The digital artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, has unveiled his first generative work, THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE (2024), at Italian Tech Week (25-27 September) in Turin. Proceeds from the sale of the work to the investment management company Lingotto support two non-profit initiatives: a community-focused food justice programme in the artist’s hometown of Charleston, South Carolina and other American cities through Big Green, and the new protection of millions of acres of land and sea in South America, the United States and Australia through the organisation Art into Acres.
THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE features four video screens arranged in a rectangular pillar, with the screens displaying an endless video of a tree with industrial elements resembling a rig scaling its height. Imagery generated from a variety of real-time data—including news channels, stock and cryptocurrency tickers, environmental data and social media—disrupts this feed, and viewers can choose what reality they see on a range from “signal”, meaning order, to “noise”, meaning chaos. The work will be on view in New York City beginning in early October, at Lingotto’s New York office near the central branch of the New York Public Library.
“I am interested in artwork that helps you discover who you are versus telling you what to think,” Beeple tells The Art Newspaper. “My hope is that by giving people agency, they can see which reality they gravitate towards. To me, this interaction mirrors real life where I think we forget that we have the ability to put down our phones and turn off the noise at any moment.”
The owner of the piece can control the work further by pressing a “choose violence” button, which initiates a violent state for several minutes before destroying the tree. The tree regenerates when the violence ends, but the button can only be pressed 666 times before the imagery becomes permanently stuck in a dystopian state.
Beeple, TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, 2024 Courtesy Beeple Studios
“We can and do choose violence over and over,” Beeple says. “But not an infinite amount of times, as there are certain lines that cannot be uncrossed and we can not only do permanent harm to each other, but with nuclear weapons we have the ability to permanently fuck up the earth and make it uninhabitable. I think this is unlikely, just as I think someone pushing the button 666 times is unlikely, but I wanted to give weight to each time you choose violence to help us remember that choices have real consequences.”
The sale of THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE to Lingotto supports the non-profits Art into Acres and Big Green. The land conservation initiative through Art into Acres, an artist-led non-profit, was undertaken with several local and international organisations, including Re:wild, Andes Amazon Fund, The Nature Conservancy and Tuleyome.
“A project like this, which is years in the making—between the planning, contracts, matching funds, granting and diligence—is dependent on collaboration,” says Haley Mellin, founder of Art into Acres. “Beeple has been dedicated to thinking through how a work ‘of’ the planet, can also be ‘for’ the planet. The artwork is impacting the very world it depicts.”
Included in the areas benefiting from the donation are parts of Amazonia of Indigenous significance that are at increased risk of deforestation.”Amazonia holds half of the planet’s tropical forests and is one of the largest carbon reserves,” says Christopher Jordan, Latin America director of Re:wild. “Yet, deforestation driven by animal agriculture threatens to push it past its tipping point. Titling Indigenous lands and designating new protected areas are crucial strategies to safeguard this vital ecosystem.”
Additionally, through the non-profit Big Green, the sale of THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE will support food justice initiatives. “Big Green is excited to launch several garden-based learning programs throughout the greater Charleston and Lowcountry areas,” says Madeleine Nelson, vice president of advancement for Big Green. “Big Green’s mission is to get everyone in America growing food to improve nutrition security, mental health, environmental stewardship and so much more. This collaboration provides us with a unique opportunity to bring gardens to a city we’ve never worked in, bringing us closer to our goal.”