Variegations with Ernest Wu and Jake Tan
VARIEGATIONS is a four-episode newsletter capsule tracing the questions surrounding Ernest and Jake’s NFT project, BIOSNFT: a collectible NFT art project inspired by variegated plant collecting and the immortalisation of virtual plants on the blockchain. How would our connection with plants be mirrored in the metaverse?
The capsule maps out the similarities and differences between variegated plant collecting and the new digital economy of scarce and highly valued digital objects.
Episode 1: MUTATION AND CONTROL
What is variegation, and why are variegated plants highly valued? What is our relationship to the natural world and how do we control the aesthetics of a plant?
Episode 2: PARALLEL ECONOMIES
What are the similarities and differences between variegated plant collecting and the NFT collectible economy?
Episode 3: WHAT IS A DIGITAL PLANT?
Imagining and visualising a virtual plant – how does it look, feel and interact with its environment?
Episode 4: BIOSNFT
Introducing BIOSNFT: what is a dynamic NFT and what is going to be innovated next in the NFT space.
About the artists
Ernest Wu is an artist based in Singapore that uses photography and moving images to explore spatial relationships and painterly aesthetics. His projects use unconventional methods of creating images structured around the limitations of the camera and pose questions about existence and the reality of things. His recent explorations into NFTs and digital art expands on how we perceive images and experiences online. He was awarded the Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Photography 2018. Ernest studied film at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and graduated in 2018 from Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media with a BFA (Hons) in Photography and Digital Imaging. His work has been exhibited in festivals and exhibitions internationally in Auckland, Dali, Paris and Singapore.
Jake Tan is a new media artist and Adjunct Lecturer at Nanyang Technological University and Temasek Polytechnic. His practice focuses on the intersection between nature, technology and society and has exhibited and was part of artistic residencies in Singapore, Austria and Germany. His methodology involves technological research & development through various hardware and software programming, AR/VR/MR production, projection mapping and XR-focused user interface and experience design. He received his BFA degree in Interactive Media(2020), and MiniMasters™ in General Management (2021) from Nanyang Business School.
Ernest and Jake are co-founders of SERIAL COMMUNICATION, a studio that focuses on Research & Development of proprietary digital assets in the fields on Creative Technology, Blockchain and Extended Reality(XR).