SNEAK PEEK
- Jack Butcher is releasing a 152-piece generative art collection paired with hand-drawn physical prints.
- The new collection features the signature Checks grid and explores the four elements of water, earth, air and fire.
- The elements air, water and earth will be offered at an auction at Christie’s tomorrow, i.e. April 16.
Visualize Value founder and the artist behind the Checks VV NFT collection, Jack Butcher, is launching Checks Elements, a new project that combines generative artwork with hand-drawn physical prints.
Checks Elements includes a 152-piece generative art collection inspired by the four elements- water, earth, air, and fire. Every art is an exclusive, algorithmically-generated composite of colors that not only creates these elements but also probes the dynamic relationship between consensus and truth.
Butcher shared that elements are theoretically the most basic example of decentralized consensus. He added that they are trying to apply the themes that Checks aims to express regarding consensus on the internet to pre-internet consensus. This means that all different cultures, parts of the world, languages, and various perspectives landed on the four elements of water, earth, air, and fire.
The team altered the algorithm that formed the original Checks collection as well as added certain new parameters to make the new collection. Butcher partnered with Jean Robert Milant and Cirrus Editions to instill life into the NFT outputs and convert them into hand-drawn 30-inch by 43-inch monoprints created through an on-chain SVG file fed via a vintage lithographic printing press.
The physical prints were created by engraving the signature on a four-by-four check grid adjacent to a plate used by the printer. Every color in the collection was added one after another on the basis of algorithmic outputs made by Butcher and his team. This was followed by authenticating each physical artwork by using Butcher’s fingerprint and combining it with an Ethereum-backed NFT.
Butcher continued that converting checks into physical artwork never felt like something was continuing the project’s DNA until they had spoken to Milant to gain an understanding of the process. The way such prints come from a set of limitations is similar to how they are changed later on the basis of rules generated by a computer.
On May 16, three elements- air, water, and earth will be offered at an auction at Christie’s. A part of the funds from the sale will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The physical work and its digital counterparts will then be displayed at Christie’s New York gallery starting May 20. The fourth element, i.e., fire, will be offered through public auction for 24 hours. On June 24, the physical prints will begin shipping.
The auction will use “some of the dynamics” that were used in the original Checks collections; however, this project won’t certainly be interoperable with other gamified pieces.
Talking about the previous Checks collection that was inspired by Twitter’s popularized blue verification check mark, owners are able to composite non-fungible tokens to make smaller and exclusive editions of checkmarks.
A few things will be carried over when the remaining collection will be offered at auction after Christie’s and this will not run as a traditional and ordinary auction. Though there are many mechanics, the idea of elements for the long term is to exist as pairs that complement the current checks space.
Collectors may wish to disconnect their physical prints from their non-fungible tokens to sell them separately; however, they will want to keep them together for provenance purposes.
President of Beyond Art Creative Martin Klipp, who helped to make the artwork a possibility, said making a deliberate choice to not include a burn mechanism into this thing. He believes that both pieces are art and were twinned. Also, they have their advantages and exist together or separate.
