A group show for the Winter Solstice 8-22 December 2021

8-22 December 2021, Antenna Gallery, 460 Hackney road E2 9EG

Earth Magic charges the midwinter air with distilled fantasy.  The volcano dreams of naked trees. The steamy last breath of the year, lava meets the ocean. Cool inspiration sealed with a volcanic kiss.  

Spell Zone

I imagined a breath as part of feeling connected with your mind and body. 

I imagined the breath as part of a ritual, incantation or spell. 

I imagined a breath as part of feeling connected with yourself and others. 

I imagined a black circle as a portal to transcendence. 

I imagined a black circle as the space in time where our souls exist. 

I imagined a black circle as the space where the soul of Mother Earth exists. 

I imagined a black circle as how living creatures see Gaia. 

I imagined a black circle as the dark before the dawn.

 I imagined a world where trees are rooted to all consciousness via common mycorrhizal networks. 

I imagined a world where the human race is truly connected to nature. 

I imagined a world where we are truly connected to every other person on this planet. 

I imagined a world where we all have equality and respect for our feelings and beliefs. 

I imagined a world where we all respect the natural world we live in. 

I imagined a world where we all have equal responsibility for the air we breathe. 

I imagined a world where we can truly BREATHE.

Pater Noster

We talk to Adina Popescu about her project ÆRTH, which envisages a digital twin of Earth based on real-tim

e data, intended to change the way we share information about our precious planet.

 Interview by Apiary founder Leslie Claire and digital research fellow Carl Hayden-Smith. 

Antenna: Can you tell us about the ideas and intentions behind ÆRTH?

Adina Popescu: The ÆRTH project presents a new platform, combining Big Data, Blockchain, Remote Sensing, and cutting edge Environmental Science in order to produce an authoritative and detailed model of the state of our world. Interactive mapping and data visualisations will cultivate emotional connections with large audiences, and blockchain will be utilised to enable collective ownership of the platform and incentivise participation. This platform aims to help us collectively address the environmental crisis.

AN: Why do you think NFTs are interesting?

First of all I think it is very confusing how many artists are rejecting NFTs, when they are actually very empowering for them. I think this stems from a defensiveness of not fully understanding the complex tech behind it, so they jump to the hype narrative which then they reject. If they really understood what an NFT was, I think they would embrace it, because it is their freedom to own and live off their own artistic creations.

AN: You’re so passionate about decentralisation and blockchain technology. Could talk about how and why you want to engage with this technology for those that aren’t so acquainted with DeFI?

First of all I believe the economic models that are currently being developed inside DeFI are the economic models of the future. I don’t think there has ever been such a strong generational divide in terms of grasping the paradigm shift that is currently happening, and the magnitude of it. I believe that these new economic models have the potential to generate business that is sustainable, much more egalitarian, and infinitely more scalable in their innovation.

For example, what we are doing here at ÆRTH is data sharing about environmental health. In the old economy, companies and institutions are siloing their environmental data. For example, the solution we are working on at ÆRTH uses DeFi and decentralised protocols to generate an incentive and a market place for an infinite amount of stake holders 

 value to their data. Raw data is often useless if it is not being contextualised and enriched by other data sets that an organisation may not have and would have to buy. By establishing a shared data lake we are 

 opportunity for an infinite number of data providers, scientists and innovators to scale innovation by being able to enrich their data and build better algorithms; which will in turn allow them to scale innovation and measure their impact for the planet. Within classical business models and company structures, to operate on such a scale is simply not possible. DeFi is providing new 

 frameworks to allow something like this to come into existence.

, especially digital and VR artists, ask me how they could actually build a real time model of the planet. Turns out they cannot because there is no available data on our most precious environments. For example, you can easily build a digital twin of San Francisco because of the ubiquitous sensor and GPS signals in urban areas; but you cannot build a digital twin of the Amazon. It turns out that where we would need the most visibility to see 

 on is absolutely in the dark. So artists, like 

, that are building immersive data based experiences of a tree, for example in their project ‘Tree Hugger’ would gain access to real time data sets in the Amazon rainforest via our data lake. This would create visibility and engage audiences into what is really going on in the Amazon.

AN: Could you speak more about ÆRTH token economy?

Our token economy allows to pay every data provider and scientist involved in this process with an infinite number of participants. Centralised companies would structurally not be able to do that.

AN: You keep using this hashtag #showmeyourdata. What does this mean?

All these impact investors and companies are telling us about their “impact”, but besides their press release there is no chartable evidence for their impact. We lack a data model that can transparently and reliably prove these companies and KPIs true impact in a way that is legible to everybody. This is what we are building. Data transparency leads to trust and collaboration on mass scale to unforeseen innovations and solutions for the planet.

AN: Can you speak further about the ÆRTH dataverse?

Raw data only has value if it is being enriched and contextualised, which is the basis to create a good algorithm. An algorithm can only be impactful if it is being visualised in real time so that people can interact with it. This then leads to knowledge and awareness. So the dataverse is using this growing interconnected web of algorithms, and giving them a visual language and a body. This is what we call dynamic data NFTs, but I do not want to go into this before we launch. Such a geo and time hashed data verse would give the basis for a VR experience or a game to actually run on real world data instead of just depicting an imaginary world.

AN: As an organisation of artists, Apiary is really interested in what NFTs are. I think we are still at a stage where most people don’t get it, and a lot of it just looks like crappy street art right now. Carl, can you comment on why you think NFTs are promising?

Carl H Smith: I hosted a panel on NFTs at the British computer society over the summer and I am particularly fascinated by this technology, because recently we have gone through quite a period of artists being devalued, especially musicians, (through platforms such as Spotify).

As soon as something becomes data it can become easily copied and therefore has the potential to lose its original value. NFTs can enable to logging of  intellectual property and could eventually act as an alternative form of trademarking or patenting. This is because NFTs are logged on the blockchain as, 'this original creation has been created by X'. NFTs for IP is one of the things I’m interested in and is the reason why I am working with groups like UNCOPIED. UNCOPIED look at how we can certify that a piece of work is indeed by the original artists. In terms of collecting NFTs, I think it’s quite problematic.

I’ve just invested in Damien Hirst’s project, 'The Currency' project, which is starting to get really interesting. Damien Hirst created 10,000 original artworks, which have initially launched as 10,000 NFTs. If you were lucky enough to get one, you have to now decide between burning the actual original artwork and keeping the NFT, or not keeping the NFT and taking your original artwork. When the project first started the buyers imagined, 'Oh well, clearly, I’m going to take the original Damien Hirst artwork for two grand' (which was the initial price of the lottery).

AP: Okay I know where this is going. He is so smart! 

CHT: So it’s called a Tender, and there are 10,000 Tenders, so he’s effectively created his own bitcoin. The reason why Tender has gone mental is because what was two grand, is now 30-40 grand, per Tender. 

Each Tender has its own individual name. Hirst used AI to create the names, and employed assistants to create the original artworks, they’re spot paintings, they’re about 8 x 4” in size. But everyone now is questioning, ‘Why would I keep the original artwork that’s never going to be worth 50 grand?’ It can only be worth 50 grand if everyone keeps their NFTs. So initially they all predicted most buyers would not keep the NFT – so maybe 90% would keep the original artwork, 10% would keep the NFT. Now it’s gone the other way. Fortunately the collectors don’t have to decide for a year, but effectively all that artwork could be burnt in favour of the virtual. Obviously people hate Damien Hirst for it – and it’s not even a new idea because Duchamp did it in the 30s; but I think it is super interesting from the NFT perspective.

AP: Well, first of all I think it’s genius what he’s doing, because ultimately he’s already pointing the finger on how the art market works. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if you hold the art piece, because what you hold is a signature that it’s an authentic Damien Hirst. And every artist can get to a point where he’s just making a spotted painting or whatever he wants, you know just a doodle, but because his name is underneath it, it can be sold on the art market for a very high price. So in that moment he basically says: If art is reduced to just the market value, then you can just make a license, digitalise the license, and keep the artwork. So ultimately he’s just exposing what is already inherent in the art market.

CHS: Exactly. But also I think art should be here to save the world, not to destroy it. At the moment, NFTs are very dirty for the planet. What I’m pushing for is a green revolution caused by the demands of electricity going through the roof because of artists and because of NFT hype.

AN: I'd like to talk more about the MLF project. Did you ever try 'Tree Hugger'?

CHS: It was amazing, right? So that was a lidar scanner which created a real 3D digital twin of a Redwood tree, captured I believe in Yosemite Park, California. I’ve been there; it’s astonishing. They got a lot of criticism for the project such as ‘Oh, you know it’s digital disconnect, you’re not in nature'. But you kind of are in a new form of nature; but it is not a CGI; is an actual digital twin of the tree and, for me my reaction was that we need to protect this.

The mycelium have survived five mass extinctions and humans are causing the sixth. What is it about mycellium intelligence that is opposed to the cult of the individual. We’re talking about something far, far more potent, which is parallel processing. So if we could create a digital twin of those mycelium networks, a digital twin of the Amazon, then what’s the next step? What I’d love us to get together with Marshmallow Laser Feast, with an expert in NFT, and also with Rain reforesting idea, because I would love to get my head around how we could all work together to create something profound that would protect the Amazon. The reason why the Amazon is being destroyed is because people on the ground who live in the Amazon think that it’s their responsibility to work the land, right? So unless they’re actually incentivised not to destroy the Amazon, then they’re going to destroy the Amazon.

CHS: So when will we be able to see the first sight of ÆRTH?

AP: We are hoping to present in May 2022. Watch this space. 

is a Digital Creator and founder of ÆRTH. Follow the project  at 

 is the Director of the Learning Technology Research Centre (LTRC) and Principal Research Fellow at Ravensbourne University London. You can find out more about Carl's work in his recent 

New ÆRTH rising

Zam Zam Records' eclectic and colourful catalogue delves into drone noise left-field abstract electronic psych new-rhythm and neopagan aesthetics. 

We talk to founders Héloïse Thibault and Olmo Guadagnoli on the even of their tenth anniversary. 

Antenna: How and where did you start the ZamZam label?

'ZAMZAM,, it’s like an incantation, a charm, a magic word a wizard would use to make something appear or... ! (*((**///ÄÄÄ**** 

We started ZAMZAM Records in Bristol, UK, in 2011. We had just left Geneva and landed inEngland. We didn't know anybody there but slowly started meeting new musicians and friends. The music scene (rock, rave) was really flourishing, as always, but the experimental scene was a bit quiet at the time. So we thought that creating a label and organising gigs was the best way to herd the freaks and hermits together.

We have been dedicated to our solo projects for a long time, respectively as H (H.lo.se) and Uiutna (Olmo). We first collaborated as a duo called DROGA, in which we both played electronic devices, drum machines and keyboards. 

A few years later in Switzerland we collaborated with our dear friend Kro from Paris, as a trio called AIUTO, italian for HELP! We had a lot fun on tour playing electronics (H), Olmo (Bass), Kro (Pure data programmed drum kit made out of pipes) and a strobe! In 2013, we met Mark Wagner, with whom we first spontaneously merged together at the Woolf Festival in Wiltshire, forging a free improvisatory union, which we then took on tour to spread as sonic philosophy through Europe and the UK. 

Working as H.U.M, a Pan-European occult electronic triad, we released a limited edition cassette ‘We Are One’ on Bumtapes label, and a debut LP ‘Trinity’ with Way on Rocket Recordings. Since 2015, we mostly play together as ZOHASTRE, french italian duo, a whirlwind combination of spacio-tribal drums and bewitched electronics (( /Ä/ *

AN:Can you tell us about some of your favourite collaborations and releases over the years?

Yes! From the very beginning of Zamzamrec we did lot's of great collaborations. People like Matt Loveridge (MXLX/Gnar Hest/Fairhorns) and Deej Dhariwal (Thought Forms) were the first entities we met in Bristol and their music literally blew our minds! Gareth Turner (Big Naturals) & Paul Allen (The Heads) playing together as Anthroprophh, WO! Aonghus Reidy (Ocean Floor), Henry Collins (ex-Shitmat), all beautiful sonic souls. Tim Drage aka Cementimental the most absolute noise creature. We also found a family in Manchester with the GNOD crew. All their solo/duo projects (Negra Branca, AHRKH, GNOD_R&D) are incredible! When we arrived in France we discovered a great network of amazing people and places. We crossed paths withNibul, c_c, LFL, Pascal Dickens, and many more. Our favorite ZZ releases so far is a mysterious double cassette called ‘Oboustranně dvoud.lný’ by Střed Světa, and the most astonishing ‘Prepared Rain’ by Henry Collins ^^

AN:How does visual art interact with your practice? Can you tell us about some of your sonic sculptures?

We both studied fine arts in Geneva, and have always been involved and interested in visual arts,. Art is an integral component of the label and part of our own practice. We give a huge space to the graphic design and look for the visual identity of each release. We like to create covers for tapes and vinyls, listening to the album over and over! The music sparks images, geometries and symbols, reveals or invents new spatio-temporal dimensions. Eyes closed, it is therefore possible to picture magic windows ))) /Ä (((

The aesthetics of the label reveal itself gradually, it becomes more precise, sometimes it does escape too. Retrospectively, we see a beautiful coherence, leitmotivs, shapes, colors. We recently launched a new series of more handcrafted covers, we found a pocket printing process, using an ink-stamp on fine shimmering paper.

With Zamzamrec we're also working in the field of Visual Art, we're producing immersive and initiatory pieces in collaboration with other artists. The idea is always to modify the perception of space and time and disrupt the boundaries between the real and the imaginary.

Together with Waj, an english sculptor based in the Loire Valley, we created a monumental and interactive sound installation called ‘Gis.le Webmaster’. She was a giant biomechanical spider, made of bamboo and metal. Her web was made of springs/slinky, connected to contact-microphones, which were connected to effects pedals and speakers hidden in the animal’s paws. The audience touches the web and generates ‘inputs’, producing strange and supernatural sounds. Pretty Sci-fi slash goth as a trip!

We also collaborated with Viktor Konwicki, a Swiss video artist and video game creator, to make up an hologram of a galaxy, night vision amongst the trees, intergalactic mirage, space gateway, secret door to an extra-dimensional and mysterious place…

AN: You are currently recording a Zohastre LP around the idea of ‘experimental bal musette and weird magic’. Can you tell us about the project and what is 'weird magic'?


Playing together as Zohastre is an astronomical word game, a compound of initials and stars, and a tribute to Zarathustra. We call ourselves a troubadour/travelling minstrel from outer space. The set is a forest at night. Like you’ve crept up on a long-lost village in the valleys, peering over from behind the trees in the dark, staring at a huge flaming fire with the villagers dancing in circles, everyone possessed by the incantatory power of the moon and the fire.

Our debut LP was called’ Pan and The Master Pipers’. We like the idea of ancient gods hidden, waiting to be awaken by drony yet volatile sounds, heavy and deconstructed rhythms, enchanting and shrilling bagpipes, echoing in a sea of shooting stars.

We are now recording our second LP ‘ABRACADABRA’, a series of seven ecstatic freewheeling tracks. We face each other, synchronize and practice accelerated audio gestures. Olmo plays the drums, H a table of electronic devices including two bass sequenzers, a kaos pad, a looper pedal, a waamy, a delay pedal, two overdrives/distortions and a tape player. We edit/modify samples of pipes from different countries, like a biniou from Brittany or a zampogna from Sicily and put them back to magnetic tape. This way we're creating a tension between ‘forgotten’ and ‘new’ sounds, music for trance like FX and super sonic teletransport. We like to plunge the audience into a popular street party and invite them to ‘dance backward like in the frenzy of balls musette’ (accordion style with Lightning Bolt as special guests)!

AN: How magic has played out in your careers?

It is all about magic! Z/ÄMZ/ÄM is the formula that combines music and magic. When alchemy rhymes with fantasy, enlightenment with enchantment. The music we play as musicians and publish as a label is dreamlike and visionary. Giving you the finger inside the pyramid! The Zamzam adventure started with a magic sparkle, and we haven't stop following our inner compass since. Signs, rituals, state of sonic wonder. The ZZ caravan is slowly moving while the 

AN: Would you describe your work as futuristic?

With Zohastre, we work on complex patterns, riffs and rhythms, we play with a lot of different instruments, both acoustic and electronic. The way we're using drums with analogue synths, tapes and birds whistles, going through FX pedals expresses the will to condense the past and the super-future, to create a weird neopagan sound. We connect with ancestral emotions, activate distant/unconscious memories, spirits and sonorities to unleash an intense and atemporal experience, hypnotic/hallucinatory momentum, elevating into cross-eyed digitrance before reaching ecstatic bagpipes equilibrium. Past and present converge to the future forging a Space Triangle *))) ▲ (((*

AN: This year represents 10 years of Zam Zam label. How are you planning to celebrate?

Yeah! We organized an event in September at the mythical Cave 12 in Geneva, Switzerland. Dabess venue, temple of live music! LOOOOONG SUNDAY EVENING with 3 LIVE CONCERTS & LOOOONG TUNNEL FINAL DJ SET. We presented Tresque (tek_electronics), Travers(folklore industriel pyrotechnique) and Mechanical Heaven (wild_beats_&_more). Pure blast!!! Our friends and great artists, Thomas Perrodin made a beautiful screenprinting poster for the night, and Corentin Perrichot created a very special visuel ))) A3 poster, riso print ((( ✨ MAGIC CONSTELLATION ✨ ZZ PILGRIMS ✨ SUPER TRIPPY NIGHT SKY VISION ✨

We are actually working on the next upcoming releases, both on tapes and vinyls. We carry on weaving the Z/ÄMZ/ÄM tapestry with an eminently artistic, cosmic and magic aim. Stay tuned /Ä<3 

Planet Zam Zam 

The dawn of the internet age came with giddy predictions of a new

Mattha Busby asks if NFTs might help do just to this.

In 1973 the The New York Times posed the question, ‘

Writers, Composers and Actors Collect Royalties: Why Not Artists?’

 in response to a famous incident when artist Robert Rauschenberg  

 collector Robert Scull, who had resold his abstract oil piece for almost 100 times what he had paid the painter. There were few potential solutions for the much demanded provision of artist royalties; and whilst  subsequent proposals for a US resale law did not pick up traction, the protestations of Rauschenberg can be seen as the first brick in the wall of a movement to ensure the better treatment of artists.

But since the creation of blockchain –- perhaps most widely recognised as the host of  Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies— a new system of artwork ownership has been established, replacing a storage facility with a digital data log. Digital and physical pieces' rights are stored within Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on public, decentralised ledgers hosted on the blockchain; and include a significant embedded resale royalty stipulation that flows back to the original creator each time it is resold.  So would Rauschenberg and others put their faith in NFTs and online marketplaces over traditional collectors and dealers?

“When ownership rights are digital you can code them in a way to easily enforce their rules,” says Kayvon Tehranian, the founding CEO of NFT marketplace Foundation which has seen $100m in sales this year. “We honour an automated 10% royalty to the original creator whenever a piece is sold in the secondary market. It gets sent to the creator automatically. You don't need to file any paperwork with us.”


NFTs hit headlines last year amidst an avalanche of new artworks, as their sales raked in tens of millions, including at legacy institutions such as Christie's auction house.  While some dismiss it all as a fad, many view the swift rise of art hosted by NFTs as potentially utopian and extremely disruptive: imagine a world without parasitic intermediaries and prude, corrupt tastemakers, they say.

NFTs were reportedly invented in 2012 by  two creative technologists, John Watkinson and Matt Hall, seeking to issue real-world assets on the open ledger where cryptocurrency transactions are recorded, whilst the NFT widely-recognised as 

 (pictured above) was created in May 2014.  Prior to their invention, digital creations could not be automatically afforded property rights. Through this nascent technology, Tehranian says it is simple to place some control on downstream sales. “The mainstream systems currently in place are legally-oriented, very expensive, and biased towards the privileged few that can even understand them,” he contends. But code just runs and runs, and the digits seemingly have no feelings about the matters at hand (or do they?).

The dawning of the internet age (and previously, capitalism) provoked giddy predictions that a new era of greater equality beckoned. Information would be shared more freely than ever before, knowledge would be democratised as everyone had an encyclopaedia at their fingertips, and the truth would be difficult to suppress, or so they said.

Now, however, large parts of the web are subject to oligarchic control by decree and it is facing ever-increasing state censorship, too. People are also tracked incessantly and manipulated into buying products, some of which are potentially destructive. The internet nonetheless retains unprecedented power for people to disseminate valuable information, but early apparent democratic victories have receded.

“We're in that moment where we can't yet see how the world changes from this technology,” Tehranian says, also alluding to potentially earth-shattering disruptions presented by cryptocurrencies (his platform runs solely on ethereum). “There will be new businesses that put more money in the pockets of people creating the content and the value of these networks,” he prophesises.

The royalty-disbursing technology could also be seriously troublesome to, among others, the streaming industry gravy train – with songwriters earning about 50% of radio revenues but exponentially less from plays on multibillion platforms like Spotify. Some music labels have also previously faced criticism for not passing on royalties to artists, most notably US singer-songwriter Rodriguez, whose remarkable story of being unaware 500,000 of his records had been sold in South Africa won an Oscar for the Searching for Sugarman documentary maker.

Krista Kim, a visual artist who famously sold her “Mars House”, the first NFT digital house, for $500,000 in 2013, also sketches a revolutionary vision of a better future world without intermediaries such as bankers, auctioneers, and agents. “I believe NFTs are not only about art,” she says, “they are the backbone and foundation for our decentralised future in economy and governance. You have this trustless-based smart contract system between two parties that doesn’t need to be verified or mediated by a third party.”

Everything is on the blockchain and transparent, Kim adds, as opposed to the sometimes crusty and opaque world of art ownership. “It’s the intermediation that causes corruption through the centralisation of power and influence. We don't have to spend time, energy and human capital in finding ways to screw one another, because there’s no longer loopholes: we can just focus on co-creating and making life better. In an NFT system, you can’t screw me.

But such systems will continue to operate in wider, often flawed, ecosystems. In September 2021, street artist Banksy’s website 

 by a scammer who added a new page announcing the sale of an NFT artwork criticising the pollution caused by Bitcoin mining on NFT marketplace OpenSea. It sold for $340,000. But then the prankster, in a further bizarre twist, refunded the money. However, it was obviously Banksy’s website security failing which was to blame (though the purchaser also didn’t twig on the marketplace that the artwork was not genuine).

“Very, very, very few of these NFTs will hold their value,” predicts art critic Ben Davis, author of 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. “I can name multiple movements in the traditional art world where pieces were selling for millions of dollars and then the markets collapsed.” He also remains mindful that galleries, museums, curators and critics like himself may also perform valuable roles. “One of the things about gatekeepers is that they also invite people through the gate. Going to a gallery saves you 1,000 studio visits. Someone has done a bit of work to nominate something as important and worthy of your attention.” Eliminating gatekeepers does, however, create room for new voices to enter the scene, Davis adds, but new third parties–such as NFT marketplaces, trendsetters and brands cashing in on the boom–soon emerge. “I think those structures are a little more inaccessible to people over time,” he claims.

This crypto and NFT marketplace boom–a period not dissimilar from the dot-com bubble in which excessive stock market speculation over internet companies went up in smoke, ruining families–could lead to a similar black hole of debt for many. “The symbol of the internet bubble was a sock-puppet,” Davis says of the Pets.com spokespuppet. “Then it all crashed and people lost a tonne of money.” He also points to the 90s comic book boom, and draws parallels between boomers flash with disposable cash and smug crypto early-adopters today. “In the end, it was a big bubble, Marvel Comics went bankrupt and lots of teenagers lost their allowance. Others were tricked into investing.” However, despite his general scepticism amid wild market speculation for many unimpressive pieces (mostly animals doing cute human things, he scorns), Davis does believe that automated royalties is an “exciting” innovation.

“But it has never been the case that the problems faced by a majority of artists is getting a cut of the resales,” he asserts. “The problem for the majority of the artists is to even get any sales at all; because most art is valueless and can’t find a market.” A relatively small number of artists whose artworks grow in value over time may benefit, but a new royalty scheme does not solve fundamental inequalities of many artists neither having audiences nor being socioeconomically connected, Davis argues.

Damien Hirst’s recent NFT collection, “The Currency”, highlights this, while “almost making a joke” out of the market, according to the critic. It involved 10,000 near-identical polka-dotted $2,000 A4 paintings each corresponding to an NFT which was signed and numbered by the shark-in-formaldehyde artist. Purchasers could decide whether to take the physical version or the digital imprint, with the paper copy burned if the latter was chosen. One of the physically-kept works, titled “Yes”, has since been resold for $120,000 – making a 6,000% return for the original buyer and potentially substantial royalties for Hirst.

It follows the now infamous March sale of a digital NFT collage – “Everydays: The First 5000 Days”, which chronicled years of daily sketches by artist Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple – for $69m at Christie's auction house. The sale ranks as the fourth-

most expensive artwork by a living artist

 and the most valuable NFT work. The winner of the auction receives a digital file and vague rights to present the image. Another Beeple work has been resold for $6.7m– 100 times what it was bought for four months ago – of which he got a healthy 10% cut.

For the 40-year-old from Wisconsin whose mother worked in a community centre and father was an engineer, the coming of the NFT market has evidently propelled him to previously unthinkable heights. In 2020 he had been completely unknown to the mainstream art world and the most he had ever sold a print for was $100 – underlining how the NFT market can provide up-and-comers who catch the wave with huge, global audiences, perhaps without needing to backscratch old school gatekeepers or wait to get discovered. 

"I honestly, like, I never thought I could sell my work," he told Business Insider. "Kind of late September, early October 2020, people kept hitting me on being like, 'Oh, you got to look at this NFT thing’”. On his pieces, and NFTs more widely, he adds: “If everybody wants it, well, then it has value.”

Noah Davis, specialist in post-war & contemporary art at Christie's, told the website: "It's really a radical gesture to offer for sale something without any object, and we might as well lean into that. There's an interesting parallel between Mike and Andy Warhol in the way that their careers developed. Andy also started as an illustrator working in, basically, a gig economy."

With money-making opportunities for many artists severely curtailed by Covid restrictions, the ascendance of NFTs – which surely mark an inevitable step in the evolution of internet culture – has been accelerated. But more established artists, like Hirst, and celebrities like Mila Kunis, whose animated “Stoner Cats” series presented in the form of NFTs sold out in 35 minutes, raking in $8m, nonetheless appear to be reaping many of the NFT rewards – though the Hollywood actress’ project is also being presented as a new model to fund potentially controversial TV shows that may otherwise struggle to secure backing. Though, currently, it seems only those who have brought the episodes can watch them, making them infinitely more inaccessible than, say, a YouTube series. One also wonders whether Kunis and the star-studded cast of multimillionaires could have just funded the cartoon themselves in any case.

The pressure to gain access to the show “unleashed chaos on the ethereum blockchain network”, Yahoo Finance reported, raising transaction fees from $9.50 to $35 and allegedly collectively costing people $800,000 in charges amid the madness. “Thank you so much for believing in this entire crazy concept and idea, and being a part of it. It has been a whirlwind and we are so excited to continue down this journey with all of you. We’re so sorry that we broke ethereum … but also, f*** it.”

Some fear super-disposable NFT art is leading us to a trans-material dystopia. Dean Kissick, New York editor of Spike Art magazine, is among those unimpressed. “With NFTs, we’ve made another leap from art that’s easy to post, to art that simply is the post. The most popular series of NFT collectibles are algorithmically generated. And what they reveal, compared to the rest of culture, is a broader and more prevalent trend of art and entertainment that has the uncanny feeling of having been made by algorithm, even though it wasn’t,” 

. “What non-fungible (which is to say, unique) tokens show us, is the absolute fungibility of culture today: its hazy, interchangeable meaninglessness.”

Davis is also alarmed. “I’ve gone into the Reddit chat rooms discussing how to make NFTs and you just see, ‘I’m 14 years old, I wanna become an NFT millionaire, how do I do it’, and the next person is like, ‘Well you need a gimmick, you can’t just be yourself, you have to come up with a brand’.” He says that with interest rates at zero and young adults today having grown up amid the financial crisis and declining quality of life, a “no future sentiment” is deeply baked into much NFT art. “You see it in the nihilistic aesthetics,” he explains. “In some ways you appreciate it as a 'fuck you'.”

But beneath news of teenagers making millions from pixelated icons, and cats smoking weed, genuinely cutting-edge, thought-provoking art, like Kim’s, is being produced and sold – with artists unshackled from legacy institutions. “The art market has been so entrenched in the traditional intermediary markets that it has stifled the real meaning of what art is to society,” she contends. “NFT artists are no longer relying on the gallery model for their livelihoods; there is more creative freedom.”

Alluding to her upcoming “Continuum” public installation in Toronto – “the biggest sound and light healing meditative installation in the world” – which she has part-funded with city authorities and sponsors, Kim believes more free-to-experience art which speaks to, and reflects, society will emerge. “Whereas it used to just reflect the tastes of the elites that purchased the art, it will be more of a raw expression of humanity: its making it much more viable to be an artist and be paid fairly.”

It ultimately seems like an appetising future could await many artists who may have previously been left out in the cold. “The rate at which change happens can be quite dramatic and unexpected,” muses Tehranian. “I wouldn't be surprised if [Big Tech companies] are challenged by these new models,” though he concedes he does not think that a reckoning is imminent. However, “the extent to which this system fundamentally puts power in the hands of the people creating the content, not the distributors, is quite large.”

Mattha Busby is a freelance journalist based in Mexico who regularly writes for the Guardian, Vice and other publications. His first book, 'Should All Drugs Be Legalised?', will be published by Thames & Hudson in the spring. Follow his work 

Artsy 'How a single auction changed the art market

All images remain copyright The Artists. 

METADRIFT

A World Without Words invites audiences to engage with the nature of human language, to offer a fascinating and playful exploration of how words form our world.The project marked a pivotal moment in neuroscience with screenings, talks, performances, and exhibitions which bough together the most dynamic genre pioneers in neuroscience and sensory aesthetic.

The project was curated by Thomas Duggan, SJ Fowler & Lotje Sodderland

Artists: Nick Ryan, Thomas Duggan, SJ Fowle, Lotje Sodderland.

A World without Words

A curated evening of live music and immersive visual art by artists including DIZ_CO, WIREFORM and The LIght Surgeons.

Election Selection

Nicoletti Contemporary presents ‘Without Nature’, a group exhibition that explores current modes of perception and representation of the environment in an ecologically-concerned, digitally-mediated era. Curated by Oswaldo Nicoletti & Camille Houzé.

Artists: Aram Bartholl, Julius von Bismarck, Hugo Cantegrel, Petra Cortright, Chris Dorland, Rachel de Joode, Mathieu Merlet Briand, Eva Papamargariti, Nicolas Sassoon & Rick Silva.

Without Nature

Artist and performer Dahc Dermur VIII presents his London club night KAOS with a special streaming live from Apiary studios during the 2020 pandemic lock down.

Link: http://www.kaoslondon.com/Kaosnew/Home.html

KOAS London Live

Apiary & SONICA present an exclusive mix of audiovisual performances, kinetic art installations and electronic acts by outstanding sound and media artists from London and Ljubljana. 

SONICA Festival 

A curated evening of live music and immersive visual art curated by Sally Goldman of Unconscious Archives

Artists: Unconscious Archives and friends.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Nishikawa’s sculptural theatre Dancerbation examines the overt and subconscious nature of the “erotic gesture” and its contemporary use in theatre, life and art.The performance subtly breaks down the masculine conventions that are normally associated with the magician and his assistant. Performed with a percussive, metallic soundscape alongside a collective of women.

Dancerbation 

A performance by experimental electronic duo Elephant House. 


Artists: Christos Fanaras, Shenngy Shenn

Elephant House

One-day workshop and Eco-NFT art & blockchain exhibition with Unpredictable Series

Following ¿CryptoQué? A workshop and NFT Exhibition created by Lenara Verle and Ilan Katin curated with Blanca Regina in Madrid in 2019, Cryptowhat? is a new Art & Blockchain saloon series led by Blanca Regina & Pierre Bouvier Patron in London in collaboration with its founders and other artists.First edition – introduction to NFTs


When – Saturday 11th December 2021 – Workshop: 1 – 4 pm 

please get in touch for future workshops 

Where – Apiary Studios – 458 – 460 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG


Register for Free mailing at info@unpredictable.info
15 spaces availableWorkshop 1 pm to 4 pm ( book in advance)


We will guide you into the blockchain art world and use Eco-NFTS
Bring your laptop. If you’re an artist bring a few art pieces in digital format (jpg or gif).
Duration: 3 hours.Content

What is blockchain and what are artists doing there. Why use Eco- NFTs?
Why are people buying digital art on the blockchain
How to put your art on the blockchain
Activities
Each participant will receive near to do minting, listing, bidding transaction, getting familiar with the Mintbase.io tools,
as well as buying NFTs from each other.
Make your first blockchain transactions and learn how they work
Learn some terms: near, gas, transaction fees, validators, exchanges,
contract, token, minting, NEP-171, NFT, proof of stake, and staking
Get to know the main platforms and marketplaces for blockchain art
Put your art on the blockchain – tokenize your art
Exhibit your art in a blockchain-enabled virtual 3D gallery



5 to 8 pm ( no need to RSVP)
The exhibition uses AR (augmented reality) to show digital blockchain artworks from a VR
space superimposed on a physical space.
On display are the blockchain art pieces created in the workshop.
The physical exhibition space is recreated in a blockchain-enabled virtual 3D gallery supported by mintbase.io
Using a mobile phone or a tablet, visitors can scan QR codes on the walls and access
the art pieces
A live feed of the virtual space is also video mapped in the exhibition space
The artworks will be available for sale, also in a beginner’s friendly format of a “paper
wallet”


, in collaboration with Muti, presents at 7pm Gmt 

 live-streaming featuring Blanca Regina, Pierre Bouvier Patron, Reuben Sutherland, and guest artists. Link to the metaverse 

https://www.cryptovoxels.com/play?coords=N@762E,108N,12U

Virtual Gallery for the exhibition at Unpredictable Series at Mintbase.io


(Psyche’ Tropes) an immersive audio/visual performance projecting self shot and archive footage with live music.

Using dual Pulsar drum synthesisers backed with projection mapping.


– 8 pieces selected from renowned crypto artists including works by Ilan Katin, Lenara Verle, Blanca Regina & Pierre Bouvier Patron.
– 15 pieces will be selected from workshop attendants.Supported by 

 is an artist, tutor, and curator based in London who is currently involved in creating audio-visual performances, sound works, multimedia installations, photography, and book arts. She has been leading audio-visual performance art and projection mapping workshops plus curated events internationally. ‘Expanded and Ephemera Audiovisual’ was her first solo exhibition presented in México, 2015. She has performed and created a number of films including artists, David Toop, Leafcutter John, Steve Beresford, Sharon Gal, Mandhira de Saram, Adriana Camacho, and Matthias Kispert. Her work has been supported by Arts Council England, Sound & Music, BMC, Amexcid, Photo-España, and Garage Cube. Last projects include the research with the Immersive Pipeline Project at Goldsmith University London and the artist residency at Solar, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. 

 is a visual artist based in London. He is currently working with different media, such as digital video and film, exploring the boundaries between them and creating moving image works, performances, and installations. He has developed many practices and skills in various areas such as experimental film, documentary films, music videos, etc. He has been involved in video screenings and video performances, solo or in collaboration with musicians such as Syd Kemp, Neil’s Children, artist Blanca Regina, and many others. His work has been shown in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, etc. His latest works include 

Unpredictable: Conversations with Improvisers, a series of 12 videos about improvisers in the UK. It also includes extensive participation with collectives such as Unpredictable Series, Strange Umbrellas, and a number of festivals including Sonic Waterloo, Art of Improvisers, Alterations Festivals among others. 

is an artist and researcher, has taught several graduate and undergraduate classes, as well as independent workshops, on the topic of art, technology, and collaboration. Her current research focuses on conceptual art in connection with alternative economies and currency design. She consults for blockchain art platforms and is a founder of 

is a berlin-based artist who currently makes non-figurative drawings occasionally collaborates with musicians doing live visual performances, and sometimes ventures into the creation of installations. Since 2018 has been publishing and selling artworks in the Ethereum blockchain and helping onboard artists into this new 

 is a New Zealander who lives in Britain. He is a VJ, director and visual artist, specialising in mixing up live action and animation.Sutherland has made music videos for The Doves, Phoenix Foundation and Röyksopp1] (their single Happy Up Here). He also created videos for the New Zealand-based independent record label Flying Nun Records. Together with noise artist Dan Hayhurst, Sutherland formed Sculpture, a visual and musical group which does live zoetrope-video art performances with a record player and a camera. Hayhurst plays improvised music with tape loops and effects equipment. Sculpture has performed in festivals and clubs in Europe, among which ATP was one. Works of Sutherland are being included in the tenth anniversary documentary about the All Tomorrow’s Party Festival. As a musician, he plays with various artists including Hot Dog Girrrrrl.This project is supported by 

Exhibition

A group show for the Winter Solstice 8-22 December 2021

Interview

Adina Popescu envisages a new world order in her visionary ÆRTH project

Interview

We talk to Zam Zam Records about their eclectic and colourful catalogue.

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Feature

New work by artist in residence Diz_qo in collaboration with the Mediaeval Babes

Feature

The dawn of the internet age came with giddy predictions of a new more open and egalitarian era. Mattha Busby asks if NFTs might help do just to this.

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Event

One-day workshop and Eco-NFT art & blockchain exhibition with live acts and DJs by night Antenna x Unpredictable Series Saturday 11 December 1-4pm (workshop NOW FULL) 5pm + (Exhibition and performances) Free Entry