GM to September! 🍂

What better way to end the week and start the weekend than with art?

Here are this week’s highlights. ✨

🐋 FakeWhale

The wait is over: FakeWhale Season 2 has officially begun.

▪️Preserving legacy 

▪️Reshaping market dynamics 

▪️IRL + Meta experiences 

▪️Connecting through curation

Here is the official trailer.

🖌️ NFT Highlights

✨ Refik Anadol’s view on the relationship between AI & Art

Refik Anadol is a Turkish media artist who pioneered the use of machine intelligence as a form of art to bring to life unique immersive environments that can be experienced by anyone, no matter their age or background.

In an ever-increasing data-driven world, Anadol believes that data is a form of memory that can take on a variety of colors, shapes and textures — Art, science, and technology are the ultimate cornerstones of his creations.

But will artificial intelligence replace the power of human creativity?

The debate is more heated than ever these days.

MidJourney, DALL-E 2, and Stable Diffusion are just a few examples of prompt-based programs that are allowing artists to create art thanks to artificial intelligence, rising criticism among the art community on whether this can still be classified as authentic art or not.

Anadol looks at it from a different perspective and believes the relationship with this medium can be seen as pure collaboration with the machine and a further extension of our imagination, which remains the key input.

These beliefs, united with in-depth research on meditation techniques and consciousness during the pandemic, led to the iconic Dataland project located — a project located within the metaverse and fully designed by machine-assisted imagination.

So what next?

Anadol follows his main purpose which is to continue using AI to create art while expanding its use cases in the Web3 realm… With the imminent “New Beings” right around the corner!

✨ Phygital Fashion: RTFKT Studios & CloneX forging

RTFKT CloneX Forging SZN 1 minting is live: starting from August 31st, and up until September 7th, CloneX holders can access the collection and mint up to two items and receive an item from the GenesisX collection or a free t-shirt.

The debut CloneX collection features both physical and digital products, including Nike Air Force 1 sneakers.

But what does the forging consist of?

With the exception of RTFKT's Nike AF1s, all of the digital CloneX clothing can be forged into physical products via CloneX avatar’s DNA/Trait.

These physical products will then allow holders to secure future drops and access exclusive events, whereas the NFT will serve as a means of authentification.

Excited to see the outcome of this mint.

✨Slimesunday launches SLIMESHOP: an Opensea project focused on empowering surreal art collectors

Slimesunday is a renowned digital collage artist who creates surreal and unsettling compositions from digital photographs, usually portraying censorship, consumerism, and sexual identity.

For the last 8 months, he has been working on a whole new community-driven PFP project that will debute on September 8th: SLIMESHOP.

In collaboration with OpenSea, SLIMESHOP is a platform that becomes both space and tool that introduces the idea of interactive fine art and customization in NFT realm: starting September 8th, Slimesunday’s fans will be able to create their very own digital collage using SLIMESHOP.

✨ 3Face: an artwork that adapts to its collectors

Psychologist and artist Ian Cheng just dropped a one-of-a-kind project produced by Outland Art: 3Face — a generative & adaptive artwork built around Ian’s knowledge of cognitive science that invites its collectors to explore their personalities through a series of questions and prompts.

4096 pieces where every single artwork is adapted to the personal, social, and cultural characteristics of every single collector.

But how does it work?

Through a dedicated Outland-supported landing page, collectors are able to connect their wallets.

This is precisely when the unique experience begins: once connected the wallet, the collector is then presented with a series of “daemons” aka animated personalities to choose from: daemons that are enabled to read the information stored within the Ethereum address, and consequently compose the personality.

What happens if the 3Face NFT gets traded?

The 3Face NFTs can be traded countless times and will still be able to give the new owners an accurate representation of themselves as the 3Face algorithm is set to re-calculate the profile and generate a whole new version of the NFT.

✨ Top NFT Countries in the World

Can you guess which is the top NFT country in the world?

Yesterday Bankless Times released an article based on data by Finder that polled over 28,000 people in a survey across 20 countries comparing NFT ownership plans & awareness worldwide. 

🍿 Upcoming Events

Cool stuff is happening in HADEM this month, so make sure to download the application before the imminent reveal.

HADEM | Free Download

HADEM is a creativity-fueled immersive multiverse (FREE DOWNLOAD)

📚Book of the Month

September’s read is Ways of seeing, by John Berger.

Based on the BBC television series, John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" is a classic must-read that will open up a whole new world to its readers.