VerticalCrypto Art Roundup — Friday, January 28th 2022
Welcome to the VerticalCrypto Art Weekly Roundup!
Hi everyone! Welcome back to this week’s VerticalCrypto Art Weekly Roundup — your go-to for the latest happenings in NFTs, Crypto Art and the metaverse.
We have just returned from NFT Paris, and VerticalCrypto Art is already making headlines. Our former Residency artists have begun to appear in auctions, articles and metaversal spaces, and we are delighted for them as we continue our ongoing symposiums and Crypto Art discussions.
There is a lot to unpack this week. Strap yourselves in, and let’s get started!
So, What Happened This Week?
VerticalCrypto Art community member and first resident of the VCA Residency Programme, Linda Dounia, has been chosen to exhibit in Verisart x Artsy’s ‘22 for 2022’ auction. We are so proud of her! More on this excellent news below. 👇
On Tuesday, January 25th, VCA’s Founder Micol was highlighted in Redlion News’ ‘22 Women in NFTs to Watch in 2022’. Quoting author Ana Maria Caballero, VerticalCrypto Art and Micol are deeply ‘rooted in [the] diversity and thoughtfulness’ of the NFT community. This is a great read! More on this below.
Former VCA artists Rose Jackson and Luluxxx are currently exhibiting artworks in the metaversal experience ‘Here and Now: 4’, ‘The Passage’. An extraordinary minting exercise, ‘Here and Now’ is an Entry Token which should be in every collector’s wallet. Congratulations to Rose and Luluxxx for their involvement here!
Our latest edition of ‘Discussing Art NFTs’ took place yesterday, on the topic of ‘Generative Art: Behind the Code’. A fascinating talk about the challenges, processes and discoveries within Generative Art, we heard from long-time creators in a symposium co-hosted with Anika Meyer and Jesse Damiani.
Verisart x Artsy’s ’22 for 2022 — The Inaugural NFT Auction’
On Tuesday, Verisart and Artsy officially announced the launch of the ‘22 for 2022’ Crypto Art auction.
Featuring 22 works by 22 contemporary artists, ‘22 for 2022’ showcases NFTs across multiple disciplines, styles and generations. Presenting works across AI, painting, installation, digital art, photography, sculpture and video, selected pieces for this auction include notable figures in the Crypto and Digital Art community (such as Mario Klingemann, Pindar Van Arman, Sougwen Chung, Penny Slinger and more).
Out of the 22 creators selected for the auction, VerticalCrypto Art resident Linda Dounia was chosen to exhibit her AI piece: ‘Dust is hard to breathe’.
An incredibly talented visual artist, designer and writer, Linda Dounia is a Senegalese creator based in Dakar. Combining data, poetry, collage and abstract expressionism, she creates multidisciplinary artworks which are rooted in her childhood in Mbour. Throughout her work, Dounia celebrates community ethos, African culture and her own lived experiences.
‘Dust is hard to breathe’ takes the form of six vignettes, constructed by animating curated outputs of an AI model trained on a series of acrylic paintings by the artist. On Tuesday, January 25th, VCA conducted an in-depth interview with Dounia to learn more about her auctioned piece, artistic process and early experiences of NFTs.
The ‘22 for 2022’ auction has been made possible thanks to the synergy between Artsy (the largest global online marketplace for discovering, buying, and selling fine art by leading artists) and Verisart: an award-winning and patented NFT minting and certification platform.
Bidding began this Tuesday, January 25th (in ETH) and ends at 6pm EST, February 8th 2022. Be sure to stick around — this looks like it could be an incredible event!
Read VerticalCrypto Art’s recent interview with Linda Dounia here.
See the official ‘22 for 2022’ press release and auction here.
Micol, VCA in “22 Women in NFTs to Watch in 2022”
On Sunday, innovative media and NFT publishing house Redlion News collaborated with the award-winning poet Ana Maria Caballero to publish the article: ‘22 Women to Watch in NFTs in 2022’.
Drawing focus to excellent women that have helped shape the NFT community beyond just PFP projects, Caballero’s article sheds light on the pioneers that have contributed to Crypto Art in the most significant of ways.
To no-one’s surprise, Micol, VerticalCrypto Art’s Founder, was selected as part of Ana’s fantastic roster. Described as the driving force behind VCA, Micol is both an advocate for art on the blockchain and a thought-leader that champions the importance of creative integrity in NFTs.
Through the VerticalCrypto Art Residency, Twitter Spaces symposiums and ‘near-poetic shill threads’, Caballero thanks Micol for her ongoing commitment to Crypto and Digital Art. It is easy to see that Micol resembles the thoughtfulness which makes Crypto Art so accessible to people all around the world. We thank you for everything, Micol!
In case you have not read Ana’s article yet, take a look here.
HERE AND NOW: 4
Last Friday, BEETS launched the fourth iteration of his groundbreaking, interactive Crypto Art project ‘Here and Now: 4’.
Here and Now (‘HAN’) is a new metaversal platform operating on the Tezos blockchain. Described as an all-encompassing experience, HAN seeks to deliver a journey in Web3 unlike anything seen before. Deviating from the typical gallery experience, HAN operates on Entry Tokens which generate 1/1 artworks for collectors within the metaverse. Audience’s choices and experiences with HAN’s Tokens will affect their designs and traits, granting varying degrees of value.
In the middle of February, HAN is set to deliver it’s latest immersive experience with the launch of ‘Here and Now: 4’, ‘The Passage’.
Featuring former VCA Residency artist Rose Jackson alongside Luluxxx, Nate Hill, A.L. Crego, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez and SyberWeerd, ‘The Passage’ exists to challenge the idea of what minting could become in the metaverse.
At the end of ‘The Passage’ experience, artists’ creations will be unveiled and automatically minted to collectors’ wallets. Anyone who has Entry Tokens from former HAN events will also receive additional choices inside this metaversal experience.
Speaking with VCA, Rose Jackson described ‘Here and Now’ as being ‘unlike anything [she has] experienced within the NFT space’. This is intriguing, and we look forward to witnessing her display within The Passage ourselves very soon!
Though there is only one day left before the HAN minting process is concluded, we encourage collectors to read the ‘Here and Now: 4’ press release. You can also learn about the experience over on Twitter, Discord and Here and Now’s official website.
Discussing Art NFTs — Generative Art: Behind the Code
On Thursday, January 27th, Micol presented the latest edition of VerticalCrypto Art’s ongoing ‘Discussing Art NFTs’ series with co-hosts Anika Meyer and Jesse Damiani. The topic of this week’s discussion was: ‘Generative Art: Behind the Code’.
Uniting voices from artists Sofia Crespo, Sofia Garcia, Casey Reas, Helena Sarin, Rafaël Rozendaal, Ix Shells, Justin Trimble and Snowfro, this conversation provided great insights from long-time generative creators into the challenges, processes and discoveries within generative art from over the past few years.
With over 300+ attendees, this symposium saw questions exchanged between Jesse, Anika and Micol concerning how artists’ processes had changed upon learning of NFTs. Responses from the artists suggest that NFTs allowed for a revision of their practice, encouraging precision through execution and becoming more comfortable with sharing works on Twitter.
An interesting question raised by Jesse discussed what the ‘ultimate’ delivery of generative works might be. This was met with various answers, however Sofia Crespo argued that physical prints may provide the best solution as colour profiles remain faithful to NFTs and allow audiences to become one with the ‘sacred’ ownership of code.
This was yet another really interesting discussion about art NFTs, and we thank all speakers and those who attended the symposium for the wonderful evening. We took a lot away from this discussion, and hope you did too.
To hear yesterday’s conversation again, visit our Twitter Spaces here.
To discover last week’s episode of Discussing Art NFTs, go here.
In Conclusion
This has been quite an exciting week. We did not think that things could get any busier around here (in comparison to the VerticalCrypto Art Auction last week), but clearly, we were wrong. The energy in the Crypto Art community is wonderful, and VerticalCrypto Art is glad to share the good news about symposiums, auctions and events as we enter February.
Ok! That seems to be everything. Thank you for joining us for this edition of VerticalCrypto Art’s Roundup. See you at the next one!
