By Doreen Hemlock
Every year, Miami Art Week features the latest trends in the world of visuals. As the 2023 extravaganza kicks off, get ready for “Generative Art,” or art created solely through software code, with no strokes painted or drawn on a canvas or a screen.
That’s the word from Marc Billings, the Miami tech entrepreneur who aims to bring digital art to all and whose Miami venture Blackdove makes hardware and software to do just that. Billings is keen on the the “generative” genre that often looks like geometric shapes and designs that change form and color.
“What makes generative art so exciting is that it can play for an unlimited amount of time, and it’s never the same,” says Billings. In some iterations, viewers can even voice commands, such as “Show me colors that are going to make me happy,” and those commands can change inputs in the software code and shift the images generated.
Blackdove is organizing a two-day event on digital art Dec. 7-8 featuring panels and gatherings in the Design District and will host leading generative artist Zach Lieberman [see art below] on Thursday afternoon. Lieberman is an adjunct professor at MIT Media Lab and co-creator of openFrameworks, an open-source C++ toolkit for creative coding. He’s also helped start the School for Poetic Computation, which examines the lyrical possibilities of code. The software-artist says his work “wants you surprised.”
Billings’ Blackdove has been pioneering at Miami Art Week for years. In 2021, it launched a pop-up gallery focused on NFTs – non-fungible tokens, which certify ownership of digital asset on the blockchain. In 2022, it debuted a gallery in Wynwood focused on digital art that moves, launching an international network that has included galleries or pop-ups in Italy, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
This year, it’s teaming with high-end design firm Global Furniture Group to offer panels, talks and other gatherings at the group’s Design District showroom, with a focus on education. The furniture showroom already offers the latest in Blackdove’s line of “digital canvases,” or screen-frames made specifically to display art made on computers. Unlike TVs, the hardware can stand vertically and features a hard-drive that lets users stream stored images. The latest screen-frames are smaller and sell at prices starting about $400, helping fulfill Blackdove’s mission to make digital art as ubiquitous as books and music.
Coming soon: an app to stream digital art on your TV
To reach even broader audiences, Blackdove is teaming with TV maker Vizio and launching a subscription channel on Vizio-brand TVs in 2024 to stream digital-art into homes and offices, Billings says. Vizio now has some 17 million TVs in use in the US, bringing a version of digital art to horizontal screens, he says.
Blackdove also is developing an app to stream digital art to all TV brands including Samsung, LG, AppleTV, Sony and Amazon FireTV, as well as its “digital canvases.” The Miami venture offers a catalogue of 50,000-plus works, including a growing list of generative art, says Billings.
Billings has a strong track record in tech, starting up South Florida ventures including Incubate Miami, Itopia and Boatsetter. His software team recently called Art Week “our Super Bowl at Blackdove.”
For tickets to Blackdove’s no-cost sessions on digital art at 112 NE 41st St., 6th floor, sign up at events.blackdove.com.
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- Miami’s Blackdove highlights digital art for all during Miami Art Week - December 4, 2023