Greater Taipei Biennial of Contemporary Art 2022 is an international exhibition of visual and performing arts. The theme of this year is “Log Into Our Sea.” The phrase “our sea” can refer to OpenSea, a decentralized NFT marketplace on one hand, and can refer to the high seas, waters open to all nations on the other hand. The varied concept of “our sea” are what the Biennial aims to manifest for its audience: Creating an environment allowing the audience to freely enjoy the artworks.

Volume DAO was invited by the Biennial to present Support of Dreams, Surface of Things. Echoing the theme this year, it features 3 generative artists Aluan Wang, Yi-Wen Lin, Jinyao Lin and 3 installation artists Yu-Ta Lin, Hsin-I Chuang, and Yenting Hsu to make digital-native arts intertwined with physical and spacial experience.

ssshihtung is the curator of Support of Dreams, Surface of Things, who is a member of Volume DAO. With the the practice in visual and contemporary art, LO plays the role of bridging generative and contemporary arts. c2x3 was honored to invite LO to give us a picture of this exhibition, and how he presented NFT arts in a physical space.

It Starts with a Tweet

ssshihtung is a contemporary artist and curator. He’s been immersing in the NFT world since last year, learning about generative arts and joining Volume DAO, a cross-chain collective that collects, promotes, and creates NFT arts comprised of experienced artists, collectors, curators, critics, and non-profit organizations based in Taiwan. It has been dedicated to being a bridge connecting crypto arts and contemporary arts.

When asked about the critical point of time of curating this exhibition, ssshihtung mentioned a tweet he saw last year. It was a physical exhibition curated by Christie's on the picture, with several TV screens on which generative artworks on Art Blocks were randomly displayed and hung on the wall. The reactions were polarized, with one group of people celebrating generative arts entering traditional arts market and the other expressing negative feedback about displaying artistic NFTs with screens as displaying merchandise in the window. It made him ponder that as a physical NFT exhibition, if there are other materials or spatial languages to emphasize the depth and structure of generative artworks in addition to screen and live mint. Also, how he curates a generative art exhibition that is not only a place for celebration, but also a place of meditation for the audience.

Materiality of NFT

The theme of the Biennial 2022 is “Log Into Our Sea,” discussing the reality in the digital environment and how it re-shapes the public’s perceptions and ways of participation. The exhibition Support of Dreams, Surface of Things features 6 artists, among whom are 3 generative artists Aluan Wang (ilevi oivm), Yi-Wen Lin, and Jinyao Lin who have been creating with NFTs for a long time. For ssshihtung, generative arts are interesting creative methods. Compared with minting images directly on NFT platforms such as fxhash or objkt.com, generative arts depicting with codes have a kind of depth, which he compared it to “sculptures formed with codes.” It contains abstract and materiality at the same time.

Other 3 artists Yu-Ta Lin, Hsin-I Chuang, and Yenting Hsu create mainly in physical materials. Though they’re not digital creators, their creations resemble generative artworks formed with codes: to construct with their hands to present abstract concepts.

ssshihtung took the example of British artist Damien Hirst’s project The Currency this September. In the project, collectors were asked to choose between keeping NFT work/burning its physical twin and exchanging physical work with its NFT twin. It was understandable, according to ssshihtung, but creations of both digital-native artists and physical installation artists are exhibited in Support of Dreams, Surface of Things in the hope of conveying the message that the two forms are not in binary opposition.

In the interview, he introduced possible ways of presenting generative artworks in the physical exhibition to us, and why he chose to present in these ways. Many collectors like to print generative artwork to hang it on walls of their spaces. Aluan Wang does it as well. In the exhibition, his work Turner Light is presented in the form of posters to serve as another “body structure”of Turner Light. Interestingly, those Turner Light posters have only one kind of black-and-white sketch and 500 editions for the audience to take. The limited number of posters formed a contrast with the infinity of generative arts.

In addition to screens, Yi-Wen Lin’s artworks are presented on lightboxes. ssshihtung said that he has been wondering the arrangement of Lin’s works with square media. Now he can put his ideas into practice in the space.

Jinyao Lin has been experimented on printing his generative artworks on silk scarfs, and therefore the same way of presentation is used in the exhibition. A kind of careless sense of touch is given by these silk scarfs in the exhibition, responding to the walking audience and the flow of air.

To project an NFT on TV screens is to project its pixels and image. For the purpose of echoing the depth, structure, and materiality of generative arts, NFT artworks displayed on the screen in the exhibition are algorithmically-generated on the web in real time. Even creators will not know what next one looks like (See Note 1). The exhibition particularly emphasizes the characteristic of generation and its process of generative arts, providing a way of understanding generative arts for the viewers.

The 3 artists Yu-Ta Lin, Hsin-I Chuang, and Yenting Hsu brings immaterial concepts to their creations with physical materials, which echoes those generative artworks on site.

Yu-Ta Lin’s works are delicate; using objects such as branches, dried leaves, seaweeds, hairs, and leads to make an installation in a stable yet dangerous state.

Hsin-I Chuang uses pollen in her work, making ssshihtung associate it with the process of generative arts depicted by codes on fxhash.

Yenting Hsu is a sound artist. She has segmented patterned glass into several record-size, using gramophone needle to read uneven tracks on the glass and produce unique sounds. The work is also a comparison with generative artworks displayed on the screen in the exhibition by using immaterial sound to present patterns on the glass, reflecting how to read the depth of a work in a material framework as a way to see or read this space.

The characteristics of infinity and non-repeating of generative arts are out of the way to ssshihtung, even with an educational background of visual art or contemporary art. The infinity of generative arts and finiteness of physical arts in the exhibition have presented a philosophic contrast. For ssshihtung and Volume DAO, how to present and promote generative arts is an attractive point.

Note 1: Thanks to Aluan, Jinyao, and Yi-Wen for providing great support for Volume DAO to exhibit tuned algorithm from their iconic projects.