Giant Strides for On-chain Art Culture

All signs point to November being one of the biggest months for art culture around the globe. We’re witnessing giant strides from creatives in Latin America to Africa and, of course, here in New York City.

We’ve gathered the gist of it just for you in another bite-sized edition of the Eminent Pulse, plus a few more goodies!

• Bright Moments Generative Art Show in Buenos Aires

• Lola Mewu’s Record-Breaking Painting Marathon

• Celebrating NYC Photography with Sony Alpha

• Exclusive Interview with Chikai

• Art Spotlight 🔭

Bright Moments Generative Art Show in Buenos Aires

Generative art is one of the most rapidly advancing fields in the art world. Creative coding has come a long way, from ASCII motifs to mind-bending displays like Refik Anadol’s showcase at the Las Vegas Sphere.

Bright Moments Gallery is propagating the latest cultural leap forward for this art form in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A specially curated collection featuring LATAM artists was exhibited during a three-day show that took place between November 2 and November 5.

“La Colección de Buenos Aires” featured workshops and interactive exhibitions that showed just how rapidly the art form has progressed and evolved. 1,100 artworks by 11 generative artists were minted live during various events at the art festival.

A special collection by CryptoArg, a Buenos Aires-based digital artist collective, was unveiled and showcased at the event. Bright Moments also announced the latest addition to their CryptoCitizens commemorative collection. 1,000 “CryptoPatagonians” will be available in early November.

An incredible wave of support helped this ship sail smoothly, with brands such as Ledger, fxHash, Art Blocks, Samsung, Foundation, etc. throwing their weight behind the festivities. No wonder the excitement from the LATAM generative artist community was palpable!

Lola Mewu’s Record-Breaking Painting Marathon

In September, we wrote about Lola Mewu’s pathway from a legal career to on-chain art. Her distinctive oil paintings are scattered all across the blockchain, from Ethereum to Tezos. Now, her artistry has been immortalized even further on the world stage, as she recently set a new world record for the longest painting marathon.

Prior to Lola’s feat, the Guinness World Record was previously held by Roland Palmaerts, who painted for 60 consecutive hours from October 3–5, 2013. In order to rewrite history, Lola aimed to paint for 72 hours straight.

Here’s how that went 👇

Mewu began painting at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 28, 2023, and ended her marathon at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 1, 2023, after painting for 82 hours!

Ever wanted to collect art by a Guinness World Record holder? Yeah, us too. Check out her work on Foundation, Opensea, and Objkt.

Celebrating NYC Photography with Sony Alpha

Photography is an art form that has heavily influenced art culture since its inception in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, it remains a major part of our shared artistic heritage, even more so in New York City.

In collaboration with ALLSHIPS, ANIMUS, and Street Dreams Magazine, Sony Alpha is hosting an event tomorrow, November 8th, in NYC. We’ll be celebrating the photography community alongside Dave Krugman, J.N. Silva, and more!

There’s an open call for photography submissions, which means that your work could be on display at the event! Find more details on how to participate here.

Note that you must RSVP via this link to attend the event (attendance is free of charge). You can also register for the main Creative Space sessions for a chance to win an ⍺7C II camera and lens kit!

Exclusive Interview with Chikai

Chikai went from co-founding Google Earth to building Monolith Gallery into a springboard for on-chain artists. We previously wrote about his journey from Silicon Valley to the realm of Web3 and crypto art.

This week, he’s joining us in conversation to dive a little deeper into his world.

Eminent: Hello, thanks for joining us! Can you give us a little insight into the first steps of your Web3 journey?

Chikai: I first got into Web3 in early 2021. I was shutting down my last startup, and I was looking for something to distract myself, and I had read about NFTs. I was totally confused as to why someone would pay $600K for a Nyan Cat NFT.

So I started to look into them and eventually bought an NFT, then another and another, and then fell down a deep rabbit hole. The art was absolutely amazing, and what was even more amazing was the community that I discovered. I had never seen anything like it before.

Eminent: As a tech founder, do you see any notable parallels or similarities in the startup experience in traditional tech vs. the blockchain space?

Chikai: There are definitely similarities. It is very hard to go from an idea that at first often seems crazy and stupid to sticking with it long enough to realize the full vision. And it tends to go through cycles; it’s not all just up and to the right.

I think the internet was a huge technological shift, but then later, with social media, there was a huge cultural shift that happened because of it. I think something similar is happening with crypto/blockchain, which was initially a technology shift, but with NFTs/Web3, it is becoming a cultural shift.

Eminent: You've been creatively exploring AI for some time. Tell us about what drives you to create and how you intend to share it with the world.

Chikai: Initially, AI was just an exploration to better understand this new technology that I was noticing being used more and more often in NFT art work. But as I started to play with AI to create images, I got sucked into it, and just like with NFTs, I went down a deep rabbit hole and started to enjoy using it creatively versus just for “research”.

I have always publicly shared what I created with AI along the way, and so I was always getting feedback and discussing the results with the community. Generally, people were very encouraging of what I was doing with AI, but then one day Alpha Centauri Kid replied with a very positive comment about one of my AI pieces, and I was blown away. It really gave me the confidence to mint my first piece, and then it’s all grown from there.

Eminent: Monolith Gallery exhibited thousands of artworks within its first year. What do you see as the next natural step for driving more impact towards artist discovery in Web3?

Chikai: Monolith Gallery has always been about bringing more visibility to more artists, and I’ve done several projects to further that, from exhibitions (both online and in person) to pushing curation forward through SuperRare Spaces and Foundation Worlds to highlighting artwork through email newsletters.

With each project, I wanted to make sure that I was truly adding value and addressing a need that I saw in the artist community. Also, I don’t have a big team running Monolith Gallery; it’s just me and the artists I work with, so I have to be very careful and focused on what I choose to work on. So as I look to the future, especially in this bear market, I’m currently spending a lot of my time just listening to the community, looking for the next set of needs and problems that need to be solved, especially in such a rapidly changing landscape.

Art Spotlight 🔭

Wanna get your art featured?

We love to showcase incredible creations by artists on our radar every single week. We’re always excited to talk about art and all things Web3. Submit your art to be featured here.

We’re always excited to talk about art and all things Web3. Check us out on Foundation.

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