Mike Winkelmann (Beeple)
Mike Winkelmann (Beeple)
BEEPLE - Interview by Motion Plus Design
Mike Winkelmann (born June 20, 1981), is an American digital artist and graphic designer that is acknowledged by the name Beeple. For over a decade he has been an active participant and one of the originators of the 'everyday' movement, producing and uploading an original piece of art everyday to various social media platforms.[1][2]
In February 2021, "Crossroads" an animated Non-Fungible Token (NFT) by Beeple sold for $6.6 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) on Nifty Gateway. The piece made history as the most expensive single NFT ever sold. [89]
Career
Everydays
On May 1, 2007, Beeple, posted a new work of art online.
He did the same thing the next day and the next, and the next one after that, creating and posting a brand-new digital picture, or ‘everyday’ as he called it, every single day for 13-and-a-half years.
Now those individual pieces have been brought together into a single collection EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS.
Minted exclusively for Christie’s, the monumental digital collage will be offered as a single lot sale concurrently with First Open from 25 February to 11 March.
Marking two industry firsts, Christie’s will be the first major auction house to offer a purely digital work with a unique NFT (Non-fungible token) — effectively a guarantee of its authenticity — and to accept cryptocurrency, in this case Ether, in addition to standard forms of payment for the singular lot.
On February 26, 2021, the bidding on the piece reached $2.4 million.
"The Everyday project is making one picture from start to finish and posting it somewhere on the internet each day before midnight.
That’s the only ritual I adhere to.
Beyond that, where I do them, when I do them, how long I have to do them, and who’s around me when I’m doing them is all completely dictated by what’s going on that day.
Normally, I just do them at night after the kids are in bed, and I’m alone in my room.
But I’ve done them all over the place and in all different circumstances: airports, cafes, emergency rooms.
I look at it more like brushing your teeth.
You don’t have a big ritual around it; you just go in and brush your teeth."
Themes
He also posted an Everyday animation of a giant human body blob with Mickey Mouse's head. The blob is stationed with giant feeding tubes protruding from the giant stomach as workers in hazmat suits walk around and fiddle with the computers attached to the blob's dock. He titled the October piece "Disney +" and posted it on Twitter.[42]
On the appearance of these recurring pop culture themes in his art, Winkelmann commented,[32]
"Disney is this massive omnipresence, especially in the last week, how much Rise of Skywalker shit you see everywhere.
I was on an airplane yesterday, and the napkin they brought me had a fucking Rise of Skywalker logo on it.
Every fucking thing, just everywhere.
Taking and reappropriating some of their IP and brands, I find fun.
I think it’s interesting to imagine if you took these characters and infused them with AI far into the future, and they had a life of their own, what would they do and what could happen?Like
with the Baby Yoda robot dog. What
if, in the future, you could buy a Baby Yoda puppy, and it knew to play with kids. But
then it got screwed up, and it got confused, and the algorithm got messed up, and it started eating kids, and it got stray, and there were these attacks of stray Baby Yoda robots that used to be toys, but they got so much AI in the future that they got loose, and they’re fricking eating kids."
Beeple also creates a lot of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg-related art. In October of 2019 as one of his Everydays, Winkelmann uploaded an animation on Instagram of a robotic, breasted spider with Zuck's head. The spider Zuck walks through what we assume is the Facebook factory, with giant headless silver women-without nipples-swaying to and fro. Beeple titled the piece 'ZUCKERBORG'S NIPPLE FREE TECHNO-UTOPIA'.[41]
Mediums
Winkelmann uses Cinema 4D for most of his digital artwork. He has sorted his Everydays by rounds, each round is a collection of the work created within a certain period of time and medium. His first round starts with illustration and progresses to photography and Cinema 4D. On June 4, 2019 Beeple made an appearance at the NAB Show where he livestreamed creating his Everyday for June 4.[72]
Album Art
VJ Loops
Beeple has created concert visuals for popular music artists including:[72]
One Direction
Zedd
Virtual Reality
“The biggest [challenge] for me is that … there isn’t framing.
The person can look in any direction.
That changes a lot of the little tricks you can do.
One of the main things I want people to take away from my piece [is a] sense that everywhere you look, there’s something happening or something changing.
[Vegas] is such a dynamic place; it always feels different and new.
You could see the piece again and have it be different to you each time.”
Fashion Week (2019)
Winkelmann's futuristic art from his Everydays collection was even featured on the runway of Paris Fashion Week on October 2, 2019. The event was held at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Beeple's art was displayed on 13 of the 45 pieces for a Louis Vuitton spring/summer collection.
In a 2019 interview with Meleah Maynard for the School of Motion blog, Winkelmann commented on the experience and process,[26]
"They wanted sci-fi stuff, mostly, and they chose nine Everydays that were futuristic looking, but not in a dystopian-bummer way.
They liked pictures that were more weird and techy so it’s the future, but the world doesn’t seem like a total hell hole or anything.
That’d be a bit of a downer to put on clothes.
The process went really smoothly.
They mostly asked me to make small adjustments, like adding a Louis Vuitton logo to some of them.
Other times I combined a couple of Everydays, or just adjusted the lighting or color or something."
Crossroads
On November 1, 2020, Beeple sold his piece "Crossroads", a one-of-one animated NFT artwork that was inspired by the 2020 U.S. presidential elections for $66,666.60.
It was designed to feature one of two animations, depending on the outcome of the election — one a triumphant Donald Trump, the other a forgotten, despondent one. [86]
In February 2021, "Crossroads" was resold on secondary market Nifty Gateway for USD $6.6 million in Ethereum (ETH), making history as the most expensive single NFT ever sold. Previously the record was held by CryptoPunk 6965 which sold earlier in February for 800 ETH valued at $1.55 million at the time. [85]
Social Media
Beeple's art can also be found on these platforms: