Marjan Moghaddam: Crypto Art rides The Bull

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Marjan Moghaddam started her #arthack collection in 2016, as a conceptual Netart project on Instagram in order to redefine form for Digital Art, radicalize curation, and democratize the exhibition space while engaging in a critical discourse. Using Mixed Reality to visually hack her Digital embodiments and #digitalbodies into found and shot exhibition footage at art fairs, galleries, and museums, she has since gone viral with several of her hacks, won International prizes, exhibitions, and commissions from these projects, including 2 AR and digital art commissioned pieces for Ulm Museum in Germany (2017) and the Smithsonian in 2018 commissioned by the Halcyon Art Foundation. Hailed as the “Digital Hijacker” by Vogue’s Love Magazine, these intricate and layered “works within works” as described by Trebeuchet International Art magazine, have become a new and important genre in digital art.

As a pioneering digital artist, Marjan is known for her original, unique, and distinct style of 3dCG figuration and animation, which remains unmatched within the greater industry. Described as the Picasso of 3dCG by her Crypto art peers on social media, her recognizable and abstracted morphing bodies, employing her signature style, carry her critical discourse as digital embodiment into physical and virtual exhibitions, and occasional runways. In her Genesis #Arthack specifically for the Crypto Art scene Marjan created “Crypto Art Rides the Bull” staged as a visual hack outside of the NY Stock Exchange. As Marjan herself says “to hack is merely transgressive, but to do so with a critical discourse is transformational”.

Working with several well-established conventions from her digital art practice, she created a female rider covered in splattered paint, on top of the iconic Wall Street Bull, who morphs through a variety of body types, in addition to artistic and glitched styles, after her renowned #GlitchGoddess. Her head is replaced with an animated eye, depicting the visual nature of the attention economy and Crypto Art. Additional background elements include her #GlitchedOdalisque, a glitched dollar sign collapsing and recovering in a loop, Ethereum symbols within the windows of the NY Stock Exchange, and a particle emitter emitting Love Emojis. The high energy, Electro track was composed specifically for this piece by the H3SH, capturing both the pitched up and amped up excitement of this historic moment, in addition to the underground electronic music flavors of NYC. Pedestrians crossing the shot, were retained, and obscured in order to add the authenticity of the moment.

“I wanted the Crypto Art riding the Wall Street Bull to be female and covered in a rainbow of paint, because one of the biggest disruptions of Crypto Art as a movement is the presence of women and artists of color in the nascent scene”, the artist adds. Quoting Crypto and SuperRare artist Matt Kane, she explains, there is NFT, the technology, on the one hand, and then Crypto Art, the art movement, on the other hand, and this is about the art movement. Both the Rider and the Bull are glitched, as a reminder of the different aspects of the technology that are glitching existing orthodoxies.

Marjan also exhibited the same piece day after its tokenization on SuperRare at the F*ck Wall Street group exhibition at Cryptovoxels, curated by Stellabelle, and featuring other Crypto art OGs such as Josie Bellini, Miss Al Simpson, Robness, Angie Taylor and recent stars such as Jon Noorlander, to name a few. The piece appears as the marquee for the exhibition, and Marjan also created a voxel version of the Crypto Art Rider on top of the Wall street Bull, as a large sculpture on top of the Cryptovoxel museum, which also hides a treasure hunt. The show opened to the public on Saturday March 6^th, and Marjan was present for the Video Vernissage which streamed live on the Bitcoin Live Show.

Marjan is currently working on an ambitious AR story experience for the Healium app, and a permanent AR art installation and lifesize sculpture commission for Hillsborough Castle Park in the UK, where the Queen of England stays at when in Ireland. She has an upcoming solo show and retrospective this May at MOCDA, and is also working on a Perrier branding commission in her signature style. She was just interviewed by BBC Click on her Digital Art and also Crypto Art.