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Certificate of Authenticity
Victor Acevedo
Ectoplasmic Kitchen v02
NFT
Description

Created in the Spring and Summer of 1987, the ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN series is Victor Acevedo’s first major collection of digital images. At this stage, he was beginning to refine his approach to using the computer graphics software that he had access to. More facile imaging tools were becoming available on the personal computer, first on the IBM PC and its clones. In the mix were the early Apple computers and, soon, the Apple Macintosh. The ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN series also served as a bridge to his previous nine years of visual art making with analogue media, including painting, drawing, and film work. He had experimented sporadically with algorithmic art software since 1983, but this was the first time his digital imaging was built directly on a photographic source, not unlike his methodology when developing a painting or drawing.

The title of the series comes from the term "ectoplasm". This is defined as "a supernatural viscous substance that is supposed to exude from the body of a medium during a spiritualistic trance and form the material for the manifestation of spirits." In some of the images, Acevedo’s allusion to or approximate graphic metaphor for this substance is expressed using clusters of tessellation patterns or a linear space frame that articulates the space and/or envelops the figures that appear in the picture.

Some of the images in the series, even though they contain the same “cast of characters,” suggest narratives that are tangential or even digress from the original theme. In those cases, they are given their own unique titles.

The working method was to first make a line drawing that was a traced distillation of the original photograph. Acevedo then drew polygonal areas corresponding to the various changes in luminance values throughout the image. The drawing was then “brought into the computer” with an RGB camera scan in three color passes. Once on the screen, the polygonal areas were traced and filled in using the draw line and polygon-fill commands provided by the software.

Ten images from Victor Acevedo’s ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN series are now being offered by EXPANDED.ART in limited editions via Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) authenticated on the Ethereum blockchain for the first time ever.

The ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN series was created with Artwork software on an IBM PC (AT) running DOS (Disc Operating System). This was 2.5D vector graphics software licensed by West End Film/Pansophic. 2.5D means it supports mouse-controlled manipulation of on-picture-plane graphical objects within any implicate or explicate polygon domain towards convergent perspectival vanishing points. However, the software’s computer graphics capabilities would not be classified as those of a full 3D modeling system.

The original DOS-based image files were saved to a 5.25" floppy disc, usually written to a ‘Pansophic’ flavor of the PIC or Hex format. However, the NFT-linked JPG files on offer were produced from high-resolution scans of 35mm slides that were output via a 2K Matrix digital film recorder directly from the original computer files in 1987. The slide film was developed by the artist himself in a small, dark room after hours at the business-to-business 35mm slide production service bureau, where he worked in the Spring of that year. The one exception here is that the image called ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN V01 was scanned from a 4x5" transparency output from the original digital file, circa 1988.

ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN V02 is essentially the same as ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN V01 but without the M.C. Escher-like cluster of zoomorphic tessellation patterns overlayed on the image. Their absence reveals some subtle radii vectors that converge toward the center figure’s torso. The device of the repeated figure, the one on the left elongated, can either suggest a motion sequence or a visualization of the protagonist having an out-of-body experience.

ECTOPLASMIC KITCHEN SERIES is part of the exhibition THE THINKING MACHINE. PRESENTING PIONEERS, 1953-2023 on view at EXPANDED.ART in Berlin from 6 to 27 JUNE 2023. The exhibition, curated by Anika Meier and Georg Bak, is a collaboration between EXPANDED.ART and ELEMENTUM.ART.

Details
Production year
1987
Object type
NFT
Edition
Edition of 12
Edition note
Edition of 10 + 2 Artist Proofs
Dimensions
2160 × 3015 px
Asset type
JPG
Minted on
Verisart Custom Contract
Blockchain
Ethereum
Contract address
Token ID
Certificate of Authenticity
Our patented certificates are designed to evolve over time, unlike paper certificates. All changes to the certificate are registered on the blockchain, proving a clear and trusted timeline of the certificate’s evolution.
Verified issuer
Creator authorized
Physical link
Created by
Victor Acevedo, 1954
Signed by
Certificate Signature
Issued by
EXPANDED.ART
Owned by
Private
History
Transferred
May 23 2025 16:54:20 UTC
Claimed
Apr 12 2025 08:27:25 UTC
Claimed
Oct 17 2024 17:43:15 UTC
Claimed
Oct 16 2024 06:10:59 UTC
Claimed
Sep 27 2024 06:03:38 UTC
Claimed
Sep 25 2024 06:27:25 UTC
Transferred
Sep 3 2024 11:05:28 UTC
Created
Sep 3 2024 11:05:25 UTC
Traits
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