Art & Culture

Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Design and Architecture Department present  NFT > ONE OF A KINDS 

Dates: Opening: July 6, 2022   Closing: December 3, 2022

Location:

Safra Foyer, Herta and Paul Amir Building

On March 11, 2021, an extraordinary event took place in the art world, when Christie’s Auction House sold the digital work All Days: The First 5000 Days, by the American digital artist known as Beeple, for a record price of $69.3 million. The most expensive digital work ever sold (to date), it introduced the new term NFT into the public consciousness.

At that moment, a new arena opened up, raising fundamental questions about value, the essence of copy and original, and thoughts on quality and quantity. It also challenges the role of the museum in new ways. For example, the profile of NFT creators is extremely diverse: some choose an invented identity, and in other instances the creator is in a sense a programmed algorithm, whereby the artwork is in constant flux. Anyone, it seems, can take part. All that is needed is a new type of digital certificate that regulates and defines the ownership of the original work. This certificate does not forget the work’s original creators, leaving them a share of every sale, which is predetermined by the creators themselves.

In the current exhibition, we seek to present this unique cultural and technological phenomenon as it continues to evolve. To this end, we have chosen a public space that serves as a foyer rather than an “official” gallery in the Museum, in which we created a world whose reality is ambiguous: the boundaries of the physical foyer are expanded and replicated in a virtual space, while rooting it in familiar features of the actual surrounding architecture.

Feel free to chat with TAMA – a bot (smart virtual character) developed especially for this project – and ask her almost anything you wish about NFT. The virtual exhibition in front of you explores forty different NFT works by a wide range of creators. In preparation for the exhibition, we issued an international open call, inviting creators and owners of NFTs to submit proposals of artworks. Hundreds responded, and a professional committee selected the collection on view. This curated selection offers a glimpse into the fascinating activity that is taking place in this arena – a first introduction to new forms of creativity.  

List of creators:          

Future Positive )Nir Goeta & Rotem Goeta( - Tomer Mor Joseph - Peter Spacey & TEC (Omer Luz, Dylan Roscover and Anita Kucharczyk - Avraham Pesso - Ofir Liberman - Eyal Yehowa Gruss - Khen Shish - Gilad Edelstein - Deborah Fischer, Yarden Colsey, Ofer Kantor - Doron Golan - Daria Durand - Angelika Sher - Yambo & Somei Sun - Kfir Ziv X NFT Tel Aviv - Lidar Farjun - Moran Victoria Sabbag - Matty Mariansky - Nitzan David Hamerman – Kafein - Ron Guetta - Noa Gana and Gal Kuflik - Ran Slavin - The Knocks – Pak – DEDE - Itamar Stamler, Lior Zalmanson - Geldz, ZOZ, and GURION - Sarah Meyohas - Rosie Gibbens - Tamar Karavan - Chat Des Rues - Udi Cassirer - Scan The City - Smadar Lomnitz - Cookie Moon - Thomas Paquet - Eduardo Kac - Desperate Ape Wives - Bored Ape Yacht Club – CryptoPunks - LIŔONA

TAMA - smart virtual:

Tama is a smart virtual character developed for the Tel Aviv Museum by the Advanced Reality Lab (ARL) at Reichman University. Tama's development process included script writing, recording, character design, facial animations, creating a 'smart' development tree, and of course - integrating “artificial intelligence” using deep learning NLP models, which allow the user to naturally interact with her. In order to make Tama smart, she went through a process of learning and practicing all the possible questions, phrases, and utterances in the conversation domain. The more visitors talk to Tama, the smarter she will be!

The Advanced Reality Lab (ARL), Reichman University

ARL is a multidisciplinary laboratory that studies the process of human-machine confluence taking place in recent decades. Our current focus is on the development of virtual humans in virtual reality; this encompasses a wide range of technological and design challenges, and we focus on generative machine learning for verbal and non-verbal communication. In addition, we study the impact of such virtual humans on the individual (in collaboration with researchers in the fields of psychology) and society (with the help of computer simulations). Finally, the laboratory deals with the applications of these studies to basic and applied research in clinical and social psychology.

Collaboration with Sandmilk: 

Sandmilk is a leading platform for NFT creators that enables digital creators to present their work in the new medium and develop new options with a dedicated audience. In addition, the company makes the trading experience accessible when it eliminates the need for a personal digital wallet. As part of the collaboration with the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, approximately 5,000 unique NFT works created especially for the exhibition will be distributed to the first 5,000 visitors.

Exhibition team:

Curator: Maya Vinitsky

Associate curator: Yonni Avidan

Assistance curator: Michal Derhy-Vieman 

Exhibition design: Alexey Shamovsky, KIN SKY STUDIO

Graphic design: Noa Schwartz

Nominator team for NFT artworks: Dr. Liat Lavi, Dr. Maya Shmailov, Roee Bigger, Ben Benhorin, Tal Broitman, Ruti Director, Mira Lapidot, Ilai Dgani, Daniel Krol

Virtual world construction and activation: Arium, New York

Hebrew editing: Dafnit Moskovich 

English: Mor Ilan

Arabic translation: Dr. Ruba Simaan

Arabic editing: Nabil Armaly

Scientific consultation: Matty Mariansky

Cinematic consultant: Ohad Milstein

Media consultant: Adi Peltinov

Media mounting: Multifect Ltd.

Printing: Kzat Acheret Design and Sign

TAMA specifications and development:

Project Management, Product & Experience Designer: Maya Shekel, Reichman University

Software & Unity Development: Niv Rosnovsky, Reichman University

Director of the ARL Lab, Consulting and Guidance: Prof. Doron Friedman, Reichman University

Content writer and editor: Sigal Siryus

Chatbot content design: Kinneret Yifrah, Amir Gewurtz, and Stav Moran Leshem 

 Voice over: Mira Awad

The exhibition was possible thanks to the support of DANAE

Images credit: Alexey Shamovsky, KIN SKY STUDIO

Photos credit Silvia G Golan

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