Achi news desk-
Since joining a community that dreams of an internet free of giant corporations that can exploit users’ time and data, Victoria West’s digital artwork has been exhibited around the world.
West, a photographer and digital artist based in Burton, 30 kilometers south-east of Fredericton, has had her work shown in Paris, Rome, Barcelona, ​​​​Townsville in north-east Australia , Miami, New York City, and even a museum in Albuquerque, NM, – all through connections she has made in Web3.
West warned it was a “rabbit hole”, but what he found was a wonder he doesn’t think he’d find anywhere else.
Web3 is the future version of the internet.
Burton photographer and digital artist Victoria West’s work was recently showcased in an immersive exhibition in the Big Apple.
Web1, says West, was the first version of the internet, where users passively consumed information.
As the 2000s dawned, Web2 emerged, and users could now post their own content – think Twitter, blogs, YouTube. People are now creating more and more in digital spaces, but the downside of Web2 is that corporations still technically own all that creation, and they could take your data and potentially do with it as they wish.
Enter Web3, which still exists more in theory: nobody and everybody owns the internet. This version aims to be decentralized. It doesn’t remove the distrust that some people have in mega companies like Google and Meta – it removes the need for it, because no person or organization can own the blockchain on which Web3 operates.
West said there is an art movement within Web3, with artists collaborating and taking control of their work. Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci had an internet connection, as well as Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello. It’s the renaissance all over again, West says, except it’s happening with digital art.
“And it’s happening online on a much larger scale.”
Before learning about W3 in 2021, West said she was in a photography bubble.
Photography is not the art form that West imagined herself pursuing when she was younger. But when she bought a camera after the first commercial digital models hit the market in the mid-2000s, she was hooked.
“I was bothering everyone around me to take their portrait,” he said.
She developed her portrait business, becoming involved with Professional Photographers of Canada and competing in photography competitions. Still, West didn’t just want to capture moments—she wanted to make them.
That’s when artificial intelligence emerged.
West used Midjourney, a generative AI program, when it was still in beta testing. Around the same time he became involved with Web3, he experimented with incorporating AI-generated textures into his photography. In her business, AI sped up her workflow and allowed her to change backgrounds and furniture.
When creating a piece in 2023 called When I Die, West wanted to design a man underground with roots blossoming into a tree. Well, no trees bloom in Canada in February, West joked – so she made the tree using AI.
“I feel like someone has taken the handcuffs off me, and I’m free,” he said.
Lauren Cruikshank, associate professor of culture and media studies at the University of New Brunswick, has talked about the use of AI in universities, but she also thinks about it through an artistic lens.
From the camera to spell check, Cruikshank said the same discussion takes place with every new medium: how much of the artwork belongs to the artist, how much to the tools they use?
“For some people, where it gets uncomfortable is where the role of the human is very small compared to how much the AI ​​tool creates or has a creative influence,” he said.
With AI, Cruikshank agreed there are degrees – there’s a difference between encouraging an AI to produce an image of a beautiful sunset and claiming it as your artwork and what West is doing, combining AI with her own art.
“That sounds very compelling to me,” Cruikshank said.
When West first saw Lume Studios on Broadway in lower Manhattan, the place where she would eventually exhibit The flow of Edenher immersive art exhibit, she knew she wanted it right away.
He collaborated on the exhibition with some of his Web3 friends. Los Angeles actors and poets Laurence Fuller and Vincent D’Onofrio wrote poetry to accompany each piece of art, which West created using photography and AI. A coding friend joined the crew, and the result was an immersive floor-to-ceiling display. West’s colleagues also choreographed performances to complement the art, using AI-generated music.
“Why wouldn’t I if I can?” West asked. “It’s liberating, I think, and lets you push the boundaries of photography and what you can do with it.”
While the exhibit leans heavily on romantic, classical themes and Baroque aesthetics, The flow of Eden almost a prediction: mint digital artwork building entire walls in people’s homes, flowers growing from a pod, experiencing art in virtual realms.
Demand will only grow, says West. Technology will develop and the internet will change. But what she really wanted was for people to walk into it The flow of Eden and be amazed by the art they were experiencing.
“They came because of the art, and they were there enjoying the art. You don’t really need to understand anything beyond that.”
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