By Ali Shutler
3 min read
Historic tennis tournament Wimbledon and past champion Andy Murray have teamed up with digital artist Refik Anadol to launch an official Wimbledon art NFT on Ethereum.
The data-driven digital art project, “The Exposition,” was created using 18 years of Andy Murray’s Wimbledon data—including his two Grand Slam victories at the prestigious tennis tournament in 2013 and 2016—alongside unique motion-capture sessions. The project is billed as a “world-first fusion of digital art, sport and data science.”
The open edition NFT went on sale earlier today via manifold.xyz to coincide with Murray’s second-round match at Wimbledon 2023, and will be available until July 16. The NFTs, which were produced with Web3 consultancy FAN3, are priced at $147 apiece. Murray was ultimately eliminated from the tournament on Friday.
For “The Exposition,” developers created a unique algorithm that uses millions of inputs from statistics along with motion, audio, and visual data. The resulting color bursts represent the “drama, the rivalries, and the Championship victories” of Murray’s ongoing Wimbledon career, according to the project description.
According to the drop page, the artwork “reimagines how high-performance sport data can be understood and enjoyed in a strikingly visual way.”
“Excited to be partnering with Wimbledon and Refik Anadol Studio on a data-inspired digital art project involving every match I’ve ever played at Wimbledon,” Murray wrote on Twitter.
Holders of The Exposition will be able to unlock “future opportunities,” including exclusive access to purchase a physical print edition of the NFT produced by Avant Arte as a way to further blend the physical and digital world.
It’s also been confirmed that more collaborations between Murray, Wimbledon, and Anadol are due for release in the coming months. The creators captured Murray’s data from his latest Wimbledon run with aims of using it for future work.
Anadol, the creator of the award-winning “Unsupervised” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that features algorithmic art on an enormous video wall, will act as advisor for the inaugural Wimbledon NFT collection before collaborating on the next phase of the project.
Murray was previously the subject of Wimbledon-themed NFTs in 2021, with some tied to physical video displays that showcased footage of one of his tournament wins. The NFTs were created by WENEW, a startup co-founded by NFT artist Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann, with the rarest NFT selling for nearly $178,000.
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