Jack Butcher expands NFT’s checks ecosystem with physical print-backed “Elements” collection
Jack Butcher, founder of creative agency Visualize Value and the artist behind the groundbreaking Checks VV non-fungible token (NFT) collection, is launching a new project titled Checks Elements that combines generative artwork with hand-drawn physical prints.
Checks Elements, a generative art collection of 152 pieces, is inspired by the four classical elements of earth, fire, water and air. Each piece in the collection is a unique algorithmically generated composition of colors that make up these elements, exploring the “ever-evolving relationship between consensus and truth.”
“Elements is conceptually … the first instance of decentralized consensus,” Butcher told CoinDesk. “We’re trying to play into the themes that Checks is trying to express about internet consensus to pre-internet consensus, which is that all these different cultures, languages, parts of the world, different schools of thought about how the world came to be … all landed on these four the categories of matter – earth, water, air and fire.”
Butcher explained that to create the new collection, his team modified the algorithm that created the original Checks collection and added some new parameters. Butcher teamed up with master printmaker Jean Robert Milant and Cirrus Editions to bring the NFT outputs to life, translating them into hand-drawn 30-inch by 43-inch monoprints created via an on-chain SVG file fed through a vintage lithographic printing press .
To create the physical prints, the signature grid of four-by-four checks was etched onto a plate used by the printer. Each paint color in the collection was added one by one, based on the algorithmic results created by Butcher and his team. Each piece of physical artwork was then authenticated using Butcher’s fingerprint and comes with an Ethereum-based NFT.
“Translating checks into a physical piece of art, it never felt like anything really continued the DNA of the project until we talked to Milant and understood his process,” he said. “There are many similarities in the way of conceptualizing these [prints] comes from a set of constraints that are then modified based on rules that are computer generated.”
Three of the four “Alpha” elements, including water, air and earth, will be offered in a solo auction at Christie’s beginning May 16 and ending May 23. A portion of the sales proceeds will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The physical work and their digital counterparts will then go on display at Christie’s New York gallery from 20 May.
The rest of the check elements, including the fourth alpha element, will then be offered via public auction for 24 hours. The physical prints go on sale on June 24.
Existing with and apart from Checks VV
Butcher told CoinDesk that the auction will use “some of the dynamics” used in the original Checks collections, although he said this project would not necessarily be interoperable with the other gamified checks. In the previous Checks collection, inspired by the blue verification mark popularized by Twitter, holders have been able to combine NFTs to create smaller, unique editions of checkmarks (you can read more about the mechanics here).
“There are definitely things that will carry over when the rest of the collection is offered at auction after Christie’s and this is not going to work as a traditional, ongoing auction,” he explained. “There are a lot of mechanics at play when they start. But the idea of [Elements] in the long term should exist as pairs sitting together as a complement to the existing checking ecosystem.”
It’s also possible that collectors may want to decouple their physical prints from the NFTs and sell them separately, an outcome Butcher said is possible, though he thinks that for provenance purposes people will want to keep them together.
“I have some guesses as to how it will play out, and I can imagine the couples staying together for people who are in it for the art,” he said.
“We made a conscious choice not to include a combustion mechanism in this thing,” added Martin Klipp, president of Beyond Art Creative, which helped bring the artwork to life. “Because in my mind…both pieces are art. Both pieces are twins, both pieces have their merits and both exist together or separately.”
Other NFT artists and galleries have recently embraced physical forms for their NFTs, with Tyler Hobbs exhibiting large-scale prints of QQL: Analogs at New York City’s Pace Gallery in March 2023. In February 2023, Art Blocks and NFT Gallery Bright Moments together bring real-world experiences to locations in five cities, allowing owners of artist Mpkoz’s Metropolis NFT collection to join a physical activation to create a second, physical part in the specific city associated with their NFT.
