Beeple, installation view of Everydays – The 2020 Collection , 2020, in “Virtual Niche: Have You Ever Seen Memes in the Mirror?,” at UCCA Lab, Beijing, 2021. Courtesy of Block Create Art (BCA). Block Create Art’s business took off by complete surprise. When the Beijing-based, blockchain-focused art and technology company started working with UCCA Lab (the special programs department of UCCA, China’s foremost contemporary art museum) last September on an exhibition of non-fungible tokens, NFTs were still unknown to the majority of the art […]

Chapel Hill-based Adapt Bionics is using 3D printing to help athletes with limb loss get back in the game. (Photo Courtesy of Adapt Bionic) This article was written for our sponsor, the Town of Chapel Hill . More than 2 million people in the United States live with limb loss get back in the game. “I knew that I wanted to work in spaces to help people with disabilities and injuries. When I was in my MBA program, my mom was involved in a bad accident and fractured her C1 vertebrae, and the doctors gave her a 75 percent chance of being a quadriplegic for the rest of her life. As someone who spent the last 10 years working in the startup space, I got kind of frustrated that more people weren’t focusing on these serious types of issues,” […]

On March 11, 2021, British auction house Christie’s minted the third most expensive living artist in the world, Mike Winkelmann. The 41-year-old South Carolinian, who began creating artwork in 2007 under the alias “Beeple,” created one piece a day and combined works from five thousand days into a single block for the sale. In addition to the sheer number of works sold at once, and an astronomical $69 million price tag, the auction was exceptional for another reason: the works were all digital. To some, selling a JPEG file might seem like the scam of the century. Nothing could seem more valueless than an arrangement of pixels being copied endlessly, millions of times over, until there are more copies than could ever be demanded. But within this particular JPEG hides a unique feature allowing the file to be bought and sold […]

IPAC will be Pasco County’s first fully operational professional performing arts center. With its modern architectural design, the 36,000-square-foot IPAC is a Green Globes Level 3-certified building. (Chad Baumer) With its modern architectural design, the 36,000-square-foot IPAC is a Green Globes Level 3-certified building. (Chad Baumer) WESLEY CHAPEL, FL […]

One of the works Sella will discuss is a black and white photograph of Frederick Douglass . Photomontage courtesy of Alexis Boo ’22. Adam Sella ’22 searches the museums’ collections to explore how art and technology interact, while insisting that art itself is a form of technology. He will […]

Meet the Leading NFT Collectors – Bloomberg identifies some of the biggest and most active early collectors of NFTs. They include Eric Young, a fin-tech businessman, who has invested more than $1 million on around 350 NFTs and recently won an artwork by Pak in Sotheby’s high-profile sale. Pablo Rodriguez and Colborn Bell, meanwhile, started up a shared art collection some years ago and established the first online museum of crypto art. There are, notably, no women collectors on this list. (Bloomberg) […]

Nice Shoes’ Ninaad Kulkarni tells LBB’s Laura Swinton about his experience minting digital art Nice Shoes’ Ninaad Kulkarni tells LBB’s Laura Swinton about his experience minting digital art and the broader implications for the creative industries and the broader implications for the creative industries It’s been hard to move for news about NFTs – or non-fungible tokens – in recent weeks. At the beginning of March, the artist Beeple sold their […]