Why Beeple Believes Digital Art’s Future Isn’t Up for Debate |
The artist’s Regular Animals went viral at Art Basel’s Zero 10. Photo: Martina Hoyos
When people are still discussing an artwork weeks after a gallery exhibition or fair, it becomes clear that the piece has done more than simply go viral. Something about it has opened the door for critical debate, inspiring timely reflection on where art is and where it might be heading next. Consider, too, that many much-discussed works that ultimately reshaped the course of contemporary art history—Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain being the most obvious example—were initially rejected by the art world’s gatekeepers.
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See all of our newslettersThe latest work to generate this kind of sustained buzz was arguably Beeple’s robotic performance, Regular Animals, which stole the show at the most recent edition of Art Basel Miami Beach. In the process, it pulled the art world’s focus toward Zero 10, the fair’s inaugural sector dedicated to digital art, and to how these practices currently operate within the contemporary art ecosystem.
Beeple—a.k.a. Mike Winkelmann—had suspected the performance might go viral. When we spoke to him just after the fair, he said that when he’d shown different versions of the robotic dogs at studio events, audiences always responded strongly. Earlier this year, someone recorded one of those presentations, posted it online and the video quickly racked up views. Still, presenting the work at Art Basel Miami Beach propelled it far beyond the digital art community Beeple is a part of. “We knew it was getting traction, but we had no idea it was about to blow up to the point where it would be on global news and literally live on CNBC the next day,” he told Observer. “Every outlet picked it up—Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, everyone. We had no way of expecting that. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh yeah, today’s the day this is going to explode.’”
At the time of our conversation, the videos had already amassed nearly 100 million views, according to Beeple’s team. “Making noise means bringing people in, especially during a week when there’s so much happening, and everyone’s trying to be at the center of the conversation,” he reflected, suggesting that while the scale of the reaction was unexpected, it made sense within the broader cultural moment.
“Honestly, the reason is that a lot of the works in the fair are not talking about things people actually care about. It’s full of conversations that don’t apply to anyone’s daily life,” he said. “Technology—and the impact it has on your life every single day—is an insanely relevant topic. I’m genuinely bewildered that more people in the art........