Contemporary Discoveries | Down the Rabbit Hole

Contemporary Discoveries | Down the Rabbit Hole

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1129. fragMental | 破碎.

Michael Kutsche

fragMental | 破碎

Lot Closed

March 1, 03:30 AM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 HKD

Lot Details

Description

Michael Kutsche

b. 1977

fragMental

2023


Non-fungible Token ERC-721

minted on 14 February 2023, this NFT is a 1-of-1 looping mp4 video at 5000 x 3484 pixels

mint address: 0x24b3b9e0fa675763f834e4268d5ee979029a3526


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邁克爾 · 庫奇

1977年生

破碎

2023


非同質化代幣

2023年2月14日鑄幣,此非同質化代幣為獨一無二的5000 x 3484幀循環播放mp4視頻

鑄幣:0x24b3b9e0fa675763f834e4268d5ee979029a3526

The artist


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藝術家本人

With an idiosyncratic approach of pairing seemingly contradictory visual elements of centuries-spanning artistic movements as well as mythical creatures, historical figures and pop culture elements, Michael Kutsche creates evocative paintings and animations that feel at once like fragments of anachronistic fairytales but also raise questions about the human condition and nostalgia, and ultimately force us to view past and present from a new angle.

His new work fragMental features elements from his previous works, such as the child-like characters that inhabit surreal spaces which are reminiscent of natural history museum dioramas but also elements which are subtle hints that these aren't real places, but rather a kind of digital afterlife or virtual reality.


The children seem to be symbolic for the child-like wonder and curiosity as we approach the new frontiers of the Metaverse, but the often slightly twisted fairytale-like beings who also roam these spaces are adding to a foreboding and mysterious atmosphere, and give reason to read these recurring pictorial arrangements as contemporary cautionary tales, and that to all this indulgence and promise of new technology and progress there is a tradeoff.


The large female figure that almost fills the entire frame evokes memories of the famous eat me cake-scene in Alice in Wonderland, and the rabbit hole analogy is also fitting with regards to the mysterious and highly contagious world of Web3 that seems to work by its very own set of rules. One other thing that stands out is that the girl seems to be a patchwork of different elements, and just like most of the figures in the work of the artist she is devoid of a face, as if to express that the further we move down that rabbit hole of social media and Web3 anonymity, the more fragmented our identities become.


One of the inspirations of the image is the enigmatic final scene of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, of which the chair to the right of the moving painting was taken. It is no coincidence that the film's main theme is also a cautionary tale: It points at Pandora's box that artificial intelligence embodies, personified by the sentient control system Hal that spins out of control, and with AI applications currently evolving at unprecedented speed, the art fits right into the current Zeitgeist.