Meet the Curation Board: Dmitri Cherniak
Meet the Curation Board is a series that introduces the Art Blocks community to the board members and their backgrounds.
1. What is your background as it relates to art and design?
I like to think of myself as an artist and someone who appreciates most kinds of art in general.
2. What is your background as it relates to crypto?
I got involved in crypto in 2014, originally being one of the first folks to implement Coinbase’s bitcoin tipping widget as a means to help journalists get more funding for their work. See here:
Afterward, I started accepting bitcoin for my own art as well.
However, I really got interested in crypto in 2017 after learning about Ethereum and its potential as a globally distributed computing system. I still remember having to bother my friend to purchase Ethereum when it was $25 and unable to buy any in New York at the time.
3. How would you describe your taste in art?
Extremely eclectic. It’s hard to pin down exactly, but I like to live with a mix of geometric/minimalistic art and portraiture.
4. What got you interested in Art Blocks?
I had a similar but very different idea, actually. I wanted my collectors to be able to collect an algorithm as a whole, and be able to generate a fixed number of outputs — what I called algorithmic editions — at their own pace and on their own time. Conceptually, I imagined a locked-down raspberry PI with a button the collector could press to generate a new SVG output, where each output is unique, but comes from the same code. After a certain number of invocations, the computer would brick itself and no longer function. The outputs would have to be stored on the blockchain to provide provenance. Early in the days of Art Blocks, Erick reached out on Twitter, and I investigated for a couple of weeks and decided it would be a good idea to try to use and promote the platform.
5. When you review an Art Blocks project for curation, what qualities are you looking for?
Algorithmic diversity is most important for me. I think the edition size should match the diversity of the algorithm. I like when the algorithmic outputs feel natural and unique, and I want viewers to be surprised by something special they see or feel when they look at the art.
6. What is your overall vision for the curated collection at Art Blocks?
I want a curated collection to showcase excellence in generative art, whether that means highlighting amazing algorithms, or artists who contributed greatly to the history of generative art, or just aesthetically pleasing and distinctive work. I also hope Art Blocks can try to focus on drawing from a more diverse set of creative coders than most technical platforms have in the past.
7. Is there anything you hope to see in future projects?
I think the most successful projects teach collectors and viewers something new and unexpected about generative art and themselves.
