Christie's and Gucci present “Future Frequencies: Explorations in Generative Art and Fashion” event open to offers from 18 to 25 July 2023. This online auction showcases an array of today's leading talent in the digital art space, featuring a diverse group of artistic notables with a focus on generative systems and artificial intelligence. The sale includes 21 NFTs, including examples of Claire Silver, Emi Kusano, Emily Xie, William Mapan, Zach Lieberman, Botto, Helena Sarin, DRAUP, among others.
In each of their works, the artists creatively explore intersectional aspects of fashion, art and technology, with themes ranging from generative textile studies to algorithmic interpretations of the iconic Gucci Bamboo 1947 handle. This interaction between autonomous systems, AI and fashion represents a fusion of disparate ecosystems, overlapping fashion, an industry concerned with the design and production of clothing, with the worlds of generative art and artificial intelligence, which employ algorithms, modeling and data to simulate human intelligence and artistic production. The result is a pioneering vision, with the perspectives of many female artists, on the many opportunities at the cutting edge of creativity and technology. It is an invitation to cutting-edge thinking, with the motivation to propel radical new ideas and concepts around fashion-supporting technologies into future realities.
The auction takes place on Christie's 3.0, a fully on-chain auction platform launched by Christie's in 2022, and the works will also be featured on Gucci Art Space, Gucci's online gallery space that spotlights and empowers artists by providing them with freedom and liberty to exploit unexplored and innovative concepts and expressions at the intersection of fashion and art, to disrupt and redefine existing norms. It follows Gucci's launch of its Vault Art Space in 2022. Unconstrained by physical walls, this purely digital environment has been presenting an immersive maelstrom of creativity since its first auction and exhibition, The Next 100 Years of Gucci, which auctions off a selection of NFT artworks, each a visionary and collectible fragment of Gucci's kaleidoscopic heritage.
The age of Artificial Intelligence
In the spirit of the digital+physical world, the on-chain platform that presents these works making them interactive is decidedly interesting. It is enough to see this work to understand how the digital art combined with AI can on the one hand frighten the traditional collector and on the other conquer a precise slice of the market that sees the new generations ready to invest.
Some examples:
Estimate: USD 1875 – USD 5624
Artist: CLAIRE SILVER AND EMI KUSANO
Title: SHINJITAI
Single channel video(Link)
00:00:20 seconds (1170 x 1080 pixels)
Executed in 2023 and minted on July 12, 2023. The work is unique and accompanied by a non-fungible token.
The protagonist:
A neoclassical: bold, insightful and unafraid of the strange beauty of the new. She is a bohemian cyberpunk with an obsession with Grace Kelly and mecha anime, gliding effortlessly through the neon night of Harajuku. Deliberate, delicate, powerful, optimistic. His mind is sharp. His heart is young. His step is sure. The history of Gucci is a flowering vine of global innovation. New materials and movements have found their home again and again in the hands of Gucci. In honor, artists have varied the mediums to create this wearable art.
Shijitai was digitally hand-sculpted and textured with AI-Collaborative art, combining advanced mathematics and the aesthetics of ancient paintings and tapestries. Disassembled to the purest form – shapes and colors – it was then organized as an abstract, luminous and dancing collage on the fabric. A laborious process, this is a love letter. It is meant to reflect the sophistication of experience, the innocence of youth, the depth of tradition and the light of the future.
This lot includes the digital artwork (shown here in the image), as well as (i) a three-dimensional file, which may be displayed as a sculpture in the metaverse, worn on an avatar, 3D printed, or used in any other related three-dimensional digital setting; and (ii) the avatar itself. The successful purchaser of this lot is also entitled to a physical roll of fabric (50 yards), printed and embroidered with the primary AI collaborative pattern of the digital artwork. The fabric will be the first physical work of fashion by both artists and is accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity.
Who are Claire Silver and Emi Kusano
Claire Silver is an anonymous AI-Collaborative artist whose work is an ongoing visual conversation with AI, exploring themes of innocence, trauma, the hero's journey and how our view of them will change in an increasingly transhumanist future. His art can be found in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has sold at major auction houses, SuperRare and has been exhibited in galleries, museums and festivals around the world.
Featured in The New York Times, WIRED, Forbes, NPR and countless podcasts, Silver takes every opportunity to explore its endless fascination with artificial intelligence, fight for visibility for the budding art movement, and marvel at the magnitude of this historic moment. He often feels like a caveman painting fire.
Silver is vocal in her belief that with the rise of AI, for the first time, the ability barrier is being blown away.
In this evolving era: Taste is the new skill
Emi Kusano is a Tokyo-based multidisciplinary artist who explores retro-futurism, accelerationism and nostalgia for Japanese youth culture and anime. Her current career began as a street photographer in Harajuku, Tokyo, and has expanded to encompass everything from installations to music. Currently, Kusano is a pioneer in the field of post-photography, an art form that blends fact and fiction, combining old and new media to create a new visual language beyond the traditional boundaries of photography. His groundbreaking work was selected as the first AI cover for WWD Japan and continues to shape the future as a member of the Japanese Government's Cultural Council. Furthermore, the anime project Shinsei Galverse, which he co-founded, has achieved record-breaking success and is further accelerating the creation of anime within of the community using artificial intelligence.
Source and images Christie's Digital Art Sale (Online catalog)
