From today, June 14th, to the18th, 2021 there will be a celebration of the very building blocks of all digital art, the pixel. Specifically, an exhibition featuring eighteen of the foremost pixel artists in the NFT space, “specially chosen to demonstrate the variety, beauty, and mastery of the medium” as stated by the organizer and mastermind Genuine Human who is himself an Award-winning pixel artist, director and animator. Genuine Human has created music videos for GUNSHIP as well as art for acts such as The Midnight, Waveshaper, and many more.
I recently had the amazing experience of speaking with Genuine Human about his passion for pixel art and his motivations behind creating this event. Aside from being a super cool “Genuine Human,” all puns intended, I really enjoyed talking with him about his work, the NFT space, the community, and his reasons for creating Pixel Art Week. I also really enjoyed checking out his incredible pixel art which, I can now honestly say, makes him one of my personal favorite Pixel artists that I have come across. His fusion of pixel art mixed with his signature cyberpunk style just speaks to me.
Pixel Art Week is set to bring artist showcases to Twitter, live chats and Q&As on Clubhouse, as well as Twitter Spaces and is bringing together the absolute best of pixel art to the SQUARED metaverse exhibition. The main pixel art week events will run from today, June 14th – up to the 18th, and more information can be found at www.pixelartnftweek.com as well as on Twitter at @pixelartnftweek.
During my conversation with Genuine human, we discussed his origin in the pixel art world. Starting off over 10 years ago, and being one of the least efficient ways to make art, one pixel at a time, he fell in love with this form and the variety contained within it. Pixel art has “a certain number of squares, [and] essentially, you fill in the squares.” He poses the following question in his exploration of pixel art:
“How can you take such a controlled medium, and do such vastly different things with it? with so many different styles within that medium” He went on to talk about his experience coming into the NFT space, and how it has been interesting for him: “with CryptoPunks at the heart of all this, where do pixel artists fit” in the world of NFTs?
Noting that many of the artists do have specific project-based works, but that a large portion of pixel artists are just creating for the sake of exploration and creation.
In his years in pixel art he has found that “Not everyone gets it, and not everyone likes it, and that’s fine, but there are some people, when they connect with it, they LOVE IT and they get so passionate about it.”His face lit up as he made this statement.
After experiencing his work specifically, because of my fascination and obsession with cyberpunk and science fiction, I have seen a window into pixel art that makes me want to explore more. I am excited to hear more about the artists that Genuine Human looks up to and is showcasing during this week-long celebration.
At the heart of what inspired Pixel Art Week was this desire, that I unearthed in our conversation “I wonder if there is a way that I can show other people what I see in their pixel art?” which planted the idea behind this entire series of events. He goes on describing, “what if we did a week, to celebrate pixel art in the NFT space?”
With so many incredible artists, being able to share and explore their work and the genre as a whole for an entire week sounds like a great way to introduce others to pixel art.
The featured pixel art week artists include: BAN-8KU, eBoy, Paul Robertson, Genuine Human, mae, KLDPXL, Kristy Glas, Crypto Princess, Dmitry Petyakin, Genghis Kwan, Gordon Zuchhold, Gutty Kreum, Instant Onion, Jamfactory aka Gavin Strange, Maxwell Step, Moertel / Stefanie Grunwald, numo and steamboy33 // Arnold Tsang
This whole week will allow people a peek into the pixel art process, the humans behind the work, and why they create pixel art. Many times people may recognize the art but know very little about the person who created it. I am personally looking forward to learning about these incredible people that Genuine Human has brought together because of the energy and passion I sense behind this week-long celebration, and because taking a peak at some of this incredible work, you can’t help but want to learn more.
There will be many ways to engage during Pixel art week but below you will find the dates and times for the main chats:
14th MONDAY Space Chat – 7PM UK. 2PM EST. 9AM PT – moderated by Signalnoise
Genuine Human Art
eBoy
Khaled
Instant Onion
15th TUESDAY GALLERY OPENING – 8PM, 3PM EST, 10AM PT
Genuine Human Art plus artists in attendance.
16th WEDNESDAY 7PM UK, 2PM EST, 11AM PT – Whale Community – Moderator: DeCryptolorean
eBoy
Khaled
Maxwell Step
Genuine Human Art
17th THURSDAY TEXT CHAT – 7PM UK, 2PM EST, 11AM PT (WHALE Discord)
Dmitry Petyakin
Kristy Glas
Mae
Steamboy
BAN-8KU
18th FRIDAY Spaces Chat 9PM UK time 4PM EST 1PM PT – Moderator: G
Jamfactory
Numo
Gordon Zuchhold
Maxwell Step
Genuine Human Art
Be sure to follow Pixel Art Week on Twitter to stay up to date with everything going on as well as visit the official website for more details.
I look forward to seeing this incredible celebration take place across the entire week and bring more attention to the people behind all of this work. I want to thank Genuine Human for creating this series of events and for the time he spent with me connecting about this incredible genre, that is at the very root of all digital visual art.
It all starts with a single pixel.
