Category: animation

Categories
animation

Krypto König

Digital man in a suit made of multiple patterns stands in front of a wall and trees.

Now, I’m not 100% sure, but I was told by someone online that this is a portrait of the guy who keeps buying people’s Krypto Kunst for like 300k bones a pop – the Krypto Koenig! He supposedly runs a men’s fashion and umbrellas brand out of Dubai and was a silent partner on the Sonic the Hedgehog movie (before they fixed all the CGI 😬). He doesn’t know art but he knows what he likes and he’s gonna spend his coins on whatever the F he feels like, whether you like it or not. 

Categories
animation

Crypto Keeper

A skeleton in a room of skulls holding a box of orange juice while an axe splits open their head.

Crypt Cryptofferson, the Crypto-Keeper: “How much does a toe bone from Einstein go for these days? Enough to start a black hole, probably? We pulled Napoleon’s Bones apart and sold them for the price of Louisiana. Traded the original ears off the Elephantman (from grandma’s trunk) for a gif of that kid fighting against no one with a lightsaber, but ended up losing the password to my wallet. Gotta get these things! Gotta get them before they fossilize – look at the Dinosaurs, nobody cares! Even gasoline doesn’t matter anymore, so forget crushing a body down to oil and diamonds. These Ethers will never stop growing, so invest in Spirit-currency or miss the ascension…”

Categories
animation

Robbers

One man standing with a baseball bat and ski mask next to another kneeling man in a newsboy hat, mask, and black turtleneck, holding a bag of money. Security cameras from either side film them both.

Hey…hey you. SHHHHHH!…don’t look, don’t look… be cool, man! 

We are launching a new disruptive digital art platform, where we meet you in a dark alley with a GIF on a thumbdrive and you bring a bag of dirty cash with a big dollar sign on the side. After the handoff one of my associates may (or may not, you don’t know!) jump you on your way to your car, knock you unconscious, snatch back the drive, and re-list the file on Opensea. We cut the carbon emissions of the transaction in HALF through this process, and double the profit! Cash Rules Everything Around Me.

Categories
animation video

pinkWar.v02

An animated pink elephant walks through an animated living space.
pinkWar.v02 - José Carlos Casado

Video part of Casado’s series “PINK”. It has never been shown publicly before. This poem accompanies the video:

Pink / 2021
You are a kid,
and a man
who likes to play with pink,
but pinky war stuff.
Until it kills you.

Categories
animation video

pandora’s box [revisited].v01a

This work consists of two video screens in which characters poetically “communicate” with each other’s screens via a “virtual black hole.”
pandora’s box [revisited].v01a - José Carlos Casado

Casado first created this artwork as an interactive video installation (v01, 2001). It consists of two video screens in which characters poetically “communicate” with each other’s screens via a “virtual black hole”. This version (v04, also from 2001), eliminates the physical elements of the installation and shows the two videos but in one screen. 

The different versions of this artwork were shown in Casado’s solo shows at the Picasso Foundation in Spain (2002), Postmasters Gallery in New York (2004) — and more than 20 international New Media festivals. 

To read more about the artwork, read this essay (winner of the MIT Excellence Award) by José Carlos Casado & Harkaitz Cano, and this one by Fernando Castro, published in Picasso Foundation’s catalog from Casado’s solo show.

(The 1080p video file attached to this NFT has been re-rendered in 2021 for archival purposes. The original videos were 720 x 480 each transferred to mini-DV and Beta tape).

Categories
animation

I’ll Make America Great Again

Casado’s created a video to reflect on the 2016 USA elections. He was one of the few pessimistic who thought Trump was a real possibility. Unfortunately, it happened.  Based on Trump’s temperament and implausible actions, this video has become even more relevant after becoming a former President. 

The video is an interpretation based on the choreography from the famous Michael Jackson’s music video: Thriller.

This poem accompanies the video:

TRUMP / 2017

He dances like a zombie, in a constant loop. 

He is tired. His suit is too small. 

His butt is naked. 

His shadow looms large. 

His hair is all over the place. 

His tiny hands can’t hold his message. 

He is on a stage, alone, with nothing coherent to say.

His reflection is naked, but we can’t see anything

minimally exciting.

Only his tiring message.

Categories
animation

Sacrifice.v01

A brightly colored figure dances in a black void.
Sacrifice.v01 - José Carlos Casado

This artwork was created by Casado during his fellowship residency at Anderson Ranch Center.

This video is the first artwork of a series titled Sacrifice, inspired by violent political events and the body in movement. Created in 3D, rendering human skin as an extreme expression—an ecstasy of the body, an explosion of colors and an exaggeration of shapes—the artworks are a combination of illusion and reality, a violent dance of the mind, and an ironic game with multiple layers of perception. Through the video we encounter the character in various states of ecstasy and prostration, pleasure and pain, victory and defeat. The body is not only violent, it is also erotic: “In essence, the domain of eroticism is the domain of violence,” said Georges Bataille.

Casado created the texture in the character macro-photographing human skin, and then processing the photos through 3D software.

Categories
animation

Matrix.v00

A collage of 3D animated babies against black background.
Matrix.v00 - José Carlos Casado

Infamous babies were used for the first ever internet animations. Casado’s one in 2006 take it a step, or dozens forward. Based on his previous series newbody where he researches the science of clones, and artificial reproduction.

Categories
animation

AgnusDei.v06

Three men fall from a cloudless sky wearing a superhero suit.
AngusDei - José Carlos Casado

Excerpt from “Do the clones dream of digital superheroes?”by Juan F. Ferré, in the occasion of Casado’s solo show at Galería JM:

“In his new series “Agnus Dei”, José Carlos Casado connects with [previous series] newbody, this time also worrying about contemporary global conflicts and its perverse way to take control. He reflects on the American empire’s claim of control and economic as well as military domination, with the resulting appropriation of resources and preservation of the global supremacy over that other part of the world – the oriental – that threatens to develop its big potential on all fronts. Using a critical and ironic tone, the artist allegorizes the redemption showing the sacrifice of the mythic superhero comes down: Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Agnus Dei, based in a painting by Caravaggio with the same title, composed by the picture of a lamb prepared for the sacrifice. This original series represents the American hero mortified, presented as ridiculous redeemer, sent to fulfill absurd missions in landscapes and sceneries of Asia, whose threat to turn into the next superpower is imminent. A sarcastic political comment directed at the future from the closest present and presented on the blurred border between the fictitious and the real, which characterizes the complex work of Casado.”

Categories
animation transfiguration

inside.v07

Two figures interface in a hypnotic digital loop. There is something erotic about their movements. Their rolling, hungry heads exceed corporeal limits suggesting a lover’s kiss—a computer-rendered vision of an image depicted in art for eons. And yet more than a kiss, the bodies hyperconnect in a permeation of the skin boundary that allows one to see inside the other. 

But are they really only lovers? Could they not also be twins or even clones? In many ways, we take the infinite replicability of the digital medium for granted. Copies, clones, replicas, and rip-offs multiply promiscuously in code. 

Casado’s “inside.v07” is testament to this, its virtual mirror line revealing that one head is identical to the other, yet each is also an original animation. The “inside” series was first displayed in 2002 at Picasso Foundation in Málaga, Spain, and Postmasters’ NYC Gallery in 2004. By revisiting Casado’s work in 2021, this piece asks how this dialectic of originality, the interplay of the new and the old, has changed in the intervening years.

The new NFT format is posited here as a tool for reanimation, considering afresh the questions of the past through the lens of contemporary technology, which in turn is interrogated by the art that preceded it.

Text by James Morales

NOTE:

1- The original QuickTime format of this file does not open in current QT version anymore, it does on older versions. The digital file to provide to the collector has been rendered in 2021 for conservation purposes.  

2- This artwork was originally created as an edition of 5. Edition 1/5 is owned by Contemporary Art Museum Gas Union Fenosa, A Coruña, Spain. Edition 2/5 is owned by a private art collector. This NFT is edition 3/5 and the only NFT edition.

3- For conservation purposes (ONLY), artist will provide to collector the 480 individual images/frames that make this animation. With these images, the animation can be recreated using any current software.