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Pak (creator)

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Pak
Pak, who is anonymous, uses this logo in place of a photo.
Born
unknown
Other namesMurat Pak, The Nothing
OccupationDigital creator
Years activemid 1990s–present
Notable workArchillect

Pak, formerly MuratPak,[1] is an anonymous digital artist, graphic designer, and animator who has been active for over two decades in digital art and motion design.[2] Pak is known for creating the AI "Archillect" which combs the web for images to share on social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and Facebook.[3] Anonymity forms a key component of Pak's artistic practice which, according to the artist, shifts focus from the physical properties and identity of the artist to the works and concepts of the artist.[4] They are the founder and lead designer of the studio Undream and the hacker lab Machinu. Pak's motion design works have appeared in film trailers such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Pak's work has also been selected as Vimeo "Staff Picks", including "Imagine" (2009)[5], "Masnavi" (2009)[6] and "The Node"(2011)[7] which was also shortlisted for the 2012 Vimeo Festival Awards.

More recently, Pak is also active as a crypto art and NFT creator. In his NFTs, Pak is known for a style that uses clean, monochrome, geometric structures and AI image generation to create pieces that are intertwined with economic mechanisms working together towards a larger metaverse and seeking to grapple with the fundamentals of blockchain as a medium. In their works, Pak is also known for challenging and questioning such concepts as value, ownership, and art and often forces their collectors to choose between different scenarios.[citation needed] Pak created the concept of the "Open Edition" NFT , whereby NFT releases were not limited by number but by the amount of time they are available for.[8][9] Open Editions have since become a standard drop model for NFT releases.[citation needed] Pak's works have been sold on platforms such as Sotheby's, SuperRare, Nifty Gateway, MakersPlace, and Async Art. Pak is credited for having introduced acclaimed NFT artist "Beeple" to selling NFTs.[10]

Archillect

In 2014, Pak created the Archillect (a portmanteau of archive and intellect)[11], an artificial-intelligence algorithm that acts as a virtual curator. The AI searches through social media and posts images it algorithmically selects on its own feed.[2] Posts are selected in order to be shared as widely as possible, adapting to provide more of the content people are sharing.[12][3] Archillect has been compared to AI composer Emily Howell as examples of "artistic bots".[13] It has also been described as a mood board.[14] Pak described Archillect as a "digital muse" and refers to it as "she".[15][16]

In 2018, people theorized the Archillect Twitter account was involved in an ARG in connection to the upcoming game Death Stranding by Hideo Kojima, who had previously retweeted posts from the account.[17][18][19][20] It was later revealed that the ARG was a "social experiment" by Pak and unrelated to Kojima Productions.[21]

In 2019, Dogma design lab was spun out of Archillect.[22] Dogma is a design company that’s specialized on AI, Media and Design research.

As of 2021, the account has over 2.7 million followers on Twitter.[23]

NFT art

In August 2020 Pak released project 'X' on NiftyGateway which premiered the concept of the "Infinite Edition" where thirteen NFTs were offered for sale for a time-limited window of twenty-four hours.[9] Collectors were able to buy as many of an edition as they liked however a total of only 61 pieces were sold across the thirteen works available.[8] This type of drop style is now referred to as an "Open Edition" and has become a common practice within cryptoart.[8]

In January 2021, Pak released the collection, called "The Title," which was a statement about value and purpose.[24] Pak sold the same image at different prices but each NFT had a different title and edition size. The Cheap, for example, was priced at $499 (192 editions purchased) while The Expensive was priced at $10,000 (8 editions). Thus, the artwork was the same for all of the NFTs but collectors nevertheless were willing to pay vastly different prices. Given the NFTs pointed to the same file stored online, The Title also challenged the concept of ownership.

In March 2021 Sotheby's CEO Charles Stewart announced on CNBC a partnership with Pak to launch the auction house's first NFT sale.[25][26] This partnership resulted in the collection "The Fungible" which was an open edition and was sold between April 12 to April 14 with a total of 23,598 cubes sold and formed into 6,156 NFTs as a result of a scarcity mechanism introduced by Pak. The Fungible generating $16.8 million in sales.[27][28] This culminated in media attention and subsequent interviews with representatives from Sotheby's on CNBC to discuss the future of art and how Pak is changing it.[25] The Wall Street Journal asked whether "Pak is the future of art".[29] The Fungible was Sotheby's first NFT auction and the first NFT drop on a major global auction house. The Fungible was described as "a milestone in Sotheby’s relationship with NFTs".[27] In that same sale, Pak auctioned "The Pixel" - a single grey pixel NFT - which sold at auction for $1.36 million along with "The Switch" which sold for $1.4 million.[30] As a follow-up to The Fungible, and as part of the art project in May 2021, Pak created the ERC20 crypto-token "Burn" that allows NFTs to be swapped for the token.

On September 3, 2021, Pak launched the "Lost Poets" project and NFT strategy game which sold out in 2 hours and generated $70 million in sales by selling approximately 58,000 NFTs. Lost Poets consists of 65,536 NFTs available for sale and a further 1024 Origin NFTs given away during the project. Lost Poets was planned as a year-long project and consists of four acts, Act 1: The Sale, Act II: The Reveal, Act III: The Explorer, and Act IV: The Twist. [31]

On October 15, 2021, Pak's Thousand Cubes NFT from The Fungible was displayed on the cover of the October 22 edition (Vol 12, No. 7) of "Time for Kids" by Time Magazine and covered the digital art boom.[32] That same day, Sotheby's launched the 'Sotheby's Metaverse' a digital art platform for selling and curating NFTs which offers users a unique personal profile picture generated by Pak.[33]

On October 26, 2021, Pak's "Rubik's Lure" sold for $1.1 million as part of Sotheby's "Natively Digital" sale[34] and on November 12, 2021, Pak's collaborative piece "Leonardo's Vision" sold in Shanghai for RMB 7.245 million ($1.135 million).

On December 2, 2021, Pak launched the sale of Merge on the NiftyGateway platform. Merge was made available for a period of 48 hours (from December 2, 2021 to December 4, 2021) with collectors able to purchase as many "mass" units as they would like. Each mass unit cost $299 (with prices increasing to $400 for the public sale, and thereafter increasing by $25 every six hours). Unlike a traditional NFT drop where collectors could acquire multiple copies of an NFT edition, collectors who purchased "mass" units from the Merge drop were only given a single "merged mass" NFT whose image is dynamically generated on the blockchain and changes based on the amount of mass held. Mass NFTs merge together if there is more than one NFT in the wallet, with the smaller NFT removed from the collection. A total of 266,855 mass units were sold during the primary Merge drop [35] generating $91.8 million in sales[36].

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ Pak [@muratpak] (February 1, 2021). "I frequently get asked: "What does Murat Pak mean if it's a made up name?" Murat: Purpose, Desire, Wish Pak: Simple, Pure Murat Pak: "Aiming/desiring/wishing the simplest/purest." Dropped "Murat" for quite some time but still carry it in my usernames for historical meaning" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 28, 2021 – via Twitter.
  2. ^ a b Crow, Kelly (April 21, 2021). "Who Is Pak? The Artist's Fans Couldn't Care Less". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  3. ^ a b "The Most Interesting Curator on the Internet Knows Exactly What You Want to See". www.vice.com. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  4. ^ https://fitc.ca/article/interview-pak/
  5. ^ Pak (March 22, 2009), Imagine, retrieved December 6, 2021
  6. ^ Pak (May 1, 2009), MASNAVI, retrieved December 6, 2021
  7. ^ Pak (May 1, 2011), The Node, retrieved December 6, 2021
  8. ^ a b c "Nifty Gateway". niftygateway.com. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  9. ^ a b Nifty Gateway [@niftygateway] (August 27, 2020). ".@muratpak's project 'X' on Nifty Gateway is a format that's never been tried before. There are unlimited editions of 13 of the works, limited by time instead - an unlimited number can be purchased within 24 hours. After that, no new ones can be created" (Tweet). Archived from the original on August 27, 2020. Retrieved November 28, 2021 – via Twitter.
  10. ^ "Beeple gets real | Christie's". www.christies.com. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  11. ^ Staff, Creative Bloq (September 29, 2015). "Discover amazing photography with new web bot". Creative Bloq. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  12. ^ "LaStampa_AI, le foto su Instagram scelte dall'intelligenza artificiale di Archillect". lastampa.it (in Italian). November 15, 2018. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  13. ^ Woolley, Samuel. "Bots aren't just service tools—they're a whole new form of media". Quartz. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  14. ^ Watkins, Jon. "Mechanical Curation: Spotify, Archillect, Algorithms, And AI".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ^ Pietropoli, Martino (October 20, 2016). "Archillect, the elegance of the algorithm". Medium. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  16. ^ "Murat Pak: Designing the Mind of an Online Curator – Ryan Melsom". Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  17. ^ "Archillect 204863 Solved- Surprise Death Stranding Announcement!". TheNerdMag. December 20, 2018. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  18. ^ Kim, Matt (December 20, 2018). "This Could Be a Death Stranding ARG and People are Freaking Out". USgamer. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  19. ^ "Death Stranding: What Might Kojima and Archillect Be Teasing in These Cryptic Tweets? [UPDATE]". www.dualshockers.com. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  20. ^ "Death Stranding ARG Begins via a Mysterious Twitter Account [Updated]". Game Rant. December 20, 2018. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  21. ^ "Death Stranding's Short Lived ARG is Unrelated to Hideo Kojima or Kojima Productions". www.dualshockers.com. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  22. ^ Pak (July 8, 2019). "Hello Dogma". Medium. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  23. ^ "archillect". Twitter. Retrieved December 6, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ^ Pak [@muratpak] (January 4, 2021). "The Title is about value. It's about purpose. It's an art piece of statement, taking the importance from "the file" and giving it to the cryptonative* art. Controversial and hopefully historic. A piece I'm very proud to sign. https://t.co/XPqZ7IwshW" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 28, 2021 – via Twitter.
  25. ^ a b Stankiewicz, Kevin (March 16, 2021). "Auction house Sotheby's enters NFT world through collaboration with digital artist Pak". CNBC. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  26. ^ Kay, Grace. "Famed auction house Sotheby's is getting in on the crypto-art craze". Business Insider. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  27. ^ a b https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/17-million-realized-in-sothebys-first-nft-sale-with-digital-creator-pak. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  28. ^ https://www.wsj.com/articles/sothebys-enters-nft-market-with-17-million-sale-of-art-by-enigmatic-artist-pak-11618429617 [bare URL]
  29. ^ https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-is-pak-the-art-world-wants-to-know-the-artists-base-couldnt-care-less-11618963200 [bare URL]
  30. ^ "Crypto-artist Pak's single grey pixel NFT sold for $1.36 million". artreview.com. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  31. ^ https://www.cryptotimes.io/the-new-lostpoets-project-by-pak-gained-70-million-in-2-hours/
  32. ^ "Digital Art Boom". Time for Kids. October 15, 2021. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  33. ^ Kinsella, Eileen (October 15, 2021). "Sotheby's Launches Metaverse, a Dedicated Digital Art Platform, With a Little Help From Pak, Paris Hilton, and Time Magazine". Artnet News. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  34. ^ https://metaverse.sothebys.com/natively-digital/lots/rubiks_lure
  35. ^ https://niftygateway.com/collections/pakmerge
  36. ^ https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/pak-merge-nft-sale-nifty-gateway-1234612436/

External links

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