Recently, we took a closer look at how architecture and design may be affected by the rise of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), and the underlying blockchain technology supporting them. In the latest intriguing development on the subject, the digital art marketplace SuperRare has announced the launch of Invisible Cities; a ground-breaking digital exhibition showcasing a range of real and imagined cityscapes, inspired by Italo Calvino’s seminal book of the same name.
The exhibition, on display from April 2-30, 2021, features the work of 10 artists who have used Calvino’s Invisible Cities as the basis for an exploration into the relationship between real and imagined cities, and the visible and invisible entities that allow them to operate. The captivating images are also available to purchase as NFTs throughout April, where interest in the subject has been spurred by Christie’s recent NFT sale of Beeple’s Everydays for $69 million.
Announcing the exhibition, curators An Rong and Elisabeth Johs said “Calvino’s seminal text is a perfect framework for today's NFT art market, remaining a tour de force of the imagination. Most likely, we will never be able to fathom the origin of such visions. Are they part of the universal archetypal imagery? The mystery behind the future of NFTs and their place in the world needs a response with imagination. The mystery behind imagination is a forever conundrum.”
While varying widely in subject, from utopian cityscapes to sci-fi urban landscapes, the artworks are united in demonstrating the power of virtual space to alter our perception of the built environment. While Nate Mohler’s work explores the memories of real cities through a fusion of motion and ink, Mari.K’s Diomira offers an interpretation of the first city described in Calvino’s Invisible Cities. As the viewer browses the exhibition, they are invited to temporarily depart their physical surroundings, and instead become residents in these universal, anonymous, cyber cities.
Published in 1972, Calvino’s Invisible Cities was inspired by the writings of explorer Marco Polo, and features 55 fictional cities that convey Calvino’s thoughts on culture, language, time, and mortality. Calvino wrote that “everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
Where Calvino used stories and parables to shift the paradigm of how we read cities, Rong and Johs’ exhibition uses the vehicle of virtual space and NFTs to similar effect. As the crypto world takes root in today’s discourse, it is building a vast web of decentralized, invisible environments through media such as Decentraland, complete with invisible economies, exchanges, and processes unexpectedly manifesting in physical space. The advent of NFTs provides yet more fertile ground, asking how our distance from the object under observation, and our movement towards and away from it, can produce varying levels of abstractions, relationships, and constellations of meaning.
Invisible Cities is on display until April 30th 2021 on SuperRare.
18 Comments
Look, I can waste resources to prove I own the image I can otherwise view for free on Archinect! Wheee! Fuck the planet!
A digital image of an NFT that is a digital image ... LOL
As animation they make for some great Zoom-backgrounds!
The whole NFT thing still seems very scammy to me, but I've always thought a studio based on Invisible Cities would be awesome. These images are beautiful.
I don't care if it's a scam, but the amount of energy wasted on it bugs the crap out of me.
https://time.com/5947911/nft-e...
Invisible cities was my very first arch studio... back in, fuck, 2002? Damn. Brilliant subject for fresh arch students.
There are two things about NFTs that are attractive to artists:
First, they are intended to give provenance to an artwork. But this is really bullshit because artworks already have provenance. Consignments, invoices, payments, etc. In this respect the NFT really has no value at all other than the appearance of adding value. So I could create an NFT tied to one of my physical works and sell it with the work for an upcharge.
Second, the artist has a 10% interest in the NFT, so if the NFT is resold the artists gets a cut. This is quite attractive, as I believe artists should have a stake in the appreciation of their work (on the slim chance that their work actually appreciates during their lifetime. But ownership becomes thorny as people can sell shares in an NFT - which is exactly what the blockchain guys who bought BeepleCrap's carp at Christie's are doing (probably to recover their promotional expense [the purchase] and to divest themselves of it before before it flatlines.
Unfortunately the reality here is that NFTs are just a promotional vehicle for cryptocurrency and a pump-and-dumpcash grab. Someone bought a "digital moment" NFT of Giannis Antetokounmpo dunking on the Indiana Pacers for $95,000 on NBA Top Shot.
This is ultimately the result of Uncle Sam pumping sooo much money into Wall Street and the 1% that they can throw $100k away on a 10- second video clip that lives on your phone.
<sigh>
Never thought I'd miss the good old days when assholes lit their cigars with $100 bills.
Cryptokitties, anyone? You can check their "value" here.
"Unfortunately the reality here is that NFTs are just a promotional vehicle for cryptocurrency and a pump-and-dumpcash grab." bingo.
not to mention the absurd, truly of-our-time environmental bomb that are nfts:
“It turns out my release of six crypto-artworks consumed in 10 seconds more electricity than the entire studio over the past 2 years,” Mr. Lemercier wrote on his website. He said he was putting future NFT releases on hold. “It felt like madness to even consider continuing that practice.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0...
what’s wrong with cryptocurrency? Bunch of cranky old ladies in here.
In addition to sucking up outrageous amounts of energy, it doesn't even solve the problem it claims to. It's a bullshit gold grab with a handful of duped evangelists. I'll be back with receipts.
In a nutshell...
I don’t understand how/why it uses so much energy?
From the Time article linked earlier (emphasis mine):
"During the last crypto boom, the region—home to some of the cheapest electricity in the U.S.—was beset by a new energy-hungry home industry: basements and sheds loaded with racks of computers churning through advanced mathematical calculations in order to “mine” valuable crypto coins like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Even those small mining operations can overload local grids, creating a problem for local utilities. Around the world, vastly larger cryptocurrency operations have sprung up from Texas to Iran to China’s Inner Mongolia—almost anywhere miners can hook up to cheap electricity—filling air-conditioned, warehouse-sized spaces with endless rows of high powered computers running software to essentially convert energy into wealth."
You really should just read the article if you don't understand the environmental impact
So money doesn’t grow on trees?
Didn’t see the article, I’ll take a look. Regardless, the concept of crypto currency is good, even if they are doing it in an inefficient way. I’m sure the technology can be improved to lower the energy demand...
Dude, read the article. It talks about that.
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