Beeple: HUMAN ONE

EVENT DESCRIPTION

M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, unveils the Asia premiere of HUMAN ONE, an iconic kinetic video sculpture by digital art pioneer Beeple , in the museum’s Focus Gallery today. The work is on view until 30 April 2023.

Beeple: HUMAN ONE presents a dynamically changing hybrid digital-and-physical artwork, which shows the first human born inside the metaverse, a 3D virtual world accessible only through the internet. The work depicts a human figure the artist calls ‘traveller’ who appears within a seven-foot-tall spinning box-like structure composed of four monolithic LED screens. The traveller wears an astronaut suit and treks forward in an endlessly evolving virtual landscape. Designed as a continuous digital display that will periodically evolve over time, HUMAN ONE presents an ongoing conversation in response to current events and reflects the artist’s changing interests over the course of his life. Beeple will update this virtual landscape from time to time, incorporating elements from the internet and his own practice to respond to the general state of the world. The traveller’s extraordinary journey is a reminder to viewers of the continued blurring of our own digital and physical existence—a metaphor for human progress.

In conjunction with the display of Beeple: HUMAN ONE, M+ will host a talk, M+ Lars Nittve Keynote Lecture Series: Beeple Crashes the Art World, on 10 December 2022 from 14:00 to 15:30. In this talk, Beeple will bring his lifetime of art to M+ and share his view on the future of the internet, the metaverse, and the growing influence of digitally generated art. Through his kinetic sculpture HUMAN ONE, Beeple questions the progression of our evolutionary journey—where are we heading with the continued blurring of our digital and physical existence? This talk will be conducted in English and livestreamed via the M+ website, M+ Facebook and YouTube. Simultaneous interpretation in Cantonese will be available. Programme details and online registration are available on the M+ website.

Visitors holding M+ General Admission tickets can visit Beeple: HUMAN ONE in the Focus Gallery in addition to other galleries (except Special Exhibition). Tickets can be purchased online via the M+ website, West Kowloon Cultural District website, West Kowloon Cultural District App, Cityline, China Travel Service (Hong Kong) Limited, Fliggy and Klook.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Beeple (b. 1981, United States) is the professional moniker of Mike Winkelmann, a leading digital artist and designer active over the past twenty years. His rapid rise to public prominence in recent years helped to highlight the growing influence of digitally generated art. Diverse in style, Beeple’s work incorporates references from pop culture, science fiction, and politics, often with a sardonic edge. Central to his artistic practice is his Everydays project, for which he uploads images daily to his website for public critique and learns a new technical skill every year.