Design, Digital Artists Ponder Purpose of NFTs
MILAN — Architect Riccardo Fornoni’s Birdhouse, with its sleek furnishings, accents, stunning mountain vistas and futuristic elevator, could very well be placed in the metaverse — or Mars for that matter.
It’s a soon-to-be-minted computer-generated refuge that may very well never come to life, but it recently made a splash at the newly opened Dynamicartmuseum, on the edge of Milan’s Sforzesco Castle, a new Milan hub for NFT art.
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“NFTs have been a game changer within (but not only) the digital art field. Artists and designers are finally able to protect and sell their pieces as unique and certified items and that’s something that was really missing before,” said 29-year-old Fornoni, speaking from his apartment overlooking the terracotta roofs of Mantova. In addition to architecture, Fornoni is also an artist working regularly in the digital realm, designing sets, interiors and digital spaces for brands.
The Birdhouse came about as a project for the new Paris-based design marketplace called Monde Singulier, which offers exclusive design collectibles and is a platform for architects and designers to sell digital and physical pieces.
“I took their request to join their marketplace as a chance to develop a new project [The Birdhouse]. For this occasion, additionally to its interiors and the architecture itself, I also studied new dynamics and cinematic effects to enrich the story, such as the luggage movement in the lift, or the song I created as a background,” he said.
The bells of the Sant’Andrea Basilica are ringing in the distance beyond the home he shares with his girlfriend, surrounded by artwork and pieces collected by his grandfather, who was also an artist. It’s hard not to wonder how such futuristic designs emanate from a medieval setting. Fornoni explains he mastered the NFT application during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In and around the world of architecture, furnishing and interiors, designers in the field are quick to diss NFTs as not real art. “You need some software skills and good taste,” one world-renowned creative director told WWD, pointing to programs like One Mint and SketchAR, through which NFT art is generated.
But others are welcoming digital tools step by step. Earlier this month, historic auction house Sotheby’s announced that it will unveil a new blockchain-based program for generative artists. The Sotheby’s new Gen Art Program aims to bring to market some of the most talented and respected generative artists with exclusive new sales. The program will spotlight up to three artists a year, bringing to the fore generative art as a new medium and highlighting its integral role in the broader digital art movement. On July 26, it will sell 500 artworks by generative artist Vera Molnár, who at age 99, is still regarded as one of the great pioneers of computer art.
Sotheby’s already offers a curated array of NFTs from digital art, luxury, collectibles, sports and pop culture. The auction house said on its website that several records were broken when a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT sold in October 2021 for $3.4 million.
Italian upscale furnishing brand Alias said it has pondered the use of NFTs and artificial intelligence as it proceeds with its own corporate digitization process and explained that at this point, NFTs have more of a bureaucratic purpose that has the potential to safeguard Made in Italy. “NFTs can be useful as certification of originality and product tracking. Hence the certification of the physical product through the application of blockchain technology,” the company said in an emailed statement.
Andrés Reisinger, the digital artist and designer famous for works like “Pollen” and “The Shipping,” saw his Hortensia armchair become an actual piece of furniture in 2020. In addition, Pollen evolved into the Pollination of Hortensia carpets for Dutch lifestyle brand Moooi, launched during Milan Design Week 2023. Reisinger told WWD that he enjoys both digital and tangible art.
“There’s also a crucial difference between the two: physical beings change, decay through time, while digital ones can, potentially, remain the same forever; there is depth and richness in both cases, which is why I try to merge the two worlds with creations that have a tangible and concurrently virtual counterpart,” the Argentinian artist added.
On the shores of Dubai where funding is focused on the tech side of fashion and design, experts have another view.
From the beginning of time, artists have used tools and instruments like paint brushes and easels, explained Pico Velásquez, a computational architect, global thought leader and entrepreneur who is based between Dubai and San Francisco. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Viira, a firm that drives the bridging of physical and virtual worlds through AI tools, AR/VR/XR, and also integrates existing companies and institutions with blockchain, digital assets and DeFi (decentralized finance).
“It goes both ways, you design your art, a traceable non-copiable imprint that is virtual. This is why NFTs became so important in the art world,” she said, noting that The Whitney Museum of American Art now simulates digital art in its turn-of-the-century wings. “Tech has always been the foundation of art.”
The difference is that, due to a collection of images that spans more than a decade, computer programs now have accumulated a database more advanced than humankind, in the same way ChatGPT has the power to simulate professional and even emotional prose. Today, the human is driving the machine and telling it where it wants to go, and technology is creating a rendering that is more vivid and simulating that the auteur imagined, Velásquez explained. “These tools offer a back door entry into the world of tangible design. In the case of NFTs, the human is a curator selecting iterations, but what you end up with is indeed the initial vision,” she said.
From Dubai to Riyadh, artist Aleksandra Olszewska, who goes by the nome d’arte Future Bedouin, has created virtual installations and journeys using AI, recently creating artwork commemorating the holy month of Ramadan with a pillowy blush Ramadan tent with people gathered around it almost in prayer position with a striking pink moon bringing the piece together.
The creator made waves last month after she created the June 2023 “The Future” issue for Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, generated entirely by AI, taking the reader on a journey and through monuments only the future could architect. Digital avenues allow this new generation of creators to penetrate potential clients faster than ever before.
“NFTs open up new possibilities for monetizing our designs and creations. With the ability to sell and trade NFTs on various platforms and marketplaces, we can reach a global audience of art enthusiasts and collectors. This decentralization of the art market allows us to bypass traditional gatekeepers and create new revenue streams for our studio,” Olszewska said.
“Overall, the purpose of NFTs in the design interiors and architecture industry is to revolutionize the way we perceive, own and engage with digital art and design. They offer a unique avenue for establishing ownership, fostering community and monetizing our creative endeavors in a secure and transparent manner,” Olszewska added.
Fornoni echoed the sentiment. After his Villa Saraceni project in collaboration with London-based designer and artist Charlotte Taylor (founder of Maison de Sable, a creative 3D and Moving Image Studio) went viral, offers came knocking. Creating virtual architecture and scenarios featuring potentially iconic furniture pieces inspired him to work more with his hands, fueling the desire to create something physically tangible.
Fornoni said he recently began designing furniture pieces and is currently working on a new spatial project for Marbera, a marble furnishings Paris-based brand. He is also in the process of designing a physical shoe for Oliver Cabell, a made in Marche, Italy brand, with stores in the U.S.
Back in Milan, in the lobby of the Dynamicartmuseum, founder Pier Giulio Lanza says he is a firm believer in Italy’s prowess in the field of industrial design, which rose between the two World Wars. This phase gave fruit to some of the most beautiful machines created by Italian companies — from Lamborghini to lighting-maker Flos. “These works aren’t just machines, they are works of art,” he said.
Lanza, the former managing director and partner of Fiorucci, opened the Dynamicartmuseum, which he says is the first physical museum space in the world to present NFT art on a large scale, with 72 NFT artists and more than 140 works. While NFT works, including Fornoni’s, are pulsating on screens on the lower level, guests are perusing never-before-seen works by Rubens and Tintoretto on the main floor. “You never know where design is going to take you,” he said, holding an illustration of an abstract wooden statue painted in tempera called “Pupazzo Campari” created by Fortunato Depero in the 1920s for spirit-maker Campari, sending shock waves through society at the time. “This sort of design still represents the future, always contemporary.”
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