The new logos were then put up for sale as NFTs, and buyers could attach their ENS domain to the purchase to become an “employee” of the company – middle management by buying one of the AI-generated logos, or a CEO by purchasing Twardowski’s. The resulting de facto collectives that formed through their shared ownership re-activate these companies in new forms using the technological possibilities afforded by the blockchain.
Denny and Twardowski first worked together for the 2018 exhibition “Proof of Work” at Berlin’s Schinkel Pavillon, where Denny initiated a group show, curated using decentralized decision-making protocols, about art that engaged with cryptocurrency. Twardowski was the illustrator behind CryptoKitties, arguably the first NFT art project to utilize the ERC-721 token standard – the technical basis for most Ethereum NFTs today – which offered an early public demonstration of how unique, tradeable JPGs could be fun and even profound.
Exhibited offline, such as at MAXXI, Rome, in 2022, Dotcom Séance picks up questions from Post-Internet art around how artworks that were born on the internet can be made meaningful in a physical exhibition context. In dialogue with the concerns, it queries the relationship between art and commerce, which connects to its status as a cryptoart project and ties into the history of Post-Internet art, and indeed, to the history of the internet itself.
