Van Gogh Exhibit
Recently my family and I saw the Van Gogh exhibit in Sacramento, California. This show is an interactive exhibit that has locations across the United States. The previews for the show looked amazing, so we wanted to take advantage of it.
The show uses multimedia in a very effective way. There are paintings and signage on the walls—projections of his images onto surfaces that create an immersive experience. In one room, there is a large three-dimensional flower pot on a wall that projects different Van Gogh flower paintings on the wall. The transitions between images are magical as they fade or dissolve into the next piece.
The exhibit has music specific to each area and audio narrations. At this point, it was a standard museum visit. That all changed as you went into the largest room of the exhibit. There were chairs, fences, and areas to sit on the floor in this room. It looked like people were there for a picnic. As we got our bearings, we realized that his paintings or parts of his paintings were projected on different walls simultaneously. The music, words, images, and transitions tell a story of the artist’s life and work. Seeing a hand-drawn interior come to life as paint began to appear in different areas was stunning. The same image on each wall made other choices of where o apply the paint. The viewer(us) is mesmerized by the different possible approaches that Van Gogh made while painting.
The transitions and the scenes in this room transformed us into a tapestry of time and space specific to Van Gogh’s world People would gather and stay there for an hour or more. Even if you saw a moment before, there was always something new to see as it cycled through again.
That could have been the exhibit. I felt dread leaving the room, wondering if it was over. A flash of joy as we exited into a new space that had a table with crayons. There were coloring book-style pages of van Gogh’s work that people could color and hang on the walls.
The last room of the exhibit had Virtual Reality goggles. You enter into a world of the artist’s paintings narrated by an actor portraying Vincent Van Gogh. In the artist’s own words, you travel through his work and his opinions on painting. You could look above, below, to your sides, or even behind you with the VR. It didn’t matter. There was something to see everywhere.
The journey ended with a passage through the gift shop. There were prints, mugs, and books with Van Gog’s art. It was a moment of irony to realize the artist suffered so much in life, and to see his paintings on teddy bears was jarring. This a lesson for artists who seek to “make it.” If you do “make it,” someone will ultimately profit from your work. The question then is, who you rather profit from your work, yourself or someone else hundred of years from now?
The show glossed over some of the darker details of Van Gogh’s life to comfortably share it with a larger market. The augmented reality was transformative. This innovative exhibit will surely be the new norm for destination art exhibits. It was different than looking at his work in a book, on a laptop, or even in a gallery. The space came alive. Thoughts I wrestled with on the way home were how the overlooked graphic designers, VR, and CGI artists brought this to life. Their talents could make the most pedestrian of us look heroic. Their storytelling through various media is beginning to eclipse the artist himself.
Let’s Talk NFTs
Introduction
In this post, we’ll explore some of the basics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and how you can use them to formalize your digital art collection.
What’s an NFT?
NFTs are non-fungible tokens. Unlike cryptocurrency, which is fungible and can be traded as a whole, NFTs are unique items that cannot be broken down into smaller units. This means that an NFT can be sold as one unit, but it’s impossible to break it down into multiple parts and trade them separately.
How does NFT ownership work?
This is where things get really interesting. To own an NFT, you must be able to verify that you have the right to do so. For example, if someone sold a digital representation of their dog named “Chewbacca” on the blockchain (which is possible), then they would need to prove that they own Chewbacca by providing proof like a photo or video of him/herself with their pet and showing ownership documents like vaccination records and vet bills. This requires verification from both parties: buyer and seller.
NFTs are unique digital assets that exist in cyberspace until they’re transferred or traded on secondary markets. This means they cannot be duplicated and cannot be counterfeited because all records are stored on tamper-proof blockchains which are shared by thousands of computers around the world—and no one can change them without significant effort and expense!
NFTs make digital art formal and collectible!
NFTs are digital art. They’re collectible. And they’re the new way to own art, music and video games. They’re also a new way for artists to make money: no middlemen or record companies involved.
Conclusion
NFTs are a new way to own digital art. They’re like having a piece of your favorite song or movie on vinyl, but they don’t need to be kept in an expensive case—you can keep your NFTs wherever you want! And because of their unique nature, the way we use them is also different from other types of ownership: when you buy an NFT, it doesn’t just go into your wallet until you spend it at some shop or restaurant someday (or on eBay). Instead, it stays locked up until someone withdraws funds from their account with some kind of proof that they own what used to be called “crypto currency.” For example: maybe they have the private key associated with that specific token address that only makes sense if we know who owns what balance within it first.
January 6, 2021–A Good Man’s Courage
16”x20” Gouache painting
A snapshot of America in a perilous moment. Inspired by Officer Eugene Goodman saved members of Congress that day preserving our democracy. This piece is a starting point of a discussion of where we are, where we came from and where we can go.
