When I found out that there was going to be an exhibition in Singapore on digital art centered on the use of blockchains and generative artificial intelligence (AI), my interest was immediately piqued. What I thought was an incredibly niche domain of art would be given a prime spot at the ArtScience Museum at the heart of Marina Bay, for all in Singapore to peruse and enjoy.

Wanting to front-run the crowds, I made plans with a friend and fellow crypto enthusiast to head down to the exhibition on opening day.

Notes from the Ether is a digital art exhibition featuring works engaging with the emerging technologies of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and generative AI. The exhibition boasts a solid line-up of 20 artists, including those who have essentially become household names within the NFT space, such as Tyler Hobbs and Larva Labs. Curated by ArtScience Museum curator Deborah Lim and guest curator Clara Peh, Notes from the Ether will run from 19 August 2023 to 24 September 2023.

Those who may be less familiar with NFTs and generative AI should not feel intimidated from visiting this exhibition, as the explanatory statements accompanying the displays should provide sufficient context for these technologies and how they are employed in the displayed works. That said, it will be prudent to be patient—as these works do push the boundaries of what we think art is and could be, it will take some time to appreciate them.

The exhibition is organised into different sections focused on a specific theme. Taken as a whole, the different themes reflect the range of artistic practices that blockchains and generative AI have made possible. The first section on "Coded Possibilities" celebrates artworks created with algorithms, such as Larva Labs' Autoglyphs—the prime example of a generative artwork whose code script was placed on the blockchain, thereby imbuing the resultant outputs with a certain immutability and longevity.

Another piece that is likely to catch your attention is Tyler Hobbs' and Dandelion Wist's QQL project, which allows collectors to play a role in the creation of generative artworks by offering them the agency to decide certain parameters in the algorithm before deciding which outputs to mint as NFTs. That said, interacting with the QQL algorithm is as much an exercise in control as in surrender. After all, a fundamental element in generative art is randomness, and the parameters you pre-determine are meant to scope but not eliminate this element of chance. Leave the parameters the same, and be surprised by the diversity of the outputs that can still emerge!

Capping off the first section, Emily Xie's Memories of Qilin series features organic forms and textures that hint at elements drawn from East Asian folklore—of dragons, phoenixes, flowers, and mountains. More fundamentally, it showcases the visual subtleties that code can evoke, demonstrating that words and numbers have the ability to call forth life-like compositions and patterns that defy their binary roots.

The second section, "Co-creation", introduces the role of AI in the process of artmaking, and showcases Botto as an example of a form of human-machine collaboration that endeavours to give as much agency as possible to the latter. Conceptualised as a "decentralized autonomous artist" by Mario Klingemann and the software collective ElevenYellow, Botto uses a custom text generator and text-to-image AI models to create thousands of new artworks each week. A “taste” model then selects 350 images to present to the community for voting, with the results determining the canonical piece to be minted as an NFT and auctioned off for the week. Beyond the co-creation angle, I would add that Botto's works are also beautiful because they offer you a chance to see a machine dream on its own terms.

At the risk of spoiling the rest of the exhibition, I shall not elaborate on the rest of the sections in detail. Suffice to say, the remaining sections explore other key aspects of blockchain or generative AI technologies—such as interrogating the concept of ownership, contemplating the interplay between the digital and physical, as well as examining the formation of new online communities and networks.

These artworks may not be conventionally "aesthetic", but they certainly possess a conceptual depth whose artistic merits can only be appreciated with time. As blockchain and generative AI technologies become more pervasive, there will be a growing need to make sense of these technologies and carve out space for a healthy, human experience in the increasingly digital landscapes we will inhabit. This is a key role that art has to play, to smoothen the inflection point ahead of us, from which the boundaries between man and machine will become further and irrevocably intertwined.

So dive into the ether through this exhibition, and do not be surprised if you emerge from the other side with a newfound appreciation for the creative possibilities of technology, and how it can ultimately enhance the human condition.

This essay was first published on Joyn on 20 August 2023.