In 1999, programmer Alex Galloway, artist Mark Tribe, and researcher Martin Wattenberg created a comprehensive online archive for Rhizome. The platform had launched three years earlier as a mailing list for discussions of new media art, and the trio’s approach to recording their dialogue was suitably visual, relying on digital technology. Title Starry Nightthe resulting interface allowed users to navigate a constellation of stars in a digital night sky, each linked to a keyword and associated emails.
Alas, despite its importance as a work of art on the Net, Starry Night would eventually stop working, its body of text lost for over a decade – until now. Rhizome, now affiliated with the New Museum, has resurrected interfacepartially recovering its text content and allowing it to run on later operating systems than Windows 1998. And in a further move, the team brought the work up to date with the Web3 era.
Postcards from StarryNight #100. Courtesy of Rhizome and TRLab.
On June 28, Rhizome, in partnership with the Web3 TRLab platform, launched “Postcards from StarryNight”, a now depleted collection of 151 NFTs extracted from museum-quality screenshots of the restored version of Starry Night. Each of these still images relates to a distinct keyword – from “meme” to “performance” to “social space” – making them unique and unique pieces. Proceeds from the sale, which now totals 5 ETH (approximately $9,848) in volume, will be used to support Rhizome’s archiving and commissioning work.
“This project is very important in our history,” Michael Conner, co-director of Rhizome, told Artnet News about Starry Night. “We are very proud to share it in this way to tell the story of our preservation work and our story to a wider community.”
The NFT drop inaugurates the new Seed joint venture of Rhizome and TRLab, positioned as an educational journey through the history of generative art or more broadly of creative coding, which Starry Night deployed. Visitors from Seed website can dig into a brief history of generative space as seen through Rhizome’s Net Art Archive, through which are scattered “Seedlings” or digital collectibles that can be added to their digital portfolios.
Screenshot of Seed’s generative art story. Courtesy of TRLab.
As a digital born organization, Rhizome is itself no stranger to the NFT space. Its flagship event Seven on Seven notably incubated Kevin McCoy’s Quantum (2014), widely regarded as the first NFT art. Seed, however, marks its deeper engagement with the Web3 space that has been well thought out, according to Connor.
“In 2021, we were watching the boom happen with a lot of knowledge and perspective on it, but not necessarily an understanding of how best to engage as an institution. We were going slow and I think we still are,” he explained. “But we’ve seen a lot of really sustainable communities forming in crypto that we want to engage with as the Rhizome.”
In this, Rhizome relied on TRLab to create an NFT experience supported by an educational aspect, just as it did For Calder’s Question, a project launched with the Calder Foundation that aimed to introduce the American sculptor to visitors, while inviting them to buy NFTs. With Seed, the subject delves into the heart of the digital art space and market, which have kissed the generative environment in a big way.
“Within the community of digital art collectors, many newcomers are not yet familiar with the long history of generative art or its connection to online art,” Audrey Ou, co-founder of TRLab, told ArtnetNews. “As the term becomes more commercial, it’s the perfect time for Rhizome to share its educational and visual content with those who want to know how the founding artists got us to this moment, and where it might go next.”
This fall, following the release of “Postcards from StarryNight”, Seed 2 will feature a collection of generative art that serves as genesis artwork from Rhizome and TRLab, before Seed 3 unveils a series of artist commissions also focused on generative forms. The point, Connor added, is to further highlight “an incredible community of practice” that’s here to stay.
“People sometimes say, ‘oh, it’s a hype cycle’, but in my opinion, there’s so much strength and so much passion [in generative art],” he said. “There are clearly people out there who care about software and code, and who are going to support this practice for the long term. That’s what I’m really responding to.
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