A tribute to one of the best collectors on Tezos

ClownVamp

I ran.  

The chanting had stopped. But in its place, a new sound: commotion.  

I had clearly set off a chain of events.   

As I wrapped around the front, a throng of people poured out of the building with makeshift weapons. It seemed like they had robbed a hardware store. Hammers. Pipes. All raised over their heads.  

All coming after me.  

I was making good speed, or so I thought. But as I got further into the parking lot, the mob seemed to come from all directions.   

Soon, in each direction, middle-class Angelenos were coming at me. With nice haircuts and trim clothes, they seemed pleasant. Until I looked up at their faces.   

When I did, they morphed into wild maniacal creatures. Deformed faces. Coming at me.   

Closer and closer.  

And then, just like that. I was overrun. 

Lights out. 

S1-06: Lights Out

September 30, 1877  

A hummingbird was a magnificent creature, for if you looked at it, you would see but a blur—a beautiful, colorful blur. But if you could stop it, mid-moment, you would see a striking winged creature.   

Their ships often reminded me of hummingbirds, perhaps of the demonic variety. Flittering through the air, a blur puncturing the sky. But unlike a hummingbird, they occasionally would stop. Briefly pausing, levitating over an area. Sometimes in preparation to cause destruction. Sometimes to land. And sometimes, just for no apparent reason whatsoever. 

In their own way, they were beautiful.  

-CV

25: The Countryside II

Fried dough. 

Wait, no. Try again: Fried sugar dough. I mean, it’s gross. Objectively. 

I was back from Hawaii. Back from trying to find myself (I failed). And I was on a bit of a health kick. Vegetables, chicken, and vodka. The three core food groups.

That’s all to say, I was looking good—sunkissed and down a few pounds.

Yet here I was at Donny’s Donuts, the scene of a crime. Donald Redder, proprietor, dead. Found on the baking room floor. Called in by the acne-ridden 16-year-old tasked with opening up this sugary hellhole.

After the mess with The Circle, the force had cleaned ranks. The LAPD was to be the finest police force on the planet (I chuckled too). The issue? The mass firings had left us hamstrung. We barely had enough cops to secure a murder scene, let alone investigate one.

So here I was, outside a Donny’s Donuts, telling sugar-addicted Angelenos to get out of the damn parking lot. 

My own personal hell.

S2-01: Donny’s Donuts

After ten years of vicious, bordering on violent debate between traditionalists and the emerging AI art movement, it was decided: Young aspiring artists must be pure, free of any outside influence. In the 2030s, art academies popped up that promised parents their children would be trained without any risk of impression. All ideas were to have a clear chain of thought, traceable to their genesis. 

To do so, students were made to wear nanometric bubbles. These contraptions would screen out any influence (visual, audio, or otherwise) that could possibly impact their art. They were known as bubble boys and bubble girls, in a nod to the early 2000s “Bubble Boy” movie, which had joined the ranks of “Citizen Kane” and “Casablanca” of all-time classic films.

Instead of relying on influence, these pupils would be trained intensely in the technical skills of drawing, painting, and color theory.

Simon was one such student enrolled at the Warhol Academy of Art, one of the most prolific institutions of the new method, that had expanded locations rapidly thanks to cheap debt and franchising. His parents were fans and collectors of Warhol’s work and were ecstatic for their son to follow in the legend’s footsteps. 

However, Simon was never able to live up to their dreams. He would bring home detailed sketches of fruit bowls and landscapes, but they lacked a sense of soul (or perspective, for that matter). Disappointment was on their lips. Over dinner each night, as Simon would bring in food through his bubble’s information-secure valve, they would ask him: “How is it going at school, honey?”
 
After weeks of what felt like a nightly interrogation, Simon became despondent. He was doing what he was told to do. He was creating things that were pure. There was no outside influence. No “crutch” to rely on, no homage to point to. 

He was free of inspiration, and seemingly, free of talent. 

//
An ai-assisted piece by ClownVamp. Part of the panicland series, an exploration of moral panic.

bubble boy

Raw red meat.

// All visual generation and manipulation, including upscaling and sharpening done by AI. No human post-processing. //

red meat

The only discovered self-portrait of Chester and his last dated work to be found. The piece shows a looser brushstroke, perhaps by necessity due to his advancing age. His face, obscured by color—Is he winking? Or perhaps an apparent grimace, awash in pink and green. We do not know how he died, but we know that he lived 11 more years from the date of this painting, ultimately passing at 94.  

Inscription (from reverse):  
Years beyond me. The lost thoughts—the forgotten ones. I creak and crow. No listener or lover. I am alone.

Self Portrait, 1938

our fear of change can make us hysterical. we imagine ghosts and demons in the shadows. we contemplate the absurd and thus squash the real.

we panic.

an ai-assisted piece by ClownVamp

screentime

perhaps we shouldn't put screens in every room of our homes?

perhaps?

an ai-assisted piece by ClownVamp. part of the panicland series and an homage to the meme of the same name.

this is fine

ClownVamp Editions

June 25, 1878 

My career as a ghost painter often brought me in close contact with sinister figures.  

XX3788 was the leader of the Friend’s replacement government for the United Kingdom.  

Someone who everyone knew. But nobody knew.  

I was to do their official portrait. The one that would hang in their office as they summoned Friends and citizens to account. A non-Friend could never be the artist behind such work. Yet here I was. Secretly doing what I knew best.  

When making an official portrait, part of the task was to make the Friend as terrifying as possible. To them, that was a sign of status. 

I knew what to do. There was one color that best represented terror to me. It was the color from The Day. The color of her dress. The color that lived in my mind.  

And that’s why I painted the darkest, broodiest red I could muster.  

I called it The Red Portrait.   

They called it “The Official Portrait of District Commander XX3788.”

-CV

30: The Ghost Painter II  

For hundreds of years, I've recorded the world as I've seen it. In my diary and my paintings, I've kept immaculate records of what has happened. However, The Friends don't want you to know the truth. Well, I have one thought: Fuck them.

December 10, 1883

The city's weary heart beats under a cloak of darkness tonight, a perfect stage for my next move. I found him in an alley, Officer John Dawes, the embodiment of a crumbling system, his uniform hanging loosely like the heavy burden of a man defeated by his own city.

As I approached, I felt the weight of the gold bar in my coat. It gleamed in the dim light, a flicker of temptation for all who saw. I watched John's eyes, recognizing a man drowning in a sea of weariness and despair.

"Officer Dawes," I began, my voice a whisper in the still night. I took the bullion out of my coat. His eyes locked onto the gold, a silent battle raging within. I knew his type, a good man worn down by a system that cared little for its human guardians.

"I need you to look away tonight." I saw the moment his resolve entirely crumbled, his hand trembling as it reached for the bar. In that exchange, a deal was struck—not just for gold, but for the soul of a man who once, in another time and place, stood for justice.

-CV

58: The Golden Opportunity

The Truth

These fucking uniformed asshats. They couldn’t investigate their way out of a sandwich. Let alone a murder.   

This man clearly didn’t die in the kitchen. No, he died here. In the bathroom. Even sadder than I imagined. And it must have been gruesome.   

Past the kitchen was the door to the bathroom, a floor covered in blood. I immediately caught it. This was bad, and clearly, it was much worse at some point. Those bloodied rags covering the kitchen counter a result of a weak attempt to clean up a vile situation.   

This was not a domestic escalation. This was cold and calculated, done by someone who knew what they were doing. Murders in the bathroom are the easiest to clean...and require forethought (how do you get them in there?).  

So, who killed Thomas Chester? And what the hell was with all the pink blankets?   

I have an idea... 

S1-03: A Vile Scene

In 1960s-era Los Angeles, a crime wave has stricken the city. Murders have become a daily occurrence. Increasingly, the only crimes solved are the domain of one man—the handsome, if emotionally unavailable Detective Jack Crimson.

It didn’t take much prompting to get Abigail to dinner. 

The blond beauty and I met later that day at Musso and Frank, my favorite spot and go-to first date joint.  

Those eyes I first encountered at her home didn’t stop lusting. It wasn’t hard to reciprocate. A bit freshened up, she went from stunning to truly radiant. 

As our knees grazed, she started talking in a near whisper. 

“Tommy and I were about to get separated, you know.” 

I didn’t. 

The peculiarity of our meeting didn’t strike me. Sometimes being star-crossed meant you had to catch a falling star.  

I looked into her eyes and gently uttered a suggestion. 

As the last word escaped my lips, a subtle expression gave me the answer I needed… 

S1-04: Musso and Frank

Detective Jack

Rolling hills of raw salmon sushi.

// All visual generation and manipulation, including upscaling and sharpening done by AI. No human post-processing. //

Rolling Hills of Sushi

the yolk hero.

// All visual generation and manipulation, including upscaling and sharpening done by AI. No human post-processing. //

yolk hero

In middle age, Chester returned to many comfortable themes: farms, sailors, and dancers. We know he also started to formally split his time between Massachusetts and Ohio, perhaps due to the ending of his most recent relationship. The ballet was likely a wanted distraction and a romantic therapy of sorts, as it reminded him of Thomas, a man he never seemed to lose hope for.  

Inscription (from reverse):  
I looked for T, knowing he would not be there. But my eyes darted among the rows. Something to do.

The Crowded Stage, 1905

Chester Charles: The Lost Grand Master is an immersive story that combines AI-assisted visuals, a hand-crafted narrative, and a physical event to tell the story of Chester, a "lost" queer painter from the 1800s.

Visit ClownVamp.com to see the entire show. 

Chester Charles: The Lost Grand Master

Two unknown men, captured in an intimate moment, the gentle hand rested upon the shoulder. It's believed that many of these painted men were friends of Charles. However, it is sometimes unclear their relationship with the painter. In this work, we also see Charles developing his use of colorful brushstrokes, a trend that would be dominant in his 30s.  

Inscription (from reverse):  
How I wanted to be them. Their muscles radiated in the spring.

The Softest Touch, 1888

An open edition to celebrate Chester Charles: The Lost Grand Master, a physical and virtual ai-assisted show that premiered in New York City and online on June 21st 2023.

To see the entire show, please visit clownvamp.com

Chester Charles OE

The famous Pole de Tez.

From an imagined trip to the "Miami countryside."

Pole de Tez, 1891

A collection for things from the lair...er, I mean various events, editions, and things that don't quite fit anywhere else.

A special edition to celebrate the opening of THE JUNK MACHINE exhibit in Tokyo during Art Golden Gai.

100% of proceeds to be donated to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

What happens when advertising is corrupted by AI? In THE JUNK MACHINE, ClownVamp explores how open-source AI models are infesting marketing technology, amplifying the biases of the past into the very futuristic present. To explore this, he built a very pink physical robot (The Junk Machine) with an embedded NVIDIA Jetson robotics computer and a locally stored version of SDXL Turbo (a lightweight AI model).

Upon pushing a big red button, the machine generates in real-time a piece of AI Junk Mail and prints it out at 6" x 6" using an onboard dye sublimation printer. For THE JUNK MACHINE Curated, ClownVamp selected 222 outputs from the machine that best represented the intention of the work, upscaled them to 12K resolution, and color-graded them. These 1980s callbacks, sloppy and drenched in hot pink, show the biases and patterns rife in AI. Without demographic prompting, the models are consistently white, most likely blond if female, and at the ripe marketing age of 25 to 35.

THE JUNK MACHINE: Tokyo I

Everything Else

What happens when artificial imagery is pixel-perfect, infinite, and immediately personalized? When your TikTok feed is not just algorithmically targeted to your exact interests but algorithmically generated in real-time?

In *PUPPIES*, ClownVamp explores the optimistic side of this equation to highlight both the light and the dark. A lifetime lover of dogs and, perhaps most relevantly, dog GIFS, YouTube videos, TikToks–and really, any form of cute puppies doing cute things–he imagines what his own feed might look like in a fully optimized AI-future.

Containing 111 images of men and their best friends, PUPPIES explores the bewildering nature of excess cuteness in the age of AI. When artificial imagery can cause us to crack a smile or let out a real-world giggle, can there be too much of a good thing?

In the final innings of the uncanny valley, this work uses the latest advances in additive upscaling to provide fantastical details. The final 16K resolution images show angelic puppies doing things that only a human could love and only a machine could imagine. The occasional AI artifact or oddity gives us a hint that we are seeing something too good to be true. Still, these machine marks are also a marker of this moment – we are mere months away from image generation advances that will serve to make these idiosyncrasies extinct. 

But, for now, let us revel in one thing that humans and machines both want more of: puppies.


Prints: \
Collectors can purchase archival pigment prints of their pieces at 40 x 40 in. or 20 x 20 in., at cost. Printed on 285 gsm Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl paper, the prints are available unsigned, and with a certificate of authenticity issued by the artist. The 20 inch prints are available for $80 and the 40 inch prints for $260. Connect your art-holding wallet after the mint to [wovn.xyz](https://www.wovn.xyz/) to order a print.


PUPPIES #13

What happens when artificial imagery is pixel-perfect, infinite, and immediately personalized? When your TikTok feed is not just algorithmically targeted to your exact interests but algorithmically generated in real-time?

In PUPPIES, ClownVamp explores the optimistic side of this equation to highlight both the light and the dark. A lifetime lover of dogs and, perhaps most relevantly, dog GIFS, YouTube videos, TikToks–and really, any form of cute puppies doing cute things–he imagines what his own feed might look like in a fully optimized AI-future. 

Containing 111 images of men and their best friends, PUPPIES explores the bewildering nature of excess cuteness in the age of AI. When artificial imagery can cause us to crack a smile or let out a real-world giggle, can there be too much of a good thing?

PUPPIES #39

PUPPIES by ClownVamp

The lost footage. 

A few decades back, a hard-headed studio executive sought to turn the story of Detective Jack Crimson into a major network television show. 

Detective Jack is the story of the only honest cop in the 1960s LAPD. With a square jaw and an unavailable heart, he is determined to fight for justice (if he can get out of his own way). Hard-drinking and fast-loving, he likes his vodka on the rocks and enjoys falling in love with women who always seem to be out to get him killed.

Underwritten by an orange juice company, the show was given the green light. In a pink-washed noir world, the production was to be set in Los Angeles. However, it was soon beleaguered by chaos on set, internal squabbling over casting, and quickly scuttled. 

The only remaining footage from this thwarted effort, Detective Jack: The Studio Reels, are presented for the first and only time alongside audio from a potential soundtrack that was never released in record stores.

Technical details:
Each piece is a 4K AI video with accompanying AI audio. The video was generated using txt2video tools (Pika) and upscaled to 4K using Krea Video Upscaler and Topaz Video Upscaler. The audio was generated via Suno txt2audio models. The videos and audio were post-processed and edited using commercial video editing platforms.

Each is presented as a 1/1 NFT.

Jack Audition Reel

Product Placement

Detective Jack: The Studio Reels by ClownVamp

In 1962, Detective Jack Crimson of the LAPD bought himself a Polaroid camera. 

Known for his square jaw and closed-off heart, he soon found himself spending hours in the bathroom mirror, trying to take the perfect self-portrait. Trying to see what others saw in him.

Jack Crimson, Selfie (1962)

What happens when advertising is corrupted by AI? In THE JUNK MACHINE, ClownVamp explores how open-source AI models are infesting marketing technology, amplifying the biases of the past into the very futuristic present. To explore this, he built a very pink physical robot (The Junk Machine) with an embedded NVIDIA Jetson robotics computer and a locally stored version of SDXL Turbo (a lightweight AI model). 

Upon pushing a big red button, the machine generates in real-time a piece of AI Junk Mail and prints it out at 6" x 6" using an onboard dye sublimation printer. For THE JUNK MACHINE Curated, ClownVamp selected 222 outputs from the machine that best represented the intention of the work, upscaled them to 12K resolution, and color-graded them. These 1980s callbacks, sloppy and drenched in hot pink, show the biases and patterns rife in AI. Without demographic prompting, the models are consistently white, most likely blond if female, and at the ripe marketing age of 25 to 35. Between floating limbs and extra fingers, these advertisements for vice, gluttony, and over-consumption show how creative AI's insertion into advertising both reflects and fuels a dark and pernicious force in our visual language—hardening the biases of the past into the visual clutter of the future.

JUNK #217

What happens when advertising is corrupted by AI? In THE JUNK MACHINE, ClownVamp explores how open-source AI models are infesting marketing technology, amplifying the biases of the past into the very futuristic present. To explore this, he built a very pink physical robot (The Junk Machine) with an embedded NVIDIA Jetson robotics computer and a locally stored version of SDXL Turbo (a lightweight AI model).

Upon pushing a big red button, the machine generates in real-time a piece of AI Junk Mail and prints it out at 6" x 6" using an onboard dye sublimation printer. For THE JUNK MACHINE Curated, ClownVamp selected 222 outputs from the machine that best represented the intention of the work, upscaled them to 12K resolution, and color-graded them. These 1980s callbacks, sloppy and drenched in hot pink, show the biases and patterns rife in AI. Without demographic prompting, the models are consistently white, most likely blond if female, and at the ripe marketing age of 25 to 35.

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