Last chance to get MonoC's NFT artwork in Phillips' auction

Phillips and Gusto Collective joined hands in their first collaboration between an international auction house and virtual human, MonoC. For those seeking to possess a special NFT, the data-driven NFT artwork, Drowning in Love, is still available via Phillips’ online auction, My Kawaii Valentine, until tomorrow

On the 14th of February, the unprecedented digital artwork named Drowning in Love was unveiled. This very first collaboration between premier auction house Phillips and Gusto Collective’s virtual human creation, MonoC, stunned the world with the full potential of digital art and their innovative offerings within the NFT space.

Who is MonoC?

MonoC is a virtual human created by Hong Kong BrandTech firm, Gusto Collective. Before her recent birth in the “metaverse”, the firm has created her backstory and personality as curious, open-minded and spontaneous. Throughout her ongoing journey to understand and feel human emotions, art has been a necessary form of inspiration and expression. And it ends with this special auction by Phillips entitled My Kawaii Valentine.

MonoC’s dreamlike, abstract, and immersive digital artwork Drowning in Love expresses concepts of companionship, self-appreciation and sexuality. It celebrates love’s power, vitality, and even sinister aspects such as obsession, idealisation, delusion.

Using data points to generate value

Throughout the auction period which started last week, the algorithmic procedural meant that each of these lots that sold during the sale will directly influence the final form of MonoC’s artistic vision. Data-driven algorithms formed by MonoC will respond to the participation of bidders in the auction to procedurally generate melodies and animations within pre-programmed parameters. My Kawaii Valentine auction will define the exact amount of data points used to create Drowning in Love; optimising the artwork may require a minimum of 100,000 data points over the 7-day auction period.

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A visual growth over time

Each flower seen in Drowning in Love represents a lot in the My Kawaii Valentine collection. A random seed from the artwork name and ID will generate a unique shape and pattern for each flower. Metric analytic data – which tracks lot activeness – determines the size and behaviour of each bloom. Collection points include user engagement with the online auction, the number of bids, and each bid amount. Highly active lots will emit glowing pollen.

MonoC partnered with leading Hong Kong composer and #legend100 Terrence Ma for this groundbreaking artistic endeavour. Ma composed complementary music that accompanies the visual growing aspect of this digital art.

The auction ends on Tuesday, 22 February at 6PM HKT.

Also see: Wong Kar-wai to auction Tony Leung NFT, Leslie Cheung jacket at Sotheby’s sale