AUCKLAND, Today: The Sweetshop is launching a partnership called The Gardening.Club with futurist Tomas Roope and AI artist Jacqui Kenny. Tomas has likened AI’s impact on creativity to ‘gardening’ for years, which inspired the name.
Previously, the creative leaders of The Gardening.Club partnered with The Sweetshop in The Rumpus Room, merging brands like Nike, Google, and Coke with icons such as Pharrell Williams and Kobe Bryant. Their innovative work helped inspire the early days of TikTok and Snapchat.
Melanie Bridge, co CEO of The Sweetshop, states, “As a futurist, Tom has a vision beyond what most people can imagine, and Jacqui’s exquisite artistic sensibility ensures that we continue to push The Sweetshop’s legacy of craft to the highest level. We feel beyond lucky to work with these two as we navigate this new era which Tom equates to a monumental change as significant as the advent of the internet.”
The Gardening.Club aims to shift the perception of AI from merely a tool for efficiency to a manifesto for future creativity, merging technology, craft, and integrity.
“As a futurist, Tom has a vision beyond what most people can imagine, and Jacqui’s exquisite artistic sensibility ensures that we continue to push The Sweetshop’s legacy of craft to the highest level.”
Roope comments, “It’s not often you live through a paradigm shift in creativity. We are moving into an era where we are not going to have to make the same choice between speed, price and quality. We are going to see things and hear from people we have never heard from before. It is going to be amazing.”
He continues, “Though there are some uncertainties around rights and remuneration models, the genie is not going to be put back in the bottle as its future potential is far greater than the current obstacles.”
Kenny has solidified her reputation in the art world as an AI artist, with her work being hugely sought after and displayed in New York galleries. She has also succeeded in the web3 space with three sold-out NFT collections and has worked with brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Google, and OpenAI. Kenny launched ‘The Agoraphobic Traveller’ in 2016, a project that gained a massive following as @streetview.portraits on Instagram.
Kenny reflects, “I have been using A.I. to create photographs and video since 2020 and over that time I have witnessed a rapid evolution in the tools. It is becoming clear that what has been evolving out of the world of A.I art is beginning to merge into a more commercial space, leading to the potential for some groundbreaking collaborations.”
Bridge adds, “As the world evolves The Sweetshop evolves with it. Since the inception of The Sweetshop, the core belief has always been that as co-creators ideas are and always will be the most important aspect in any production.”
Share this Post
