#29 Autoglyphs' Record Sale, Optimism's Airdrop, and Botto's Community Art
#29 Autoglyphs' Record Sale, Optimism's Airdrop, and Botto's Community Art
👋 Hello, we are Julian and Marcel, and welcome to our weekly edition of The Curious Collector. Each week we humbly curate what’s happening in the digital art realm. ✨
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News Digest
Autoglyphs: A set of 10 Autoglyphs, a pioneering on-chain generative art project by Larva Labs, released in April 2019, was sold for 5,000 ETH ($14.536 million) in one of the largest digital art transactions to date. This sale highlights the collector's intention to display these pieces in museums and institutional settings, underlining the enduring significance and appeal of digital art on the blockchain.
Optimism Airdrop: Optimism Airdrop: $40M in OP tokens were distributed among 22,998 addresses, with each address receiving an average of approximately $1,740, to honor artists and creators for their vital contributions to the ecosystem and wider crypto community. Artists earned this acknowledgment through active engagement on platforms like Zora, Base, Ethereum mainnet, and Optimism mainnet, highlighting their crucial role in shaping the cultural narrative.
MoMA’s strategy: The interview provides a comprehensive overview of MoMA's approach to digital art, featuring insights from curator Paola Antonelli and collection specialist Paul Galloway about the complexities of acquiring digital artworks such as video games and NFTs. It emphasizes MoMA's interdisciplinary method to enhance digital collections and foster audience interaction.
Upcoming
“Poptarteds” by Alice Gordon, Magic Eden, February 27, 6pm UTC
“Isle of Alcina” by Tù.úk’z, Verse, Feb 29 at 7:00pm
Digital Highlight
Mathirissmer, a digital artist and architect from Germany is renowned for his “Kinetic Paintings” that blend visual composition, dynamic movement, and scalable architecture, creating a unique, perceptual experience enhanced by stark black and white contrasts and occasional vivid colors.
Notable Insight
Botto, a software robot and AI artist created through a collaboration between Mario Klingemann and Eleven Yellow in October 2021, has revolutionized the community concept by allowing the $BOTTO token holders to curate its outputs, with over $3.5 million in art sales from weekly auctions.
Every week, Botto's AI generates 350 art fragments, from which the DAO votes to select one piece for auction. The proceeds from these sales are then distributed among the token holders, aligning the interests of the artist AI and its community.
The economic success is underpinned by the sale of more than 100 unique artworks, attracting over 60 individual collectors and engaging a community of over 3,600 token holders.
Sale Spotlight
Proscenium by remnynt is an art algorithm that transforms three-dimensional geometric landscapes into abstract, textured canvas paintings. Focused on aesthetic emergence, it combines simple systems to produce surprising, complex artworks, inviting viewers to envision dynamic paint.
Artist to Watch
Jacek Markusiewicz (mrkswcz) is a Polish architect and creative coder with 15 years of experience in academia and professional studios, specializing in parametric architecture and responsive design, blending architectural and natural elements with mathematical and algorithmic logic.
Collectors to Watch
• batsoupyum
• VonMises
• Pravijn
Closing Remarks
As we conclude this issue, the stories of Autoglyphs, Optimism, and Botto offer a glimpse into the transformative power of digital art and blockchain. The fusion of artistic vision with technology is expanding the boundaries of creativity and ownership.