Bright Moments transports the Live NFT Art Minting Experience to Tokyo
Two years ago, Bright Moments opened its first physical live minting event in Venice Beach. One year later, the event set up shop at NFT Art Berlin. Along the way have DAO-powered roving NFT art festival has landed in New York, London and Mexico City.
And today, Bright Moments landed in Tokyo.
Bright moments Tokyo turns the act of minting generative Ethereum NFT artwork—which is created in the moment thanks to blockchain-based code—into a live experience that will ultimately span multiple locations, three different digital art collections, and dozens of notable artists.
Founder Seth Goldstein gave Decrypt a video tour of the main venue Thursday, on the 18th floor of a building in the heart of Tokyo’s hip Shibuya neighborhood.
Workers were still fine-tuning details and maximizing the atmosphere before Friday’s opening, but it was already clear that Bright Moments had prepared a diverse mix of interactive experiences.
“It looks like MoMa in the sky,” Goldstein said.
Screens showing NFT art at Bright Moments Tokyo. Photo: Takahiro Kawahara
AI, whiskey and fog rings
The centerpiece was a custom arcade game cabinet adorned with pixel art and surrounded by towering video screens, plus a mirrored floor that gave the space a kind of surreal allure. This is where up to 1,000 participants will be able to imprint a CryptoTokyoite, one of a total of 10,000 pixel avatars that act as a membership passport to Bright Moment’s DAO.
Whiskey brand Suntory sponsored Bright Moments Tokyo. Photo: Seth Goldstein
Goldstein shares other highlights of the venue via his iPhone camera. There is an official Suntory bar sponsored by the iconic whiskey brand, for example, where only 100 token-holding guests can emboss a special piece of art and enjoy a special pour of Hibiki whiskey in a private session.
Elsewhere Goldstein shows Decrypt a “dream booth” where the Stable Diffusion AI generator turns the guests’ words into text – and then into images. In another part of the venue, the artist duo AA Murakami prepared a special vending machine together with a device that shoots rings of fog behind you when the box is handed over.
“Yeah, it’s quite a thing,” admits Goldstein.
However, there is more minting to be done than just CryptoTokyoites. The venue also hosts Bright Moments Tokyo’s Japanese Contemporary collection, which spans works from 11 artists including Emi Kusano, Kaoru Tanaka and Kazuhiro Aihara.
It’s also where attendees will find the AI Art Collection, which spans new works from 11 artists producing AI-assisted work, including Claire Silver, Pindar Van Arman, Kevin Abosch, Holly Herndon, with Mat Dryhurst.
Bright Moments has shown AI-assisted works before, but this is the festival’s first dedicated AI collection.
The Pindar van Arman exhibition at Bright Moments Tokyo. Photo: Seth Goldstein
“It’s clearly the brightest, shiniest object,” Goldstein said of AI’s place in today’s cultural and technological zeitgeist. “It’s a pretty hopeless time in the market. There is a lot of R&D. There’s a lot of regulatory backlash.”
“AI, at least on the art side, offers some hope of offering transformation. It’s not the same old, same old. I think people across the board are excited about what might happen,” he continued. “It really has never been such an IRL experience of newly created AI work of this caliber in the world. It’s something we’re very proud of.”
A globe-trotting affair
However, it is not the only destination that is part of the week-long event.
The Kyu Asakara House in Shibuya City presents a more traditional Japanese home and a nature-themed tea garden, and is where attendees can view the Tokyo Collection, featuring generative works from 11 artists including Jeff Davis, Lars Wander, Kim Asendorf and Zancan.
The Kyu Asakara House in Bright Moments Tokyo. Photo: Seth Goldstein
“It is very wabi-sabi“, Goldstein said of the Kyu Asakara house.
Bright Moments has come a long way from Venice Beach in terms of distance, reputation and scale of the personal experience. Despite wildly fluctuating ETH prices over the past two years and correspondingly shifting appetites for tokenized artworks, the model of pre-selling NFT coin cards to fund globe-trotting real-world experiences remains viable.
“It was not difficult to get people to come to Tokyo. People were looking for an excuse, Goldstein said. “So much of what we’re doing is a result of the pandemic. The pandemic was, you know, taking the basketball and pushing it underwater — and Bright Moments is about letting the ball just bounce in the air. That’s kind of the momentum we’re trying to follow through this.”
Bright Moments will next shift to Buenos Aires in October and then to another city in early 2024 that has yet to be voted on by DAO members. And ultimately, the originally planned journey to destinations far and wide will culminate with a return to Venice Beach next year.
The original intended vibe was “Cirque du Soleil meets Coin base“, Goldstein recalled, and he believes that Bright Moments has achieved that curious blend. Purely digital and real-world art experiences may have felt largely opposite at the start of this journey, he said, but they have sought to establish an increasingly distinctive gray area between them.
“We’re trying to really take care of the accountability that comes with being in the chain,” he said, “but also connect with people — emotionally, viscerally and physically — in ways you can’t when you’re just shopping at the chain.”
