220 DIGITAL WORKS WITH A PLANNED EVOLUTION
MINTING NOW
OPENSEA
CREATING ART
FOR 40 YEARS
I didn't start as a digital artist. I spent decades figuring out how to build impossible physical things. The digital work came later — but the impulse was always the same.
1980s
I spent the 1980s touring and playing in bands of all varieties, based out of Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Music was my entry point. It exposed me to a wider world of art, and this is when I began painting, sculpting, and experimenting with different materials — figuring out how to physically make unusual ideas exist.
1990s
I continued playing music and spent time living and traveling abroad. Some of my most experiential moments came in India, Prague, and Japan. Those experiences changed the way I looked at culture, objects, space, and the relationship between people and the things they make and live with.
2000s
My art began to take shape more seriously during breaks in the production schedule at Saturday Night Live, where I was working in the early 2000s. What had been developing alongside music and other work began to become its own practice. Eventually I opened my first design studio and art space, creating a place to develop large-scale physical work, custom fabrication, installations, furniture, objects, and environments. Burning Man and other site-specific projects became an important part of that evolution.
2010s
Public art, environments, collaborations, and technology. The work expanded into large-scale installations, public sculpture, architectural environments, fabrication, and collaborations with brands, artists, musicians, architects, and cultural organizations. The scale increased, the environments became more ambitious, and temporary installations increasingly led toward permanent public work.
2020s
The digital work becomes a much larger part of the practice — Bitcoin inscriptions, NFTs, generative and systems-based work, community-driven projects, interactive systems. I see it as an extension of the same impulse that runs through the physical work: take an idea that shouldn't exist yet, and figure out how to make it exist.
CHRIS BERLIN
ARTIST
PHYSICAL / DIGITAL / SYSTEMS / CULTURE
I BUILD THE THINGS MOST PEOPLE ONLY PROPOSE
I've spent roughly 40 years making physical and increasingly digital work that sits somewhere between art, technology, fabrication, architecture, systems, and culture. I don't really separate artist, musician, fabricator, designer, builder, and digital artist — those are different tools I've used to make the same kind of work.
I tend to start with an idea, constraint, problem, or strange question rather than a particular medium. Sometimes the answer is a sculpture. Sometimes it's a building-sized installation. Sometimes it's a public artwork. Sometimes it's code. Sometimes it's an NFT, or an entire system built around an artwork.
The medium follows the idea.
COLLABORATIONS
THEY HAVE AN IDEA THAT DOESN'T EXIST YET.
THEY NEED SOMETHING BUILT THAT DOESN'T HAVE A CATEGORY.
THEY WANT PUBLIC ART THAT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE PUBLIC ART.
THEY NEED A PERMANENT INSTALLATION.
THEY NEED A TEMPORARY INSTALLATION.
THEY HAVE A GIANT EMPTY SPACE.
THEY HAVE A WEIRD SPACE.
THEY HAVE A VERY NORMAL SPACE AND WANT TO MAKE IT WEIRD.
THEY NEED A SITE-SPECIFIC WORK.
THEY NEED A SCULPTURE.
THEY NEED A DIGITAL WORK.
THEY NEED A PHYSICAL WORK.
THEY WANT PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL TO COLLIDE.
THEY NEED AN ARTIST WHO CAN ACTUALLY BUILD THE THING.
THEY NEED AN ARTIST WHO CAN WORK WITH ARCHITECTS.
THEY NEED AN ARTIST WHO CAN WORK WITH ENGINEERS.
THEY NEED AN ARTIST WHO CAN WORK WITH FABRICATORS.
THEY NEED AN ARTIST WHO CAN WORK WITH A CREATIVE TEAM.
THEY NEED SOMEONE TO TURN A DECK INTO SOMETHING REAL.
THEY HAVE A CRAZY IDEA.
THEY HAVE A GOOD IDEA THAT NEEDS TO GET CRAZIER.
THEY HAVE A BAD IDEA THAT MIGHT ACTUALLY BE INTERESTING.
THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE IDEA IS YET.
THEY WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE.
THEY WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE CAN WALK INSIDE.
THEY WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE CAN TOUCH.
THEY WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE CAN COLLECT.
THEY WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER.
THEY NEED SOMEONE TO SAY, "YES, WE CAN PROBABLY BUILD THAT."
THEY NEED SOMEONE TO SAY, "NO, BUT HERE'S A BETTER WAY."
THEY HAVE A BUDGET.
THEY DON'T HAVE A BUDGET YET.
THEY HAVE A DEADLINE THAT IS ABSURD.
THEY HAVE A DEADLINE THAT IS TOMORROW.
THEY JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING INTERESTING.
COLLABORATIONS OPEN - BRIEF IDEAS ARE ENOUGH TO START.
IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHETHER A PROJECT IS POSSIBLE, THAT IS USUALLY THE RIGHT TIME TO ASK.