large part of it has to do with the attention you get. Artists can start minting their own work right away and join one or more communities on Telegram, Discord or Twitter. But what they really need is to get the audience’s attention. Those with good social media skills can build an audience and capitalize on metrics that allow them to grow online, thereby building their brand and market. This is because Web3 relies heavily on the social media skills of Web2. However, there are still technical barriers ranging from opening a wallet to buying cryptocurrencies to mastering crypto lingo. In this case, being able to count on someone who already works in the field can be of great help. Finding the right niche for the work isn’t trivial either, but it’s probably the best approach to grow as an artist. Furthermore, some communities are more inclusive than others both financially and socially.
In my opinion when there is too much money around things don’t go well. This is because the resulting dynamics penalize minor players and what should be inclusive instead becomes exclusive. Fear of financial loss is another problem because it drives collectors to buy only what they think to be a safe investment. Many point the finger at the bear market as the main cause of the freezing of the crypto one, but I think it has a lot to do with the culture of collecting. Some artists get all the attention of collectors and their work is bought at a high price, while many other artists sell for little or nothing. This stagnates the market and becomes a barrier because if artists don’t sell, in the end, artists feel left out and give up.
Everything is very centralized within decentralization and it’s really ironic to support the disruptive power of decentralized technology by operating in a very centralized way.
There should be a greater effort to include more people in opportunities. Before thinking about decentralizing our wallets, tokens, and investments we should have practiced decentralization in a context where money was not at stake. I say this by taking as an example the work of the White Page Gallery/s , where we built a decentralized community and network without blockchain, cryptocurrencies or NFTs. We worked on social values before thinking of the floor price or financial transactions. We began decentralizing and distributing the skills of those with greater resources and possibilities to reach a large audience in favor of those with few or none. In my case, I made my professional network and audience available.
The spirit of the White Page Gallery/s is embodied in this quote: “White Page Gallery/s focus on the social value of artistic curation as its presupposition: the WPG/s network is based on values such as solidarity, hospitality, inclusion, altruism and mutual support. A distinctive feature of White Page Gallery/s is the absence of hierarchies, gatekeepers and vanity: all those who are part of the network have, in fact, total and independent decision-making ability with respect to the methods, times and artistic projects they choose to exhibit in their online spaces. The focus is therefore shifted from the work to the practice and from the artist to the community.”
Through the experience of the White Page Gallery/s I became aware that decentralization does not depend on technology, but on culture and social values.
Technology alone will not lead to an evolution or even a revolution if people’s way of thinking and the culture they share do not change.
B: You often talk about how our identity is influenced by online activities to the point that “we become while we are chased every moment by algorithms on social media’s emotional scrollacoaster.” What impact do NFTs have on your identity?
DB: I don’t think NFTs have impacted my identity yet, and I don’t think they ever will. They have obviously influenced the language and semantics I use on social media and at work because I am part of this environment, but I do not identify myself as either an NFT artist or a crypto artist. While many see me as an NFT OG artist, I remain a glitch artist influenced by net.art, memes, internet culture, and its aesthetics. By extension, this also includes crypto art and NFTs, but glitch art is what I like, it’s the way I express myself and the way I look at the world. Another technology may arrive in a few years that will make NFTs and blockchain obsolete, but glitch art is here to stay. I approach life with a glitch philosophy because it is through the glitch that I interpret its meaning. I identify with Dirty New Media and Glitch culture.
B: Are there any projects you are currently working on?
DB: The main focus is on my NFT collection of glitch art called Disordinary Beauty (2021). The project is ongoing and I have other unpublished work to make available to collectors, but I don’t rush it because I would like to release it with my customized smart contract. I believe the theme of beauty is very current and of social and cultural relevance, mostly due to the way people relate to and deal with their physical imperfections. The act of glitching becomes a way of redemption for all that is atypical. It challenges the paradigm of beauty in art and the way beauty is represented and channeled in social media as a standard of success, health, and wealth.
I have also recently deepened my interest in the theory of evolution, which brings with it mutations and imperfection. Since I worked on the project “Eva — A mitochondrial story” (2021) with Massimo Franceschet, aka hex6c, Roberto Ranon and Prof. Alberto Policriti, I find the topic of evolution very interesting. Imperfection, in both physical and evolutionary terms, guides my creative path and AI, which I believe is part of our evolution, is on my radar too.
At the moment, I am also busy with a biographical series that I call “Diario di Una Vita”. It is something I do for myself, a five-page personal diary where I assemble everything in the form of a collage inspired by the aesthetics of niche memes. It is driven by memories, events, objects, and places and it is like time travel for me: I need this project to do some sort of x-ray of my life and understand who I am and where I’m going.
Finally, I am involved in a project called Ri·Tratto [α⇄ω], which is a conceptual and narrative space that I developed with hex6c and Roberto Ranon. The initial idea was to create a Trojan horse space and bring SuperRare rejected artists to SuperRare. Then we opted to create a narrative space that highlights all those who are building the crypto space, but are often not included in its history and narrative. It is a portrait gallery to tell the stories of key characters through the work of artists who become a sort of storyteller. We proposed this project, which is a challenge for all of us, for the SuperRare 4th Space Race.
We have focused on a topic that we believe deserves more attention, which is to give a voice to all those untold or never heard crypto art stories.
I personally distance myself from some of SuperRare’s ongoing dynamics regarding the 4th Space Race and I do not support its governance and rules which, at times, seem unfair to me.
