I'm excited to share this in depth conversation with artist and technologist Sterling Crispin. His ideas are fascinating, provocative, and well executed- it was a pleasure to chat through the underlying ideas, and hear more about his thoughts on technology and art.

Can you begin by introducing to our community? Your name, where you are based and the mediums you work in?

Hey I'm Sterling Crispin, I'm a conceptual artist working between digital and physical objects based in the greater San Francisco bay area right now. By that I mean, I try to let my ideas lead me to whichever material and form works best. When I'm making physical art, it's often the first time I've ever made an object like that before. But, I almost always start my artwork digitally even if it's a sculpture.

Below, Ideas of Mountains, A collection of 210 generative conceptual artworks. Each depicts a unique generative 3D landscape, with AI generated phrases.

Awesome. I'd love to start with your most recent project and work backwards into your creativity from there. Tell me all about Ideas of Mountains.

Ideas of Mountains is my first smart contract artwork. It's a collection of generative landscapes with AI generated phrases on them, inspired by the painter Ed Ruscha and early 3D rendering software like Bryce3D. I'm really interested in AI, because it's like a mirror that shows us who we are, based on what we teach these models. I wanted to see what OpenAI's GPT3 neural network would say about NFTs. So I gave the network the writing from my first seven NFTs, which were all sort of meta commentary on crypto. They said things like, "Property ownership is a consensual hallucination". So the phrases on Ideas of Mountains are inspired by my past artworks, generated by AI. It's sort of like having an AI studio assistant.

That's fascinating. So cool to see you putting this much depth and thought into your process.

It's interesting to view AI as a continuation of human evolution. After all, we have always evolved alongside technology, from fire and stones all the way to microchips and the internet. Where did your interest in these techniques and thought experiments begin? Are you a fan of science fiction?

I totally agree, technology is an extension of humanity, but it's also becoming its own organism. It's a strange paradox. To answer your question, I think I've always been interested in technology, and learned to code fairly early in life. But I really dug into it after a strange coincidence in college. I was learning more about Buddhism and reading about this concept called Sunyata. It's sort of this idea that everything is deeply interconnected and existence is a web.

Somewhere along the way I connected this idea of existence as a singularity, to the technological singularity, and read all of Ray Kurzweil's books. He thinks that because technology is advancing exponentially, we will reach a 'Technological Singularity' where a $1,000 computer will be as powerful as all human brains on the planet combined. This idea has made it into pop culture but at the time in 2009 or so it really opened my mind up to where civilization might be heading.

The date for the Technological Singularity is supposed to be around 2045, so we still have some time. The next 25 years are going to be wild, even if AI doesn't become godlike as he predicted.

Below, GRAPHS

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. People often forget that technology is exponential, we can't even really imagine what it will be like even ten years out from now. It's also interesting when we attach art to technology, because then innovation in art is also exponential. I'm excited for the future of this space, particularly blockchain tech as it applies to art. What was your first exposure to this world and what has your experience been so far?

I first came across bitcoin in 2011, and I had about a dozen PCs laying around doing nothing at the time. I thought about mining bitcoin, but never took action on it! The next year everyone thought the world was going to end in 2012, and I kept thinking about making an artwork that would be a 'bug out bag' of survival equipment and also a bitcoin mining machine.

A few years later in 2015 I made the sculpture, it's an ASIC bitcoin miner incased in a metal frame full of dehydrated foods and survival knives and hand cranked radios. I'm fascinated by this idea that the world is simultaneously ending and exponentially improving at the same time. I remember watching NFTs becoming more popular among the machine learning and digital artists I follow over the course of 2018-2019 but I didn't take it very seriously. I think when I saw Kenny Schachter start making NFTs last September I thought, "Oh shit, this is really going to become something," and started paying more attention then.

Since then it's been a rollercoaster, I think there's so much positive potential, as well as an incredible amount of misleading fear mongering articles and doomsday kind of language about NFTs. It's so polarizing. I saw people on twitter saying artists should literally be crucified in the streets! So in February I wrote an article called "NFTs and Crypto Art, The Sky is Not Falling" trying to get to the bottom of the environmental criticism for myself.

Below, ASIC Bitcoin Mining Tube, Aluminum Profile, Acrylic Sheet, Lifesaver Systems 4000 Ultra Filtration Water Bottle, Emergency Radio, Mayday Emergency Food Stuffs, Custom Gaming PC Components, Knife, Heirloom Seeds

Was your pursuit of creativity a choice? Something you felt drawn to over everything else? And were you encouraged to pursue it or did you have to fight against the push to do something more stable?

I've always made art and was encouraged to pursue art, and apply to art school, which I'm very thankful for. But my life has been really chaotic, in and out of employment and self employment, and working weird jobs for money. Honestly I think I sort of failed upwards into a career in tech. I learned to code for my art practice, and actually got my first tech job through a random coincidence talking to someone at an art event in LA.

I'm really grateful for the opportunities programming has brought into my life, but my dream has always been to be an artist full time. I'm closer to doing that in a stable way now than I ever have been before, which I'm very thankful for.

Below, Codex 1- Horizon Aluminum, Printed Circuit Board (FR-4 Glass-reinforced Epoxy Laminate, Copper)

Lastly, I love to present this question to everyone I speak to. What advice might you have for someone earlier on their creative path?

It's important to understand that luck, timing, and circumstance, like being seen by the right people, are huge influences on the outcome of your career, and it may be out of your control. Also, there's no right way to be an artist, I think it's different for everyone.

It can be dangerous to look up to artists and try to follow their path, because their economic situation might be very different. If you're like me and went six figures into debt to go to art school, you can't compare yourself to, or follow the career path of, an artist born into wealth who spends half their time socializing with art world people.

I guess what I'm saying is, "Comparison is the thief of joy". Focus on yourself, and what's right for you, right now. You're the only one who knows what that is.

Great advice, thank you so much for this insightful conversation. Really look forward to watching your continued growth and love everything I’ve already seen. Looking forward to meeting you someday soon, and let’s stay in touch! To the reader, you can keep up with Sterling Crispin by visiting his website.