Strabismus

Strabismus is a series of 100 looping video artworks by Sarah Zucker handcrafted on VHS Tape.

The series is being released through a ranked auction powered by Highlight, running 24 hours from May 1st through May 2nd, 2024. The work is being editioned on Ethereum.

You can view the art and bid in the auction at strabismus.xyz

STRABISMUS ARTIST STATEMENT

“That’s 3D Art. Computers generate ‘em. BIG computers.”

• Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld Season 6, Episode 6

I was born with a magic eye. Thanks to a condition known as “Strabismus,” my left eye marches very much to the beat of its own drum. You could say that it is “crossed,” but I like to think of it as a bit of a maverick.

Beyond a charming appearance, this has affected my vision my entire life. While most people perceive depth physically through the stereoscopic coordination of both eyes, I have adapted to calculate depth algorithmically in my mind. This often leads to double vision and the illusion of depth where there is none (and also causes me to bump into the furniture a lot when I’m tired).

Ironically, this made it impossible for me to perceive the images hidden in the “Magic Eye” series that became popular in my childhood (immortalized, of course, on a 1994 episode of Seinfeld.) The “unfocused” or “blurry” vision required to witness the illusion was my everyday reality, and I would give my tiny self a headache staring at those psychedelic color fields and willing them to take form.

It’s an experience that has stuck with me as I’ve developed my art practice working with computer graphics and analog video techniques. My new series, Strabismus, explores illusions of depth generated through digital video synthesis and analog time displacement. 

Each work in the series aims to convey my own unique experience of depth – no crossed eyes required. I approached the creation of the work as a generative system, with my own personal optical algorithm and internal artistic feedback loop (a BIG computer) serving as the essential spice of randomness. The aesthetics emerged, no doubt, thanks to a year investigating and luxuriating in the work of Op Art pioneers like Bridget Riley, Yaacov Agam and Victor Vasarely.

This work evolved directly out of Temporale, my first long-form series editioned on the blockchain. Both projects distort the interlacing of analog video signal, where alternating bands of information yield motion. By directly manipulating this native aspect of the medium, I am able to weave together multiple timelines into a potent fusion of the temporal and the spatial.

Where Temporale channeled textural material video through this distortion to capture Time in a still image, Strabismus channels flat color motion through the distortion to conjure Depth out of Time. 

I see each of these two series as independent yet undeniably related. I have always loved my own fluidity in moving between modes in my work, from the figurative to the abstract, the narrative to the expressionistic. But these two series reflect a new maturity, a desire to dig deeper and manifest my ideas on a greater scale than ever before. I remain as playful as ever,  but am delighting in flexing my creative muscles.

Everything's Different Now

Nothing is as it has been or will be. The Present is a strange singularity.

EVERYTHING’S DIFFERENT NOW is a signature VideoThought crafted in my studio in summer 2022. I was commissioned by Friends With Benefits x OpenSea, and this vision came through the channels. The piece will debut in an IRL installation as part of The Flock at FWB Fest.

I’ve been creating artworks in my “Now” series since 2018, and see them as a chance to reflect on the flavor of the present moment. This leads to statements that are paradoxically both personally topical, and universally evergreen.

I’m struck by the cumulative effects of recent change. Dramatic shifts around digital art and NFTs, the end(?) of the Covid era, and a lot of personal growth as I’ve met the call to level up my art practice.

VideoThoughts are special little mindgems: they use video feedback to visualize the recursive nature of experience itself. Everything is *always* different now, which in turn makes the next now even more different, and so on and so forth.

This is the genesis token on my new VideoThoughts contract provided by Manifold. Like all my single editions moving forward, the piece will integrate with SuperRare and elsewhere for an elegant cross-platform collector experience.

Everything’s Different Now is now available on SuperRare.

Rhapsody in Hue

The bliss of all things moving in harmonious alignment. My favorite color has always been all of them all at once.

RHAPSODY IN HUE is a signature VideoFeeling crafted in my studio in 2021. It came together through a unique pairing of original video synthesis animation and video feedback technique with analog processing.

I have become increasingly aware of the nature of my VideoFeelings as a form of rhythmic sculpture that I create with light on videotape. They vibrate with tactility and possess a unique dimensionality despite being entirely incorporeal.

It’s no secret that I’m forever in love with rainbows. I have long said that my favorite color is all of them at once. Aside from their arrestingly beautiful aesthetic qualities they bear great mythological meaning. The rainbow signifies harmonious alignment and wholeness in both spiritual and scientific modes of thought. 

I’ve been musing lately on the vibrant palettes I explore in my work, and how they’re only accessible through the RGB colorspace originated in Cathode Ray Tube Televisions. The emergence of NFT technology has encouraged widespread embrace and support for screen-based artworks in their natively luminous format without the need to dull their shine to fit into the material world.

This piece is a celebration of the dance we do between the physical and spirit realms as we wield our novel command of electric light.

RHAPSODY IN HUE was minted at 9am this morning as the genesis token on my new VideoFeelings contract provided by Manifold.

I’ll no longer be minting to the SR shared contract, which caps my existing 1/1s there. The use of my own contracts will allow for my ongoing series to exist as self-contained collections on OpenSea, while being aggregated seamlessly with my longstanding SuperRare profile. This should yield an optimized secondary market experience for my collectors – I’m quite dedicated to elegance, after all.

This piece will be making a special IRL emergence this month – more info on that when it can be revealed.

RHAPSODY IN HUE is now available on reserve auction on SuperRare.

POLARIS

Forever creating my own North Star, so that I never lose my way.

POLARIS is a signature VideoFeeling crafted in my studio during a wildly transitional time in my life. I have been meditating on the concept of the North Star, and the role it’s played in guiding wayward sailors and redemption-seekers to safety.

The need for a guiding light became paramount as I’ve been reorienting myself to my new reality. The work I’ve done over the past three years editioning my artwork on the blockchain has reached psychedelic new levels of visibility and import in the eyes of others, and I’ve been asking myself where I wish to point myself moving forward.

These new tools have always been about self-sovereignty for me, and as such, it seems only fitting that this guiding light must be self-derived. And so, I have created my own North Star.

It’s a glorious synthesis of rhythmic linear counterpoints and vibrating gemtones – a look I’ve been revisiting and refining since I first began working with analog video in 2015. The desire to hone this particular visual strain in my work has become a pet obsession, as I forever chase the combination of color, rhythm and texture that will unlock the ultimate pleasure of synesthesia.

I imprint this work onto the blockchain today, on the brink of Passover season and its tale of the journey from constriction into open exploration. I intend it as a beacon of ecstatic feeling that can guide us all toward that which makes us feel free.

And, therefore, bards of old,

Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,

Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,

That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray

The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

-William Cullen Bryant

POLARIS is now available on SuperRare.

PROMETHEA

My new collection, “Promethea,” debuts on Nifty Gateway today at 6:30pm ET. I am immensely proud of the work, and the multi-layered meaning that channeled through me.

It is a story at once ancient and familiar: a musing on the mystical power technology has to lift us beyond the realm of the animal and into the divine.

The series – a triptych of VideoPaintings and a title card – is inspired by the myth of Prometheus. Regarded as the father of technology, his name means "foresight."

I love the old stories, because they remain widely accessible cultural touchstones. Their ubiquitousness allows much room for play.

My Promethea also plays with Fire – the OG technology. The advent of Fire marks the dawn of human civilization. It's the essence of catalysis – a liminal substance, both physical and incorporeal at once.

And yet, if not handled with expert care, Fire can burn down everything it helped to build. With great power comes great responsibility. But I feel much is made of this aspect lately – critique is the most facile form of expression, after all. And so, with my Promethea, I wish to lean into an unbridled vision of technology’s power for positive transformation.

Snatched – VideoPainting #1 from Promethea

In "Snatched", the 1st VideoPainting, I show Promethea as gaining access to the gods' reverie. Clever Promethea knows just where Zeus keeps his fire, and wastes no time in appropriating it.

Empowerment is self-bestowed upon those who do not fear to seize it.

Promethea’s Fire – VideoPainting #2 from Promethea

In "Promethea's Fire," the 2nd VideoPainting, our hero delights in wielding her will in the world. She brings back the fire to the human realm so that others may use it.

The great movements of progress are ignited by individuals acting out slivers of divine inspiration.

In the myth, much is made of the hero's suffering. The punishment for stealing fire is to be bound for eternity as an eagle eats his liver daily.

Such a drama queen!

I feel, in showing Promethea as a woman, the suffering is implied. We are, after all, bound to our bodies. Cyclical body horror is no stranger to us!

Unbound – VideoPainting #3 from Promethea

And so, in "Unbound," the final VideoPainting, I skip to my interpretation of a lesser told part of the myth.

This is a story of Techgnosis through personal revelation. The fire of the gods allows us to transcend the limits of our own bodies. We can become unbound!

There are layers hidden within the series. It's not my place to be prescriptive of your experience. I invite you to investigate them for yourself.

My hope is that curators will feel inspired to do their invaluable dance and place the work into context within its lineage.

"Promethea" was minted as erc721s on a standalone Manifold Studio contract (View the full collection on OpenSea), and will be sold through ranked auction and open edition on Nifty Gateway.

The ranked auctions start at 6:30pm ET and run to 8pm ET. The open edition is priced at $1370, and mints from 7-7:05pm ET.

View and Purchase the Promethea Title Card Open Edition here.

View and Bid on the Promethea Triptych Here.

The Light Witch

She shines her light into the darkness – among the shadows, images appear!

THE LIGHT WITCH is a signature VideoPainting I created in my studio in 2021. This is a self-portrait of an alter ego who has been a part of me for a long time.

I was born in December, the darkest month of the year. And yet, December is also the most festive time, as darkness provides a canvas for color and light.

The Light Witch embodies my unique gift for transmutation, and the call to project my rainbow visions into the world so that others may see them. 

My “Electric Dream” on the SuperRare Monolith at Miami Art Week 2021

This gift is a form of magic, and I am its joyous channel. I creep around my cave doing a marvelous dance of image manifestation. I I I am the witch of the light!

The Light Witch was created with vintage Sony Video Painter, original animation and analog processing on VHS. Digitally transferred in 1080p, Single Edition. Minted on the Winter Solstice of 2021 – a pivotal moment in a pivotal year.

THE LIGHT WITCH was minted on SuperRare at 1pm ET / 10am PT on December 21, 2021. 

It’s on Reserve Auction starting at 12Ξ. Click here to bid or view the token.

You Can Save This

Mimesis is the means by which culture flourishes!

2021 has been one of the most extraordinary years of my life. I’ve been a working artist for over a decade, largely without reward beyond the satisfaction of answering the call for expression within myself. This year, a confluence of events has led to my work being recognized on increasingly grand stages. 

Not only am I grateful, but I am undeniably changed by the experience. I have spent this time steeped in the culture of our burgeoning community, as well as witnessing the pushback from those outside of it.

It’s only fitting, then, that I would end the year by debuting an artwork borne out of this feedback loop at Art Basel Miami – on my birthday, no less. 

“You Can Save This” is a signature VideoThought – a statement with an open-ended context, visually manifested so as to allow for meaning to blossom.

I feel that one of my gifts as an artist is the ability to take ugly sentiments and transmute them into works that are transcendent and meaningful.

“You Can Save This” has become one of the rallying cries of those who reject NFTs. They believe that the ability to save and share our artwork is somehow proof that it does not hold value.

And yet, we who prize incorporeal art know that the ability to save and share it is a feature, and not a flaw. Its ability to network itself and spread is the very aspect which makes it valuable. We have a word for this, which we use also to describe the web-building tendencies of mycelium in the forest, or micro-organisms in a petri dish. 

We call this “culture.”

And so, with this piece, I seek to alchemize this critique into a badge of honor. What we are doing here is a direct evolution of the human culture which has led us to this point. We are laying the groundwork for a new networked humanity.

As with most of my VideoThoughts, there are multiple interpretations. I don’t wish to squash the viewers’ experience by being overly prescriptive, but I do want to speak to an additional personal viewpoint. 

Much has been made of the rapid growth of the NFT space, and its inevitable correlation with speculative finance. My feeling is that this will sort itself out, as it always does. My great hope, and intention, is that NFTs serve as a Trojan Horse, allowing for new digitally-native forms and voices to permeate mainstream consciousness. 

The fiscal elevation of the artist class that we are experiencing is analogous to that of both the Renaissance and the Zombie Formalist movement – we get to determine whether we develop these markets around our aesthetics, or if we develop our aesthetics around the markets. 

Ideally, the relationship between the collectors and the artists is one of glorious symbiosis – each plays a crucial role in the endeavor of the other. We risk losing the greater cultural meaning of this movement if we allow this dynamic to become unbalanced and favor only the desire for “number go up.” 

And so, I see this piece as being both a statement of fact as well as a plea – You Can Save This. Decentralization affords us a degree of agency that’s new to us – we must reckon with the power of our will, and wield it with great responsibility.

The use of video feedback as a visual motif is central here, as it reflects the delicate paradox of intention we are all dancing with as we establish the nascent Metaverse.

I created this work in a rare 9:16 ratio specifically designed for IRL display. It will debut at The Gateway, the first large-scale presentation of Crypto Art at Art Basel Miami from NFTNow x Christie’s. 

I was curated into the show by SuperRare, my OG and still most-used Crypto Art platform. I am putting the work on reserve auction there on December 2nd. Bids can be placed here.

YOU CAN SAVE THIS was minted on SuperRare on November 30th. It is on Reserve Auction as of December 2nd at 10am ET. Reserve is set at 12Ξ.

Madame de Gateau

Laisse-moi me manger comme un gâteau – Let me eat myself as cake!

MADAME DE GATEAU is a signature VideoPainting I created in my Hollywood Studio in 2021. This organic channeling of the camp feminine is a celebration of self-sovereignty – and self-consumption.

I took some inspiration from The Edible Woman, a Margaret Atwood novel I read in college that left a huge impression on me. It examines how women are traditionally consumed by society, and at one point the central character eats a cake she baked shaped like a woman as a metaphor for her own empowerment.

I see this piece as a spiritual descendent of Ouroboros, my 2020 VideoPainting currently in the Metapurse collection.

On a personal level, the concept makes me giggle a bit: I used to be exploited as an artist in the days before I could develop support through NFTs. And now, no one can exploit me… but me!

And of course, there’s the reference to that icon of royal excess, Marie Antoinette. I don’t seek to condemn or exonerate her, but I do feel the decadence she personifies and the precarity of her status are relevant to our moment.

Largely I’m tickled by the cake-like personal fashions of the 18th century!

Madame de Gateau is now available on SuperRare with a reserve of 12Ξ.

Way Back Now

WAY BACK NOW is a signature VideoThought reflecting on the Now. Specifically, when everything’s moving so fast you find yourself feeling nostalgic for the present moment.

This piece is the latest installment of the “NOW” series, a strand of works within my greater body of text art. The “NOW” series pairs the infinite looping recursion of analog camcorder feedback with original animation, evoking a “strange loop” as a means of visualizing the weirdness of Time.

The first piece in the series, WHAT NOW, was minted in June 2019 on SuperRare, and is in the @artnome collection. The second piece, ETERNAL NOW, was minted February 2020, and is in the @niftytime collection. The third piece, LUCIDITY NOW, was minted June 2020, and is in the @satsmoon collection.          

With WAY BACK NOW, I’m revisiting the “NOW” series from my vantage point in 2021, having experienced both the exponential growth of the Crypto Art space as a whole and my own position within it. 

I often point out that I use nostalgia as something of a Trojan Horse in my work – a way to draw people in with aesthetics of the Past as a means of looking at the Present. WAY BACK NOW is a conceptual paradox that could sum up my entire body of work – a logistical impossibility that tickles the brain into a new way of seeing things.

WAY BACK NOW was created in my studio in summer 2021. The Token will be a Hi-Res GIF. The collector will also receive a 4K mp4 optimized for display, and a smaller mp4 optimized for social media.

WAY BACK NOW was minted on SuperRare at 4pm ET / 1pm PT on September 8, 2021. 

The Primary Sale is a Reserve Auction starting at 12Ξ. CLICK HERE TO VIEW OR BID.

SWAMP

I just minted my first NFT since last month’s Space Loaf, which set a new sale record at auction as part of CryptOGs from Bonhams + SuperRare. SWAMP is now open for bidding.

SWAMP is a signature VideoPainting I created in my studio from May to June 2021. I see this piece as a humorous response to the sort of happy-stress I’ve been experiencing through my involvement in the Crypto Art boom.

The piece is directly inspired by an oil pastel drawing I made in the summer of 2008, when I was experiencing the similar happy-stress of my last quarter of college. My friend kept a bucket of markers and crayons in her apartment for me, and I drew many demented doodles while my friends got smebbed. It was a lovely time, and I was sad that it was ending.

SWAMP is a playful depiction of existential dread. It shows a creature indulging itself in a performance of suffering, despite being exactly where it’s supposed to be. The frog isn’t drowning in the swamp, the frog *lives* in the swamp. 

Silly little froggy!

SWAMP is now available on SuperRare.

***UPDATE: the reserve was met 1.5 hours after the piece was minted, kicking off a 24h auction countdown. The auction will end ~2:45pm ET / 11:45am PT on July 16th, with the clock extending 10min with each new bid in the final minutes.

SPACE LOAF – SuperRare & Bonhams present CryptOGs

CryptOGs: The Pioneers of NFT Art

June 21st-30th 2021. Lot 4.

Space Loaf is one of those artworks that came about serendipitously, yet went on to become one of my most widely beloved pieces. 

My sassy Siamese Cat, Ginny, is a frequent fixture (and mischief-maker) in my studio. I shot the footage for this piece after discovering her casually loafing upon equipment I had spent all afternoon carefully setting up. 

I piped the footage into my analog video rig, a custom-built system of hardware I play like an instrument, manually manipulating the signals to my liking. The cat appears to be hovering through a digital-analog cosmos, looking around inquisitively in response to the ever-shifting landscape. 

I conceived this piece on April 8, 2018, almost *exactly* one year before I minted my genesis token on SuperRare. It was widely shared on Instagram and Facebook on its initial release. I have been featuring it in my pinned tweet on twitter throughout 2021 as an introduction to my Art.

Prior to crypto art, the only way I made my work directly collectible was through my Video Alchemy clothing line. I have long been a lover of fashion, and wanted to translate the colorful rhythmic qualities of my video art to textile. I ran the clothing line from 2017-2020, and the Space Loaf Tee was my #1 bestseller. 

Something about this piece speaks deeply to people. Of course, cats have long been a part of Internet culture. But I think this work has a sublimely relatable quality to it. You see Space Loaf and think, “It me!” Floating, titillated and confused, through the primordial soup of cyberspace. 

Space Loaf feels like the perfect piece to offer up for CryptOGs at Bonhams x SuperRare. It’s an iconic artwork that serves as a prelude to my entire canon of on-chain editions. And it speaks to the experience of being an early pioneer of the Metaverse, a silly little creature exploring this newly forming ethereal realm.

Space Loaf was conceived in April 2018, and minted on SuperRare on June 16th, 2021.

The collector of this single edition will receive an .mp4 of the piece optimized for display. 

Bids can be made in Ethereum or USD through Bonhams Online Auction. The winner will be able to pay via MetaMask or the Exchange of their choosing.

BID ON BONHAMS JUNE 21-JUNE 30 2021

PREVIEW THE FULL VIDEO TOKEN ON SUPERRARE

Self Transcending – Sotheby's Natively Digital

Self Transcending. Sarah Zucker, 2021.

My work is on auction at Sotheby’s June 3-10, 2021 as part of Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale. Self Transcending is a signature VideoPainting I created to mark this moment in both my personal artistic journey and the evolution of Crypto Art and NFTs as a whole.

Interested collectors will be able to bid on the work in cryptocurrency, an aspect which streamlines the auction process for crypto native collectors while allowing for the work to be valued in its native format.

Self Transcending has been minted as Token #0 on the custom “Sarah Zucker” smart contract. The contract was built for me by Nameless specifically for the Sotheby’s Sale. This erc-721 has been elegantly crafted with crypto-savvy collectors and long-term provenance in mind.

You can hear me talk about the work and my background as a “CryptoArt OG” in the interview for the Sotheby’s Catalogue below. Read on for more in-depth information about the artwork and my journey.

THE WORK

Self Transcending is a vision of the Self as a Strange Loop – a narrative that reiterates itself into infinity. Every new Self informs the next, and it’s up to us to establish harmony within the chaos. The piece is unique within my oeuvre, as it fuses my signature VideoPainting technique with analog feedback – an evolution of my style befitting this moment in my career.

I see this concept as a continuation of a personal revelation I had in 2019, around the time I first started editioning my work as NFTs on the blockchain. I was reading a book about mushrooms, and the “wood wide web” they create with their mycelium – essentially a mesh network that allows interspecies communication in a forest.

I was struck by a vision of the Internet as the extension of the human nervous system, and the human nervous system as an extension of the mycelial networks of the natural world. 

Self Transcending continues many of the cyberdelic themes that weave throughout my VideoPaintings. The chakra-like motif I use to indicate inner harmony connects the work directly to Astral Antenna, the first VideoPainting I tokenized in March of 2020, which was collected by fellow “Natively Digital” artist Matt Kane.

Where Astral Antenna depicts inner harmony as a means of becoming a receiver, Self Transcending depicts that inner harmony as a means of broadcast – they reflect the yin and yang of transcendent experience.

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As I see it, we’re living in a very potent time in human history, where we’re redefining our notions of humanity as we merge with our technology. This can often be strange and uncomfortable, and societal growing pains are not uncommon. But a more zoomed out perspective allows us to see how we’re extending beyond ourselves, bursting through our borders of separation to connect with each other, like nodes in a network. 

The natural impulse to weave into an interdependent organism can be met with a lot of resistance, as it requires us to recalibrate the scale with which we view ourselves. But, when we engage with the Internet– our Ancient form of Future technology– we get glimpses of how we fit into this fractal reality.

For the past decade, I have been creating art in dialogue with the Internet. I beam my techno-mystical TV broadcasts into the ether as a means of illuminating this massive step we’re taking as a civilization.

I can trace much of my fascination with this topic to Michio Kaku’s talks on the Kuleshov scale. Recognizing our experience as the birth pains of a new planetary civilization contextualizes the push-pull we feel between regressive and progressive forces in contemporary culture.

I offer the video below as it was a direct inspiration for my body of work leading up to the creation of Self Transcending.

THE JOURNEY

I minted my first NFT on SuperRare on April 4, 2019. While that’s not so long ago in the grand scheme of things, it puts me on the earlier side of entry into the NFT space, and has led to me being oft referred to as an “OG” Crypto Artist. But that was not the beginning of my journey as an artist.

I have felt compelled to create art since I was a child, and was fortunate to have access to a computer as a toddler, which was somewhat uncommon at the time. I have told the story in various interviews of how, at 10, I had an art teacher who told me that Art made on a computer wasn’t real Art, and she forbade me from ever using a computer in my assignments.

I switched my focus from Art to Drama, a choice that I carried through my entire Academic career through the end of my MFA in Dramatic Writing.

This decision to never study Art academically has been one of the greatest gifts I could give myself. I am an autodidact by nature, and I developed my own approach to creative practice over the years, educating myself from the wealth of information available on the Internet.

At the age of 15, I took up film photography, and it was my primary mode of expression for the next decade. I posted on various film photography forums as “thesarahshow,” and enriched myself through that rich pre-social media online community.

I sold my Art for the first time at the age of 18, when several of my photographs were licensed for a French book about the photography movement I was part of, called Le Lomo: L’Appareil Photo qui ose tout!

Self as Odalisque, 2006.

I worked as Interim Curator at The Joseph Saxton Gallery of Photography in 2011, which is where I learned a great deal about Fine Art Editions and the Art market. We had works by legendary photographers like Dorothea Lange, Alfred Stieglitz and Diane Arbus on offer there, and I acquainted myself with the processes by which valuable artworks were bought and sold while creating my own run of limited edition prints.

One day, a customer came in off the street and said they had seen a print through the window and they absolutely had to have it. I was beyond delighted to discover that the print was one of mine – The Rainbow News. It was an exhilarating moment for me, as I realized I had developed my craft to the point that a complete stranger wished to place value in my work.

The Rainbow News. Sarah Zucker, 2009.

I started moving into video and time-based media in 2011. I had shot lots of interesting footage over the years as a street photographer, and began incorporating that with found footage in creating visuals for bands. I began working more and more in the GIF format, and it became the primary focus of my practice around2013.

From 2013-2016 I released work under the banner of my collaborative studio The Current Sea. We produced an audiovisual show in Los Angeles called Prism Pipe, which showcased many of the emerging GIF and New Media Artists of the era, many of whom are now making moves in the NFT space.

In 2015, we spoke with The Creators Project about “The Future of GIFs as Gallery Art,” where I mused on the potential for GIFs to be taken seriously as fine art if they could be editioned on the blockchain. 🤯

The Future Of GIFs As Gallery Art, According To The Current Sea http://t.co/OhSjsN18GE pic.twitter.com/ardkM9Uymt

— Creators (@CreatorsProject) March 11, 2014

I began working with Analog Video in 2015 and returned to releasing my work under my own name / @thesarahshow.

Being consistent in my output and always experimenting with new techniques, I developed my own signature aesthetic over the years, and cultivated a wide community of followers for my work through Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook and Giphy – where my GIFs currently have over 6.6 billion views.

When I became aware of SuperRare in 2019, it felt like destiny. My Art and experiences made me uniquely suited to the Crypto Art space, and I hit the ground running. I continue to evolve my practice organically in conversation with the Metaverse and its denizens, and feel electric with the possibilities that lie ahead.

I am thrilled to be able to offer my work at Sotheby’s as part of their first curated NFT sale. This is a watershed moment for digital art, as this new technology is finally allowing this longstanding and potent cultural tradition to get its due in the greater world of Fine Art.

All my thanks to curator Robert Alice for including me, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Specialist Michael Bouhanna for organizing the sale, and my greatest respect to the incredible artists offering their work alongside mine.

View and Bid on my Work on the Sotheby’s Website

In case you’d like to digest everything I said here in Dance Music form, I leave you with the incredible “Sarah Zucker Remix” by Eclectic Method. 😎

RECURSION

∞ Recursion ∞

We are Strange Loops feeding back onto ourselves.

Single Edition NFT, available through reserve auction on SuperRare.

∞ ∞ ∞

I first got fixated on the notion of recursion about ten years ago, when I read the book “I am a Strange Loop” by Douglas Hofstadter.

Recursion is, of course, a mathematical principle, a method of solving a problem where the solution depends on solutions to smaller instances of the same problem. I’ve never been much for computational math myself, but Hofstadter’s book introduced a concept I had never thought of: That the “I”, or the ego itself, is a recursive equation.

Mind. Blown.

It makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. Recursion is often visualized in the form of fractals or mandelbrots, and what better way to visualize one’s self? I am the I am that I am now, which is informed by and contains the I that was then, and generates the I that I will become.

I started working with analog video significantly in my art in 2015. While my practice has evolved immensely since then, video feedback has always played a role. The notion of feedback in any scenario is inherently recursive. That horrible noise a microphone makes if it gets too close to a speaker: it’s amplifying it’s own sound, the loop exponentiates, and we all clutch our ears in agony – quivering at the sheer magnitude and force of recursion on the loose.

Video feedback can often be equally chaotic and unpleasant – hence the need for “strobe warnings” across many glitch art blogs. Since 2015, I have been teaching myself an unusual instrument – I seek to tame and manipulate the feedback to yield harmony. She is a wild beast, that analog feedback, but I do pride myself on this aspect of my work. These recursive iterations appear as though they could spin off into chaos at any given moment, and yet, you know that maestro has them under control.

This mastery has been a long time coming. I actually have the moment I discovered video feedback on tape, when my dad was trying out the new camcorder all the way back in 1992. It’s surreal that this footage even exists, as you can witness the exact moment I became enamored with video feedback.

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A post shared by Sarah Zucker (@thesarahshow)

And so, you see, my work with video feedback feels like destiny in a way. It is a way of visualizing the boolean structure of our evolving minds as we take our first steps into the metaverse. The old ways are linear, and the new ways are fractal.

I created RECURSION in my analog video studio. When working with analog video, there are so many factors that can affect the final outcome of the work. The time of day, the quality of the light, the fine touch of the knobs and dials. Not to mention the animation I create digitally to pipe into the system, or the very concept itself! I like to think of these variables as the terroir, a term typically used to describe the environmental factors that affect the character and qualities of wine or olive oil.

The wind was really beneath my wings on this piece – a beautiful quality to the feedback to elevate the animation and concept. This piece was created with Hi8 camcorder feedback, digital animation and analog processing on VHS. It was filmed in 4K from my vintage CRT TV screen.

If the work speaks to you, I invite you to venture a bid on SuperRare. It’s a special piece destined for a special crypto art collection!

VIEW RECURSION ON SUPERRARE

BE NOT AFRAID

The Sarah Show

Future Art x NiftyGateway

Drops Jan 15th 7pm EST on NiftyGateway.com

BE NOT AFRAID is my first full collection and open edition dropping on NiftyGateway as part of the epic Future Art event happening IRL in Sydney and all over the Metaverse.

The inspiration for the four works is wide-reaching, from Angels in America, to Biblically Accurate Angel memes to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. As is often the case, I let the art channel as it wanted to come through me, and then saw the narrative threads start tying together as I began editing and finalizing the work.

As you’ll see, the pricing of these editions is tied to the theme of the collection. 137 is a highly potent number in both science and mysticism – considered the central number of the grand unified theory of physics, as well as the numerical equivalent of the letters of Kabbalah.

Keep reading to learn more about each of the available editions. I also highly recommend reading the essay Techgnosis and Apocalypse: The Crypto Art of Sarah Zucker by Dr. Allan Kilner-Johnson if you’d like to get another perspective on the collection.

BE NOT AFRAID

Open Edition. $137 – Available for 7 minutes (7pm-7:07pm EST)

The Messengers of the Future appear in strange forms and see in many directions – they command us to be not afraid!

I’ve been quite tickled by Biblically Accurate Angel memes as of late – the somewhat terrifying description of Angels in the Bible juxtaposed with their propensity to declare “Be Not Afraid!” is inherently funny.

Angels have been on my mind in general for the past year. The lockdowns of the Covid era evoke a visceral memory for me of reading the play Angels in America for the first time when I was about 17. For those unfamiliar with the play – a “gay fantasia” that takes a camp mystical lens to the AIDS epidemic – it contains an Angel appearing to the protagonist to beseech humankind to “Stop Moving.” To which, of course, the protagonist protests, as movement is the essential nature of humankind.

It can be easy to be afraid in these times of plague and mind-boggling progress. But we MUST keep moving – even if it means protesting the heavens to do so.

THE GREAT EYE

Edition of 7. $333

I I I am the Great Eye-Eye-Eye. Gaze into me + we shall become one!

More inspiration from Angels in America here. The Angels, when they appear, speak in grand pronouncements of “I I I,” not unlike to chorus of Greek tragedy. A linguistic conceit that has tickled me since the day I first encountered it.

This abstract work, like my other works in this vein, is meant to evoke a sensory response. The great eye in the sky, which calls us all into it – the medium through which the messengers emerge.

Be Not Afraid (High Weirdness Edition)

Edition of 3. $1370

The sister piece to the open edition. Sometimes, when I’m creating at my analog video station, something really weird and unexpected occurs, and I manage to get it on tape. This was one of those instances.

The extra-levels of glitch strangeness felt appropriate given the theme of divine messages coming in confusing packages. This is a much smaller edition, geared towards the collectors who are really picking up what I’m laying down.

THE DANCE OF THE RENDERED

Single Edition. Auction.

Rendered speechless, bald and shiny by the glow of the oncoming future – all one can do is dance and laugh at the edge of the abyss!

And here we have the counterpart to the divine messenger – the transcending human.

I absolutely love Metropolis (my preferred version being the 1984 Moroder-scored cut. The soundtrack is killer, and the 1980s electronic music really elevates the themes of the 1927 original).

The crux of Metropolis is the notion that the Heart must be the mediator between the Head and the Hands. This feels all too pressing in these days of social upheaval, and I think about it a lot.

With this piece, I wanted to evoke the deliciously devious dance of the evil robot Maria from Metropolis as she works to seduce and destroy the elite of the city. As you may guess from the title, I’m also gently poking fun at the trope of the bald, shiny, female humanoid seen so frequently in the 3D render art that makes up a large portion of the crypto art scene.

We are all rendered into physical bodies, as the case may be. In what or whose images is up to us to determine.

Self-Portrait Through 2020

Self-Portrait Through 2020.

Available now on Reserve Auction from SuperRare.

Today I minted my annual self-portrait NFT, a continuation of an ongoing series with a uniquely 2020 twist.

You see, this piece was not created in my usual workflow and timeframe. Instead – appropriately enough for this very unusual year – it was created in increments over the course of nearly 10 months. 

I began this self-portrait at the end of February, when we still had no idea about the global paradigm shift yet to come. I started with a method I have been developing since 2016 that I call “3D Paintings,” created with a combination of original stereoscopic photography and neural style transfer. I liked the outcome well enough, but felt it was time to push the style further.

Then, the coronavirus hit the states, we went into lockdown, and the piece sat unfinished for many months while I took time to reorient my nervous system to our new reality.

We had a brutally hot summer here in California, with an equally punishing fire season. I took to my summer desk, a small setup in our bedroom where I can lock myself in with an air purifier and AC. I began a series of experiments combining the slit-scanning technique I’ve been developing since 2016 with my stereoscopic photography. 

I took another pass at the portrait, and loved the wavy warpiness this technique added to the depth. It felt particularly expressive of this tumultuous year, with its waves of one revelation after another. The Waves of Time keep coming, and it’s up to us to figure out how to surf them, lest we drown. 

I liked the piece a lot, but still felt it needed something more.

I had a landmark Fall in crypto art. When I started minting limited editions of my early VHS pieces, I saw demand for my work skyrocket. I put a lot of time and thought into guiding the growth of my market. I forged relationships with new collectors, and put efforts toward championing new artists. I was commissioned to do portraits for Coindesk’s “Most Influential in 2020 List” (which are auctioning on NiftyGateway through Dec. 31). I’ve been working on pieces for the upcoming Future Art Show in January.

And all the while, this piece sat in the back of my mind, waiting to be finished.

I knew I would see her through to completion. Self-portraiture has been an important part of my practice for a VERY long time. Aside from just giving in to the natural solipsism of the artistic temperament, self-portraiture is important because it allows an artist to document the subject they are most familiar with long-term. They are artworks which provide a meta-narrative to contextualize all of the artist’s other works. 

I took my first self-portrait at age 6, with my “Where’s Waldo” 110 camera that I had my dad remove the Waldo insert from, because it was impeding my artistic vision. I call it, “Self, Avec Pantaloons.”

Self, Avec Pantaloons. Age 6.

Self-documentation was a large strain in my film photography years from my mid-teens to mid-twenties. Little did I know I was getting a head start on a memetic expression that would come to dominate our culture with the advent of the smartphone.

Self-Portrait with SLR. Age 17.

And now, with crypto art, I have continued the tradition for a new era. One of my earliest 1/1 NFTs, and my first ever 1 ETH sale, was the first self-portrait in this series. “Self-Portrait of the Artist in Digital Decay” was minted on KnownOrigin on May 28, 2019, and sold shortly thereafter.

I created the next portrait in this series at the end of 2019. “Self-Portrait in Digital Decay, December 2019.” It was collected by the legendary crypto artist Coldie, one of my greatest champions in this space, on Christmas Day. 

I did a lot of growing up in 2019, and I saw those two pieces as a reflection of that. The first one, from a photo taken in January where I’m done up in high drag, replete with statement earrings, sequin blouse and makeup for the gods, and then the second one, nude, no makeup – stripped down and honest.

And so now, we come to this year’s portrait, created THROUGH 2020. The image, taken in February, has now been incrementally distorted throughout the year. Just as this year has distorted the subject itself. And through that refraction, filtered through time, beauty has emerged. I may not be the same person I was in February. This year has changed me. But oh, what a glorious effect. I end the year more magnificent than ever. 

I’ve been contemplating what to tokenize this month in the wake of the recent growth we’ve seen in the crypto art space. I have very much taken the idea of “create abundantly, tokenize thoughtfully” to heart. I have created a number of VERY cool things in my studio the past few months, pushing my work to new heights. And I find myself not wanting to reveal them before the time is right, which is new for me. The creation continues, but the sharing is happening in a much more measured way. 

As I was going through my list of Works TBT (To-Be-Tokenized), I remembered this self-portrait, and I was seized by a renewed vigor to see her through to completion. I’ve been working on this day and night this week, adding the final components of upscaling a pixelsorting. Processes that seem simple enough, but require endless tinkering to get the look just right. 

I often feel the term “glitch art” is too wide an umbrella for me. Because it’s easy to break things. VERY easy. But breaking things in a way that increases their beauty is quite a meticulous process – a bit “fiddly,” as they’d say on The Great British Bake-Off. It’s taken many years and a lot of intuition to develop my unique way of using the tools available to me. As I always say, “It’s the Witch, not the Wand.”

“It’s the Witch, Not the Wand.” Sarah Zucker, 2019.

I feel now that this piece is complete. I have imbued in her the same degree of depth and texture and color that I feel this year has imbued in me. There is something extra special in the fact that this piece, in being self-portraiture, combines so many of the styles and techniques I have been exploring and refining over the past 5 years. It is quintessentially “me.”

This will be a rare .mp4 release for me – while I typically tokenize my work in GIF format, I wanted to keep this as a video file so as not to lose any of the spectacular detail work. This will also be my first token sold through the new Reserve Auction format on SuperRare. The reserve is 5Ξ. When the reserve is met, the auction will automatically kick off a 24h timer, which resets if a new bid is placed. 

You can view the token here.

Thank you all for coming on this journey with me. The incredible encouragement I’ve gotten from the crypto art community has truly changed my life and my approach to my art. The levels of creativity I see in this space inspire me to keep pushing my own art further and further. And the support from collectors has allowed me to immerse myself fully in my passion and trust in my own voice like never before. And for that, I am eternally grateful.