Welcome to this week’s Minty art round-up covering some of the biggest news stories in Crypto Art and NFTs, as well as highlighting our Artist of the Week.
What is Minty.art? 🔽
Minty.art powers creativity by pioneering digital patronage
We believe using blockchain technology in inventive ways can empower both artists and collectors; revolutionizing the way modern-day art is created, bought, and sold.
Minty is a digital platform that supports, democratizes, and modernizes art creation. By reinventing digital patronage, we find a way of connecting collectors and patrons to the art and artists they love.
Artists find patrons to fund and bring to life new ideas, connect with passionate collectors and sell your finished works.
Top Sales in Crypto Art 💵
Memory
Artist Reisinger Andres @reisingerandres has just sold his latest piece titled ‘Memory’ to collector @illestrater for 20.0Ξ ($12,189.60). The artist wrote, “I have a distorted perception of time. But I also have a very good memory. Apparently the perception of time does not seem to be stored in memory in the same way as the succession of events”.
Technogenic
Artist Alessio de Vecchi @alessiodevecchi has just auctioned his latest piece ‘Techonogenic’ on SuperRare to collector @br3nd4 for 13.55Ξ ($9,933). "It's a shame that she won't live, but then again, who does?". This looping animation crypto art features a ‘Cyborg Queen’ that reveals its internal workings, an interesting, if not slightly creepy piece.
Are you an Artist? Sign Up Today!!!🎨
Upcoming Events 🎉
Decentraland End of Year Party
The End of Year Party hosted by Decentraland (DCL) has just revealed it's hosting Grammy award-winning artist @RAC live! This indie-electronic hero is helping drive out 2020 and welcome in 2021. The event will go live on the 30th December a 23:00 UTC, hosted at Vegas Plaza -62,62. See more on the DCL announcement page.
Patrons, artists you love to create something new and wonderful, access exclusive perks and follow progress of your favorite artists.
Elephant Dreams Pt. 3
In collaboration with artist @RAC, Reisinger Andres @reisingerandres is currently auctioning their piece ‘Elephant Dreams Part III’, which current offer stands at 16.0Ξ ($11658.88).
Pioneering Digital Patronage - Be the first to know about our platform.
Artist of the Week 🎨
This week we have an exclusive interview with the artist Fabin Rasheed @fabinrasheed, we talked about AI-generated art, the collaboration of humans and AI to create artwork, and finally using VR for educational purposes.
1. I was particularly taken aback by “Pilgrimage”. You were right, they did look like alien deity awards. This time you placed 9 and 8 were found within two weeks, I am glad people were so enthusiastic about it. Do you have any plans for expansion on this piece in the future? Maybe less than a 2km radius, more statues to find for example? I can also imagine it being a great geography lesson for those at home, perhaps searching for them statues through google earth?
Thank you. Largely, my initial idea was focused on creating an artwork rather than it being used as a tool. Nevertheless, I am thinking of creating a large scale exhibition of AR location-based artworks using the same technology with works from artists in the crypto scene. It could be a really interesting way to exhibit 2D or 3D artworks in AR. In fact, I am thinking if this could someday help support local artists by exhibiting their works geographically closer to their home in a global gallery. Let’s see :)
2. Can you please elaborate on the process of your work in Ode? It is a series of AI-generated art, poetry, and generative music, but can you explain what algorithms or instructions you gave to the AI?
I curated a dataset of images of watercolor art and did a StyleGAN training the images. These were then converted into latent space videos and these videos were edited and manipulated and combined with the generated music. Finally, I wrote a poem based on the evolution of the piece.
3. Recently it has been mentioned that white-collar jobs are actually under more threat than blue-collar jobs since white-collar positions are mainly analytical or statistical, but looking at your work has opened my eyes that creative positions may be under more threat than perhaps we realize? Do you feel that AI is capable of creating more accomplished pieces of art than humans?
It largely depends on how you look at art and its evolution. As I see it creativity is the constant and technology and other things are the variables. No matter what, any creative mind will have the possibility to create new expressions if they spend time acquiring the required skills. I see many traditional artists using their artworks combined with new technology. And thus, I feel there is always an opportunity for creatives to expand their horizons if they set their minds to it. Through my works, I try to create a dialog around how the traditional ways of creation are not left out or under threat but can be augmented and enhanced with some of these new technologies. Also, in its current state, I would not say that AI is the creator (although I naively once said that, before I learned the underlying processes). Rather it is the maker of the processes and data behind the AI model that is the creator. We could currently think of AI technologies as a more sophisticated tool and use them with our creativity to create new types of expressions.
4. Do you feel that perhaps the best combination moving forward is that of AI and humans working together as exemplified in your Watercolour Imaginarium? I am interested to know how big a part you think AI will play in shaping our future?
Definitely yes. Rather than thinking of humans and AI as separate, we could think of how we could work in tandem with machines for creating. GANs have paved the way to creating new modalities of creation for everything from images, videos, 3D, music, and more. And as I see it there are a lot more creative possibilities left to be unlocked with GANs. The other day, I was thinking of how 3D scenes could be created without using voxel-based models, but using GANs and text input. It's fascinating to imagine the possibilities, but at its core, the evolution of AI would be a reflection of humanity. It largely is our responsibility to think and create these future technologies based on high ethical and moral standards.
5. Your work with VR for education was inspiring, I think it can play a huge role in educating the children in the future. It must capture their imagination in an incredibly focused manner. Can you tell our readers more about the initiative? And how they can get on board any maybe contribute? Perhaps one day there will be more apps available on the marketplace?
The project was large to explore the impact of VR based education methods in comparison with traditional methods. I did a study with the rural schools in Hyderabad, India, and tried to understand if VR could help improve the educational quality, specifically focusing on spatial perception. One early observation that I found interviewing the students was that many of them had not visited some of the historical monuments in their own state, largely because of their family’s limited means. So I took it to myself to create 360 views of a historical monument from their state, which they had in their syllabus, and showed it to them using a Google Cardboard headset. I also studied the improvement in their perception and understanding of the monument using VR as compared to studying from their textbook. Interesting results came out specifically pointing at how VR + traditional means of education could produce a much greater impact.
This project was done 6 years back when a solution like that hardly existed. Currently, there are many solutions out there that offer similar options. But reaching the grassroots is something we should make sure happens. It's up to us to make sure we grow together with those around us, hopefully, we can have more initiatives like that in the future.
Minty Video Update 🎥
Market Overview & NFT Growth 📈
Here are the latest updates on the top Non-Fungible Tokens in art sales:
CryptoPunks, created by Larva Labs @larvalabs saw a very successful week with a 1953.59% growth in NFT value over the last 7 days. Their 10,000 unique collectibles make up the CryptoPunks cast all with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain; in total selling 1,161.69Ξ ($823,954.29)
Follow Us 💙
Twitter: @minty_nft
Instagram: @minty_nft
YouTube: Minty Art
Minty: https://minty.art/
That’s all for this week, stay tuned for our newsletter!