A striated rainbow representing visual patterns of interference

Detail of Sarah Zucker's WobbleWave, 2020

Criticism and conversations about art, technology, and NFTs

Josh Yakov

A drawing of a stick figure with his mouth wide open, surrounded by scrawled quotes that an overzealous NFT collector would say

Steve Pikelny

A digital image that looks like a banknote, with guilloche patterns, borders, a denomination of 1, and a serial number, but is too abstract and empty to fully resemble an actual bill.

Alan Lau

Rhea Myers

A schematic drawing of the blockchain with a label indicating that art happens on it

John Charles Thomas

An intentionally handdrawn-style image of a playing card with a rocket made of Campbell's soup cans (a la Warhol) and the words Tom Sachs Rocket Factory at the bottom

DYOR

Christopher Kulendran Thomas

A grainy image of a woman sitting at a table, gesticulating as if she is explaining something

V&A

A tangle of curved lines in pale blue on an off-white background

Matt Kane

An abstract digital image comprising a red orb with purple, pink, and pale blue circles within it

News

A digital image combining figures from medieival Persian painting with a smiley ficae, a photo of a beetle, and other found images arranged on a jaunty square with blue, red, and orange

Sarah Zucker & Amir H. Fallah

When does it make sense for an artwork to be an NFT?

This question occupies Sarah Zucker and Amir H. Fallah, two artists who mint works made with digital media, though they came to this world from very different directions..

In this conversation they exchange their perspectives on how art institutions handle tangible and immaterial artworks, as well as the shifting narratives around NFTs

A gallery installation with blue text scrolling up a black sheet that drapes into a hole in the floor

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi & The Question of Funding

If institutional critique examines the conventions of displaying art, from cultural biases in museum collections to the architecture of galleries, then infrastructural critique looks at how institutions function in broader social and material networks. Artist projects that use blockchain technologies not to produce digital assets but to build alternative behaviors within and around institutions can often be categorized as infrastructural critique.

Artist, writer, and researcher Maryam Monalisa Gharavi speaks with two members of The Question of Funding, artist Yazan Khalili and programmer Abed, about extractive economies, frictionless capitalism, the social dynamics of Web 2.0, and the value of unfinished projects as engines for thought and collaboration.

A metal post at the edge of the desert is covered with various colored stickers, including one of a bearded, bespectacled man's face

Lans King & One of the Many Matts

What does it mean to put a body on the blockchain? Lans King and One of the Many Matts have both explored this question through artworks that involve microchips implanted in their hands.

he two artists compared notes on their implant experiences. They also shared their ambivalent views on the increasing acceptance of biohacking, and drew some connections between twentieth-century conceptual artworks and their own practices of archiving and tracking.

Critical Perspectives

A digital image of an orb covered with white squares and curvesthat look somewhat damp, with red and black planes in the crevices beneath them

Criticism

A Hungry Mind

The machine learning models used in Helena Sarin’s art are perhaps best understood as metaphors for the workings of her own curious creative intelligence.

Criticism

Network Effects

Christopher Kulendran Thomas considers the political and creative potential of collaborative networks—whether managed by humans or AI.

Criticism

The Story Teller

Matt Kane’s generative artworks have detailed the timelines of his life and blockchain history. His latest project invites people to inscribe their own stories in art.

The Hirsch Truth

Ann Hirsch, a pioneer of social media art and the grandmother of selfie feminism, shares her critical takes on NFTs

Sarah Zucker, who uses obsolete and current tools to make forward-looking work, is Outland’s first guest editor. Ahead of Her Time

An animated image of a woman raising a finger in disapproval. Her hair is a flowing animation and there is a meander pattern bordering the image