Mika Tajima

The project, titled Archive of Feelings (January 1, 2023, United States of America), is the first collaboration between Pace Verso and (opens in a new window) PROOF, a leading NFT art collecting community, anchored by its NFT collections (opens in a new window) PROOF Collective and (opens in a new window) Moonbirds.

With this new NFT project, Tajima brings Human Synth into the world of web3. Her Human Synth video animation installations use a predictive and custom sentiment analysis program to process affective data from social media to survey the mood of American society at a given moment in time and predict future emotional temperatures on a macro scale. These collective feelings, sourced from Twitter, are rendered as digital smoke in Tajima’s installations, drawing connections to ancient Mesopotamian divination practices and smoke signals.

Her NFTs use the same sentiment analysis algorithm to encapsulate the fluctuating mood of the country throughout the day on January 1, 2023. Appearing as animated digital smoke morphing in shape, color, and density, each unique NFT visualizes the averaged emotional data as portraits of the first day of the new year. The data is divided across 12 US regions, encompassing the mood of the entire country. The project includes 1,152 NFTs, each representing 15 minute time segments of Twitter data from each of the 12 regions. The specific date of January 1st represents both the anticipatory possibilities of the new year and the melancholy of time passing in a tumultuous era.

Smoke represents a transformation of matter—a physical change that cannot be contained. The concept of capturing and trans-mediating something as abstract and ephemeral as emotion is analogous with NFTs as a new medium posing fundamental questions about objecthood and materiality.

This project follows Tajima’s participation in the third season of PROOF’s celebrated Grails series, a curated collection of original artworks where artist’s identities remain hidden until the post-mint live reveal. Like Pace Verso, PROOF has cultivated a sophisticated collector base that supports artists at the forefront of web3 innovation.

Each NFT in Tajima’s new series will provide access to exclusive in-person events with Pace Gallery and private tours hosted by PROOF and Pace Verso. Collectors will also receive access to PROOF’s token-gated Discord server, a collector profile on PROOF.XYZ, and access to future PROOF allowlists. Holders of Archive of Feelings NFTs will also be eligible for invitations to the project’s launch event, which will be held in March at Pace Gallery in Los Angeles.

Collectors will be able to acquire Archive of Feelings artworks on the (opens in a new window) PROOF.XYZ platform.

As part of this project, PROOF will make a donation to a soon-to-be-announced institution to realize the next Human Synth. Archive of Feelings was generated in direct response to this ongoing series, which has been exhibited in multiple international museums. This next version of Human Synth will manifest a living portrait of the country during the presidential election season. Titled Human Synth (United States of America), that work will be produced in fall 2024.

At the heart of Tajima’s multidisciplinary practice, which spans performance, sculpture, painting, and new media installation, is a profound inquiry into the conditions of human agency and self-determinacy in built and virtual spaces. Tracing modernist architecture and design from the Industrial Revolution to the sharing economy, Tajima draws on philosopher Hannah Arendt’s idea of a social space—by which living things make their appearance to probe the visibility of performance, control, and freedom—to investigate how different digital and aesthetic technologies manifest as sensorial and psychic experiences.

Ariel Hudes, Head of Pace Verso, says:
“Pace Verso is dedicated to supporting innovative, boundary-pushing web3 projects by Pace Gallery artists as well as leading artists who have emerged from the web3 space. PROOF has continually demonstrated the same dedication to artists, sharing their work with the PROOF community and beyond—which makes them a natural fit for collaboration. Pace Gallery has a history of championing pioneering, technologically engaged artists. Mika’s new project is a great example of the capacity web3 holds to give these artists working with digital tools an expanded reach and ability to connect with an audience beyond the bounds of the traditional art world.”

Eli Scheinman, Head of Art at PROOF, says:
“At PROOF, we are excited about the future growth and opportunities for artists and creators in the space. Our partnership with Pace Verso marks a new chapter for ongoing collaboration and innovation, working with traditional art galleries, institutions, and artists, supporting their visions, and providing a platform to reach new audiences who share our values. We couldn’t be more excited to continue our collaboration with Mika, one of the top emerging artists in the world.”