Gotowa bibliografia na temat „Sculpture, English – 21st century – Exhibitions”

In the first decade of the 2000s, a new wave of “folk inspirations” became visible in the work of Polish designers, which was celebrated by exhibitions, publications, conferences and a special festival. Interestingly, all the Polish-language coverage of these events almost unanimously avoided Polish vocabulary suggesting any connection with “folk” (n.: lud, adj.: ludowy) and used the English-sounding term “etnodizajn” (or “ethnodesign”), which actually did not exist in any official Polish or English dictionary. “Etnodizajn” is definitely not the first case when Polish designers have used the “natural resources” of the “folk art tradition”. This article discusses the early 21st century etnodizajn as embedded in the Romantic tradition of understanding the meaning of the folk, pointing at its endurance both in design practices and cultural politics. Following the design strategies of companies and studios linked to etnodizajn, the author presents, on one hand, projects that neatly fit into a century-old strategies of purely formal inspirations, and on the other, those projects that search beyond the beaten track of folk art.

Исследование призвано выявить художественно-композиционные особенности, характер формообразования и стилизации анималистических образов из наследия заслуженного художника России Владимира Савельевича Васькина (1941–2022). Впервые введены в научный оборот его неопубликованные произведения из собрания Национального музея Республики Калмыкия и частных коллекций, использованы результаты искусствоведческих исследований. Проанализировано решение художником анималистических композиций и образов, определены истоки его интереса к изображениям животных, значение анималистических сюжетов, иллюстрирующих национальный эпос «Джангар», выявлены смысловые составляющие произведений. Раскрыта хронология трансформации жанра анималистики в работах мастера – от повествовательных натурных зарисовок животных до мифопоэтических произведений. Сделан вывод, что творчество В. С. Васькина обусловлено его этническим самосознанием, сформировано на фольклорных традициях калмыков и буддийском мировоззрении. The study aims to reveal the artistic and compositional features, the nature of the formation and stylization of animalistic images from the heritage of the Honored Artist of Russia Vladimir Savelyevich Vaskin (1941–2022). This master is a representative of the fine arts of Kalmykia, one of the regions of the South of Russia. For the first time, his unpublished works from the collection of the National Museum of the Republic of Kalmykia and private collections were introduced into scholarly discourse, and the results of art studies by Russian researchers were used. The author applied comparative, historical-cultural and formal-stylistic methods for analyzing works of art, as well as some methods used in historiographic research. The artist’s works exhibited at solo exhibitions (2011, 2016, and 2021) at the National Museum of the Republic of Kalmykia (Elista) are analyzed in chronological order starting from the late 1960s until the beginning of the twenty-first century. The author reveals little-known facts from the artist’s biography, describes and comprehends the master’s personal aesthetic and emotional motives for creating easel and monumental works. For the first time, the author analyzes the origins of Vaskin’s interest in images of animals, the theme of animalistic plots illustrating the national epic Jangar. She also determines the semantic component of Vaskin’s compositions, where the meaning of animalistic images both in sculpture and in graphics is inextricably linked with Kalmyk oral folk art, and gives the chronology of the change in the form and content of animalistic works from nature sketches of animals to mythopoetic works. In the process of studying graphics, easel sculpture, monuments, plastics of small forms by Vaskin, the artist’s methods and ways of creating works in various techniques and materials are revealed. The author has established that the transformation of the direction of the artistic language of Vaskin’s works from the first years of his creative activities to the beginning of the 21st century occurs along the trajectory: realism – decorativism – parable. The author concludes that the animalier art of Vladimir Vaskin occupies a significant place in his works, due to the ethnic identity of the master, formed on the folklore traditions of the Kalmyks, in which humans and animals were identified with each other. The author also notes that the Buddhist worldview is an important element of the artist’s sculptural works.

The article systematises scattered data on the reduplication of two chamber sculptures, The Royal Falconer of the 16th Century (1872) and Kyrgyz with a Golden Eagle (1876), by Eugene Lanceray in larger size. The earliest information about Lanceray’s work in the workshops to reduplicate chamber compositions of equestrian hunters in larger size can be found in the memoirs of his contemporaries, N. Shatilov (1916) and A. Benois (1944-1957). Information not previously mentioned in art criticism literature is given about the display of Lanceray’s equestrian statues, cast in bronze at the F. Chopin factory, at three exhibitions: the World Exhibition in Paris, where they were bought by “a noble Parisian” (1878), the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition in Moscow (1882), Exhibition of Birds of Prey, Dogs and Hunting Accessories in St. Petersburg (1885). In the Nedelya newspaper in 1981, writer I. Kamenkovich reported about two sculptures of horse hunters with falcons, cast in bronze in full size and signed on the base: “Лепил Лансере 1876” (“Sculpted by Lanceray 1876”), located in the Baku Absheron sanatorium. Kamenkovich found out that the sculptures came from Leningrad - they were bought from the funds of the former royal palaces. In 2006, English researcher Geoffrey Walden Sudbury described Lanceray’s equestrian statues (in bronze) located in the French city of Menton, indicating the sizes and signatures: on the base of the sculptures - “Лепилъ Е. Лансере” (“Sculpted by Lanceray”), on pedestals - “Lanceray, fauconnier d’Ivan Grosney Don de Moncieu Maurice Malpart 1903” (“Lanceray, Falconer of Ivan the Terrible, gift of Monsieur Maurice Malpart, 1903”) on one, and “Don de Mme Maurice Malpart neé Mercier 1903” (“Gift of Madame Maurice Malpart, born Mercier, 1903”) on another. Historical information suggested that it was Maurice Malpart who was the noble Parisian who had bought the sculptures in 1878 at an exhibition in Paris; then in 1903, the sculptures were donated to Menton. According to the information received by the Azerbaijan National Museum of Art in Baku, there are two equestrian statues (in bronze) that came to the museum in 2000 - Falconry and Falconry (Kyrgyz) with the author’s signature and date on both: “лъпиль лансере 1876”. Archival materials of art historian N. Sobko allow us to clarify the century (16th) in the name of the sculpture of the royal falconer. The equestrian figures of falconers with birds of prey on their arms, made close to life size, are considered as a garden and park version of a monumental and decorative sculpture.

While analysing creative experiments in architecture, one finds a number of different phenomena and examples, not so easy to discuss in a more or less systematic way. These phenomena and results, in one or another way related to experimental architecture, can hardly be defined by a single category and, as shown by the history of architecture, have become one of its driving forces contributing to the development of architecture in the course of time. The issue of the concepts of architectural experimentation on the whole is important and urgent in two aspects. First of all, such concepts are used in attempting to formulate basic architectural and cultural declarations, consequentially applied in forming and proclaiming different political creeds (usual practice of international architectural biennales and expo exhibitions). Secondly, their cultural value is of key importance too, as the ideas and thoughts expressed through the experimental creation often convey social aspects and states, also the idea, how architecture is understood during a specific period of time and the role given to it by society. Finally, as architecture is a language used by society to convey its socio-cultural status and values, the experimental architectural creation can be significant, although often ignored, in architectural practice. The most outstanding examples of architectural experiments confirm that architecture as artistic creation has long ago gained certain features of a cultural phenomenon, which eventually has become closely connected to society. Thus the area of culture and forms of its expression has becoming more and more relevant and significant to architectural experimentation. Although artistic and scientific experiments have certain similarities within contemporary discourse of architectural practices, they still differ a lot in the aspects of their backgrounds, processes and even results. But still, the interdisciplinary aspect, common to contemporary artistic experimentation, draws art and science closer together. Fairly often, peculiar new forms of art borrow scientific data or ideas interpreting, expressing and using them effectively to make pure art. The concept of architectural experimentation still does not exist as an integral concept. Only a few general features and attributes can be named as helping to define the architectural phenomenon as an experimental one. These are: (a) the idealistic trend and (b) very active element of motivation. It is also noteworthy that looking retrospectively, within different epochs the architectural experimentation had different relationship with other arts. The discussed in the article experimental practices of architecture in the 1950-ies – 1970-ies accumulated and effectively operated the languages of other visual – and not only – arts. Although, at the same time it should be admitted that they did not have the same close relationship to traditional, fundamental arts, such as sculpture and painting. So does the contemporary, the 21st century, architectural experimentation – it no longer has closer connection to traditional arts. Although it has to be admitted that the most recent, media-related arts influence experimental architecture on the levels of its forms as well as concepts. In general, the architectural creation at the beginning of the 21st century (both building architecture and urban planning) is getting more and more social. The experiment in such creation is less artistic or valuable as pure art in the traditional sense. Fewer experiments are made on the form only, but rather on the process itself and then – the form. Although the most innovative architectural images being developed and declared are getting more abstract and universal, they are easier to implement than before (due to the most advanced technologies). So, it is not so simple to draw a dividing line between purely idealistic and realistic experimental architecture, because what was just a vision not so long ago, today can be easily realized. Does it mean that experiments have become more social and less creative? Probably, not. Most likely, it’s because creativity has become transformable and gained new ways of expression. Santrauka Straipsnyje analizuojamos esminės kūrybinio eksperimento sampratos architektūroje. Apžvelgiami pagrindiniai mokslinio ir meninio eksperimento principai, konceptai juos charakterizuojant bei lyginant tarpinternatvyje, detalizuojant tiek esminius skirtumus, tiek ir logines sąsajas tarp vienų ir kitų. Taip pat tekste plačiai analizuojamas kūrybinio eksperimento reiškinys architektūroje, aptariant ir mokslinės, ir meninės sričių įtakas jam, jo specifikas ir ypatumus.

Dear readers, We are pleased to present to you Issue 1. 2022, of the scientific and analytical journal Burganov House. The Space of Culture. Upon the recommendation of the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission, the journal is included in the List of Leading Peer-reviewed Scientific Journals and Publications in which the main scientific results of theses for the academic degrees of doctor and candidate of science must be published. The journal publishes scientific articles by leading specialists in various humanitarian fields, doctoral students, and graduate students. Research areas concern topical problems in multiple areas of culture, art, philology, and linguistics. This versatility of the review reveals the main specificity of the journal, which represents the current state of the cultural space. The issue opens with the article "Al Noor Island - a Place Where Art and Culture Meet Nature" by J. Smolenkova. It is devoted to modern architecture and touches upon the philosophy of architecture ecology as a new concept of contemporary construction. On the example of a unique project implemented on the island of Al Noor in the UAE, the author considers examples of pavilions and sculptural installations, united by the theme of new aesthetics and humanistic mutual influence of nature and architecture as new realities of modern society. In her article "Glasstress: a Transparent Border Between Mimicry and Mimesis", M. Burganova analyses the modern artistic process that began in the middle of the 20th century as part of the craft + art concept using the example of "Glasstress. Window to the Future” exhibition, held in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The Stalinist Empire style, a unique phenomenon in the architecture of the Soviet period, is analysed by V. Slepukhin in the article "Soviet Architecture of the 1930-1950s". The author determines its place among such architectural styles and trends as Art Nouveau, Rationalism and Constructivism and gives a detailed description. In the article “Palladian Architecture of Denmark in the 17th-18th Centuries”, O. Tsvetkova considers the evolution of architecture in Denmark in the 17th-18th centuries, explores the influence of French classicism and Dutch Palladianism on national manifestations of style. On the example of specific buildings, the chronology of the classical architectural tradition development is traced. The creative continuity of architectural dynasties is studied in the context of the pan-European architectural trends of the time; the history of the Danish architecture development is traced. I. Pavlova continues the theme of dialogues in art in the article “The Role of the ‘English’ Theme in One of the Episodes of L. Tolstoy’s Novel, Anna Karenina". The author expresses the opinion that the development of the "English" theme in the episodes of the races and preparations for them serves to dispell false values, the ephemeral virtues of Tolstoy's contemporary society, pride and arrogance. The author believes that the main role of the "English" theme lies in the development and implementation of the moralistic setting of the novel, the expansion of the content space of the work and depiction of the dramatic image of the era. In the article "V. Borovikovsky’s Sketch ‘God the Father Contemplating Dead Christ’ As a Synthesis of Western European and Orthodox Traditions”, V. Makhonina considers iconographic interpretations of the plot and conducts a stylistic analysis of the work. The article "The Concept - Text - Interpretation Triad in Piano Music of the Second Half of the 20th - 21st Centuries" by O. Krasnogorova is devoted to the problems of the performing arts of modern times in the context of the general system of humanitarian thinking. The concept of interpretation from the standpoint of conceptual metaphors and research in the field of musical semiology are considered by the author. In the article, the broad interpretation of a musical text goes beyond the actual musical text into the area of ??signs, metaphors and metonyms. In the article "Instrumental Performance on Wind and Percussion Instruments in the Context of Traditional Rituals Accompanying Work in China", Huang Shuai analyses traditional Chinese wind and percussion instruments; he considers such issues as instrumental combinations and musicians. The author applies the historical research method, source study and musicological analysis of audio and video materials. The publication is addressed to professionals specialising in the theory and practice of the fine arts and philology and all those interested in the arts and culture.

Article is devoted to a research of a role and the place of art installation in the modern world. At the same time the retrospective analysis of a role of art installation in the past and comparative characteristic with the present is carried out. The Ukrainian context of development of art installation is also revealed. At the same time it is found out that installation is not only an important component of modern art, but also an integral part of historical discourse. Due to its visual functions, the installation actively influences the viewer. For the most part, installations are not just an object in space, it is what is the very space - how much the installation work has the ability to fill the space, integrate into it organically and holistically. At the same time, the main factor in the creation and existence of an installation in the exhibition space, as well as in other relevant arts, is its relationship with the viewer. In this study, the socio-cultural aspect of the installation is important, understanding of the significance of this form of contemporary artistic practices for a common worldview system. Such problems as the assimilation of new experience from the point of view of global processes, on the one hand, and the preservation of the national cultural identity in contemporary art, on the other – actualize the pattern of the process of perception of a new culture. In article it is found out that graphic schools are based on existence of certain art and educational institutions where graphic artists who carry out the teaching activity and own creativity a high mission of formation of new generation of masters create. Not less important factor is acceptance of experience of teachers and its further development in creativity of pupils and followers. Art of installation is an integral part of the modern fine arts of Ukraine. Emergence and development of this art form in the national cultural environment became possible under conditions of intensive creative activity of artists which reached the high level of mastery in connection with deeply philosophical judgment of problems of the present. At the end of XX – the beginning of ХХІ century, looking for new ways of development, the Ukrainian artists addressed installation which as it is possible better answered esthetic inquiries of an era and became a symbol of spiritual updating of the personality. Installation turns into a key factor of development of different spheres of culture, thereby playing a noticeable role in development of national culture. Installation in the modern art helps to be focused and inform of the idea and understanding of global problems to adherents of different genres of art, the audience of different age categories and social groups. Since declaration of independence development of the independent state and formation of own cultural policy aimed at providing free development of national culture and preservation of cultural inheritance begins. The state forms the legislative base which can provide cultural development and an open entry of all citizens to its achievements. In 1992 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine accepts "Principles of the legislation of Ukraine about culture" where the basic principles of public policy in the sphere of culture directed to revival and development of the Ukrainian national culture, ensuring freedom of creativity, free development of cultural and art processes, realization of the rights of citizens to access to cultural values, creation of material and financial conditions of cultural development were declared. It is found out that installation is an art equipment which uses the three-dimensional objects intended for change of perception of space by the person. The term "installation" in English appeared long ago – in the XV century. It means process of construction, collecting, drawing up something (now use it also for establishment definition, for example, of the software). With the advent of different technologies – videos, and later and the computer – arose also different types of installations which now peacefully coexist with other arts, for example, painting or a sculpture, without being inferior to them. Hardly somebody will be able to designate exact date of emergence of installations and their judgment as art form. Now installation represents the certain room according to the decision of the author transformed to art space. It is filled with a number of objects to which the symbolical value is often provided. Harmonious connection of things, their arrangement indoors is also art. Installations can be the constant objects exposed in the museums or be created temporarily in public and private spaces. The space of installation can include different types of the things and images circulating in our civilization: pictures, drawings, photos, texts, video, movies, tape recordings, virtual reality, Internet, etc. Installations are regularly presented at the international exhibitions of the modern art, such as Venetian the biennial. The most prestigious art museums and art galleries of the world give to installation art the best platforms from time to time. At the same time, the research of this form of art lags behind the progressing shaping a little. The phenomenon of installation is considered as a part of a performance that is entirely logical. But install processes, especially the last decades, proved what is absolutely self-sufficient the cultural phenomena which need serious scientific approach and judgment, require attention to a research of characteristics install the practician, activity of certain artists, a tipologization and the scientific analysis of modern processes

Ways of Seeing"Images … define our experiences more precisely in areas where words are inadequate." (Berger 33)"Different skins, you know, different ways of seeing the world." (Morrison)The research question animating this article is: 'How does an individual creative worker re-present themselves as a contemporary - and evolving - brand?' Berger notes that the "principal aim has been to start a process of questioning" (5), and the raw material energising this exploration is the life's work of Richard Morrison, the creative director and artist who is the key moving force behind The Morrison Studio collective of designers, film makers and visual effects artists, working globally but based in London. The challenge of maintaining currency in this visually creative marketplace includes seeing what is unique about your potential contribution to a larger project, and communicating it in such a way that this forms an integral part of an evolving brand - on trend, bleeding edge, but reliably professional. One of the classic outputs of Morrison's oeuvre, for example, is the title sequence for Terry Gilliam's Brazil.Passion cannot be seen yet Morrison conceives it as the central engine that harnesses skills, information and innovative ways of working to deliver the unexpected and the unforgettable. Morrison's perception is that the design itself can come after the creative artist has really seen and understood the client's perspective. As he says: "What some clients are interested in is 'How can we make money from what we're doing?'" Seeing the client, and the client's motivating needs, is central to Morrison's presentation of self as a brand: "the broader your outlook as a creative, the more chance you have of getting it right". Jones and Warren draw attention to one aspect of this dynamic: "Wealthy and private actors, both private and state, historically saw creative practice as something that money was spent on - commissioning a painting or a sculpture, giving salaries to composers to produce new works and so forth. Today, creativity has been reimagined as something that should directly or indirectly make money" (293). As Berger notes, "We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves…The world-as-it-is is more than pure objective fact, it includes consciousness" (9, 11). What is our consciousness around the creative image?Individuality is central to Berger's vision of the image in the "specific vision of the image-maker…the result of an increasing consciousness of individuality, accompanying an increasing awareness of history" (10). Yet, as Berger argues "although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing" (10). Later, Berger links the meanings viewers attribute to images as indicating the "historical experience of our relation to the past…the experience of seeking to give meaning to our lives" (33). The seeing and the seeking go hand in hand, and constitute a key reason for Berger's assertion that "the entire art of the past has now become a political issue" (33). This partly reflects the ways in which it is seen, and in which it is presented for view, by whom, where and in which circumstances.The creation of stand-out images in the visually-saturated 21st century demands a nuanced understanding of ways in which an idea can be re-presented for consumption in a manner that makes it fresh and arresting. The focus on the individual also entails an understanding of the ways in which others are valuable, or vital, in completing a coherent package of skills to address the creative challenge to hand. It is self-evident that other people see things differently, and can thus enrich the broadened outlook identified as important for "getting it right". Morrison talks about "little core teams, there's four or five of you in a hub… [sometimes] spread all round the world, but because of the Internet and the way things work you can still all be connected". Team work and members' individual personalities are consequently combined, in Morrison's view, with the core requirement of passion. As Morrison argues, "personality will carry you a long way in the creative field".Morrison's key collaborator, senior designer and creative partner/art director Dean Wares lives in Valencia, Spain whereas Morrison is London-based and their clients are globally-dispersed. Although Morrison sees the Internet as a key technology for collaboratively visualising the ways in which to make a visual impact, Berger points to the role of the camera in relation to the quintessential pre-mechanical image: the painting. It is worth acknowledging here that Berger explicitly credits Walter Benjamin, including the use of his image (34), as the foundation for many of Berger's ideas, specifically referencing Benjamin's essay "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction". Noting that, prior to the invention of the camera, a painting could never be seen in more than one place at a time, Berger suggests that the camera foments a revolutionary transformation: "its meaning changes. Or, more exactly, its meaning multiplies and fragments into many meanings" (19). This disruption is further fractured once that camera-facilitated image is viewed on a screen, ubiquitous to Morrison's stock in trade, but in Berger's day (1972) particularly associated with the television:The painting enters each viewer's house. There it is surrounded by his wallpaper, his furniture, his mementoes. It enters the atmosphere of his family. It becomes their talking point. It lends its meaning to their meaning. At the same time it enters a million other houses and, in each of them, is seen in a different context. Because of the camera, the painting now travels to the spectator, rather than the spectator to the painting. In its travels, its meaning is diversified. (Berger, 19-20)Even so, that image, travelling through space and time is seen on the screen in a sequential and temporal context: "because a film unfolds in time and a painting does not. In a film the way one image follows another, their succession constructs an argument which becomes irreversible. In a painting all its elements are there to be seen simultaneously." Both these dynamics, the still and the sequence, are key to the work of a visual artist such as Morrison responsible for branding a film, television series or event. But the works also create an unfolding sequence which tells a different story to each recipient according to the perceptions of the viewer/reader. For example, instead of valorising Gilliam's Brazil, Morrison's studio could have been tagged with Annaud's Enemy at the Gates or, even, the contemporary Sky series, Niel Jordan's Riviera. Knowing this sequence, and that the back catalogue begins with The Who's Quadrophenia (1979), changes the way we see what the Morrison Studio is doing now.Ways of WorkingRichard Morrison harnesses an evolutionary metaphor to explain his continuing contribution to the industry: "I've adapted, and not been a dinosaur who's just sunk in the mud". He argues that there is a need to explore where "the next niche is and be prepared for change 'cause the only constant thing in life is change. So as a creative you need to have that known." Effectively, adaptation and embracing innovation has become a key part of the Morrison Studio's brand. It is trumpeted in the decision that Morrison and Ware made when they decided to continue their work together, even after Ware moved to Spain. This demonstrated, in an age of faxes and landlines, that the Morrison Studio could make cross country collaboration work: the multiple locations championed the fact that they were open for business "without boundaries".There was travel, too, and in those early pre-Internet days of remote location Morrison was a frequent visitor to the United States. "I'd be working in Los Angeles and he'd be wherever he was […] we'd use snail mail to actually get stuff across, literally post it by FedEx […]." The intercontinental (as opposed to inter-Europe) collaboration had the added value of offering interlocking working days: "I'd go to sleep, he wakes up […] We were actually doubling our capacity." If anything, these dynamics are more entrenched with better communications. Currah argues that Hollywood attempts to manage the disruptive potential of the internet by "seeking to create a 'closed' sphere of innovation on a global scale […] legitimated, enacted and performed within relational networks" (359). The Morrison Studio's own dispersed existence is one element of these relational networks.The specific challenge of technological vulnerability was always present, however, long before the Internet: "We'd have a case full of D1 tapes" - the professional standard video tape (1986-96) - "and we'd carefully make sure they'd go through the airport so they don't get rubbed […] what we were doing is we were fitting ourselves up for the new change". At the same time, although the communication technologies change, there are constants in the ways that people use them. Throughout Morrison's career, "when I'm working for Americans, which I'm doing a lot, they expect me to be on the telephone at midnight [because of time zones]. […] They think 'Oh I want to speak to Richard now. Oh it's midnight, so what?' They still phone up. That's constant, that never goes away." He argues that American clients are more complex to communicate with than his Scandinavian clients, giving the example that people assume a UK-US consistency because they share the English language. But "although you think they're talking in a tongue that's the same, their meaning and understanding can sometimes be quite a bit different." He uses the example of the A4 sheet of paper. It has different dimensions in the US than in the UK, illustrating those different ways of seeing.Morrison believes that there are four key constants in his company's continuing success: deadlines; the capacity to scope a job so that you know who and how many people to pull in to it to meet the deadline; librarian skills; and insecurity. The deadlines have always been imposed on creative organisations by their clients, but being able to deliver to deadlines involves networks and self-knowledge: "If you can't do it yourself find a friend, find somebody that's good at adding up, find somebody that's good at admin. You know, don't try and take on what you can't do. Put your hand up straight away, call in somebody that can help you". Chapain and Comunian's work on creative and cultural industries (CCIs) also highlights the importance of "a new centrality to the role of individuals and their social networks in understanding the practice of CCIs" (718).Franklin et al. suggest that this approach, adopted by The Morrison Studio, is a microcosm of the independent film sector as a whole. They argue that "the lifecycle of a film is segmented into sequential stages, moving through development, financing, production, sales, distribution and exhibition stages to final consumption. Different companies, each with specialized project tasks, take on responsibility and relative financial risk and reward at each stage" (323). The importance that Morrison places on social networks, however, highlights the importance of flexibility within relationships of trust - to the point where it might be as valid to engage someone on the basis of a history of working with that person as on the basis of that person's prior experience. As Cristopherson notes, "many creative workers are in vaguely defined and rapidly changing fields, seemingly making up their careers as they go along" (543).The skills underlying Morrison's approach to creative collaboration, however, include a clear understanding of one's own strength and weaknesses and a cool evaluation of others, "just quietly research people". This people-based research includes both the capabilities of potential colleagues, in order to deliver the required product in the specified time frame, along with research into creative people whose work is admired and who might provide a blueprint for how to arrive at an individual's dream role. Morrison gives the example of Quentin Tarantino's trajectory to directing: "he started in a video rental and all he did is watch lots and lots of films, particularly westerns and Japanese samurai films and decided 'I can do that'". One of his great pleasures now is to mentor young designers to help them find their way in the industry. That's a strategy that may pay dividends into the future, via Storper and Scott's "traded and untraded interdependencies" which are, according to Gornostaeva, "expressed as the multiple economic and social transactions that the participants ought to conduct if they wish to perpetuate their existence" (39).As for the library skills, he says that they are crucial but a bit comical:It's a bit like being a constant librarian in old-fashioned terms, you know, 'Where is that stuff stored?' Because it's not stored in a plan chest anymore where you open the drawer and there it is. It's now stored in, you know, big computers, in a cloud. 'Where did we put that file? Did we dump it down? Have we marked it up? […] Where's it gone? What did we do it on?'While juggling the demands of technology, people and product The Morrison brand involves both huge confidence and chronic insecurity. The confidence is evident in the low opinion Morrison has of the opportunities offered by professional disruptor sites such as 99designs: "I can't bear anything like that. I can see why it's happening but I think what you're doing is devaluing yourself even before you start […] it would destroy your self-belief in what you're doing". At the same time, Morrison says, his security is his own insecurity: "I'm always out hunting to see what could be next […] the job you finish could be your last job."Ways of BrandingChristopherson argues that there is "considerable variation in the occupational identities of new media workers among advanced economies. In some economies, new media work is evolving in a form that is closer to that of the professional [in contrast to economies where it is] an entrepreneurial activity in which new media workers sell skills and services in a market" (543). For The Morrison Studio, its breadth, history and experience supports their desire to be branded as professional, but their working patterns entirely resonate with, and are integrated within, the entrepreneurial. Seeing their activity in this way is a juxtaposition with the proposition advanced by Berger that:The existing social conditions make the individual feel powerless. He lives in the contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be. Either he then becomes fully conscious of the contradiction and its causes, and so joins the political struggle for a full democracy which entails, among other things, the overthrow of capitalism; or else he lives, continually subject to an envy which, compounded with his sense of powerlessness, dissolves into recurrent day-dreams (148).The role of the brand, and its publicity, is implicated by Berger in both the tension between what an individual is and what s/he would like to be; and in the creation of an envy that subjugates people. For Berger, the brand is about publicity and the commodifying of the future. Referring to publicity images, Berger argues that "they never speak of the present. Often they refer to the past and always they speak of the future". Brands are created and marketed by such publicity images that are often, these days, incorporated within social media and websites. At the same time, Berger argues that "Publicity is about social relationships, not objects [or experiences]. Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness: happiness as judged from the outside by others. The happiness of being envied is glamour." It is the dual pressure from the perception of the gap between the individual's actual and potential life, and the daydreaming and envy of that future, that helps construct Berger's powerless individual.Morrison's view, fashioned in part by his success at adapting, at not being a dinosaur that sinks into the mud, is that the authenticity lies in the congruence of the brand and the belief. "A personal brand can help you straight away but as long as you believe it […] You have to be true to what you're about and then it works. And then the thing becomes you [… you] just go for it and, you know, don't worry about failure. Failure will happen anyway".Berger's commentary on publicity is partially divergent from branding. Publicity is generally a managed message, on that is paid for and promoted by the person or entity concerned. A brand is a more holistic construction and is implicated in ways of seeing in that different people will have very different perceptions of the same brand. Morrison's view of his personal brand, and the brand of the Morrison Studio, is that it encompasses much more than design expertise and technical know-how. He lionises the role of passion and talks about the importance of ways of managing deadlines, interlocking skills sets, creative elements and the insecurity of uncertainty.For the producers who hire Morrison, and help build his brand, Berger's observation of the importance of history and the promise for the future remains key to their hiring decisions. Although carefully crafted, creative images are central to the Morrison Studio's work, it is not the surface presentation of those images that determines the way their work is perceived by people in the film industry, it is the labour and networks that underpin those images. While Morrison's outputs form part of the visual environment critiqued in Ways of Seeing, it is informed by the dynamics of international capitalism via global networks and mobility. Although one of myriad small businesses that help make the film industry the complex and productive creative sphere that it is, Morrison Studios does not so much seek to create a public brand as to be known and valued by the small group of industry players upon whom the Studio relies for its existence. Their continued future depends upon the ways in which they are seen.ReferencesBenjamin, Walter. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. United States of America, 1969.Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1972.Brazil. Dir. Terry Gilliam. Universal Pictures. 1985. Film. Chapain, Caroline, and Roberta Comunian. "Enabling and Inhibiting the Creative Economy: The Role of the Local and Regional Dimensions in England." Regional Studies 44.6 (2010): 717-734. Christopherson, Susan. "The Divergent Worlds of New Media: How Policy Shapes Work in the Creative Economy." Review of Policy Research 21.4 (2004): 543-558. Currah, Andrew. "Hollywood, the Internet and the World: A Geography of Disruptive Innovation." Industry and Innovation 14.4 (2007): 359-384. Enemies at the Gates. Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. Paramount. 2001. FilmFranklin, Michael, et al. "Innovation in the Application of Digital Tools for Managing Uncertainty: The Case of UK Independent Film." Creativity and Innovation Management 22.3 (2013): 320-333. Gornostaeva, Galina. "The Wolves and Lambs of the Creative City: The Sustainability of Film and Television Producers in London." Geographical Review (2009): 37-60. Jones, Phil, and Saskia Warren. "Time, Rhythm and the Creative Economy." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41.3 (2016): 286-296. Morrison, Richard. Personal Interview. 13 Oct 2016.The Morrison Studio. The Morrison Studio, 2017. 16 June 2017 <https://themorrisonstudio.com/>.Quadrophenia. Dir. Franc Roddam. Brent Walker Film Distributing. 1979. Film.Riviera. Dir. Neil Jordan. Sky Atlantic HD. 2017. Film.Storper, Michael, and Scott, Allen. "The Geographical Foundations and Social Regulation of Flexible Production Complexes". The Power of Geography: How Territory Shapes Social Life. Eds. Jennifer Wolch and Michael Dear. New York: Routledge, 1989. 21-40.

Introduction This article is concerned with the recent rise in popularity of crypto art, the term given to digital artworks whose ownership and provenance are confirmed with a non-fungible token (NFT), making it possible to sell these works within decentralised cryptocurrency art markets. The goal of this analysis is to trace a genealogy of crypto art to Dada, an avant-garde movement that originated in the early twentieth century. My claim is that Dadaism in crypto art appears in its exhausted form that is a result of its revival in the 1950s and 1960s by the Neo Dada that reached the current age through Pop Art. Dada’s anti-art project of rejecting beauty and aesthetics has transformed into commercial success in the Neo Dada Pop Art movement. In turn, Pop Art produced its crypto version that explores not only the question of what art is and is not, but also when art becomes money. In what follows, I will provide a brief overview of NFT art and its three categories that could generally be found within crypto marketplaces: native crypto art, non-digital art, and digital distributed-creativity art. Throughout, I will foreground the presence of Dadaism in these artworks and provide art historical context. NFTs: Brief Overview A major technological component that made NFTs possible was developed in 1991, when cryptographers Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta proposed a method for time-stamping data contained in digital documents shared within a distributed network of users (99). This work laid the foundation for what became known as blockchain and was further implemented in the development of Bitcoin, a digital currency invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The original non-fungible tokens, Coloured Coins, were created in 2012. By “colouring” or differentiating bitcoins, Coloured Coins were assigned special properties and had a value independent of the underlying Bitcoin, allowing their use as commodity certificates, alternative currencies, and other financial instruments (Assia et al.). In 2014, fuelled by a motivation to protect digital artists from unsanctioned distribution of their work while also enabling digital art sales, media artist Kevin McCoy and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash saw the potential of blockchain to satisfy their goals and developed what became to be known as NFTs. This overnight invention was a result of McCoy and Dash’s participation in the Seven on Seven annual New York City event, a one-day creative collaboration that challenged seven pairs of artists and engineers to “make something” (Rhizome). McCoy and Dash did not patent their invention, nor were they able to popularise it, mentally archiving it as a “footnote in internet history”. Ironically, just a couple of years later NFTs exploded into a billion-dollar market, living up to an ironic name of “monetized graphics” that the pair gave to their invention. Crypto art became an international sensation in March 2021, when a digital artist Mike Winklemann, known as Beeple, sold his digital collage titled Everydays: The First 5000 Days for US$69.3 million, prompting Noah Davis, a curator who assisted with the sale at the Christie’s auction house, to proclaim: “he showed us this collage, and that was my eureka moment when I knew this was going to be extremely important. It was just so monumental and so indicative of what NFTs can do” (Kastrenakes). As a technology, a non-fungible token can create digital scarcity in an otherwise infinitely replicable digital space. Contrary to fungible tokens, which are easily interchangeable due to having an equal value, non-fungible tokens represent unique items for which one cannot find an equivalent. That is why we rely on the fungibility of money to exchange non-fungible unique goods, such as art. Employing non-fungible tokens allows owning and exchanging digital items outside of the context in which they originated. Now, one can prove one’s possession of a digital skin from a videogame, for example, and sell it on digital markets using crypto currency (“Bible”). Behind the technology of NFTs lies the use of a cryptographic hash function, which converts a digital artwork of any file size into a fixed-length hash, called message digest (Dooley 179). It is impossible to revert the process and arrive at the original image, a quality of non-reversibility that makes the hash function a perfect tool for creating a digital representation of an artwork proofed from data tampering. The issued or minted NFT enters a blockchain, a distributed database that too relies on cryptographic properties to guarantee fidelity and security of data stored. Once the NFT becomes a part of the blockchain, its transaction history is permanently recorded and publicly available. Thus, the NFT simultaneously serves as a unique representation of the artwork and a digital proof of ownership. NFTs are traded in digital marketplaces, such as SuperRare, KnownOrigin, OpenSea, and Rarible, which rely on a blockchain to sustain their operations. An analysis of these markets’ inventory can be summarised by the following list of roughly grouped types of artistic works available for purchase: native crypto art, non-digital art, distributed creativity art. Native Crypto Art In this category, I include projects that motivated the creation of NFT protocols. Among these projects are the aforementioned Colored Coins, created in 2012. These were followed by issuing other visual creations native to the crypto-world, such as LarvaLabs’s CryptoPunks, a series of 10,000 algorithmically generated 8-bit-style pixelated digital avatars originally available for free to anyone with an Ethereum blockchain account, gaining a cult status among the collectors when they became rare sought-after items. On 13 February 2022, CryptoPunk #5822 was sold for roughly $24 million in Ethereum, beating the previous record for such an NFT, CryptoPunk #3100, sold for $7.58 million. CryptoPunks laid the foundation for other collectible personal profile projects, such Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cool Cats. One of the ultimate collections of crypto art that demonstrates the exhaustion of original Dada motivations is titled Monas, an NFT project made up of 5,000 programmatically generated versions of a pixelated Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1503-1506). Each Monas, according to the creators, is “a mix of Art, history, and references from iconic NFTs” (“Monas”). Monas are a potpourri of meme and pop culture, infused with inside jokes and utmost silliness. Monas invariably bring to mind the historic Dadaist gesture of challenging bourgeois tastes through defacing iconic art historical works, such as Marcel Duchamp’s treatment of Mona Lisa in L.H.O.O.Q. In 1919, Duchamp drew a moustache and a goatee on a reproduction of La Joconde, as the French called the painting, and inscribed “L.H.O.O.Q.” that when pronounced sounds like “Elle a chaud au cul”, a vulgar expression indicating sexual arousal of the subject. At the time of its creation, this Dada act was met with the utmost public contempt, as Mona Lisa was considered a sacred work of art and a patron of the arts, an almost religious symbol (Elger and Grosenick 82). Needless to say, the effect of Monas on public consciousness is far from causing disgust and, on the contrary, brings childish joy and giggles. As an NFT artist, Mankind, explains in his YouTube video on personal profile projects: “PFPs are built around what people enjoy. People enjoy memes, people enjoy status, people enjoy being a part of something bigger than themselves, the basic primary desire to mix digital with social and belong to a community”. Somehow, “being bigger than themselves” has come to involve collecting defaced images of Mona Lisa. Turning our attention to historical analysis will help trace this transformation of the Dada insult into a collectible NFT object. Dada and Its Legacy in Crypto Art Dada was founded in 1916 in Zurich, by Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Hans Richter, and other artists who fled their homelands during the First World War (Hapgood and Rittner 63). One of Dada’s primary aspirations was to challenge the dominance of reason that brought about the tragedy of the First World War through attacking the postulates of culture this form of reason produced. Already in 1921, such artists as André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Max Ernst were becoming exhausted by Dada’s nihilist tendencies and rejection of all programmes for the arts, except for the one that called for the total freedom of expression. The movement was pronounced dead about May 1921, leaving no sense of regret since, in the words of Breton, “its omnipotence and its tyranny had made it intolerable” (205). An important event associated with Dada’s revival and the birth of the Neo Dada movement was the publication of The Dada Painters and Poets in 1951. This volume, the first collection of Dada writings in English and the most comprehensive anthology in any language, was introduced to the young artists at the New School by John Cage, who revived Tristan Tzara’s concept that “life is far more interesting” than art (Hapgood and Rittner 64). The 1950s were marked by a renewed interest in Dadaism that can also be evidenced in galleries and museums organising numerous exhibitions on the movement, such as Dada 1916 –1923 curated by Marcel Duchamp at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1953. By the end of the decade, such artists as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg began exploring materials and techniques that can be attributed to Dadaism, which prompted the title of Neo Dada to describe this thematic return (Hapgood and Rittner 64). Among the artistic approaches that Neo Dada borrowed from Dada are Duchampian readymades that question the status of the art object, Kurt Schwitters’s collage technique of incorporating often banal scraps and pieces of the everyday, and the use of chance operations as a compositional device (Hapgood and Rittner 63–64). These approaches comprise the toolbox of crypto artists as well. Monas, CryptoPunks, and Bored Ape Yacht Club are digital collages made of scraps of pop culture and the everyday Internet life assembled into compositional configurations through chance operation made possible by the application of algorithmic generation of the images in each series. Art historian Helen Molesworth sees the strategies of montage, the readymade, and chance not only as “mechanisms for making art objects” but also as “abdications of traditional forms of artistic labor” (178). Molesworth argues that Duchamp’s invention of the readymade “substituted the act of (artistic) production with consumption” and “profoundly questioned the role, stability, nature, and necessity of the artist’s labor” (179). Together with questioning the need for artistic labour, Neo Dadaists inherited what an American art historian Jack D. Flam terms the “anything goes” attitude: Dada’s liberating destruction of rules and derision of art historical canon allowed anything and everything to be considered art (xii). The “anything goes” approach can also be traced to the contemporary crypto artists, such as Beeple, whose Everydays: The First 5000 Days was a result of assembling into a collage the first 5,000 of his daily training sketches created while teaching himself new digital tools (Kastrenakes). When asked whether he genuinely liked any of his images, Beeple explained that most digital art was created by teams of people working over the course of days or even weeks. When he “is pooping something out in 45 minutes”, it “is probably not gonna look that great comparatively” (Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg). At the core of Dada was a spirit of absurdism that drove an attack on the social, political, artistic, and philosophical norms, constituting a radical movement against the Establishment (Flam xii). In Dada Art and Anti-Art, Hans Richter’s personal historical account of the Dada movement, the artist describes the basic principle of Dada as guided by a motivation “to outrage public opinion” (66). Richter’s writings also point out a desensitisation towards Dada provocations that the public experienced as a result of Dada’s repetitive assaults, demanding an invention of new methods to disgrace the public taste. Richter recounts: our exhibitions were not enough. Not everyone in Zurich came to look at our pictures, attending our meetings, read our poems and manifestos. The devising and raising of public hell was an essential function of any Dada movement, whether its goal was pro-art, non-art or anti-art. And the public (like insects or bacteria) had developed immunity to one of kind poison, we had to think of another. (66) Richter’s account paints a cultural environment in which new artistic provocations mutate into accepted norms in a quick succession, forming a public body that is immune to anti-art “poisons”. In the foreword to Dada Painters and Poets, Flam outlines a trajectory of acceptance and subjugation of the Dadaist spirit by the subsequent revival of the movement’s core values in the Neo Dada of the 1950s and 1960s. When Dadaism was rediscovered by the writers and artists in the 1950s, the Dada spirit characterised by absurdist irony, self-parody, and deadpan realism was becoming a part of everyday life, as if art entered life and transformed it in its own image. The Neo Dada artists, such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, existed in a culturally pluralistic space where the project of a rejection of the Establishment was quickly absorbed into the mainstream, mutating into the high culture it was supposedly criticising and bringing commercial success of which the original Dada artists would have been deeply ashamed (Flam xiii). Raoul Hausmann states: “Dada fell like a raindrop from heaven. The Neo-Dadaists have learnt to imitate the fall, but not the raindrop” (as quoted in Craft 129). With a similar sentiment, Richard Huelsenbeck writes: “Neo-Dada has turned the weapons used by Dada, and later by Surrealism, into popular ploughshares with which to till the fertile soil of sensation-hungry galleries eager for business” (as quoted in Craft 130). Marcel Duchamp, the forefather of the avant-garde, comments on the loss of Dada’s original intent: this Neo-Dada, which they call New Realism, Pop Art, Assemblage, etc., is an easy way out, and lives on what Dada did. When I discovered ready-mades I thought to discourage aesthetics. In Neo-Dada they have taken my ready-mades and found aesthetic beauty in them. I threw the bottle-rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty. (Flam xiii) In Neo Dada, the original anti-art impulse of Dadaism was converted into its opposite, becoming an artistic stance and a form of aesthetics. Flam notes that these gradual transformations resulted in the shifts in public consciousness, which it was becoming more difficult to insult. Artists, among them Roy Lichtenstein, complained that it was becoming impossible to make anything despicable: even a dirty rug could be admired (Flam xiii). The audience lost their ability to understand when they were being mocked, attacked, or challenged. Writing in 1981, Flam proclaimed that “Dada spirit has become an inescapable condition of modern life” (xiv). I contend that the current crypto art thrives on the Dada spirit of absurdism, irony, and self-parody and continues to question the border between art and non-art, while fully subscribing to the “anything goes” approach. In the current iteration of Dada in the crypto world, the original subversive narrative can be mostly found in the liberating rhetoric promoted by the proponents of the decentralised economic system. While Neo Dada understood the futility of shocking the public and questioning their tastes, crypto art is ignorant of the original Dada as a form of outrage, a revolutionary movement ignited by a social passion. In crypto art, the ambiguous relationship that Pop Art, one of the Neo Dada movements, had with commercial success is transformed into the content of the artworks. As Tristan Tzara laconically explained, the Dada project was to “assassinate beauty” and with it all the infrastructure of the art market (as quoted in Danto 39). Ironically, crypto artists, the descendants of Dada, erected the monument to Value artificially created through scarcity made possible by blockchain technology in place of the denigrated Venus demolished by the Dadaists. After all, it is the astronomical prices for crypto art that are lauded the most. If in the pre-NFT age, artistic works were evaluated based on their creative merit that included considering the prominence of the artist within art historical canon, current crypto art is evaluated based on its rareness, to which the titles of the crypto art markets SuperRare and Rarible unambiguously refer (Finucane 28–29). In crypto art, the anti-art and anti-commercialism of Dada has fully transformed into its opposite. Another evidence for considering crypto art to be a descendant of Dada is the NFT artists’ concern for the question of what art is and is not, brought to the table by the original Dada artists. This concern is expressed in the manifesto-like mission statement of the first Museum of Crypto Art: at its core, the Museum of Crypto Art (M○C△) challenges, creates conflict, provokes. M○C△ puts forward a broad representation of perspectives meant to upend our sense of who we are. It poses two questions: “what is art?” and “who decides?” We aim to resolve these questions through a multi-stakeholder decentralized platform of art curation and exhibition. (The Museum of Crypto Art) In the past, the question regarding the definition of art was overtaken by the proponent of the institutional approach to art definition, George Dickie, who besides excluding aesthetics from playing a part in differentiating art from non-art famously pronounced that an artwork created by a monkey is art if it is displayed in an art institution, and non-art if it is displayed elsewhere (Dickie 256). This development might explain why decentralisation of the art market achieved through the use of blockchain technology still relies on the endorsing of the art being sold by the widely acclaimed art auction houses: with their stamp of approval, the work is christened as legitimate art, resulting in astronomical sales. Non-Digital Art It is not surprising that an NFT marketplace is an inviting arena for the investigation of questions of commercialisation tackled in the works of Neo Dada Pop artists, who made their names in the traditional art world. This brings us to a discussion of the second type of artworks found in NFT marketplaces: non-digital art sold as NFT and created by trained visual artists, such as Damien Hirst. In his recent NFT project titled Currency, Hirst explores “the boundaries of art and currency—when art changes and becomes a currency, and when currency becomes art” (“The Currency”). The project consists of 10,000 artworks on A4 paper covered in small, coloured dots, a continuation of the so-called “spot-paintings” series that Hirst and his assistants have been producing since the 1980s. Each artwork is painted on a hand-made paper that bears the watermark of the artist’s bust, adorned with a microdot that serves as a unique identification, and is made to look very similar to the others—visual devices used to highlight the ambiguous state of these artworks that simultaneously function as Hirst-issued currency. For Hirst, this project is an experiment: after the purchase of NFTs, buyers are given an opportunity to exchange the NFT for the original art, safely stored in a UK vault; the unexchanged artworks will be burned. Is art going to fully transform into currency? Will you save it? In Hirst’s project, the transformation of physical art into crypto value becomes the ultimate act of Dada nihilism, except for one big difference: if Dada wanted to destroy art as a way to invent it anew, Hirst destroys art to affirm its death and dissolution in currency. In an ironic gesture, the gif NFT artist Nino Arteiro, as if in agreement with Hirst, attempts to sell his work titled Art Is Not Synonymous of Profit, which contains a crudely written text “ART ≠ PROFIT!” for 0.13 Ether or US$350. Buying this art will negate its own statement and affirm its analogy with money. Distributed-Creativity Art When browsing through crypto art advertised in the crypto markets, one inevitably encounters works that stand out in their emphasis on aesthetic and formal qualities. More often than not, these works are created with the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). To a viewer bombarded with creations unconcerned with the concept of beauty, these AI works may serve as a sensory aesthetic refuge. Among the most prominent artists working in this realm is Refik Anadol, whose Synthetic Dreams series at a first glance may appear as carefully composed works of a landscape painter. However, at a closer look nodal connections between points in rendered space provide a hint at the use of algorithmic processes. These attractive landscapes are quantum AI data paintings created from a data set consisting of 200 million raw images of landscapes from around the world, with each image having been computed with a unique quantum bit string (“Synthetic Dreams”). Upon further contemplation, Anadol’s work begins to remind of the sublime Romantic landscapes, revamped through the application of AI that turned fascination with nature’s unboundedness into awe in the face of the unfathomable amounts of data used in creation of Anadol’s works. These creations can be seen as a reaction against the crypto art I call exhausted Dada, or a marketing approach that targets a different audience. In either case, Anadol revives aesthetic concern and aligns himself with the history of sublimity in art that dates back to the writings of Longinus, becoming of prime importance in the nineteenth-century Romantic painting, and finding new expressions in what is considered the technological sublime, which, according to David E. Nye. concentrates “on the triumph of machines… over space and time” (as quoted in Butler et al. 8). In relation to his Nature Dreams project, Anadol writes: “the exhibition’s eponymous, sublime AI Data Sculpture, Nature Dreams utilizes over 300 million publicly available photographs of nature collected between 2018- 2021 at Refik Anadol Studio” (“Machine Hallucinations Nature Dreams”). From this short description it is evident that Anadol’s primary focus is on the sublimity of large sets of data. There is an issue with that approach: since experiencing the sublime involves loss of rational thinking (Longinus 1.4), these artworks cease the viewer’s ability to interrogate cultural adaptation of AI technology and stay within the realm of decorative ornamentations, demanding an intervention akin to that brought about by the historical avant-garde. Conclusions I hope that this brief analysis demonstrates the mechanisms by which the strains of Dada entered the vocabulary of crypto artists. 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