ARTGORITHM Exhibition

Superlative Secret Society
5 min readMay 7, 2024

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A Phygital Collaboration Show between Superlative Gallery x Galeri Zen1

Recently, the value of cryptocurrencies for non-fungible token or NFT digital art products has begun to creep up. Not only because of that, a number of artists are now adapting digital blockchain technology to NFTs to be combined with physical or conventional works.

The digital recording of works via blockchain technology in NFTs is used to certify conventional paintings or royalty contracts. A number of artists from several regions displayed this adaptation in an exhibition entitled Phygital Art Show: ArtGorithm — Art in Chain, at Zen1 Gallery, Jakarta.

The exhibition took place from February 3rd to February 24th, 2024. The choice of the word “phygital” refers to the acronym “physical and digital”.

One of the participants, Yahya Rifandaru (43), revealed that the value of cryptocurrency in August 2023 in the range of 1 ethereum was equivalent to IDR 25 million-IDR 30 million. In February 2024, it had crept up with the value of 1 ethereum equivalent to around IDR 43 million.

“In 2020, I started to step down from my job in the design field. I continued being an artist and started following NFTs. “Until now, more than 50 works have been sold on NFT,” said Yahya, a man from Kudus who now lives in Tangerang, Thursday (15/2/2024).

While working in the design field, Yahya observed NFT issues via the social media Twitter. There, he learned that global collectors liked works of art made by artists from Indonesia who were considered more interesting and had more varied content.

According to Yahya, every work that collectors are interested in and buy is because it is related or connected. He gave an example, when he took part in the Art Moment exhibition in Jakarta, August 2023, he included the characteristics of works that were sold as a combination of NFT and conventional.

Even though the work seems abstract in style, Yahya includes material figures so it cannot be considered a pure abstract work.

He was inspired by the experience of cycling and observing the moving clouds changing their shape.

“The clouds seemed to be moving to form something. “Sometimes it’s shaped like a dog, then it changes again into another shape,” said Yahya, who studied design and visual communication at the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) in Surabaya.

A collector then asked about his work. Yahya also told about the cloud. Collectors feel a connection to the story. Finally, the painting was sold by collectors. The currency used remains the rupiah, worth IDR 35 million.

From June 2023 until now, Yahya has joined the NFT-based artist collective, Superlative Secret Society (SSS), in Tangerang. The art concept combines physical and digital works. This method is felt to be quite helpful in distributing works to the public.

“In these times we still can’t be sure whether there is a transition from conventional to digital or even back from digital to conventional again?” Yahya said. At the front of the Zen1 Gallery exhibition room, the largest painting is displayed. The painting uses acrylic paint on canvas measuring 400 cm x 150 cm and consists of four panels. The painting is entitled “We As Your Imagination”. This painting is by Radetyo “Itok” Sindu Utomo from Jakarta who now lives in Yogyakarta.

“This work has also become a combination of physical and digital work, even though literally I only worked on it as a physical painting,” said Itok.

He admitted that until now it was still too much trouble to turn the work he made physically into digital work. In this exhibition, Itok was assisted by the SSS collective to make it a digital work.

For a number of artists, linking physically created works of art to digital works into the NFT blockchain is a challenge in itself. Like Itok, as an artist he is too busy struggling with ideas and their execution to become a painting on canvas. The work to make it an NFT digital work remains unfinished.

This work is also a combination of physical and digital work even though literally I only work on it as a physical painting.

“I agree with the phygital concept which combines digital and conventional works. “However, so far artists like me still need parties who can help,” said Itok.

This exhibition, curated by ISI Yogyakarta academic, Sudjud Dartanto, presented artists selected by Zen1 Gallery and Superlative Gallery. Zen1 Gallery displayed works by Andry “Boy” Kurniawan, Made Bayak, Radetyo Itok, Syakieb Sungkar, Teja Astawa, and Yudi Sulistyo. The Superlative Gallery displayed works by Acul Caos, Arief Witjaksana, Dhado Wacky, Rijan Maulana, and Yahya Rifandaru.

Sudjud Dartanto said that the combination of physical and digital works was an effort to immerse himself in blockchain technology in NFTs. This will provide several benefits for artists.

There are at least four benefits from this fusion. First, the work has a digital certificate which is required for every transaction. Second, the digital certificate can state a contract letter, including a contract letter to bind royalties to the artist every time a resale transaction occurs.

The next benefit, by merging physically and digitally, is that the origin of the work can be traced. Then, fourth, blockchain technology provides a solution for the authenticity of works.

“We have experienced the rise of fake paintings and this has reduced the credibility of Indonesian artists in the eyes of the international community. “With phygital, we can reduce the risk of painting forgery,” said Sudjud.

According to Sudjud, the works exhibited this time reflect a diversity of expressions, forms, and ideas. Starting from neomodern to contemporary expressions. Then, from doodling-style works to narrative, symbolic, abstract, and figurative.

“The works reflect various types of awareness and the fragmentary spirit of the times, involving various intersections of elements, such as street art, popular culture, tradition, and the global,” he said.

This phygital concept or combination of physical and conventional is inevitable due to the decline in the value of cryptocurrencies that has occurred since 2021–2022. Since then, NFTs have been in the doldrums. However, recently NFTs and cryptocurrency values have started to rise again.

”Those who keep the bitcoin cryptocurrency obtained over the past years can make big profits. “In a year, the value of 1 bitcoin, which was originally around IDR 400 million, is now around IDR 730 million,” said Sudjud.

Through this exhibition of phygital combination works, Sudjud invites artists to prepare themselves.

Source: Kompas.com

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