“My poetry has always been a picture of my mind moving.” – Allen Ginsberg, Illuminated Poems

Inspired by a mutual passion for the ability of blockchain technology to revive and permit ownership of different media, Nicholas Fahey of Fahey Klein gallery and Valérie Whitacre as part of the Tezos ecosystem brought together poetry NFT platform TheVERSEverse and the estate of Allen Ginsberg in an ongoing adventure that includes physical as well as digital initiatives.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) trained using Ginsberg’s literary body of work, the resulting project intertwines words and images in two profoundly linked modes of creative expression and understanding. It’s also an homage to the Beat poets’ experimental approach to writing.

In the words of Fahey Klein Gallery’s press release: “In celebration of Ginsberg’s avowedly experimental impulses, this collaboration utilizes an AI-powered camera to ‘read’ a selection of Ginsberg photographs on view during the exhibition, translating his iconic vision of American counterculture into poetic responses influenced simultaneously by Ginsberg’s canon, his undeniable presence woven inextricably into the written record of the internet, and parsed by AI…Just as Ginsberg innovated with automated writing techniques and popular technologies, this collection of AI-generated poems taps the contemporary linguistic avant-garde to engage ritualistically, intuitively and meaningfully with Ginsberg’s visual and poetic vernacular.”

The exhibition inspired Unit Gallery in London to stage their own version of the exhibition and first NFT sales. Further, on September 9, 2023, an avant-garde event held at Lume Studios, NYC, brought together theVERSEverse, in partnership with Subjective.art and the Allen Ginsberg Estate. Further exhibitions and NFT drops are to follow through 2024.

Press:
Artnet
Coindesk
Smithsonian Magazine
Fahey Klein Gallery
Unit Gallery