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Peter Bauman: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this Le Random podcast. We are right in the middle of 2025. I'm your host, Peter Bauman, the editor in chief at Le Random, and we have a very special episode today. We are joined by the team, three quarters of the team. That is thefunnyguys, the co-founder and CEO of Le Random, and also Conrad House, our collection lead. This is a conversation that is continuing now a bit of a tradition where at the end of each quarter of the year we reflect, we look back and we look at the artwork and the artists and the exhibitions and some of just the big picture trends that we noticed over the last few months. It's our way to take stock when everything seems to be moving so fast around us. It's a nice little exercise that we enjoy internally. We're excited to share it with you. Let's go ahead and get started.
I think we'll start with some of the big picture topics of 2025, the second quarter, first half so far. What do you guys think, especially April onward this year, were some of the big picture trends or takeaways that you have all noticed?
Conrad House: I think one of the more over-encompassing or broader themes, or I guess conversation topics that we've been seeing a lot recently, is these major digital art spaces or institutions arising, newer ones, obviously with the NODE Foundation announcement that happened over the quarter being quite huge and even the more recent announcement of Canyon opening up in New York. Both of these institutions or organizations are creating spaces on different coasts of the States, obviously. But it's really interesting to see these huge conglomerates coming together and being formed around digital art. Really exciting to see where the future holds. This almost ties into some of the other broader topics that we'll be talking about a bit later.
thefunnyguys: Yeah, absolutely. I think I also agree with that. There has been, I believe, a continued trend of the worlds getting closer, digital art and traditional arts, let's say. But sometimes it's still quite sobering to go to, for example, the main fair at Art Basel. There's not really much digital art presence, even in 2025. I agree with you, Conrad. This quarter specifically, there have been a few digital art-focused organizations that opened, which does make me quite hopeful for the future, because I do think we have to build new organizations from the ground up. If we wait for the old ones to convert and to fully embrace digital art, that could be a decades-long journey.
I do think that the biggest announcement, at least from my perspective, is probably the NODE Foundation. I do think it's quite important for digital arts to have Micky Malka, who has been collecting traditional art for a very long time, who has been an early evangelist of Bitcoin on the West Coast, to see him align his incentives the way he did with digital arts and to position NODE as the first, the name says it itself, like nodes of a new institution, not just one space but an organization that will hopefully have presence all across the globe. I think it's quite exciting to think about.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, I agree that this is probably the main takeaway from this quarter. It seems like we were just in Basel, Jan, and at least for me, this was one of the things that I found myself talking to other people about the most, just the status and the nature of these new institutions. From Canyon, which is going to be this giant multi-use, multi-purpose but digital art focused space right on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, all the way to NODE and their facility that's going to be in Northern California, in Silicon Valley, the West Coast of the US. There's a similar institution being built in Madrid by Colección SOLO. Beeple has his Studios. Obviously, it's not opening this quarter, but it's really starting to ramp up at least some of its programming.
These are major institutions that are worth getting excited about and that are really sorely needed and that are going to require a lot of programming and a lot of curators and a lot of art and artists and content around them for years to come. So I think it's a really healthy, positive sign for the ecosystem. It's something that we talk about a lot when we have these talks, a bit of a divergence between positive macro trends and less positive micro trends, market-based trends. I think that's continuing. I think it might even be intensifying in the sense that as bleak as the market gets, I think that's just as positive as this institutional news.
We've also seen that it isn't just these big institutions. There have been smaller but arguably not necessarily that much less significant galleries opening in places like New York with Heft and SuperRare's gallery there. They're basically joining bitforms down there on the Lower East Side, and also Mimi's new gallery is there as well. It's an exciting time for this space, especially if you are maybe down about the markets or feeling less positive or optimistic. I think that some of the macro trends and signs are as positive as they've seemingly ever been.
Conrad House: Yeah, I think that's a good point, Peter. I think a lot of people get maybe lost or too focused or too pipelined on those micro trends, what's happening in the now, what's happening in the small market, maybe ignoring some of the bigger macro movements that are happening when it comes to establishments being really built and actually putting together useful things, canonizing our culture a bit for digital art and generative art in the bigger picture. I think it's important that we look at the more positive side of things and these almost really healthy seeds that are being sown into the fabric that will hopefully lead to decades to come of really important art being created and contextualized and loved by a broader community.
It's interesting that you mentioned New York specifically a lot, but it's always fascinating to see how different portions of the world handle digital art and how digital art has evolved, whether that's LA and New York, and you also have the European side of things with Berlin and London and even Lisbon with the pocketed cultures that are popping up there. Then you have East Asia, Japan and Taiwan, and how all these different cultures of digital art evolve, and seeing which one fans the flame to some degree. I think New York seems to be the one that's fanning the flame the most with how much activity has been popping up there and all those names that you mentioned, Peter. With Heft Gallery, you have the Whitney out there just doing a lot of digital art-focused things. You have bitforms, you have Rhizome. It's just a really healthy digital art ecosystem out there. The more people that you have putting time and effort into this movement, I think it creates a really nice environment to foster some really incredible things. So I think all the energy that's being put into New York at the moment is going to create something really nice in the future.
thefunnyguys: It's remarkable how many announcements there have been, specifically out of New York. But I think it's also important to realize that these announcements are qualitatively so different than the announcements we had in 2021, '22. For new organizations to get built now, for them to get funding now, everything is so much more difficult than it was in '21, '22, when the market was so hot. A lot of the initiatives that were announced back then don't exist anymore. People already came back on their steps. If you are building a new organization in 2025, the chances are you'll be around for much longer than if you announced it in '21 or '22.
What's also interesting about these organizations is that they're not pretending to have invented fire. They are looking back at what already happened. For example, Canyon is working with Rhizome. Micky Malka with NODE Foundation is working with the Bright Moments people. So they're all surrounding themselves with expertise. They're building on the foundations that are already in place, which I think also has a positive impact on their chances of succeeding.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, I agree. One of the things that I've noticed from this quarter is that New York seems to be emerging as a clear-cut hub in this space. Maybe it always has been, but with some of those newer galleries that have been opening, and then the excitement there with what Michelle Kuo is doing as the Chief Curator at MoMA and what Christiane Paul is doing at the Whitney and then what Michael Connor is doing at Rhizome, and all those gallery spaces that our guide highlighted, a lot of them. It was really putting the Art Guide, Le Random's New York City digital art guide, together that made me realize that if we did this for another city, it wouldn't be as dense and there wouldn't be as much to cover. There wouldn't be as many digital-native galleries, communities or artists based there. I do think that it seems to be taking a lead in digital culture right now. Not insurmountable, but it does seem to be that at the moment it is worth highlighting.
“If you are building a new organization in 2025, the chances are you'll be around for much longer than if you announced it in '21 or '22.” — thefunnyguys 8:02
One other thing that's interesting about New York is there's this other young group of artists that is emerging, and quite a few of them or all of them are either from there or are based there. I think most of them are in the first half of their 20s, but people like Huw Messie, Karyn Nakamura, Maya Man, Luke Shannon, these young artists that I think are doing some of the most interesting stuff in the space, and they all happen to be, or maybe it isn't such a coincidence, but they're all based in New York.
Conrad House: We can maybe jump into some of the specific events that we had experienced over this quarter. I think one that we can maybe start with is the William Mapan exhibition at Verse Gallery, which was Extension. I think our wonderful editorial editor-in-chief, Peter Bauman, was actually a part of a conversation that they had in person there with Julia Greenway and Leyla from Verse, which was quite nice. I just wanted to ask if you had any comments specifically on that exhibition or that event, Peter, and how that went in London.
Peter Bauman: It was really nice to go over to London for the show and get the chance to speak with William. We'd done a piece with him for Sketchbook A right around the early editorial days, so that was in 2023. Also, something recently, we had our two-year anniversary for the site being live and for our editorials, and so that's a nice little benchmark. But it was nice to go down to London and speak to William 18 months later about this project, to really get an update on an artist over the course of years but still working on some similar ideas. So I thought that was a really valuable opportunity. And also just to get a chance to meet up with the Verse team. I think they're doing a really great job. Another small takeaway from this first half of the year is that they seem to be doing quite interesting, distinguishing work.
The curation that you guys did with Rhizome, was that in April or was that in May, technically?
Conrad House: That was in April, I believe, when people started seeing the actual physical takeaways from that. That was a fun little collaboration we got to do with Michael Connor from Rhizome. This was the net art event that they're putting on in New York. They had a larger screen that they were looking to showcase some p5.js works on that showed the technical, innovative community side of p5.js. We got to suggest a handful of works that we thought would be cool to fit that screen. I think it went quite well. I think we were suggesting pieces. One of them, we just mentioned Maya Man, but can I go where you go?, which is her Feral File software piece from Social Codes, a wonderful generative art piece. It was really cool to see excerpts on Twitter of people running and playing with the system. And overall, just seeing the love that Rhizome received in New York just for how important figures they are, it's cool to see them get some recognition for it.
Also, just to maybe touch on, I think you talked about the Mapan thing in London, but one thing I forgot to mention, Peter, is it's cool to see you so involved with Mapan to some degree, with you keeping up with his career throughout the years. You mentioned the early 2023 article that you had with Mapan initially, and then even before that, before Le Random, you had talked with Mapan at Right Click Save and talked about Dragons and stuff. That was always an article that I appreciated from you, Peter, seeing the way you talk about Mapan's art. So it's cool to see Mapan evolve as you evolved, Peter, and how you two riff off each other in these conversations. It's a very neat evolution to watch.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, he's probably sick of me at this point. But it's been really fun. He was one of the first people that interested me to write about, a deep dive into their collection. Now, definitely several years later, he still is. It's been really rewarding to follow somebody that closely. Hopefully I have done his work justice in some ways. But yeah, Jan, do you want to add anything about the Rhizome curation?
thefunnyguys: When I reflect on the Rhizome curation, I think, again, of An Easy Dream by Manolo, which is one of the pieces that we curated for that showcase. Looking back on the quarter for me, maybe I shared An Easy Dream on Twitter. We put it in the Rhizome curation. ARTnews, at some point, asked what my favorite digital art piece is. I also put An Easy Dream there. So maybe looking ahead to the next quarter, I should go a bit lighter on the Manolo fanboying. But that's also a highlight of the quarter for me. I think it's this quarter that Manolo started to engage more again with generative art as a whole, also with the on-chain generative art community. He has been sharing a lot of work. He has started following some people. I've heard some rumors. People did start to chat a bit about what that means, Manolo following people from the on-chain community. This quarter, looking back, maybe it's going to be a turning point in Manolo's trajectory.
Conrad House: Yeah, I'd agree. It's always nice to see him interacting a bit more. Even just sharing a bit more of his work has been a big blessing. I think we even hinted at it in the Q1 review that we had as a podcast, but I think that's right when he made his emergence from his generative cave again to start sharing work. It was right at the end of Q1. We were really excited to see if he was going to keep sharing and stick around, and he has. Every day, I have notifications for his tweets. Every time you see a tweet notification from Manolo, it's just one of his nice, simple shares. It's always great to see. I hope that he sticks around. Seeing him follow and become more mutual with some of the actual on-chain crowd gives me hope that maybe he wants to just stick around a bit more and create some new things.
Peter Bauman: Also, later in May was the Silk Bali event. That was their second iteration, a bit similar to Bright Moments, where they seem to be going to different destinations around the world. Unlike Bright Moments, there aren't usually a large number of releases. The focus is a bit more on the talks and the quite intimate engagement between the people that attended and the artists. To be honest, I think it was quite successful. Just in terms of me getting to know some of the artists there, I thought it was really successful. I came away viewing quite a few different practices quite differently. I even told you guys about them already, but one of them was AA Murakami. They were artists that I had heard of before and then I knew some about, especially from Bright Moments in Tokyo. But they have a really rich contemporary practice I wasn't fully aware of until their presentation in Bali. Shavonne Wong, Joe Pease, Niceaunties, David Sheldrick. A lot of these artists make interesting work and you think, oh, I wonder how they do that. At this event, they actually had space, or maybe had the intimacy level right, to share those things. It was really interesting.
Then I got to talk about 10 years of deep learning art. I've written about some of this stuff and tweeted about some of this stuff. But for the most part, a lot of this deep learning art started, a lot of what we consider modern AI art started, in 2015, just about 10 years ago or exactly 10 years ago. I talked a little bit about that history. I really enjoyed that opportunity and the experience.
Then right after that was NFC Lisbon. That was another really fun event. I didn't have to travel for that one, technically, because it takes place where I live or near where I live. That was a bit more of a mainstream event. Bali and Silk were a bit more low-key. NFC is bigger. There are more people around for it. There are different parts of NFC, almost more than any other event. The side events are quite important and the dinners, things like Arab Bank Switzerland. They had an artist villa that I spoke at one of the days. Well, it was AI Tea Time with Le Random. Le Random organized this with Barbara from Arab Bank, and that was a really fun afternoon. In Lisbon, we had a chat with Feileacan McCormick from Entangled Others and Emily Xie. So really interesting. We all love Feileacan and Entangled Others. It's a bit rare to just hear from Feileacan. So I really relished that opportunity to get to talk to him. And then Emily has started using AI more and more in her workflow, has some recent work that utilized AI, so I wanted to talk to her about that. That was a lot of fun. That event is just really well done and really well-executed and really well-organized.
Then the main event is slightly more freewheeling. That's my sense, just being involved with it the last couple of years, giving talks there and just when I'm walking around as well. But it's a really good event, and it's always fun to be a part of it. I spoke on the meme stage this year, which was fun. I think there was almost a small meme made about how ridiculous it is. But I do think it's a nice event on the calendar and gets people in town.
Right after Lisbon, basically, was Art Basel and a really fun week that Jan and I had in Basel. Jan, do you want to tell us about it? What were some of your takeaways from your time in Basel? We were there from Monday to Saturday last week. It was a full week. We saw a lot of people, went to a lot of dinners and a lot of shows, saw a lot of art. A very full week. What did you think?
thefunnyguys: Yeah, it was definitely a full week. Very energizing and tiring at the same time, I would say. As you know, Peter, I spent a lot of time talking to collectors, artists, curators about a specific project that we have been incubating at Le Random. As of today, it's not publicly announced yet, so I can't really say much about it, but we will publicly announce it in the next few months for sure. The private interface has been open since yesterday. So if anyone is listening and would love to give it a try, this mysterious project, they can always send me a DM and I'll happily give them access. But that was for me a really important part of the week, just getting a lot of product feedback that you can't really get as well online. So it was very productive in that regard.
Of course, besides that, there were really incredible events. I was actually really impressed by how the Digital Art Mile stepped it up compared to last year, because these guys launched the Digital Art Mile in a bear market. They organized the second edition in an enduring bear market. But yet they found the energy, they found the resources to really organize a great event. There was also a lot more, I would say, participation from the traditional art worlds compared to last year. For example, on the day that we were hosting the conference, there was also Hito Steyerl, who was on one of the panels. ArtReview was co-hosting it with us. There was a certain gentleman called Mark Spiegler who was in the crowd asking questions. These were all signs that were not there last year of traditional art really taking notice.
Then there were also some private dinners going on where I've heard that the executives of Art Basel were meeting with digital art collectors and really showing interest in getting advice on how to transform the fair moving ahead. I've heard some rumors that they want to start embracing the digital first at their satellite events, in the next edition of Art Basel Miami, the next edition of Art Basel Paris. I believe also that this quarter they announced a new Art Basel that will take place in Qatar every single year. Qatar has also been, I would say, quite at the forefront of digital innovation. That will probably also be one of these satellite events where the digital will be a bit more prominent than it is at the main fair. Hopefully, that trickles down to the main fair over time. But what about you, Peter? How was the week?
Peter Bauman: I think it was really productive. I agreed a lot with what you said. It does feel like these worlds are becoming more and more integrated, even relative to last year. I think going to Basel, the center of the traditional art world universe in a lot of ways, really gives you also some perspective on our own space and where it stands in relation to this other world that we're a part of, but not really. This year, it does seem like those connections are just becoming tighter and deeper. Whether it was Nina's exhibition, Bankable, at Basel Social Club. The talk of Basel was probably Basel Social Club. To have an exhibition there, curated the right way with a lot of prominent artists in the space, I think was really important. The rumors, I heard also these rumors, although I don't think in a lot of ways that they are rumors, that Art Basel is planning on taking the digital side more seriously. It's exciting seeing in real time these worlds coming together and being connected.
One more takeaway, just from a bit of a macro perspective and also just from going straight from Lisbon to Basel, was, I think, the really important role that Arab Bank Switzerland is playing. In no way am I trying to shill them or whatever. They're not our sponsor or anything like that. But I just think that they're playing quite an important role, bringing people together in this space, connecting this space with more people from the traditional side. They did that in Lisbon and they did that in Basel, and they do it at a high level. I think it benefits the whole space. I think that they stood out to me just in terms of people who I think are playing maybe an important role but that is maybe unheralded.
Conrad House: I was going to reiterate that fact that you brought up about Arab Bank, Peter. I know some people can probably be a bit hesitant when an institution enters into the art space and pretty hesitant on what their intentions may be, but overall, I think they've done a really good job. I think what they've provided to the space has been really crucial at times. Just recently at NFC, the presentation of Andreas Rau's Inventory Numbers work was fantastic. The screen that they had for that was perfect for the piece. You can tell a lot of thought went into it. It's always great to see. I think we can be hesitant when big money people like this come into our space, but we should also be pretty supportive when they do do a good job. We should herald them for the work they're doing recently.
Peter Bauman: Yeah. They're doing things like awards. Anna Ridler and Sofia Crespo won their Artist of the Year. Cezar Mocan won their Emerging Artist Award. Residencies. So they're doing things that are drawing attention to these artists, I think a lot of the interesting artists, and I think they're doing good in a sincere way.
That is a good transition, Conrad, what you mentioned about Andreas, to maybe just some of our favorites of the quarter. We talked about a lot of the big picture things and events and trends and how we were involved in this quarter. But what about just the art that we liked this quarter?
Conrad House: Yeah, maybe we can kick it off with our exhibitions of the quarter, what we were looking at, what really stuck with us throughout the quarter. I think this one will be maybe a bit more fun since maybe we'll focus on a couple of non-digital things at first. But I think one of my exhibitions of the year is, I guess, a funnier one, but it's Taewon Ahn's Sync exhibition at Project Native Informant in London. Taewon Ahn is a really incredible artist who creates these cat compositions, deforming the image of a cat, that are quite renowned, especially online, for the work he's done. He has this feline muse. I believe the cat's name is Hiro, and he always paints or creates Hiro to exist in these very physically complex realities where the portions of this cat's body are really exaggerated. I love a lot of these low-poly aesthetics that he creates and the 3D forms that he has. He's always been an artist that I really loved and laughed at, and his work brings me a lot of joy. It was really awesome to see him have this new show in London this past quarter, something definitely non-digital, non-NFT, non-generative. But the reason I wanted to bring it up is because any other projects that we talk about that are really NFT or generative, people maybe already have seen and already know about. So maybe this is something that somebody hasn't seen and can lead them down to something a bit new.
thefunnyguys: Maybe I can also hop in with one of my favorite exhibitions of this quarter. Well, I'm not sure if technically it counts as an exhibition, but every year at Art Basel there is the Unlimited section, which is basically one extremely large space for installation artworks. This year, there was a really interesting piece, which was basically a procession of more than 80 sculptures, machines, anthropomorphic objects by Atelier Van Lieshout. The piece was called The Voyage: A March to Utopia. That piece really left a deep impression on me. Every single object was quite interesting. It was very absurd and it came from a wild fantasy. My interpretation of the piece was that these artists took their moment at the main art fair of the year to hold up a mirror to the visitors, reflecting on humans' desire to always want more, to want to bend reality to our will, how absurd that sometimes can be. And of course, it's a great crowd to show this mirror to. I thought it was a very unique piece of art. I've never really seen anything like it in my life. So that was my favorite piece/exhibition of the quarter.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, maybe this can be artwork/exhibitions. If we're talking about exhibitions, one exhibition that I want to highlight from this past quarter was Luba Elliott's. She was the curator of the AI Art Gallery at the CVPR conference. CVPR, that's the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference. It's more of a researcher conference, but Luba has, for the last couple of years, curated this massive group show that really turns out to be highlighting a lot of overlooked AI artists and also just the AI art that is probably the most cutting edge and the most interesting. She looks at over 100 artists and projects, and some of my favorite artwork of the year, which we'll talk about more in a minute, comes directly from that show. We are really fortunate that Luba wrote about that show for us earlier this month, Reprogramming Sensory Habits. I would say that's probably my favorite exhibition of the year.
One other one that we, I think, all liked was Machine Love, the video game and AI show at the Mori Art Museum. There was also an interesting The World Through AI show in Paris at the Jeu de Paume. And then Electric Op went from Buffalo to Nantes. So a few other interesting shows this quarter. Anything that you guys wanted to mention about them?
Conrad House: I think maybe since I highlighted a non-digital one, the more digital one that stands out is the Machine Love show at the Mori Art Museum and their exploration of a lot of different generative systems, whether that's AI, VR and different forms of it. I think that's a really great show, obviously having people there like Kate Crawford and Lu Yang and others. It's a really good showcasing. To have Mori Art put it together, too, is quite nice to see. That one is definitely, I think, the standout digital exhibition that we saw during this quarter.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, I think it was a really good show. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to see it in person but did hear good things. Maybe we can move to the art that we liked this year. This could be projects or releases, or even a couple of mine were more exhibitions. This is just what was some of our favorite art that we saw this year. Jan, do you want to start us off?
thefunnyguys: Yeah, sure. The piece I wanted to emphasize is called Symphony for n Metronomes by Andreas Rau, which is going to be released on Verse. I believe the piece itself fits well in this lineage of participatory generative art. As you all know, basically since Snowfro started with Art Blocks, community participation or collector participation in generative art has always been important. A collector had to cause the transaction. This transaction hash had to be used for the generative art piece to exist. And then there were collections along the way, such as QQL, that brought this collector participation to a different level, where the collector is not just passively participating but also picking certain parameters that influence what the final token looks like.
I think this piece by Andreas fits really well in this trend towards more and more community or collector participation. In this artwork, if you mint a token, that token represents one metronome. But this metronome doesn't just exist in solitary. It exists in a collaborative sculpture where every single token is one metronome, and together they perform as an orchestra, which also reminds me, by the way, of the plotter orchestras of Marcel Schwittlick, where there's also all these machines that are on themselves quite predictable. Together, they create an interesting performance. So I think this piece is also wonderfully executed. If you spend some time with the artwork, Andreas has really thought about every single detail. If you double click, you can switch from the performance view to a view on your individual metronome that is a part of this performance, and you can interact with the piece in other different ways. For me, this is one of the best pieces I've seen lately.
Conrad House: Yeah, I agree with Jan there a lot on that piece that is releasing. That project is obviously being presented by Verse and Fakewhale, who I think has been another standout figure or organization this quarter, especially with another one of our favorite releases coming through them with Jan Robert Leegte and Walled Garden, which is, I think, going to be the standout release that I have for this quarter. I think it's harkening on a lot of the things that Jan mentioned with this collector participation, creating more of an on-chain performance with your artwork, these newer ways artists are exploring these contract environments and 3D environments and digital spaces that we inhabit. Walled Garden was a perfect example of this. The whole idea of experiencing this one similar art object, which is the garden, but with a group of collectors that you're all familiar with, and each person having a different view or a different take on the piece, is really interesting.
It also added a lot of interesting collecting dynamics for Jan and I. One of the things that we thought would be quite fun is to collect two pieces that were essentially looking at each other from the garden. So they were witnessing each other's viewing performances. When you look at each piece displayed, you can click on each of the viewport windows of the walled garden and see which collectors you're sharing spaces with. It's a very fun community experiment of social interactions, and also just seeing some of the elements that Jan Robert Leegte provided within his garden, specifically the scroll bar that we see sitting within the garden and how different viewpoints within the garden can see these different components better than others. It's a really incredible project. One thing we've always loved about Jan Robert Leegte is how he's talked about his work being sculptural. It's a very 3D sculptural material where he uses these internet and web elements to craft this work together. This really does feel like a true sculptural piece by Jan this time. It's a really fun project to collect, and I think it's gotten a lot of collective praise, which was great to see. And shout out to Fakewhale and what they've been doing this past quarter and continue to do, because they've been putting out really great work lately. So I hope it continues.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, I think those are really good choices. I want to echo what both of you have said about this emphasis on interaction. That's also what's been resonating with me this quarter, especially, I think, in more contemporary spaces, in gallery and museum settings, where you see work more on an installation level. I'm interested in that thing that has moved beyond just a series of maybe screens on a wall but that is more interactive and participatory and embodied, and also just multimedia and experiential. One of the examples is Jordan Wolfson's Little Room, which was at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. This piece is really bizarre. It's even hard to explain. But you enter this sphere of cameras that takes a picture of your whole body from 360 degrees. Then with a partner, you're placed in this virtual world where you see each other through the other person's eyes. You are basically an embodied form of your partner in this virtual world, and you interact with each other. That piece is really bizarre. It gets you to think about all these different things. I won't give too much away, but there are surprises when you're in this world. It really showcases what is possible with art, even if it's not the 100% perfect piece. But it's something that jars you and is memorable and shows you how powerful art can be, especially when you're experiencing it.
Other interesting work along similar lines is something like Diffuse Control by Beeple, this AI kinetic sculpture. I think it's similar in the sense that it's interactive and it's participatory, but it's also using emerging technologies and it's using them in novel ways. Especially the more I see of it, opening this week at The Shed in New York, it's something that I would really like to see in person. I think it's really interesting work and shows all the different things that AI makes possible. From that, from something that's really physical and experiential, to something like another one of my favorite AI projects of the quarter, which is DX Terminal by DX Research Group. It's this AI simulation that is entirely virtual, entirely takes place on a screen, and it's almost the opposite in many ways. Or it shows the other end of the spectrum from a lot of this other more embodied, experiential AI work.
A few other things that I wanted to highlight. The Rachel Rossin show The Totalists that opened in London. Again, she's doing really interesting work with AI where people, when they see it, wouldn't necessarily even know that the artist was using AI in their workflow. They're training AI on their childhood drawings and then reinterpreting them and repainting them. So that Rachel Rossin show is really interesting. And then a couple of works from Luba's show at CVPR that she highlighted in the piece with us: Tom White's Atlas of Perception, otherwise known as the flower sculpture if you've seen or read the piece. The other work is by Karyn Nakamura and it's Surface Tension. All of these works, Karyn's and Tom's and Rachel Rossin's and DX Terminal, everything except for Jordan's work, are AI work. It really demonstrates all the different ways that artists can use AI in their workflow and the different materialities and physical forms that final art can take. It's a really wide breadth of work that has just come out over the last few months. So I'm as excited as ever about the future of this work.
Conrad House: I think it's a great transition to maybe the actual favorite acquisitions that we've had this quarter. Just sticking on the AI train that we're on right now, Peter, my favorite by far this quarter is Bloemenveiling by Anna Ridler. We were able to acquire two of the tokens from the original Bloemenveiling contract. This is an artwork and project and series that thefunnyguys and I specifically have been hunting for a long time now. It's really a standout project, not just for the time that it was released, but just the performance and conceptual nature of the project was so far ahead of its time with what Anna was trying to do. The story behind the piece is huge. We released a nice little Twitter thread about the acquisition that dives a bit deeper into the series.
But Bloemenveiling was essentially this on-chain auction art performance that replicated a lot of the tulip mania that occurred during the 1600s and even some of the more recent tulip manias that occurred during the more contemporary digitized markets. Anna really does a great job of exploring these relations by creating these AI-generated tulips that, at the time in 2019, collectors could bid on. You were bidding on a pixelated preview of this tulip that you were going to buy, and you were competing against these other bots that Anna Ridler had created to compete against you, to create this market dynamic that existed in real-time financial markets, where you have these financial bots that are constantly competing against you for expected value plays or whatever it may be. Then once collectors did win these auctions, this digital GAN-generated tulip that they would have would actually begin to wilt. It would die. This digital object had a timeline on it, a week timeline of when this flower would eventually decay, and this image and artwork that you had would eventually wilt away. It's really such an impactful performance.
It's something that we've always loved. Every few months, we looked at avenues of, hey, is there some available on the market? How can we get one into the collection? We were finally able to close the deal on it and it felt huge. There's a few pieces in the collection where, when we finally acquired them, it felt like, wow, this was really a dream bucket list goal that we checked off. And Bloemenveiling felt like one of those. So it's always great to get more work by Anna in the collection. She's an incredible artist. Getting something like this is just the cream of the crop for us. So really a standout one for not just this quarter but all the years that we've been collecting so far.
thefunnyguys: I totally agree that that is a standout acquisition by far. Really happy with that piece. We also got to commission some artworks this quarter. One of the pieces we commissioned was VCA by Peter Beyls. Peter Beyls is one of the OG Algorists. He was part of the group with Roman Verostko, Hébert. He has been creating generative art since 1974. He started with plotter drawings. Over the years, he has explored a lot of different types of generative arts, also experimented a lot with music. But the piece that we acquired, called VCA, is based on cellular automata, which is the technique that he learned about in 1979. I think the artwork is quite fascinating. It's based on a quite simple technique where each cell updates based on local rules. Then there's also a color mapping layer on top of that that brings some random colors into the mix. So although the logic behind the piece is quite simple, I do think the artwork is very captivating. It has very interesting emergent behavior. The artist himself calls it a self-regulating algorithmic cinema. I do think that's a good description for this piece. You can watch this for a while, and I promise you that you will get surprised. It's always amazing to bring a pioneer into the collection. That was one of the highlights for me this quarter.
“Then once collectors did win these auctions, this digital GAN-generated tulip that they would have would actually begin to wilt. It would die.” — Conrad House 42:32
Conrad House: Maybe one thing just to quickly add on that Beyls acquisition. It's really cool to see pioneers like Beyls working with more contemporary tools. A lot of times when we talk to pioneering artists, sometimes it's hard for them to keep up to date with all the new tools and softwares that are being created. Sometimes they like to stay in their previous aesthetics, previous systems, and stick with what they knew instead of exploring something new and maybe unknown to them. But with Peter, it's really cool to see him, even to this day, still creating something new, still working with new systems, still not just sitting in the same old rut that he was doing work in decades ago. It's really fascinating to see what his mind comes up with today.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, those are really both good choices. I love both of those works. One that is along the same lines that I've chosen for this quarter is Tandem by Harshit Agrawal. It was a permission piece where we reached out to him and had a discussion about work that he felt was relevant to now in 2025. But it's really interesting historical work from that 2016 alt-AI show that I think is a really fascinating and really important show in AI art history. It could be something like the Howard Wise show of AI art. So this work by Harshit is from that show that Gene Kogan curated back in 2016. If you look at some of the other artists that were in that show, it's people like Mario and Allison Parrish and Tom White, some of the really important people from the beginnings of AI art. It's cool to have a little bit of that history in the Le Random collection, a prominent piece from that show.
Yeah, maybe we can also talk about some of the content over the last quarter that we enjoyed. How about you, Conrad?
Conrad House: Editorial-wise, content-wise, the favorite things that came from the Le Random editorial side this quarter were both the Luba Elliott pieces, one that we already mentioned with Reprogramming Sensory Habits and then also Object Misrecognition. I think Luba is almost like a grand master in the AI space. At least that's how I see her, almost like an overseeing seer. Whenever she's speaking or putting something together, you take the time to pay attention to it. Those were awesome. Overall in this quarter, I think, Peter, you had a pretty heavy focus on AI in the editorial content pipeline. So it was really cool to see that focus. It's always insightful to see Luba's takes on a lot of things. Just her take on the CVPR exhibition that she put together was really nice. And seeing her talk about some of the artists that maybe are a bit more unknown to the people in our space but deserve a stage and a spotlight is really nice to see. Every time I read something from Luba or hear something or listen to something that Luba says, it always leads me down a rabbit hole, which is nice, and she always leads me to explore more. So shout out to Luba for that.
thefunnyguys: Yeah, my favorite, let's say, content moment this quarter is actually not a written piece, and this will sound like a shameful self-plug, but it was the conference that we co-hosted at the Digital Art Mile, generative and AI art. I think you, Peter, did a great job interviewing Sougwen Chung, Sofia Crespo and Feileacan. I thought it was super interesting to hear from both of them on stage because they both use AI, but they do it in such different ways. Also, the way they present the work is so different. It was one of those panels where the discussion actually went in depth. We actually learned a lot about these specific artists, how they look, how they have a very different view on similar themes. I feel like with panels, that's often lacking. It often just scratches the surface. The 25 minutes are over and it's on to the next one. But this one was, I think, particularly good.
Then later in the day, there was also a very interesting discussion with JJ Charlesworth from ArtReview, where he was interviewing Simon Denny and Hito Steyerl. I was particularly impressed with Hito. It was the first time I heard her speak. But the way that she looks at the art world. She really has this incredible helicopter view or bird's-eye view of the entire art world as a system and how all the different niches interact. I thought it was super fascinating to listen to her. That was definitely a highlight as well.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, for me, for content, I was really excited to put up the digital art guide for New York earlier. And nice to get some different voices. Conrad, you mentioned Luba, but also Kevin, and we have some more of those coming up later this year. I really liked that talk with Gene Kogan and Tom White. I thought that was a really fun talk at the beginning of this quarter. And then I got to talk to people like Beeple and Marina Abramović and Dmitri Cherniak, people that I've been looking forward to chatting with for quite a while. So it was a nice quarter. We're just in the middle of the year. We have the whole rest of the year to look forward to, and things are definitely happening that we're excited about. So do we want to highlight anything next quarter or the rest of the year that we're excited about?
Conrad House: Just really quickly, as we wrap up, one thing I'm looking forward to. I think we mentioned Jan Robert Leegte a lot. I think we mentioned him this call. I think we mentioned him last quarter call previously, probably. We really love Leegte's work. We love keeping up with him, and he has a solo show occurring with Office Impart at Paris Photo this year, I believe. That is what I will be looking forward to, to see what he comes out with. He's an artist I always look forward to seeing what he's creating. To know that he has something coming forward with Office Impart, who's also a great partner to work with, I think, is exciting.
“She really has this incredible helicopter view or bird's-eye view of the entire art world as a system and how all the different niches interact.” — thefunnyguys 50:11
thefunnyguys: Yeah, I would want to highlight an exhibition that is happening next month in Bellinzona, which is in the southern part of Switzerland, very close to the Italian border. It's actually also this quarter that we commissioned works from Dirk Koy. We commissioned two unique pieces, Salvage and Builder. And he is the one next month who will get a... Well, it's not a solo exhibition, because he's inviting friends who will also show some work, friends such as Sidi Vanetti or Andreas Gysin. But he will be the central person of the show. The show will mostly be about his work. They're going to show it at a castle in Bellinzona on a hilltop. So I'm very excited about that.
This exhibition is being organized by the MuDA, and the MuDA is, I think, a very fascinating organization. They have been active in digital art for a while. I don't know exactly what year they started, but it was at least a few years before the NFT hype. I believe during the COVID pandemic, or just before the COVID pandemic, they raised some funds through a Kickstarter to open a physical space in Zurich. But then the pandemic happened and it became financially totally impossible to keep the space open. So that meant that just before the NFT boom, they closed the organization. They had already worked with QBV, with Zach Lieberman, with Andreas Gysin. They really showed incredible taste all throughout. So it's super exciting to see that they're revamping the organization. They're starting up again, and next month will be the first exhibition that they do.
Peter Bauman: Yeah, that's really exciting. I think also in terms of definitely the next quarter, things that we're excited about is the Toledo Museum of Art's Infinite Images. So Le Random will have that. Well, we have that covered. We had the interview with curator Julia Kaganskiy that came out this week. We're having a video discussion with Erick Calderon, Snowfro, Tyler Hobbs and Sofia Crespo. And then we also have an artist interview with Deafbeef, where we're going to talk about his glitchbox sculpture, and Sarah Meyohas, also Jared Tarbell. And then one more piece, the fourth, is a review by Kevin Buist. So four pieces about the show. It's a show at a museum in the US that is explicitly and specifically about generativity and generative art. It looks at it from a perspective that definitely aligns with Le Random in the sense that it ties back to the history but is also related to the present with things like AI and blockchain. I think it will be quite an important and interesting show, and I'm happy that we have the opportunity to cover it like we do.
Yeah. Anything else that we want to go over? 2025. Big year so far. We're expecting big things for the second half.
Conrad House: No, nothing else. Thanks for sticking around and listening.
Peter Bauman: I think that will be the quarter review wrapped up. Thank you for listening, everyone. And thank you guys for the great discussion.
thefunnyguys: Yeah. Thank you, guys.
Conrad House: Thanks, everybody. Take care.
Peter Bauman: Bye-bye.
