# Raghava KK Discusses His Most Exciting Art Concept, The Future Of NFTs, And More

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhV0EdDQ7Ps

[00:07] Cutting edge, provocative, fun, and most importantly, disruptive.
[00:15] That's Raghava KK for you.
[00:17] He's one of the most fascinating creators and thinkers in the Indian art space today, whose evolution is for all to see.
[00:25] From paintings, installations, film, iPad art, and now his latest work with tech and artificial intelligence has shaken up the Indian art space.
[00:39] Art marrying technology is at the forefront of most art summits and fairs around the world and is marking the evolution of art into digital and artificial intelligence and not to forget NFTs.
[00:53] Whenever artists meet for dinner, they talk money.
[00:55] And whenever bankers meet, wait, wait, wait, whenever bankers meet, they talk art.
[01:00] That when NFTs became.
[01:04] Welcome to the show.
[01:04] Welcome.
[01:06] Oh, you're most welcome.
[01:06] Listen and.
[01:08] Learn.
[01:08] That's beautiful.
[01:09] Love is deep.
[01:10] Can we do this again?
[01:11] Yeah.
[01:12] I love this.
[01:13] Welcome people.
[01:14] This is a group.
[01:16] Thank you for bringing me back.
[01:17] I have a monkey brain.
[01:18] And I was just wondering how is it humanly possible to even create that?
[01:21] Then I realized it's not humanly possible.
[01:22] Exactly.
[01:23] Exactly.
[01:23] We dance between them.
[01:25] We create magic.
[01:27] Thank you, Nate.
[01:29] Thank you.
[01:30] Can we do this again?
[01:31] See, this is magic.
[01:32] Okay, so let's do it again.
[01:34] So, Raghava KK, the name needs no introduction.
[01:36] We're going to cut straight to the chase.
[01:37] My god, how did he create such amazing stuff?
[01:39] I was blown when I saw it inside.
[01:41] You want to know, want to know the secret?
[01:44] Yes.
[01:44] I didn't create it.
[01:45] I believed in it and so many people came together to make it happen.
[01:49] The artist of today.
[01:51] But the actual art is always you.
[01:52] It is, but it's in conversation with reality, with with all the binaries, beauty, mind, body, everything comes together.
[02:00] I ask a very simple question.
[02:03] Are we the homo sapien, the monkey with the tool, or did the tool create us?
[02:07] Did we?
[02:09] Create the tool, or did the tool create us?
[02:11] We created the tool, but now the tool is creating us, right?
[02:15] Exactly.
[02:15] And I'm scared.
[02:16] This will replace me.
[02:17] I'm not an image maker anymore.
[02:20] Why would it replace you?
[02:22] It can't because of spirit.
[02:24] See, exactly my point.
[02:24] That's the artist.
[02:27] And so that's what makes the spirit shine.
[02:28] You know that box that you created inside and I was sitting over there and I was just wondering how is it humanly possible to even create that, then I realized it's not humanly possible.
[02:36] Exactly.
[02:36] Exactly.
[02:36] THEN I REALIZED IT'S NOT IT'S NOT NOT It's not humanly possible.
[02:40] But even that is a creation of humanity again.
[02:43] I wanted to surprise myself.
[02:45] I wanted to fall in love again.
[02:49] And did you fall in love with yourself again?
[02:50] I'm in love.
[02:50] There's no object of love.
[02:52] And you know, you are one of the very few artists who really supports NFTs for what it is.
[02:56] Do you think this is here to stay, the trend, or it's very short-lived?
[02:59] You know, the truest gift humanity has is our ability to believe.
[03:05] That's absolutely it.
[03:06] Speculations than belief, that means you don't know why you're collecting NFTs.
[03:09] But explain to me, for an artist, it's always going to be the true form that really matters, right?
[03:13] So, whether you're a sculptural artist or an installation artist or a video or audio artist or somebody who works on canvas with acrylic or watercolor or what have you.
[03:22] Is it, is it, but isn't that always going to be at the core of the tangible art that we've always known?
[03:26] Let me ask you a different perspective.
[03:28] My perspective, you're right.
[03:29] That's how you traditionally look at art.
[03:31] My perspective is art is an encounter.
[03:33] Yeah.
[03:36] It's like meeting a person.
[03:39] From a distance, I'm like, oh, what a cool, intellectual, smart, like, like comp kind of this with personality.
[03:46] Yeah.
[03:46] But when I get to know you, I may discover you also have sadness.
[03:48] You also have flaws.
[03:50] You also have memories.
[03:53] Of course.
[03:54] Then I can either judge you or I can transcend that and get to know the spirit that's living.
[04:00] How beautiful is that?
[04:00] And I'm saying that's what art is.
[04:02] It's an encounter.
[04:05] And the only judgment is, do I want to see you again?
[04:07] Of course.
[04:09] Do I want to meet you again?
[04:10] And what's the answer?
[04:13] Oh my god.
[04:15] Oh my god, what's the answer?
[04:15] You bet.
[04:18] We're having such a good time.
[04:18] This is supposed to be an interview.
[04:19] Yes, absolutely.
[04:22] But seriously, we need to understand soft power.
[04:24] India needs to understand its greatest gift.
[04:30] Yeah.
[04:30] It's not just its brains and bronze, but also its heart.
[04:37] The Impossible Bouquet by Raghava KK has been one of the most thrilling concepts in the Indian art market with his creativity marrying artificial intelligence and all of that rolled into art that represents this state, these times.
[04:52] It's a new language of being.
[04:52] It's a new language of art and it's really, really important that everyone addresses.
[04:57] It's like saying there was a time when there were no photographs, for example.
[05:00] Photography was considered the low practice.
[05:03] Or there was nobody using acrylic paint.
[05:05] Acrylic was considered not the real paint.
[05:09] So, it's different mediums and I think
[05:11] This is a very important time in our history of creating art.
[05:14] So, you can't ignore it.
[05:17] So, for us, it's really important as younger collectors, I want to have the whole gamut.
[05:24] The mélange of man and machine, of possibilities and impossibilities, of being in love and its vulnerabilities, of color, compassion, and all that in between.
[05:43] Raghava KK made the impossible possible and he becomes one of the very few artists who breaks those boundaries and ventures into the realm of technology and multi-disciplinary approach to creating works of art.
[05:56] Anything contemporary for me is very important because it's tomorrow's modern and day after's ancient.
[06:03] Um this show is, yes, very exciting.
[06:05] Raghava KK with AI prompts and this whole idea of using, you know, the.
[06:11] Non-fungible space and creating artworks that are acknowledging this tech revolution.
[06:18] So, it's really, really exciting and I'm always excited by everything, by the collectibles, the NFT collectibles, uh all the Discord conversation around all of this.
[06:29] So, for us, it's exciting to have an artist who's doing painting and doing AI prompt work.
[06:36] While Raghava KK's exhibit goes down in the art x artificial intelligence history as one of the most iconic ones, interactivity is being well received finally in India.
[06:49] Another such was by a relatively new artist, Varun Desai, who created a similar work called Dimorphism, a concept of duality that explored the relationship between man and the machine quite aptly.
[07:01] Done as an interactive audio-video art installation with interactivity at its core.
[07:11] The other established contemporary.
[07:13] Artists from India who have expanded in the realm of creation of multimodal sensory and immersive experimentation with art are Tejal and Tagra.
[07:22] 10 years back, we painted one series, not series, one work, actually, particular work.
[07:26] It called Arbor.
[07:28] So, it was very close to us.
[07:28] So, we took a picture and when you see it from a distance, it give you feeling of a tree.
[07:34] But when you go close and start observing, it has more than 100 icons inside.
[07:37] You have to find out whatever happening in this trees, in one particular tree.
[07:42] So, when the second wave COVID started, so we were sitting with the people and just doing Zoom calls on everything was online.
[07:52] Everybody adapted a new life of digital life, we call.
[07:55] So, we have more than 2,000 pictures of ours, which we shared together and we put it together in one folder.
[08:03] The name of the folder called Arbor.
[08:05] So, which reflects our old old body of works.
[08:07] And we come back to Delhi into our studio, we start making the.
[08:13] Taking the, we said we have to paint these only because this is how it reflects our this body of work.
[08:20] Well, within the time, things have changed.
[08:24] You can imagine that when I think at the industrial revolution time, the new how things changed and then, you know, the working capacity of a person changed into a machine build exercise.
[08:39] And I think this is where we understand that things will get outdated and new things will follow in.
[08:45] I think next 10 years or our future is looking into what is human-made and what is machine-made in its in its high-speed changeovers, you know.
[08:54] I think and and and for artistic actually abilities, it is quite a question that what is the value are you bringing by applying a machine onto the exercise.
[09:08] Their latest project is Arboretum and rightfully one of the walls read, and I
[09:13] Quote, "If a tree falls in the metaverse, does it echo and shake the earth?
[09:18] Do the birds cry in mourning?" Unquote.
[09:22] If you see these works, some of them has eyes.
[09:26] Like when you look at nature or nature is looking at you.
[09:29] So, are you you're both being observed in the same way.
[09:33] But whenever you take a picture of a nature, it become a pixel for you.
[09:37] So, the every pixel picture you took, it has a digital cookies left behind it.
[09:43] Like the geolocation or everything the way it has been marked.
[09:47] So, that if you go to other room, you see that data is in that and then you find the one pic room is pixel nature and this is all the trees which has glitches and the trees.
[09:57] So, we have our personal stories of the trees, why that particular tree, why particular shrub, why that image, why that image to use the particular tree.
[10:07] So, it was a very interesting part of our life to paint these trees.
[10:11] I think an artist at this sort of a time needs.
[10:13] To understand that it comes with the responsibility that you'd use a machine learning to apply which what can help him or her building more communities.
[10:27] Rather than this is, I think building communities is the key here.
[10:33] I think what you can do with a high speed which you couldn't have done 10 years back.
[10:38] I think that's really important.
[10:44] A strong social commentary always in whichever medium that they choose.
[10:47] They too have now foray in the NFT space.
[10:54] Tech art NFTs, artificial intelligence, the biggest headlines in the art world today.
[11:01] In New Delhi with inputs from Vaishnavi Garhwar, Chaiti Narula for India today.
[11:12] If you like the video, do like, comment.
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