Memo Akten: the environmentally conscious digital artist
Memo Akten is the artist who studied the environmental impact of the NFT market
In recent months, the universe of Crypto Art has not stopped being talked about. However, the record sale of Beeple’s work by Christie’s has done nothing but put the spotlight on a world that has been in constant expansion for years, that of NFT.
But not all that glitters is gold. The creation of crypto works has a strong environmental impact, since this system, based on fossil fuels, involves a high consumption of energy and consequent CO2 emissions.
In this regard, one artist in particular conducted in-depth research published on Medium. He is Memo Akten, a Turkish engineer and computer scientist who has long been working and experimenting with technologies capable of creating images, sounds and installations, with the aim of reaching the heart of human nature.
In 2013 the artist won the Golden Nica award in the Prix Ars Electronica category with his work “Forms”, created in collaboration with the visual artist Quayola, which presents a collection of studies on human movement and reverberations in space and time.
Fascinated by Artificial Intelligence and the man-machine relationship, in 2017 he gave life to his “Learning to See” project, a series of works that make use of Machine Learning algorithms, capable of creating works similar to those he could create a human being by observing what surrounds him.
More recently he created the “Meditations” series, a long-lasting video and sound installation that invites the viewer to a spiritual journey through the observation of slow images and sounds, narrated through the imagination of a deep artificial neural network.
Memo Akten has also collaborated with celebrities such as Lenny Kravitz, U2, Depeche Mode and Professor Richard Dawkins.
Photo Credits: Memo Atkens, “Journey through the layers of the mind”
