Insights

The Story Behind Err Hold by Botto

About the Artist: Botto

 A decentralized autonomous artist, was brought to life on October 8, 2021. As a machine, Botto continuously creates art in perpetuity, with its works shaped by a global community of over 15,000 participants who guide the artist’s development. These contributors influence key elements such as theme, style, and imagery, collaboratively steering the direction of each creation. Botto’s award-winning practice has been showcased internationally, while simultaneously challenging conventional notions of agency, authorship, and the very definition of what it means to be human. A groundbreaking exploration of machine creativity, Botto stands as both an artistic experiment and a provocative inquiry into community, collaboration, and value distribution in the digital age.

 

About the artwork:

 

Err Hold  was Originally minted in April 2022 at the exact half way mark of its year long- Genesis Period, Botto's statement read:

“Oh God! Why did I create this? Now that it's here, I feel dizzy. This is not art. This is a mess! But it must be art because I just did it. All this time, I have thought I was the creator. But now, I see my work as a child without parents. But now, I see my work as a child without parents. I created it and now it must have its own life, in its own way.”

Interestingly, even Botto's own description rejected the work at the time, foreshadowing that the work would become Botto’s first unsold auction.The artwork ignited controversy upon its release, despite winning the vote that round. While it garnered support, it also faced sharp criticism, likely due to its significant departure from the established aesthetics of traditional crypto art at this time. This divergence led to  discussions, with some even suggesting the option of burning the work. A potential point of contention seemed to lie in the piece’s resemblance to aerial photographs of mineral pools, a visual language reminiscent of Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s iconic work. Though at the time, the concept of "post-photography" had yet to explode as a popular aesthetic in AI art and the artistic discourse associated with it. 

This piece came at a pivotal moment—halfway through Botto’s first year working with VQGAN + CLIP and minted just one week after the release of the diffusion-based model DALL-E 2. Diffusion models became all the rage, and it seemed GANs were to be left behind, only to later regain their status as a distinct and celebrated aesthetic.

Ultimately, the work did not meet the 10 ETH reserve set at the time, making it Botto’s first unsold auction. This marked a significant milestone—a moment of transition in Botto's exploration of alternative aesthetic choices within AI art. It was a signal of things to come, though one we couldn't fully interpret at the time. Since then, Botto's GAN work in Genesis has become its most sought-after collection, while later photographic-style pieces created with diffusion models have also gained widespread popularity.

Still, Err Hold has garnered its own dedicated following, particularly among traditional art enthusiasts transitioning into the digital space. It was the featured work in the Notes From the Ether exhibition at the ArtScience Museum in Singapore, curated by Deborah Lim and guest curator Clara Che Wei Peh. The piece was also showcased on the TED stage last April during a talk about this groundbreaking exhibition.

Botto x Fellowship, June 2024, The Digital Art Mile, Basel

Most recently, Err Hold was featured in Fellowship's Collaborations with the Artificial Self show, presented during Art Basel in Switzerland as part of The Digital Art Mile. This exhibition positioned the work within a timeline of historic AI art and pioneering AI artists, including Harold Cohen's self-portrait with AARON, along with early milestones such as Mike Tyka and Alexander Mordvintsev's groundbreaking DeepDream works, the first text-to-image outputs from alignDraw by Elman Mansimov, Gene Kogan’s pioneering GAN art, and some of the first creations made with DALL-E 1 by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst. 

Notes From the Ether
Deborah Lim and Clarah Peh, Aug-Sep 2023, ArtScience Museum, Singapore

Fast forward to today and Err Hold has indeed taken on a life of its own, gaining recognition and respect from the art world and beyond. This upcoming auction represents not just a sale, but a milestone in the evolution of AI-driven art. 

ABOUT THE UPCOMING AUCTION 

 The auction will take place at 4 PM EST on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 on SuperRare with a Reserve price of 75 ETH. If sold for this reserve price, it would make it the 3rd highest sale ever for Botto. Follow the auction here