Digital artist Bleeple cemented his place in the history books with this one. Auction house Christie’s sold his human-size 3D video sculpture and NFT hybrid in their first live event since the pandemic. The piece exceeded expectations, the projections had “Human One” selling for $15M and it almost doubled that. Does this hybrid format open a new chapter for NFT art? We wouldn’t know, but Bleeple’s piece sold alongside works from Jean-Michel Basquiat, Banksy, and Peter Doig.
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A better question might be, are NFT artists willing to put this much effort into their pieces?
What Do We Know About “Human One” By Bleeple?
The real-life installation is almost 7 Ft. high and consists of four screens. It has a computer at the base. The environment the astronaut-like figure walks through is ever-changing. According to Christie’s “it’s drawn at random from a data pool of the artist’s visual creations that is accessed via the Ethereum blockchain.” Not only that, Barrons.com informs us that “Beeple’s plan is to shift the generative art images over time “in response to current events,” Christie’s said. The result will be “an eternally contemporary work of art.”
— beeple (@beeple) November 10, 2021
But wait, why would they use the Ethereum blockchain where a normal database would suffice? We hope that the owner doesn’t have to pay gas fees for that. The clips are one minute long and the piece keeps changing 24 hours a day. In any case, Ethereum hosts the NFT attached to “Human One.” A crucial piece of the pie, since Bleeple is known for his record-breaking “Everydays – The First 5000 Days.” It was the first NFT Christie’s auctioned and it went for $69M.
In any case, Mike Winkelmann AKA Bleeple described “Human One” as “the first portrait of a human born in the metaverse.” He told Christie’s, “I want to make something that people can continue to come back to and find new meaning in. And the meaning will continue to evolve. That to me is super-exciting. It feels like I now have this whole other canvas.”
ETH price chart for 11/10/2021 on Kraken | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com
What Do We Know About The Auction And The New Owner?
According to Barrons again, “the auction focused on art created since 1980.” The event was “live-streamed to the world with specialists in London and Hong Kong manning the phones and projected on video screens in New York.“ The following videos capture all the action. In the first one, Bleeple himself gives us a backstage tour to Christie’s headquarters. In the second one, a fan screen-captured the moment in which the auctioneer sells Bleeple’s piece.
— Alex Roman (@3rd7th) November 10, 2021
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Why do they say $25M in the video but the official Christie’s page says $28.9M? That information is above our paygrade. We did find who the lucky new owner is, though. Crypto-focused family office Dialectic’s Managing Director, Ryan Zurrer. A notorious NFT collector that used to be the Web3 Foundation’s director. In his announcement tweet, Zurrer thanked Bleeple “for the visionary innovation, amazing new energy and hilarious positive vibes that you’ve brought to both crypto and art.”
Secured the ONE. Thank you @beeple for the visionary innovation, amazing new energy and hilarious positive vibes that you’ve brought to both crypto and art. gn pic.twitter.com/XfhmxM9Luj
— Ryan Zurrer (@kukulabanze) November 10, 2021
In his response tweet, Bleeple said “INSANELY HONORED to be in this collection.”
That’s the “Human One” story so far.
Featured Image: "Human One" screenshot | Charts by TradingView
On November 3rd, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell finally hinted at the beginning of tapering resulting in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies taking a loss. The market has been moving sideways since then, cooling off after a rally that took BTC from $40,000 into price discovery above $65,000.
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In the meantime, fund investors turned mathematical artist Nelson Saiers struck Wall Street once again with one of his iconic sculptures. Part of a series of conceptual art installations that should come out in the next weeks, Saiers sculpture is called “Cheap Money Is Out-of-Order” and was placed in front of the iconic Wall Street Bull statue as a response to FED Powell.
Below you can see the sculpture in its full glory. The piece is composed of a vintage gumball machine that offers people $10, hinting at the historical figure of Alexander Hamilton, whose ideas allowed the FED to be created, for only 50 cents as a statement made about the institution’s monetary policies in particular “cheap money”.
Its location is equally important, as it was placed at the heart of the U.S. financial sector. As you can see below, the gumball machine has a sign that reads “out of order” highlighting the moral questions raised about the FED in the past years.
Talking to Bitcoinist about the sculpture and what it represents in a world where the people have lost faith in the institutions, resulting in more Bitcoin adoption, the artist claimed the following:
I think people are nervous. The Fed’s balance sheet has grown tremendously over the last 13 years and more than doubled since spring 2020. You are seeing more and more worries about real inflation. I mean Jack Dorsey stated he was concerned about hyperinflation. I think this coupled with fundamental questions about who these policies have benefitted eg the ultra-rich have benefitted significantly from stock and asset appreciation.
The Bitcoin And The Bull, A Hedge Against The FED
As Bitcoinist reported, Saiers has a long track of calling out the FED. In 2018, the artist placed a massive inflatable Bitcoin rat in the U.S. Federal Reserve building. Similar to his latest piece, the rat conveyed a general sentiment of mistrust and lack of confidence in the institution.
Saiers’ work is a representation of the moral issues related to government officials, especially within the FED, apparently using their influence to benefit from market fluctuations. Some measures have been enforced by the institution to mitigate this behavior, but the FED’s reputation just like its monetary policies seems “cheap”, “out of order”, insufficient, and tarnish by hidden interest. The artist said:
(…) On top of all this, some real ethics questions were recently raised due to the personal account activity of several of the Fed’s presidents. I think this has placed the system itself under some scrutiny.
Bitcoin was born as a response to that demand for transparency and fairness. As the world economy enters uncertain times, once again, it seems like the only solution for those that want to op-out of the FED and their inflated $10 dollar bills.
As of press time, Bitcoin remains rangebound in the low $60,000 level. The FED’s Quantitative Easing program, due to slow down with the beginning of tapering, was one of the main drivers of BTC’s price year-to-year rally.
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In that sense, some experts expect downside pressure as liquidity begins to be removed from the global markets. In the long term, inflation risk remains as a bullish tailwind for the benchmark crypto as institutional investors and people buy Bitcoin as a hedge against it.
