Ballpoint pen art by Adewale Mayowa
Self-taught ballpoint pen artist and conceptual self portrait photographer Adewale Mayowa shares amazing talent and skills through the NFT journey
Pebble Artist Justin Bateman
Southeast Asia-based British environmental artist Justin Bateman creates outstanding artworks by using only pebbles found on beaches. Please read the full Forbes interview on how he went from classic British art education to finding his own inspiration on the faraway beaches
Human Unlimited - Digital Decade NFT Drop
Designcollector network (2003) founder Arseny Vesnin, the curator of self-initiated Digital Decade (2013) art collaborations, presents artists drop in a series of "Digital Decade NFTs".
Dimitri Daniloff
is a Barcelona-based artist who has moved from pure photography and photogrammetry studies into the virtual world, aiming to explore the relationship between human consciousness and the digital void.
Dimitri Daniloff (b.1970, France) developed body awareness from an early age as the son of a sculptor. He has since cultivated a connection to texture and materiality. Fascinated by the numerous possibilities that technology offers, he first experimented with 4x5 view cameras and then turned to the practice of digital art. A shift, since he then started to transform his images. He now produces new scenes of everyday life by assembling raw elements with real subjects – always finding the right balance between authenticity and fiction. His campaign for PlayStation is a great example of this tension: deconstructed bodies knocking together and questioning our boundaries.
Another turning point in this creative artist’s career was his collaboration with the electronic music band Daft Punk. Producing the Virtual Girl project (2008), he integrated 3D creations into his existing pictures, thus proposing his own vision of an augmented human being. A few years later, Dimitri Daniloff started focusing on photogrammetry – a process consisting in taking measurements in space and building, through software, a 3D model from several viewpoints.
By integrating this technique into his practice, he inserted the virtual world into the real world. He created, in collaboration with plastic artist Tamal De Canela, L’humain illimité (The unlimited human), a project built around a virtual character still anchored into reality. Cleared from his corporeal envelope, the subject – half-man, half-God – pushes the limits of 2D image, body and thoughts. In this undefined space and time, borders no longer exist and humankind – and its extensions – finds its independence. The modern Prometheus owns as many masks as there are identities. “Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth”, Oscar Wilde said with irony.
Appearances press Dimitri Daniloff to question men's flaws - what still resists. And in this quest, the artist surrounds himself with other specialists: dancers, architects, decorators or even graphic designers. Highlighting the vulnerability of mankind thus turns into a political act, turning the stage around. More than a plastic artist, Dimitri Daniloff prevails as a sculptor of reality.
In January 2019 Daniloff was invited by EDF ODYSS ELEC (France) to make his first VR piece in collaboration with Ferdinand Dervieux. The piece was supposed to be presented at the VR Arles Festival but will be presented in an other event linked to VR Arles Festival later in 2020.
In 2020, Designcollector’s founder Arseny Vesnin invited Dimitri to take a part in Digital Decade SE 2020 - an online exhibition on the Sedition Art Platform.
Human Unlimited NFT Series
Series of six 1/1 NFT drops
“Imagery fascinates me because it questions our take on ourselves, and on our bodies especially.”
A small, intimate room that protects us from the vastness. As "The Milkmaid" by Vermeer, we inhabit the space, lost in our thoughts. But in this room we are not lost, we inhabit the virtual world, with a space that protects us. A virtual space, which is also real, two universes that meet, that confront each other. Above all they complement each other, the virtual space does not try to resemble the real world, it finds its own space, which is a combination of both. And that is the freedom of these rooms without a roof, that we can enter and exit, from both worlds, as if they were one.
And we can penetrate them, they are not photos, they are rooms, they are spaces to enter, to become part of the image. Become shells, like these people, like these characters, be statues, rigid, colourless, be bodies, sensual, Greek, perfect, imperfect, full of defects, like existence itself, but we multiply, and we can observe from different angles.
We can challenge perspectives and windows that do not fit but do not want to. Invert the process, create something, stop organizing everything and then take a picture, start with photogrammetry, to create the image with the captured elements, inventing combinations, unexpected, open to amazement. Enter everyday objects, as if they were every day.
And the looks remind us that it is the real world, that they can be confused, that we can be gods, above, we can invite the skull to a world without death, to a world where there will be no end, where our identity is fragmented, like small pieces, never erased, we leave traces of us in this virtual world.
These images, photos and non-photos, inhabit the appeared world, which does not want to be real, or virtual because it is both and that’s what gives it its strength, its limitlessness and its uniqueness. A universe where flying is allowed. Where originality dwells, an authentic universe that resembles what he has dreamed of himself.
“These images were originally produced between 2018 and 2019 as I was exploring photogrammetry and breaking the rules of photography. Special thanks to Tamal de Canela for the 3D support.”
Human Unlimited 03 - NFT drop on Digital Decade smart-contract
For the 2022 NFT release, Designcollector is happy to release 1 of 6 artist work (above) on our special Digital Decade NFT smart contract aimed to reveal art names we have collaborated with through our offline and online events.
AI Illustrations by Nani Tamoona
Illustrator Nani Tamoona uses AI and clever “prompts” (“using it is like talking to AI chatbot in that you provide text, asking it to make an image, and it gives you an answer” - thoughts on AI art by Eric Wayne).
The way Nani aka Moonchildtamoo uses AI as a base for her work is outstanding and proves that generated art can be beautiful and captivating
Feel The Data, 2011, Designcollector iPad Magazine
Feel The Data - Digital Decade NFT Drop
Designcollector network (2003) founder Arseny Vesnin, curator of self-initiated Digital Decade (2013) artist collaborations, presents a fresh drop in a series of "Digital Decade NFTs".
Anton Marrast is an illustrator and digital artist from Barcelona, who creates surrealistic characters and stories, inspired by his life and feelings. He defines his style as "psychedelic surrealism".
"Feel the Data" is an illustration Marrast created for Designcollector's iPad Magazine "DCMAG" in 2011.
“In the near future, the sense of touch is going to be upgraded to fulfil and extend five wits given us by nature””
DRIFT's aerial sculptures and architecture
What would the Sagrada Familia look like if it was finished? Imagine a full circle Colosseum... Dutch artist duo DRIFT has been working to improve their drone software to create real-life, life-size renders to visualise the improbable.
DRIFT works together with a multi-disciplinary team of 64 on aerial sculptures, installations and performances. All individual artworks have the ability to transform spaces. The confined parameters of a museum or a gallery does not always do justice to a body of work, rather it often comes to its potential in the public sphere or through architecture.
In 2017 DRIFT made their first performative art installation named Franchise Freedom. This drone show premiered at Art Basel Miami 2017, followed by performances all over the world. Besides this performative art installation DRIFT produced many more, with which the world is well known.
In collaboration with the company Drone Stories and Nova Skystories, DRIFT has used their drone technology since 2020 to reimagine the future of architecture. It is the aim to assist architects to bring their future projects to reality in a mesmerising yet sustainable way, visualising what this life size would look like.
NOMAD by SENI x ARTISANT
Unexpected combination of ethnicity and futurism is the key to balance past and future and be a true life surfer. This look is for brave adventurer who is hungry for new experience and preserves memories in the galaxy backpack.
Utility: ARTISANT will airdrop The Sandbox NFT fashion wearable to all holders. You will be able to use your fashion garment in The Sandbox Metaverse by connecting your wallet.
Random International and Danil Krivoruchko, Life in Our Minds, 2022 © Pace Verso and Snark.art
Life in Our Minds
Pace Verso and Snark.art Detail Collaborative NFT Project by Random International and Danil Krivoruchko
Titled Life in Our Minds, the project will be released on Snark.art’s dynamic NFT platform OG.Art on October 25.
Life in Our Minds incorporates boundary-pushing technology that enables buyers to actively participate in the formal evolution of the NFTs to make them rarer. Together, the individual NFTs make up a large-scale virtual sculpture titled Mother Flock, which transforms in tandem with its constituent parts.
Pace Verso, Pace Gallery’s web3 hub, and Snark.art’s OG.Art NFT platform is pleased to announce a new generative NFT project by Random International—the experimental art collective known for its large-scale, interactive installations, including the widely exhibited, immersive Rain Room (2012)—in collaboration with multidisciplinary digital artist Danil Krivoruchko, co-creator of the OG: Crystals NFT project. Titled Life in Our Minds, the two-part project comprises an animated NFT collection and a related interactive video sculpture — titled Mother Flock and made up of the individual NFTs — that will be unveiled later this year.
Life in Our Minds NFTs will be available for purchase on Snark.art’s OG.Art NFT platform on October 25. Ahead of the release, collectors can sign up for the project’s waitlist
Upon minting, each Life in Our Minds NFT features a small group of Boids, 3D bird-like origami objects. The visual traits of any given Life in Our Minds NFT are initially generated and evolve according to the content of its owner’s wallet, among other factors. The longer a Life in Our Minds NFT remains in a single collector’s wallet, the rarer and more elaborate its formal characteristics become: the number of Boids may increase, and their formations and decorative patterns may change. These interactive, 3D video NFTs are distinguished by their continuous development, which is achieved through the highly complex and inventive technological processes of the Life in Our Minds collection.
In this way, the evolution mechanics of the project offer collectors the opportunity to actively participate in the creation of the artwork as it shapeshifts, incentivizing long-term retention of the NFTs. By encouraging purchasers to retain their Life in Our Minds NFTs for extended periods, the artists and project partners aim to upend typical behaviours in the crypto market—including speculation and flipping—and, in the process, introduce a new generation of crypto collectors to the space.
Life in Our Minds has collaborated with Flamingo DAO, Pleasr DAO, Fingerprints DAO, PROOF Collective, Tom Sachs Rocket Factory, Moonbirds, Outland, Pace Verso, OG:Crystals, Ksoids, and 89 Seconds Atomized to offer custom evolutionary traits that are only available to people who hold NFTs associated with these partners. Additional custom patterns that holders of other NFT collections can achieve will be announced at og.art/collections/liom.
The Life in Our Minds NFTs are part of a constantly evolving Mother Flock virtual sculpture, which reflects the formal transformations of the individual NFTs. The Mother Flock’s visual traits are informed by the behavior of its constituent Boids, bringing ideas about the power of both collective and individual action to the fore of the project. A special web version of the Mother Flock will live permanently on the OG.Art platform, freely accessible to viewers around the world. Deeply engaged with scientific research surrounding the psychology and behaviors of both humans and birds, Life in Our Minds is one of the most collaborative, technologically innovative NFT projects to date.
In an artists’ statement, Random International says: “Life in our Minds continues our exploration of the human tendency to ascribe character, intent, and narrative to the complex behaviors of simple moving forms, as well as the subconscious instincts and emotional triggers that cause us to do so.” To mark the launch of the project, Pace will host AMA discussions with the artists on Twitter Spaces and OG.Art’s Discord in October. Further details about these programs will be released in the coming weeks. Life in Our Minds is realized as part of a collaboration between major forces in the contemporary art and crypto worlds.
The art collective Random International, which was founded in 2005 by Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass, has shown its large-scale multimedia works at major art institutions around the world. Krivoruchko is an award-winning artist and creative director involved in the production of multiple upcoming OG.Art collections. Snark.art has been producing acclaimed web3 projects since 2018, including OG: Crystals, a collection of more than 10,000 unique NFTs; it launched the new NFT platform OG.Art this year. Pace, which launched Pace Verso in 2021, is a leading international art gallery with nine locations worldwide. Founded by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace represents influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century.
Random International is a post-digital art group exploring the impact of technological development on the human condition. Best known for its large-scale interactive installations, the group works across an array of media, including sculpture, light, kinetics, video, print, and sound. Established in 2005 and led by founders Hannes Koch (b.1975, Germany) and Florian Ortkrass (b.1975, Germany), the group has a studio in London and comprises a global team of complementary talent. Random International’s work has been shown worldwide and can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; the Yuz Foundation in Shanghai; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and other international institutions.
Snark.art has experimented with the blockchain as a revolutionary medium since 2018, producing various NFT projects and working with established artists from both the contemporary art and crypto worlds, including Mat Collishaw, Eve Sussman, Michael Joo, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Nancy Baker Cahill, Kendell Geers, Tommy Hartung, Duke Riley, Cassils, and many others. Snark.art’s OG.Art platform, launched in 2022, is a space not only for carefully curated collections of generative, dynamic NFT art, but for new approaches to creative collaboration. OG.Art invites groundbreaking artists to develop projects based on dynamic NFT technology and community interaction. This technology allows artworks to respond to online and in-person events, enabling collectors to interact with and develop NFT projects in new ways.
Danil Krivoruchko is a Ukrainian-born, New York-based multidisciplinary digital artist and art director whose clients include names like Apple, Nike, Intel, and Boeing. Krivoruchko’s work has won a variety of festival awards. He was nominated for a 2022 Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design as part of the creative team for the television series Foundation. He is also the creator of the renowned One Thousand Ksoids NFT collection and co-creator of the OG:Crystals project. Krivoruchko is actively involved in the creation and production of the first several upcoming collections at OG.Art.
Pace Verso is Pace Gallery’s hub for web3 projects, launched in 2021 under the leadership of Pace President and CEO Marc Glimcher. Pace Verso works closely with artists within and beyond the gallery’s program to incubate, develop, and realize their web3 projects, operating an NFT platform on the Ethereum blockchain at www.pacegallery.com/paceverso.
In addition to releasing independent projects, Pace Verso frequently collaborates with leading web3 platforms to share artists’ work with wide audiences. In 2022, Pace Verso established a multifaceted partnership with Art Blocks, the leading generative art platform, encompassing boundary-pushing generative NFT releases by Pace’s artists as well as crypto-native artists, exhibitions, and community programming. In its first year, Pace Verso—which reflects the gallery’s longtime and ongoing support of innovative artists who have cultivated advanced studio practices engaged with boundary-pushing technologies—has presented NFT projects by Jeff Koons, Zhang Huan, Glenn Kaino, DRIFT, Lucas Samaras, and other artists. Pace Verso has also grown a robust following on its dedicated Discord server, directly engaging web3 communities through discussions with artists and leaders in the crypto space.
BMW - Forwardism dir. Grif
BMW - Forwardism
Mannerism, Impressionism, Surrealism. We’re all familiar with historical, genre-defining art works. But what is Forwardism?
Forwardism depicts the reimagining of convention, transforming what we thought we knew into something new, something we thought was impossible, and yet here it is before our eyes.
We were challenged to craft visual metaphors of this concept, transforming historical art epochs into works of Forwardism, drawing a parallel to BMW’s re-imagining of what a car should be. The i7 - a magnificent work of design, engineering, and craftsmanship, the flagship of Forwardism.
Director: Shane Griffin
Production : Akkurat Studios
Post Production : Psyop
Year: 2022
Art of He Jiaying
He Jiaying (b.1957) is a contemporary Chinese painter known for his distinctive figurative works. His unique ink-wash depictions of female nudes fuse traditional Chinese and Western techniques. The artist continues to live and work in Tianjin, China.
Alex de Marcos
Making portraits with impressive colours, environments and finishes, combining pictorial and digital techniques is one of the specialties of Alex de Marcos, an illustrator from Madrid who has been gaining more and more space in the Spanish art scene. His works are found in all areas of illustration, from children's books, through Kurt Cobain's biography and stickers for Instagram, to advertising for Coca-Cola, Nike, Bombay, among other renowned brands.
These days Alex joined NFT Art movement and his 1/1 works are available on Foundation platform
Maxim Zhestkov presents his first solo show WAVES at London’s W1 Curates
On August 18, 2022, the first solo exhibition of digital artist Maxim Zhestkov, titled Waves, will illuminate every surface of London’s W1 Curates exhibition space — inside and out. With new work displayed across the facade’s 3 floors of screens and on every wall of the interior, Maxim will make his London debut via an immersive digital art experience in the commercial heart of the city.
Waves meditates on its titular phenomena as the fundamental elements of change in digital and physical systems; waves merge, waves disrupt, and, if synchronized enough, they acquire system-shifting force. Cultural shifts, spiritual breakthroughs, and wi-fi connections can all be better understood as products of the interactions of waves. As physical and digital systems become less and less distinct, the ability to acknowledge similarities between the two can make our everyday thoughts more creative.
Maxim’s broader oeuvre is built on conceptual investigations of the building blocks of physical and digital worlds. Each work is an effort to transform a fundamental principle of creation into a rousing spectacle.
“It is fascinating how structures could be assembled by themselves,
following the basic underlying rules of our world. Any material, including living matter, forms using the
same set of rules, and I think that this is something that we take for granted, but it is truly astonishing
when you think about it.”
““[W1 Curates is] a public art platform dedicated to bridging the gap between digital art and the traditional art world. Maxim’s artwork lends itself so well to our space, and it’s an honour to share new work from a true pioneer of digital art who remains so passionate about
the potential of virtual worlds.”
Artist Statement
A wave— a disturbance of the established order — encompasses dynamics as an inherent part of our world. Waves bring the change, oscillations, and fluctuations, which spread across objects and connect them to entangled networks of all interrelated and continuous events. Inseparable from distortions, they are themselves messages that indicate transformations and shifts.
Waves are primary signals permeating the world and a universal language of nature that underlies both our biological and technological systems. By covering the world with webs of electromagnetic signals, we have expanded our neural systems and can now connect with others able to decipher the coded messages. Interfering and merging, waves change their nature and — when synchronized — grow and transform into a greater entity with the potential to generate a transformative flux.
Connecting particles into mighty flows, Waves is an examination of shifts of energy in complicated systems that lead to the inevitable transformation of those systems. Simulated by an algorithm, the world of this digital artwork is intentionally simplistic and therefore inextricably predictable. However, the rules and principles of this visual complexity are hidden from the viewer, much like the incomprehensible quantum phenomena that define the physical world.
The only thing certain about our world is that it is changing constantly. Nevertheless, eternal movement includes repetition, and transformation is cyclical. Between extremes of peaks, no path is linear, and every shift echoes across time.
About the Artist
Maxim Zhestkov (b. 1985) is a digital artist based in London. He merges his studies in architecture, sculpture, motion graphics, color, and sound, to dramatize the intersection of the digital and the physical as a critical site for imagining the aesthetic possibilities and psychological implications of a “phygital” reality. Working as an independent designer, Maxim has worked with clients like Adidas, IKEA, BMW, Google, Playstation and Adobe and has been awarded with many industry awards: a Red Dot Award, D&AD, iF Design Award and the ADC Award.
Maxim Zhestkov’s work has been presented internationally in shows at major institutions, including Decentral Art Pavilion Venice (2022), Unit London (2021), Contemporary Istanbul (2021), MIT (2019), Modern Art Museum, Shanghai (2019), and the Hermitage Museum (2019). Maxim’s work has also shown at contemporary art festivals, such as Cosmoscow (2021), ART021 (2020), ArtBasel Miami (2019), and Ars Electronica Festival (2018).
About W1 Curates
W1 Curates is a public art platform located at the heart of London’s iconic Oxford Street. W1 Curates showcases works from some of the world’s most innovative visual artists. Using state-of-the-art technology, the exterior of the Flannels London Flagship store has been transformed into an extraordinary public exhibition of art with digital prowess and exceptional innovation. The venue consists of a three-story facade of screens and, as of August 2022, an all-new exhibition space consisting of a 400 square-metre immersive gallery space lined with 360 degrees of bespoke LED screens.
W1 Curates has displayed work from the likes of Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, Kaws, Shepard Fairey, Tyler Mitchell, David LaChapelle, Whisbe, Katherine Bernhardt, MrStarCity, David Bailey, Vhils, and many others. It has also collaborated with the likes of Gagosian, Sotheby’s, Saatchi Yates, Tate Modern, and Artsy. W1 Curates has also hosted Ravensbourne University London, NFT UK, Amplifier Art, and Graduate Fashion Week.
Jose Lopez Vergara Art
Jose Lopez Vergara was born in Mexico City in 1994 and raised in Madrid, Spain. In 2003 he had an accident that permanently impaired the movement of his right arm. During a long recovery period he was encouraged to cultivate his interest in drawing and develop his innate artistic abilities. Jose spent his teenage years painting murals with spray paint and creating hyper realistic drawings with coloured pencils. Having explored different creative paths, finally his interests led him to oil painting. He then went on to study classical drawing and painting from 2016 to 2021 in Florence and New York following a tradition that goes back to the Renaissance.
Vergara’s work centres on the search for an idealised representation of everyday life, current events and universal emotion. He’s influenced by art of many cultures of the past and present. Although his realist technique requires a strict methodology and rational thinking, his compositions rely on subconscious impulses and demand an abstract expression. His interest in the silhouette and minimal design plays a central role in his work and continues to open many paths for exploration.
OFFF 2022 Official Titles by GMUNK
DECIMA
Official closing short movie for OFFF Festival 2022
DECIMA is a short film exploring themes of mortality, empowerment, soul passage and illumination produced and directed by GMUNK. The film focuses on the human condition nested within the control of a cult of robotic shamans called The Vi, and examines the deep emotional connection to loss and rebirth.
Roads Not Taken - Ouche NFT Show by OFFF
At the edge, creating the extraordinary
OFFF Festival (5-7 May, 2022) presents Ouche, a climate-forward and trustworthy NFT cultural home for artists and collectors, where we buy not just art, but stories.
Find the IRL gallery at OFFF Festival, Barcelona, on top of DHUB!
Roads Not Taken
Roads Not Taken offers an exciting glimpse into the alternate selves of the creatives luminaries who continue to pave the way forward, being the fuel for your imagination.
Showcases a collection of perspectives and artworks from around the world that translate our "today" into timeless essays and visual inspiration for you lovers and creative sexy beasts.
With true artists like Joshua Davis, Brendan Dawes, Six N. Five, Boldtron, Joëlle Snaith, Baugasm, Vasava, Jana Styblova, Pawel Nolbert and many others, we will get encouraged to take the road less traveled to watch all the differences that it will make.
Designcollector (Arseny Vesnin) was humbled to co-curate “Roads Not Taken” by brining two promising NFT artists Jana Stýblová and Pawel Nolbert to the group show organised by OFFF Festival.
More artists and artworks from the NFT show
LAUNCHING 5PM MAY 5!
First registered users on https://ouche.art/ and followers of @Ouche_art Twitter will get an airdrop design by VASAVA Studio
The Truth About Reality by David Christiaan
The Idea for this artwork came to me in two stages. Whilst I was laying in bath, I saw in my mind three overlapping mirrors. This image ignited my curiosity but that alone didn’t feel complete. I don’t remember exactly how the second part of the idea came to me but I was laying in bath again. This time the thought of arrows with black and white feathers shot in overlapping gold frames with silver surfaces came to my mind. This idea was very exiting for me because I could see the symbolic, mythological and metaphorical references in it. When I was making the actual artwork and thinking about it I was feeling very inspired. “This work needs to exist”. For me, the whole process of receiving the idea, making it (in secret) and then finally exposing friends and family to it for the first time, was a very satisfying experience.
“I’ve noticed that when most people first encounter this artwork they need some time to process what they are looking at. Although the individual objects and materials are recognisable you don’t immediately realise what you are seeing or where in the work to focus your attention. The relative visual complexity of this piece is a metaphor for the complexity of reality and truth. Hence the title of the subject. Since everyone has an individual experience when they view the work, the subject matter, which is clearly about perception, and the experience of the viewer actually become one. In this way the viewers experience becomes part of the artwork itself. I have found that without actually informing people about what I think this artwork means, it inspires thought and conversation regarding what our experience of reality actually is.”
Art of Seanen Middleton
Seanen Middleton is a fine art and portrait photographer from the Lake District, England. Seanen's work has been published across the globe online and we cannot stay away from his depth of visual storytelling
Art of Scott Prior
Scott Prior is a painter who lives and works in Massachusetts. His paintings depict a world that is intimate, simple and personal, where objects are transfixed and transfigured by light.
Sasha Grebenyuk Art
Kyiv-based self-taught artist Sasha Grebenyuk shares beautiful art supported with the statement
“Art is the interweaving of events and a person experiencing them. And through these relationships, through the search for an answer to the question of who this Other is, life, connection, and beauty manifest. The most important thing is the space between me and the Other. Meeting with another is always an event, an opportunity to experience it together as equals.”
Elena Arkhipova's Surrealistic Digital Art
Russian digital artist Elena Arkhipova creates artworks inspired by internet surrealism and minor everyday situations . “Surrealism helps me convey my deepest emotions and feelings through an image,” - says artist
