As intrepid and active explorers of the digital landscape, musician Herndon and technology researcher Dryhurst have, alongside their own music, software and digital experiments, been nurturing and narrating the growing community around blockchain, NFTs and digital art. They recently released a folky cover version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene made using Holly +, the vocal deepfake AI tool they opened up to public use last year. While such tools raise questions of authenticity and authorship, which the pair calmly and cheerily blur, they have also been vocal explorers of the ethics of Web 3.0 and the questions of what data is being used to train these nascent intelligences. In September they launched Spawning, a new venture billed as ‘AI tools for artists. Made by artists’, offering spaces where creators might consciously opt in to, or out of, the datasets that shape AI. Not to mention their weekly podcast Interdependence, where artists like James Bridle and Simon Denny and digital pioneers like Harm van den Dorpel and Emad Mostaque have helped discuss the future of art and creativity.
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Power 100
Most influential people in 2022 in the contemporary artworld
66

Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst
Artists - Indispensable guides to our digital futures
66 in 2022
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