Influenced by a background in software programming and various tech roles, as well as a lifelong interest in the arts, particularly literature and philosophy, Bård Ionson discovered a deep connection to art during college. An encounter with Nam June Paik’s sculpture INTERNET DWELLER in 2012 sparked a significant shift in perception. Inspired by Paik’s approach of creating art from pre-made objects and ideas, Bård Ionson, previously considering himself more of a writer and coder than a visual artist, began exploring art creation through code, electronics, and eventually artificial intelligence. The experience with INTERNET DWELLER served as an epiphany, prompting a decision to embrace the identity of an artist and marking a transformative moment in his artistic journey.
Ionson experienced a moment of recognition while working on a new GAN series titled PAINTING WITH FIRE: A HISTORY IN GANS, celebrating the invention of GANs and their various output styles. The timing was perfect as there was a growing interest in GAN art, particularly in collecting the oldest GAN NFT pieces. He found it intriguing how his art was judged based on its age due to the blockchain ledger, which records the exact time of creation for each NFT. Collectors were drawn to the unique technique of GANs, contrasting with the current trend of using prebuilt models with word prompts.
Fire, an element of ancient myths and modern technology, becomes a vivid metaphor in Bård Ionson’s latest collection, ‘Painting with Fire: A History in GANs’. Set to launch on December 20th on sovrn.art, this series marks a significant milestone in digital art, exploring the progression of GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) and their impact on artistic creation.
Please join co-founders Elena Zavelev and Andrea Steuer for an in person tour of 5th edition of Crypto And Digital Art Fair (CADAF). Bård Ionson presented his art piece Soul Scroll, Scanning the Scanner and California series. All-star artist and curator lineup includes works by Anne Spalter, SoyFira, Jen Stark, theVERSEverse, Arsnl’s Frank Stella: Geometries, Nina Kuo and Lorin Roser, curated collections by Eleonora Brizi (Breezy Art), Coco Dolle, Kate Vass Galerie, Raina Mehler (Director, Pace Gallery), Lumen Prize and more.
CADAF Crypto Art Begins
Panel Speaker 2022 NYC
Crypto Art Begins: The Marvelous Stories of 50 Crypto Artists Published by Rizzoli
Moderated by:
Eleonora Brizi, Curator, Founder at Breezy Art
Speakers:
- David Young, Artist
- Gisel X. Florez
- Travis LeRoy Southworth, Artist
- Bard Ionson, Artist
- Ana Maria Caballero, Artist
- Andrea Concas, founder of The NFT MAGAZINE
Robert Spotlight
Robert is helping spread the NFT Art Revolution. This is an interview where I talk about how I started making art and how that moved into the use of NFT technology and the blockchain. I explain my motivations behind Eight and Color Magic Planets. They are both code generative art pieces hosted on Art Blocks.
Crypto Art Begins Book
For the first time, a prestigious publishing project enters the world of WEB3, with ONE OF THE BIGGEST DROP EVER on NIFTY GATEWAY, featuring 50 among the best Crypto Artists
I am one of the artists featured in this unique art book.
LA CURATRICE ELEONORA BRIZI DICE DI BARD IONSON
Eleonora Brizi, curatrice e founder di Breezy Art, la quale ha curato per The NFT Magazine la selezione dei 50 artisti presenti nel libro “Crypto Art – Begins” scrive dell’artista Bard Ionson:
“Per Bard Ionson la tecnologia è più di uno strumento; in qualche modo sta cambiando la mente umana e influenza la cultura e il mondo che ci circonda in modi che non comprendiamo. Quando è introdotta in uno spazio fisico, la tecnologia provoca distorsione e, nel mezzo, capitano dei glitch”.
LA SUA ARTE
Bard Ionson è affascinato dalla sperimentazione con la distorsione del reale. La sua arte esiste nello spazio tra realtà tangibile e sensoriale, realtà elettronica e realtà spirituale. Il suo pensiero artistico viene declinato attraverso mezzi espressivi molto vari che non si limitano alla Crypto Arte. Una delle tecniche usate da Ionson è la scanografia. Il piano dello scanner viene utilizzato per catturare l’immagine di qualsiasi cosa vi si possa appoggiare.Ionson gioca con le immagini da lui create e raccolte, che vengono modificate inserendo dei glitch, metafora della transizione tra i diversi piani della realtà. L’arte di Ionson sa anche evadere dalla dimensione bidimensionale. Alcune delle sue opere combinano suono e animazione, frutto del lavoro con oscilloscopi, ossia strumenti di misurazione di energia, corrente e tensione.
Bard Ionson is fascinated by experimenting with the distortion of reality. His art exists in the space between tangible and sensory reality, electronic reality and spiritual reality. His artistic thought is declined through very different expressive means that are not limited to Crypto Art.
One of the techniques used by Ionson is scanography. The plane of the scanner is used to capture the image of anything that can be placed on it.
Ionson plays with the images he created and collected, which are modified by inserting glitches, a metaphor for the transition between different planes of reality. Ionson’s art can also break out of the two-dimensional dimension. Some of his works combine sound and animation, the result of his work with oscilloscopes, i.e. instruments for measuring energy, current and voltage.
Eleonora Brizi, curator and founder of Breezy Art, who curated for The NFT Magazine the selection of 50 artists featured in the book “Crypto Art – Begins” writes about the artist Bard Ionson:
“For Bard Ionson, technology is more than a tool; somehow it is changing the human mind and influencing the culture and world around us in ways we don’t understand. When introduced into a physical space, technology causes distortion and, in between, glitches happen.“
Interview with Jason on ArtBox 2022
Welcome to ArtBoxDMV! In this episode Jason talks to Bard Ionson. Bard Is a digital artist who’s work is inspired by Nam June Paik and John Cage, as well as many others. His work is a blend of tangible, sensory, electronic and spiritual worlds with a dose of Artificial Intelligence.They talk about Bard’s most recent series as well as themes that can be found in the work, along with the impact of A.I.
Additionally, his art has been featured and sold at premier events like ETHDenver, Rare Art Festival NYC, Miami Blockchain Week, and the Virtual Rare Art Fair. He’s also been a mainstay at recent CADAF shows, like CADAF Miami 2019, CADAF Online 2020, and CADAF Digital Art Week 2020, where his works have been selected and highlighted by professional art curators.
Why’s Bård magic, then? Because he’s trailblazing at the crossroads of multiple fields, weaving art and tech with an excellent eye and steady hands, taking inspiration from other masters like Nam June Paik, Salvador Dali, and beyond, and doing this all in sublime fashion and with an approach and high-level concepts that only a great artist can bring to the table. Savvy digital art collectors are starting to pay attention, accordingly.
Abstract Art in the Age of New Media
MOCDA Museum of Contemporary Digital Art
Paper: Looking, liking and locating: aesthetic experiences shape spatial representations
Life Is Green, Alien Life Of Venus
February- May 2021
A multidisciplinary team headed by two UCL researchers has been awarded a research grant from the British Academy, to unravel the psychology of how people view and remember artworks in a gallery. The collaboration between cognitive psychologists, cultural and digital sector professionals takes place in the context of an online shift for art collections worldwide.
Bard Ionson enjoys working with tools that embed different layers of reading and understanding. Working with Generative AI hence comes as a natural choice. The media seduces with its potential to include multiple layers of images and bring them together through algorithmic alterations. In Life is Green, Bard Ionson brings together painterly gestures, organic fibres, and a delightful combination of greens and blues.
How generative NFTs are extending the boundaries of digital art
Article on E27
Hikaru Kasai 13 Jan, 2022
Bard Ionson – He used symbols of sexuality, gender and luck in his generative NFT. He is also the NFT artist inspired by Nam June Paik’s “Internet Dweller”. His collection of Color Magic Planets and eight generative codes has minted 80 NFTs, with one piece sold at US$1,873.
NFT Innovation Digest #25
Crypto Fetish art piece featured in NFT Innovation Digest 2022
Fanny Lakoubay
The Edicurial Collection
Bård Ionson’s ‘Global Reality’ is an immersive experience in film. By utilizing virtual reality software techniques to distort a scene from the movie ‘Independence Day’ through AI, Ionson conveys his unifying and global message through hypnotic visuals. This artwork abstracts notions of ‘money, power and technology,’ that – for better or for worse – conceived of it, and instead focuses on purifying our collective senses to love.
With his art, sometimes he would like to express existential Joy, Love Meaning, purpose something beyond us an unknowable mystery. He wants to communicate questions or philosophies that seem to be true. Bård is often inspired by religious ideals concerning money and the nature of reality. Some past themes have been “Love of Money”, deep fakes / fake money / fake art, fake stories that tell the truth, money and art – what is the difference? Make art fun, profitable and accessible, give it some interactivity and slip in some new questions and ideas about life as a human.
Featured at the event was a presentation of Mint Gold Dust’s inaugural NFT exhibition, Genesis 8. For the Genesis 8 series, curator Eleonora Brizi asked 8 artists to express what Gold Dust is for them through the filter of their artistic vision, style, and techniques. The collection features exclusive works from Hackatao, Bard Ionson, Giant Swan, Gisel Florez, and more.
Mint Gold Dust Podcast
NFT Evening
Bård Ionson is mentioned in a news report about Mint Gold Dust.
By Reethu Ravi November 7, 2021
During NFT.NYC, the platform also hosted its inaugural NFT exhibition, the Genesis 8 exhibition. For this, eight artists were tasked with expressing what Gold Dust meant for them using their artistic vision and style. Famed artists such as Hackatao, Bard Ionson, Gisel Florez, Lapin Mignon, and more were part of the exhibition.
“Each artist was inspired by the essence of creativity and wonder, resulting in deeply intimate and unique pieces,” said Eleonora Brizi, Mint Gold Dust Curator.
Elementum Artist Interview 2
What are you passionate about?
My passion is communicating ideas in a sometimes obtuse way. I like that art can communicate an idea that is only perceived by those who are open to it. I enjoy putting many layers of meaning into some of my art. Sometimes they are paradoxical ideas. To juxtapose low and high art and the sacred and profane interests me.
NFTS WTF
Clyde F. Smith July 14, 2021
Binance NFT Lowballs at 1% as Secondary Royalties for Crypto Artists Progress at 10
Ultimately Kane realized that he must become the leader he sought and drew together a small network. The group discussed appropriate demands, studied historical information gathered by Bard Ionson, and followed through with a letter to crypto art platforms. Some artists also boycotted platforms or removed their work from platforms without secondary royalties. By the end of March 2020, all the major platforms of the time had agreed in principle to an “industry-wide standard of minimum 10% secondary sale royalties for artist minted NFTs.”
NFT Radio
Mentioned as a pioneer in the drive for artist royalties.
Matt Kane said: “By September 2019, SuperRare launched their second contract which reduced royalties to 3%. I spoke up on Twitter at the time but didn’t get much traction. Artists didn’t seem to care– and this really pained me. But I thought someone would speak up. I waited for one of the leaders to be a leader…The leader I was waiting for was me. I really liked the conversations and interactions that happened on Discord during the creation of First Supper on Async. So I spun up my own Discord channel. And I sent private invitations to about 20 artists– ones the community respected and that I knew I could trust… So in this Discord channel, we made some impassioned speeches. Bard Ionson did quite a bit of research on the history of royalties to help us shape our arguments. Many artists took their work off of sale from platforms that did not have royalties.
ArtBox DMV #34
Hello and welcome to ArtBox. In this episode Jason talks to Bard Ionson. Bard is an artist trained in programming and his practice is about distortions in reality. His engagement of artificial intelligence (A.I.), oscilloscope animations and glitch scanning is reflective of theses distorted realities. Bard’s usage of a computer to create his work, has an organic human touch to it. They talk about what drew Bard to AI , his influences and his collaboration with Lawrence Lee. Jason also asked Bard about where he thinks crypto art is heading.
New Forum
Video Interview
The Human & Machine
A critique of art on Art Blocks
Rare Digital Bird
Ann Marie Alanes
Fascinated with the space between the physical sensory, electronic and spiritual worlds and the distortions that happen upon passing between them. This is captured in artificial intelligence and the oscilloscope. The art is often infused with hidden layers of meaning and multiple dimensional backstories. Bård Ionson lives in Manassas Virginia. He has exhibited internationally in Tolmezzo, Italy, Manchester UK, Brooklyn NYC, a solo show in Manassas called “ARTificial” and MoCA the Museum of Crypto Art among other places in virtual reality. His unique niche is artificial intelligence art and oscilloscope art.