Botto | The Decentralized Unicists

All venue images and videos courtesy of Vellum LA.

Curated by Jesse Damiani and Sinziana Velicescu, The Decentralized Unicists is the first solo show ever by a “decentralized autonomous artist.” Botto is a machine artist that produces work based on feedback from a community of surrounding stakeholders.

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Vellum LA

7673 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA, United States

The show features a curated selection of Botto’s unminted fragments and minted works.

Botto's art will also be showcased on StandardVision LED billboards throughout Los Angeles from February 10, 2022, to February 24, 2022, as part of the AI artist's citywide takeover during Frieze LA.

Meet the Curators

Founder / Director Vellum LA

Sinziana Velicescu

Sinziana Velicescu is a photographer, creative producer, and curator based in Los Angeles, California. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California with a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Film.

Senior Curator Nxt Museum, Art Advisor

Jesse Damiani

Jesse Damiani is a Senior Curator at Nxt Museum, an Arts and Culture Advisor for Protocol Labs, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at USC's Media Arts + Practice program. Damiani hosts Adobe’s Taking Shape, runs the Reality Studies newsletter and the Urgent Futures podcast.

The concept of the singularity, where AI surpasses human intelligence, often evokes anxiety in popular culture, depicted in sci-fi narratives like Terminator and The Matrix.

However, the current reality of AI, while not without concerns, differs significantly from these dystopian visions. Botto and its community, known as a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), offer an alternative future framework: unicity. In this vision, AI becomes integral to human existence. The early works from Botto highlight the creative potential of human-machine collaboration, sparking wonder in some and apprehension in others. Projects like Botto provide a glimpse into how our relationships with ourselves, others, and machines might evolve.