In 2019, artists Casey Reas, Rick Silva, Addie Wagenknecht, and the duo exonemo launched into a undertaking, inviting about 75 of their fellow artists to submit and swap editioned blockchain-based works over the course of per week. “This experiment,” wrote the curators, “is a method for us to commerce works to create a set.” They dubbed the undertaking a2p, or Artist-to-Peer, and in each spirit and format, it could lay the groundwork for Feral File.
At this time, Feral File has cemented itself as a digital artwork platform by and for artists, that continues to champion the version mannequin. Since its founding in 2020 by Reas and blockchain startup Bitmark, it has hosted 33 on-line promoting exhibitions, that includes 26 curators and 178 artists. Choices vary from the group present “Peer to Peer,” curated by Buffalo AKG‘s Tina Rivers Ryan, to “LeeMullican.PCX,” curated by Anika Meier and gathering the oil painter’s early laptop artworks from 1987. Most not too long ago, “In/Seen” noticed curator Linda Dounia Rebeiz convey collectively A.I. works by Black creators which spotlight the expertise’s built-in biases.
“It’s simply such a variety of artists, with totally different concepts and approaches to practices in digital artwork,” Reas informed Artnet Information of the platform’s programming. “Folks coming from the surface would possibly view digital artwork as pretty slim, however for me, Feral File exhibits that it’s such a various and eclectic follow.”
Lu Yang, Materials World Knight – Flying Mode (2023). Courtesy of Feral File.
On June 28, Feral File will likely be commemorating its second anniversary (not counting the primary 9 months after its founding, which had been involved with growth) with a retrospective titled “Feral File 1.0.” The present options 33 artworks by artists reminiscent of as Dmitri Cherniak, Refik Anadol, Sofia Crespo, Tyler Hobbs, 0xDEAFBEEF, LaTurbo Avedon, Helena Sarin, and John Gerrard. All of the items had been chosen by Reas from every of Feral File’s previous exhibits (and the unique curators’ texts for these earlier exhibits will likely be included).
“I actually really feel that Feral File is at its core [a place for] exhibiting digital sculpture and in code,” stated Reas. “However in doing ‘Feral File 1.0,’ I attempted to get a mixture of each medium, each type of work—simply actually making an attempt to make that vary inside the present.”
Refik Anadol, Unsupervised — Machine Hallucinations — MoMA Generative Research 1 (2021). Courtesy of Feral File.
“Feral File 1.0” may also mark a turning level for the platform, closing out its first chapter. Transferring ahead, Feral File 2.0 will proceed to deal with artists’ rights (the platform’s good contracts guarantee creators royalties by resales and cross-blockchain transactions), whereas homing in on editioned sequence and group exhibitions. With the latter, collaborating artists will obtain an version of each work within the present and collectors should purchase units containing, once more, each work within the present.
It’s a format, Reas stated, impressed by Feral File’s 2021 “–GRAPH” present of plotter-based artwork, which was bought as a set.
“We imagine that when the work is collected, the collector ought to have one work from every artist. When one thing is collected as a full set, the earnings from that can be break up evenly. That’s a technique that we’re working towards conventional artwork world accumulating dynamics,” Reas defined, including that the format additional enabled the contributing artists to attach and type a group.
Feral File 2.0 will likely be inaugurated on July 13 by a generative artwork exhibition, “N=12,” curated by artist Aaron Penne.
Auriea Harvey, Haristory (2022). Courtesy of Feral File.
The platform’s second anniversary festivities are rounded out by a smaller, although no much less important, present that revisits Feral File’s roots. “The Experiment” presents a curated choice from the 2019 a2p assortment (a second model of the experiment happened within the spring of 2020), that includes creators together with Kim Asendorf, Auriea Harvey, Tabor Robak, Yoshi Sodeoka, and Alan Butler, amongst others.
The present is non-collectible, however symbolic to Feral File, because it revisits the seed for the platform in addition to a second that preceded the NFT growth—”Proper earlier than we had this bifurcation, earlier than this new power and tradition emerged,” Reas stated.
Extra so, Feral File’s abiding experimental ethos, he added, is bottled inside.
“The unique goal of Feral File was to experiment with alternative ways of working with curators, with group and solo exhibits, with alternative ways to permit folks to gather. Can we do this? Can we attempt that?” stated Reas. “We’ve tried lots of issues, and that is what we imagined Feral File might be or what we really feel it actually ought to be. That’s actually what Feral File 2.0 represents.”
“Feral File 1.0” and “The Experiment” are on view at Feral File from June 28 by July 13.
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