NFT
Jack Butcher, founder of creative agency Visualize Value and artist behind the groundbreaking Checks VV non-fungible token (NFT) collection, is releasing a new project titled Checks Elements that combines generative artwork with hand-drawn physical prints.
Checks Elements, a 152-piece generative art collection, is inspired by the four classical elements of earth, fire, water and air. Each piece in the collection is a unique algorithmically generated composition of colors that make up these elements, exploring the “ever-evolving relationship between consensus and truth”.
“Elements are conceptual… the first example of decentralized consensus,” Butcher told CoinDesk. “We’re trying to tap into the themes that Checks is trying to express from internet consensus to pre-internet consensus, which is that all these different cultures, languages, parts of the world, different schools of thought about how the world came about… all landed on these four categories of matter – earth, water, air and fire.”
Butcher explained that to create the new collection, his team modified the algorithm that created the original Checks collection and added some new parameters. Butcher worked with master printmaker Jean Robert Milant and Cirrus Editions to bring the NFT outputs to life and translate them into hand-drawn 30″ by 43″ monoprints created via an on-chain SVG file created by a vintage lithographic printing press.
To create the physical prints, the signature four-by-four Checks grid was etched onto a plate used by the printer. Each paint color in the collection was added one at a time, based on the algorithmic output of Butcher and his team. Each physical artwork was then verified with Butcher’s fingerprint and comes with an Ethereum-based NFT.
“When we translated Checks into a physical piece of art, it never felt like anything really continued the DNA of the project until we talked to Milant and understood his process,” he said. “There are a lot of similarities in the way these are conceptual [prints] come from a set of constraints that are then modified based on rules generated by the computer.”
Three of the four “Alpha” elements, including water, air, and earth, will be offered in a solo auction at Christie’s beginning May 16 and ending May 23. A portion of the sales proceeds will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The physical work and their digital counterparts will be exhibited at Christie’s New York Gallery starting May 20.
The rest of the Checks elements, including the fourth Alpha element of fire, are then put up for public auction for 24 hours. The physical prints will begin shopping on June 24.
Existing with and except Cheques VV
Butcher told CoinDesk that the auction will use “some of the dynamics” used in the original Checks collections, though he said this project wouldn’t necessarily be interoperable with the other gamified pieces. In the previous Checks collection, inspired by the blue verification check mark popularized by Twitter, holders could assemble NFTs to create smaller, unique editions of check marks (you can read more about how it works here).
“There are definitely things that will carry over when the rest of the collection is offered at auction after Christie’s and this isn’t going to work like a traditional, run-of-the-mill auction,” he explained. “There are a lot of mechanics in the game once it launches. But the idea of [Elements] in the long run is to exist as couples sitting together to complement the existing check ecosystem.”
It’s also possible that collectors will want to decouple their physical prints from their NFTs and sell them separately, an outcome Butcher says is possible, though he believes people want to keep them together for provenance purposes.
“I have some guesses about how that will play out and I would imagine the couples staying together for people who are in it for the art,” he said.
“We made a conscious decision not to include a fire mechanism in this thing,” added Martin Klipp, president of Beyond Art Creative, who helped bring the artwork to life. “Because in my mind … both pieces are art. Both pieces are twinned, both pieces have their merits, and both exist together or apart.”
Other NFT artists and galleries have recently embraced physical forms of their NFTs, with Tyler Hobbs exhibiting large-scale prints of his QQL: Analogs at the Pace Gallery in New York City in March 2023. In February 2023, Art Blocks and NFT Gallery Bright Moments teamed up to bring real-life experiences to venues across five cities, allowing owners of artist Mpkoz’s Metropolis NFT collection to participate in a physical activation to create a second, physical smash in the specific city associated with their NFT.