the NFT of the cover by Andrea Bonaceto – Corriere.it

In a historical volume, The emergence of the artsthe great Gillo Dorfles, carried out a detailed study of the different artistic languages, identifying a method for observing what he himself defined as “oscillations of taste”, while examining from a philosophical but also objective perspective, the relationship between image and imagination, to universal and individual symbols, to the values ​​and distinction of the arts through their means of expression. The cover of this week’s issue of “la Lettura” (No. 638 of February 18th) marks a new step, we believe that it is really interesting, marking the sense of the Zeitgeist or the spirit of the times, which is also the Compass is the one that shows us the way in our work.

The author, Andrea Bonaceto (Pisa, 1989) He is one of the most internationally recognized digital artists. His works actually represent (although they still remain in a niche dimension) the new frontier of contemporary art: artists who operate primarily in digital languages, often interacting with the great Internet, but who have now penetrated even further, into the dimension of the unknown elsewhere use all the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence. And it is no coincidence that the cover that you saw on Sunday February 18th in its traditional paper version can also be found on newsstands from Tuesday February 20th (for those who want it, and at a price of 10 euros). in digital dimension, enriched with a digital certificate of authenticity. That makes this cover something very special. Actually to collect.

The work on the cover of Reading #638 by Andrea Bonaceto is titled Words of the world and explore the Dichotomy between humans and artificial intelligence, starting with people as the central element of his research. Conceptually, Andrea Bonaceto did the following: he analyzed the dialogue between man and machine, between psyche and tecnè, offering an interesting (and somewhat innovative) language of interaction between artist and user. In fact, a new artistic language is increasingly being designed, dictated by the construction of works in which the audience’s intervention serves to transform the work itself.

It is, among other things, a phenomenon that continues to spread: in Venice, at the Punta della Dogana, Pierre Huyghe (accompanied by the curatorship of Anne Stenne) will launch an unprecedented project that will cover the entire extent of the Punta della Dogana takes it in one sensitive platform that communicates with the visitor and introduces characters and new narratives. For him it is actually a philosophical inquiry. Since his first works, his work has taken a perspective other than the human, non-human one and questions subjectivities other than biological ones. For Huyghe, fictions are means of accessing the possible or impossible – what could be or could not be, between human and inhuman, and question the reality before us. Other artists have been dealing with this desire for dialogue between works and users, between humans and non-humans, for years, but now the intervention of artificial intelligence (remember ours Cover number 500, created by the Ai-Da robot, Artist without conscience but thinking) truly brings new conceptual and generative dimensions to the nature of the work of art with its contaminations, deviations and fascinations.

But let’s return to Bonaceto’s work: the central part of the work (reminiscent of the famous “Tutto” cycle by Alighiero Boretti in its density of figures) was drawn manually by Bonaceto, while the external part was instead generated by artificial intelligence, he adds to keep the memory of the artist’s work over the years alive and to effectively transform it in an abstract dimension, Just as abstraction manifests itself in our minds as memory dissolves. The central figures are a personal reference of the artist: the palimpsest for a new alphabet (imagine Egyptian hieroglyphs) that in a short time will only find meaning in the interaction with future users in the digital world. From Tuesday, February 20th, it will be possible to purchase it for a monthCollector’s version of issue no. 638 of “la Lettura”, with Bonaceto’s work: Through the Corriere Art Collection smartphone app, you can scan the QR code on the cover to receive a digital certificate in the form of an NFT, certifying the authenticity of the work and viewable throughout the app. In this case, the NFT serves as a certificate of authenticity of a physical product.

In this way, the digital collection comes to life. While Nam June Paik recalled in the 1960s how “the collage technique has replaced oil painting, the cathode ray tube will replace canvas,” Bill Viola today argues that artists would do well to do something simple: “Look beneath the surface and unleash the visual potential of the electronic image.” As a great poet of the moving image, he achieves this in an exciting way. However, there remains the entire universe of digital creation (and NFTs) that moves very decidedly and sometimes questionably into the territories of spectacularization and the market. Two examples? The big speculations about the figure of Beeple ($69 million for its NFT) or the powerful immersive images of Refik Anadolthe biggest You are an artist exists, so large that it was the first to bring digital art (generated by artificial intelligence) into MoMA’s permanent collection.

We know that artistic production is a process in inaccessible and changing territories. As the great critic Jerry Saltz remembers (in his magisterial volume). How to Become an Artist, Johan & Levi), the art world is a veritable den of snakes. And that is why Saltz invites those who want to get closer to this fascinating and insidious nest of vipers to look for an elementary and healthy value: “courage”. And he adds: “A desperate step that will lead straight into the arms of the angels of creation.” Even the digital one.