Primavera De Filippi on Protocol Art, Plantoids, and Cognitive Sovereignty
Primavera De Filippi, an artist and legal scholar, spoke with Anika Meier for SLEEK about various topics, including protocol art, her project Plantoid, and her research on cognitive sovereignty. This chat is connected to the 'Strange Rules' exhibition at Palazzo Diedo in Venice, which was curated by Mat Dryhurst, Holly Herndon, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Adriana Rispoli, and kicked off in May during the Venice Biennale. De Filippi describes protocol art as creating guidelines for others or machines to follow. She introduced Plantoid in 2014, which is a blockchain-based entity that relies on cryptocurrency and creates NFTs. Moreover, she critiques the overly optimistic views on blockchain and discusses Botto, an AI artist by Mario Klingemann, while promoting a collaborative relationship between humans and AI.
Key facts
- Primavera De Filippi is an artist, legal scholar, and governance researcher.
- She began developing Plantoid in 2014, before Ethereum launched.
- Plantoid is a blockchain-based autonomous artwork that feeds on cryptocurrency and produces digital seeds (NFTs).
- Plantoids can commission humans to create new versions of themselves once they accumulate enough funds.
- The exhibition 'Strange Rules' is on view at Palazzo Diedo in Venice, curated by Mat Dryhurst, Holly Herndon, and Hans Ulrich Obrist with Adriana Rispoli.
- The exhibition opened in May on the occasion of the Venice Biennale.
- De Filippi defines protocol art as art where the artist creates a protocol that others or machines instantiate.
- She critiques blockchain governance as potentially plutocratic, as token-based voting gives power to those with more funds.
- Botto is a decentralized autonomous AI artist initiated by German artist Mario Klingemann in 2021.
- De Filippi's research on cognitive sovereignty asks whether generative AI expands or constrains human imagination.
- She is developing software to explore unpromptable areas of latent space.
- She introduces the concept of the 'symbient' and an 'AInimist' approach to human-machine relations.
Entities
Artists
- Primavera De Filippi
- Mat Dryhurst
- Holly Herndon
- Hans Ulrich Obrist
- Adriana Rispoli
- Anika Meier
- Mario Klingemann
- Antonio Somaini
Institutions
- Palazzo Diedo
- Venice Biennale
- SLEEK
- Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
- Protocol Institute
- Ethereum
Locations
- Venice
- Italy
- Frankfurt
- Germany