From collection exhibition to curating by a collecting collective experiment.

It's been a year.

Before generative AI became popular, Volume DAO planned an all AI art exhibition called "Can Machines Dream of NFTs?" in March last year. (3D Exhibition Archive Website) Can you imagine that Taiwan already had a DAO that collected hundreds of AI artworks before midjourney and stable diffusion appeared?

This exhibition in the Taipei Wetlands not only features NFTs as the medium for all artworks but also all of them are the collections of DAO members. "Can Machines" showcases early works in the AI field by internationally renowned digital artists. These works were minted on the blockchain world because the artists were eager to try new media, and we in Taiwan collected them. It's truly a magical coincidence.

The significance of "Can Machines" exhibition lies in its handling of the intersection of "technology, art, and society." It covers the relationships among technology and art (early AI+NFT evolution), technology and society (blockchain decentralized community), and art and society (international production, collection, and exchange movements). These three relationships are essential.

The reason why "Can Machines" is labeled as early is that few people use GAN models in image AI nowadays. But because GAN was the mainstream tool in early 2021-2022, it brought an eerie and surreal style to the exhibition, resembling cosmic creatures on LSD, vividly colored caves, or dark and humid industrial cities. These works have become a cross-section of the technological era.

After a whole year, NFTs fell while AI rose.

For the past year, this collecting group, Volume DAO has been discussing digital art objects day and night, focusing mainly on generative art, and continuing to engage in collecting and creative work. Their aesthetics and worldview have influenced each other.

This influence is profound because continuing to spend money on collecting during the bear market is like huddling together for warmth. Different aesthetic views and mindsets have ignited the fire of creativity. The pressure on artists within the group is even greater. Collectors can close their eyes and return to the real world to work, but artists who gamble with their lives to generative art must work harder to create and manage. It has been a profound year for them.

As a result, the development of artists within the group is impressive. Some artists have successfully landed on first-class gen-art platforms, such as Artblocks, some have made great achievements in physical art exhibitions, and some have gone overseas to work and teach at universities, while others have been invited to curate exhibitions. In addition to their creative work, these members continue to review and discuss international works and collect them.

This year's brainwashing process has allowed artists and collectors to influence each other, pushing discourse, aesthetics, and techniques to the next level.

This new exhibition, "Generative Taipei On-Site: The Archipelago Hashed 2023,” elevates the collection exhibition to collecting collective curation. This exhibition not only showcases a cross-section of the era, but also demonstrates the practice of "decentralized autonomy" through the curation process, displaying algorithmic beauty in different forms.

Starting from the earliest discussion of "recursiveness," the members derived quite different discourses and split into 4 pods.

The Recursiveness section showcases the works of 14 domestic and international artists, displayed on handcraft technique (algorithm), including Fractal Trees, Subdivision, and Cellular Automata. In addition to the visual beauty, it also has a geeky educational significance.

I recently finished reading the book "Complexity" by Melanie Mitchell, which gave me a new shock regarding the interaction mode of cellular automata (non-VonNeumann architecture). The algorithms created by generative art are quite similar to the randomness of natural products in many states. Some seemingly random patterns produce regularity at a higher level. The visual experience of a mechanic world is also like this. If you click on the link on Volume DAO's website, you can also enjoy these controlled randomnesses by clicking on the original webpage of each work.

The Interpretation section showcases Miao-embroidery (苗繡), a cultural heritage, collected from the Hong-Gah Museum, reproduced digitally by digital artists Bonana King and Lin Yi-wen using algorithms. At the same time, Rev Dan Catt's YYYSEED is also displayed live with a Plotter, imagine a vertical floor-sweeping robot not sweeping the floor, but instead drawing the algorithms written by the artist on the wall. Thus, Miao-embroidery, on-site depiction, and generative art interweave into the Interpretation theme.

The Interactivity section focuses on live minting, inviting viewers to experience algorithms, blockchain linking, and hashing to fix the artwork. The final works will be bound to their own account permanently, and this section features works by Huang Hsin and Lin Yi-wen. The entire live minting solution was produced by Huang Hsin, making the artwork and the original artwork part of the curation.

Finally, there is the Theme Artists section, featuring Canadian artist Matt DesLauriers, Bruneian artist Yazid Azahari, and Aluan Wang from Taiwan.

Aluan Wang's After the Cave, as usual, has many hidden codes (a truly cryptographic artist). This time, it includes early cave mural calendars and cattle counting methods mixed with Plato's Cave Allegory, which I have yet to decipher. Matt even provides a complete Folio system, including front-end and back-end and the work itself, allowing the audience to experience the entire generation process and bring early computer systems to the exhibition site. The curation team restored the work to be almost identical to the Bright Moment exhibition site in the U.K. at the time. I can only say that being able to experience the English site in Taiwan is really cost-effective.

For other details, please visit the Hong-Gah Museum in person.

If someone asks why not just view the "online" digital works on the internet, then they must visit the exhibition in person. 

In the context of digital art, the final work and the entire system can both be part of the artwork system, and the on-site exhibition can properly dissect the system components and display their intricacies to the audience.

However, this curatorial process tests the working tacit understanding between curators and artists. One inadvertent mistake can cause systemic errors and cause the work to lose its original flavor. This exhibition does not have this problem. As mentioned earlier, the daily production and collection process of this year has created a close collaborative culture to the collective, Volume DAO, which is ultimately reflected in the exhibition.

Therefore, "Generative Taipei On-Site: The Archipelago Hashed 2023" opened today and will last for one month. From collection exhibition to curating by a collecting collective experiment. If you are curious about what kind of physical exhibition a curatorial group with a "decentralized autonomous organization" structure will create, please visit the exhibition in person!

Event Information:

Generative Taipei On-Site: The Archipelago Hashed 2023, Taipei
Location: Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
Date: 2023/4/22-5/21
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30-17:30; Closed on Mondays.
Official Website:

(Regular guided tours, as well as weekend lectures, please visit the official website for details)

Photo Credit: Volume DAO