DA 2, Reading Response 2: Beeple

Mike Winkelmann is an American digital artist and graphic designer better known under the professional name Beeple, who pioneered the mainstream acceptance and commercial viability of digital art. Native to Charleston, South Carolina, Winkelmann had a background in computer science that gave the technical foundation to his artistic career. His early work included short films, VJ loops of abstract, animated visuals used by musicians and video artists. This led to commissions creating concert visuals for major acts, including Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and Zedd! It was his work the "Everydays" project that would truly ignite his career beginning on May 1, 2007. The self-imposed discipline required him to create and post a complete digital artwork every single day without fail, something he has done well over a decade to hone his technical skills and force creativity.

Beeple's art gained international prominence with the sale of his most famous work, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, which single-handedly broke open the contemporary art market. This is a huge high-definition digital collage consisting of the first 5,000 individual images he created for his "Everydays" project over 13.5 years. The artwork was minted as an NFT and sold at a Christie's auction in 2021 for $69.3 million!! It marked a record sale, topping all previous sales of digital art, confirming a new crypto-art market, and placing digital creation-previously seen to be easily reproducible-as a legitimate and collectible art form, on par with physical works.

Winkelmann works in a mix of grotesque satire, dark humor, and highly detailed dystopian futurism, realized through a very technical process. He works mainly in 3D, using industry-standard software like Cinema 4D for modeling and rendering, Octane Render for realistic lighting, ZBrush for detailed digital sculpting, and Adobe Photoshop and After Effects for post-processing and compositing. His overarching theme in the "Everydays" work constitutes a sort of visual diary and commentary on contemporary society, oftentimes pointing toward the conjunction of technology and humanity, political turbulence, and consumerist culture. His works more often than not feature recognizable pop culture or political figures inserted into absurd, exaggerated, or even post-apocalyptic situations that challenge viewers with complex-and at times provocative-visual narratives.

Artist Website: https://www.beeple-crap.com/