![DAMAIF](https://grebenshyo.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DAMAIF.jpg)
ART then, surely, is just a necessity, a consequence, a corollary, a masquerade of the revolutionary. The lofty guffaws of self-congratulatory, self-referential self-satisfaction; the smug understanding of the ‘codes and conventions’ of the chess board is surely nothing but an erogeny of pawn. Surely, the superior glance and the ‘semi-colon of the head’ manoeuvre after ‘correctly and knowingly’ identifying some subtle visual cue oh so deftly quoted from another work is just a masturbatory act. The titillation of a spenny Femme à la Montre, touting around Sotherby’s for a meagre hundred million, is a dalliance between expression and dirty cash that surely makes it vulgar. Is this why Picasso’s faces don’t ever quite know which way to look?
Andrew Lee, Oxford Art critic
Quoted from DAMzine issue #17 – Analogue Nomad by @hersoid
As a “gamificated“ approach reshapes art distribution standards (see Ourzora, DRiP Haus, RARE protocol), there is a growing demand for more active engagement from the community. This trend is indicated by the merging of “Crypto Art“ with “web3“, which integrates the so-called “NFT space“ with the prevalent “content culture.“ Notably, the recent migration of even established artists from Ethereum Mainnet to more affordable networks signals a broader shift beyond mere financial benefits, catalyzing such phenomena as the “SPAM art“ movement.
On another front we have the burgeoning field of “AI Art“, often dismissed as “lazy“ and “worthless,“ and recently even accused of contributing to what’s known as “engagement farming“ (as seen in the posting rules of Farcaster’s /aiart channel, for instance). AI art’s extreme output efficiency makes it appear well-suited to the enduring click-bait paradigm, where quantity often trumps quality.
Paradoxically, when the domains of blockchain and AI art intersect, the former—despite being touted as the “most advanced“ financial system, suggesting a possible natural affinity with other innovative expressions—shows limited curation effort that aims to dismantle the narrow-sighted myths plaguing the latter. DAMAI seeks to change this by promoting a more nuanced understanding of the potential for AI art in a landscape defined by the blockchain by featuring work conscious of the presented issues while giving the opportunity to anyone to express their take in a novel, data-driven and decentralized kind of Gesamtkunstwerk.
grebenshae
Founded by @culturehacker and @lowbrownative, DAM – a decentralized art zine, as it’s defined on damzine.xyz – operates as an on-chain curatorial platform.
Similar to open events in the Tezos ecosystem, DAM zine utilizes hashtags to track artists’ releases during various happenings. Unique in its approach, DAM remains strictly chain-agnostic and prioritizes documenting and archival, with many issues already published.
Singles is a DAM project that invites external curators to prompt (🎉) the event, with yours truly taking on the role of curating DAMAI — the first-ever cross-chain festival dedicated to generative AI art and spanning a series of both open and curated initiatives across various platforms and blockchains, including:
• TEZAI — an open event where all artists are welcome to contribute. (Find details below on how to.)
• Curation on COLLECTOR.SH — we are celebrating the contribution Collector brought to Solana based art in its time of operation with a curated drop of unreleased work from exceptional AI artists:
Culturehacker, Evelyn, Ilya Bliznets, Ilya Shkipin, Kapstone, L’Bank, Lowbrow, Santiago Ney, Stephan Vasement, VonSoul, Yuma Sogo
• Curation on OBJKT.COM — in addition to Tezos-based artworks presented for the event by curated artists, DAMzine’s curation team will select outstanding artworks from the openly submitted ones during the course of the event to be included in this section, for a ‘half open’ type of curation.
release party: 6/14/2024 12 PM EST – damzine
farcaster channel: /damai
![](https://grebenshyo.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/partners2.png)
With the kind support of Collector.sh, NFTBiker and Objkt.com
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HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DAMAI // TEZAI OPEN EVENT
If you’re an artist wanting to participate, follow these simple steps:
1. Make a genai themed piece (no worries if you work with traditional media, nobody will notice!)
2. Mint a 1/1 or multiple edition on any chain/marketplace you want.
3. Price however you want & add the issue’s hashtag (#DAMai / #TEZai) to your title, description and/or tags – the choice is yours.
4. Share what you make & collect by tweeting with the issue’s specific hashtag.
All the pieces minted on Tezos and including an event’s hashtag will be indexed in a NFTBiker‘s hosted EVENT and have the opportunity to be featured in the DAMAI Curation on Objkt.com alongside the artworks from artists selected for the curated section of the event.
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As part of its community-driven ethos, DAM also maintains wallet addresses to which participants can voluntarily donate a portion of their proceeds. These donations support the ongoing collection of works from other artists. Here are the addresses:
SOL Wallet fhdhBKw8qhZK4CSk6ehM64BLAgMT3xF2kJazLC4e8xH (damzine.sol)
TEZ Wallet tz1YEUWNDMLxg25PYpJzYaUDjTG2KYrZ4SCp
ETH Wallet 0xE2e831Dd4fdc773457C52b52fCC0856A7Bc85230
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L’Bank – @Lbank_
Interdisciplinary artist, media artist, digital artist, new media artist, nft-artist, representative of transmedial art. Born in 1992 in Kazakhstan. On the left bank of the Ishim River in the city of Astana, which is where the pseudonym L’Bank comes from. He was educated as a programmer. In 2016 he graduated from the Department of Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design at EMU, North Cyprus. Works in various techniques and media. Participant of numerous international exhibitions. Rinatto Left Bank in his works explores visual communication, the phenomenology of the human body through the concepts of beauty, the sublime and the uncouth. The artist uses the views of posthumanism, denouncing the themes of technogenesis and the role of humans in the system of nature. L’bank’s art carries the aesthetics and communications of cyberspace, but also offers to go beyond it. The physical objects of multimedia art, as an extension of traditional art, are adapted to our contemporary realities. The artist uses different media, not always digital, it can also be canvas and oil, found objects, tiles, fabrics, but they can contain a new aesthetic of new digital environments with their new implications.
Ilya Shkipin – @i_shkipin
My work explores the fragmented nature of identity in the digital age through a unique fusion of AI-generated imagery and traditional painting techniques. I start by training AI models on my own artwork, then edit and paint over the outputted images to create raw, expressive pieces that pulse with emotional authenticity. The resulting works celebrate the glitches and distortions that emerge from the clash of pixels and pigment, blurring boundaries between the digital and the analog, the virtual and the visceral. By embracing both the precision of the machine and the intuitive gestures of the human hand, I aim to open up new possibilities for art-making in the AI age – transmuting cold data into something alive, vulnerable, and deeply felt. Ultimately, my goal is to create immersive, empathetic experiences that invite viewers to confront the messy, unfiltered realities of being human in an increasingly disembodied world.
Evelyn O. – @_Evelyn_O_
Evelyn O. is a Swedish artist who is experimenting with digital painting and artificial intelligence. His work has been showcased at art fairs such as NADA and Scope at Art Basel Miami, as well as NFT NY, NFT Europe. Evelyn’s unique approach to art has also led to solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
Stephan Vasement – @stephanvasement
Stephan Vasement is an AI artist who has previously worked with animation and street photography. Vasement explores the dream world that AI is capable of creating. He is actively involved in the world of post-photography and seeks to find new possibilities for incorporating AI. Vasement’s work has been shown internationally in group exhibitions for NFTParis, NFTKorea in Seoul and Scope Art Show during Art Basel Miami.
Yuma Sogo – @yuma_sogo
Yuma Sogo – an AI artist known for his captivating portraits. Using multiple panels to convey a story, Yuma’s work is a beautiful example of “art within art,” where each panel can be appreciated as an individual work of art but also contributes to a larger narrative.
Ilya Bliznets – @ilyabliznets
The artist’s practice involves the creation of digital paintings using AI as a base (skeleton) for subsequent post-processing in Photoshop. His process is based on observation and self-reflection, making the painting process an effective tool for personal introspection. His main interest lies in the exploration of identity and the analysis of reality, which he expands and enriches through the filter of personal fantasies and dreams. The work thus reflects not only visual concepts, but also engages in conceptual reflection on the relationship between the real and the imaginary, offering new ways of perceiving and interpreting the world around us. He also pays attention to visual search and experimentation, as to a similar exploratory experience.
grebenshae – @grebenshi
grebenshae’s work presented for the #DAMAI release stems from a project focusing on the integration of the generative ai medium with more ‘traditional’ digital painting. in particular it highlights an artist’s production key interest point exploring the notion of ‘resolution’ at various conceptual levels of image creation process, which is crucial from the standpoint of contemporary theory of arts, in artist’s view | grebenshae is an award-winning, Zurich-based artist with traditional background working with digital media. His practice revolves around perception issues he’s been exploring through generative art, 3d and AI. In recent years his work has been featured in a few major events, such as Wrong’s DART in Milan, Solana’s Breakpoint in London and NFT ART DAY ZRH in 2023
Vonsoul – @vonsoulart
I would say I’m a soulful and creative artist who always wants to put others first but at the same time strive to become the very best in my own craft. I use my own soul as a medium for my art,blue being the color of my aura/energy that I use to portray the emotion and pieces of myself through the inspiration of anime. Being able to use the color blue to connect the exact feeling I’m feeling in that moment to allow people to connect with my art if they are feeling the same way is also a way to let them know in a way as well that you are not alone. “Vonsoul” came to be because in german “Von” was a name that was given to people who were considered noble or high class but the older meaning of the word “Von” meaning “Faith” so to me it means to have faith in myself. Sometimes when I can’t find the words to express my feelings , I like to use my art as a form of expression to display my deepest and most hidden emotions. When you see my art you are able to connect with it. Some of us can’t always communicate what we go through.Expressing one’s emotions or emotional issues, social issues or psychological issues can be complex or confusing sometimes. So I enjoy thought provoking visual stories. Each story contains the flaws of our society or mental struggles.
Kapstone – @kapstone
Some people use Ai as a tool; I prefer to think of Ai as my partner in creation. By that I mean my use of Ai to create is focused more on seeing the twists and turns that Ai take me down rather than prescribing a result. My past explorations have focused on using Ai as a collage partner – how can the Ai tools create a complex , layered image. Recently I have been continuing those explorations to try to express two competing thoughts – the first is a sense of freneticism that permeates my day to day existence and has for the past 6 months or so and the second is a nostalgia for simplicity in existence (which for me was the few weeks I spent in Japan a few years ago)