Artificial Intelligence, 2022. Self-portrait of the artist from a selfie, created as commentary on the concepts of utility, digital identity, and the historic scope of the NFT movement. Method - - - - - - - Starting with a photograph of myself, AI was employed to slowly change the scene while keeping all elements intact. The AI was trained on the aesthetics of the old masters: Monet, Botticelli, Ruysch, Van Gogh, Klimt, Cassat, Solomon Joseph Solomon, Gentileschi, Sargent, and Thomas Cole, to name a few. Influences from my own childhood memories were then trained into this mix--nostalgic anime interpretations, bits of jewelry popular in elementary school, CC0 illustrations of Alice in Wonderland. Individual sections were divided and masked by hand to selectively apply low-opacity AI transformations to each piece of the work, layering in a method not unlike glazing a grisaille. Message - - - - - - - This self-portrait began with a selfie, taken from a season of life when I stepped from voicelessness and resignation into empowerment and ambition. As many who are uncovering their digital identity, I am both myself and anonymous. The portrait is made with my face, but it's transformed by the world it inhabits, and veiled in a translucent, digital glow--a chosen glow, worn with purpose. It includes aesthetics from masters of our cultural heritage, a recent photograph of my identity (guided to reflect my anonymity), and was crafted hand-in-hand with AI. This process was chosen to capture past, present, and future in one image. How would it have been seen in the past? How do you see it now? How will it be seen in the future? I believe that the NFT movement is not only art history in the making, but the genesis of a broader change in human history. We collect the cave-paintings of what we will become. The piece includes references to Thomas Cole's "The Course of Empire," the Garden of Eden, and Alice in Wonderland, each chosen to reflect a facet of that belief. Shaping these early years makes all of us a part of an unfolding story. Some of us will come and go, some of us will build a framework generations yet to come will never know a world without. Digital identity records those names in a history book that will never be lost. This work represents me. It's intended as a snapshot before a shift. There are chapters in the book of history; many artists and patrons from this moment will form the first pages. I intend to be among them. If you believe there is utility in that, this piece belongs with you.