Billions of aggregated human emotions shape Sentimentite’s 100 geological-like forms

Sentimentite—Kurant’s speculative mineral-currency of the future—investigates the relationship between digital capitalism and geology. Inspired by the way natural forces shape rocks and meteorites over deep time, Sentimentite’s evolving forms are shaped by changes in 21st century society: 100 seismic historic events, millions of harvested Twitter and Reddit posts, and billions of aggregated human emotions.
 
When redeemed, these Expanded NFTs state-change to physical sculptures cast in Agnieszka Kurant’s fictional material: Sentimentite. She has pulverised 60 objects used as currencies throughout history into this new mineral-currency. “Today,” Kurant says, “our contemporary global economy is based on conversions of crowd dynamics and social energy into information and capital. Tweets, shares and likes are the new oil and gas.”

Collaborating with Justin Lane, CEO and Co-Founder at CulturePulse, sentiment analysis data has been harvested from millions of Twitter and Reddit posts related to these recent historic events across 10 Chapters (see table below).

10 Chapters of 100 ruptures, revolutions, disasters and future dreams

Kurant then collaborated with 3D artist and developer Gabriel Stones. He took the expansive data capture from above, and syphoned them into individual digital forms. Multitudes of emotion-driven data points have been projected onto digitally composed 3D models, using rules for transforming the size, shape, weight, form, colour, density and texture. In effect, Kurant is compressing the recent past into her own data-driven, speculative geology. Sentimentite “proposes an alternative way of producing artworks,” Kurant says, “where singular authorship is replaced by complex collective forms.”

60 materials that have throughout history seen use as formal and informal currencies make up Kurant’s Sentimentite material, including cocaine, bullets and animal teeth.

When redeemed, the Sentimentite Expanded NFTs state-change to physical sculptures cast in Kurant’s fictional material: Sentimentite. Kurant identified over 60 objects used as official and informal currencies throughout history (see table below), and then sourced these materials from global hotspots of commerce and production. Working with Noël Hochuli at Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen AG, the materials are then all ground down and pulverised to make the Sentimentite mineral-currency. Kunstgiesserei custom-fabricates a 3D sculptural mould of each redeemed NFT digital form. The new pulverised mix is then mixed with an acrystal resin, and poured into the mould. After setting, the mould is gently broken off. Finally, the surface is treated with a fine layer of acid which reveals more of the 3D texture details. The end result is striking, uncanny, and otherworldly: a synthesis of millions of people and their invisible machined emotions.

This is art that challenges our assumptions about what it means to be human today.

The New York based artist Agnieszka Kurant has collaborated with cognitive scientists, economists, clairvoyants, Amazon Mechanical Turks, talking parrots and termite colonies. Her multimedia output explores the power of collective intelligence in our extreme information societies. “Kurant probes the uncertainties of the volatile present and unknowable future through projects that verge on scientific experiments,” wrote The New York Times. This is art that challenges our assumptions about what it means to be human today.
 
Kurant has worked with the Machine Intelligence department of Google, the MIT Center for Art, Science &amp; Technology, was a Berggruen Institute Fellow (2018-21) and won both the 2019 Frontier Art Prize and 2020 LACMA Art + Technology Award. Her work is in some of the world’s most prominent collections, including MoMA, Guggenheim Museum, SFMOMA, Nicoletta Fiorucci and Fondazione Sandretto di Rebaudengo. Instagram’s co-founder Mike Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn Trigger’s acquisition of Kurant’s Phantom Library was the very first artwork of their collection.

Sentimentite is a collaboration between Agnieszka Kurant and Zien.
Supported by Zora.
Data analysis by Justin Lane, CEO and Co-Founder at CulturePulse.
3D modelling by Gabriel Stones, 3D artist and developer working in film, installation and games.
Physical fabrication project management by Noël Hochuli at Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen AG.
A percentage of the proceeds from Sentimentite’s sale will be donated to several organizations helping refugees from Ukraine, Syria and other countries.