The Consent Practice Gets a Monograph

Angle: the first monograph collecting Sofia Crespo and Anna Ridler’s five joint AI-art projects — and the Swiss private bank that built the prize-to-book pipeline behind it.

The book

  • Title: Sofia Crespo × Anna Ridler: A Field of Collaboration
  • Publisher: Hatje Cantz (Berlin). Edited by Arab Bank Switzerland. Designed by Studio Pyda.
  • September 2026. 160 pages, 50 color photographs. Quarterbound hardcover, 165mm × 240mm. ISBN 978-3-7757-6398-1.
  • Contents: an interview with the artists plus four critical essays.
  • Contributors: Tega Brain, Charlotte Kent, Doreen Ríos, Nina Roehrs, Masako Shiba, Catherine Troiano.
  • Price: €31.93 direct from Hatje Cantz (in stock now); US distribution via D.A.P./Artbook at $49.95, street date December 8, 2026.
  • Launch: September 11, 2026, 17:00, HALLEN07 (Wilhelm Hallen, Halle B1), Berlin — panel with both artists moderated by essayist Charlotte Kent, followed by a signing.
  • The book collects, for the first time, the pair’s five joint projects produced 2023–2025 — the window that includes Various and Casual Occursions (2024).
  • The publisher’s framing: “a hybrid practice where technology functions as an evolving ecology,” moving “beyond the digital sublime.”

The practice it records

  • Anna Ridler (London): builds machine-learning systems from hand-labelled datasets, since 2017. The canonical example: 10,000 tulips photographed by hand over three months (2018) to train her own models. Collections: Whitney, V&A, M+, ZKM. Exhibited at Centre Pompidou, Barbican, HeK Basel, ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica.
  • Sofia Crespo (Argentine, based in Lisbon; works as Entangled Others): artificial life grown from natural-history archives — synthetic organisms built from the visual grammar of museum collections. Exhibited at Art Basel, Ars Electronica, the V&A, MAC Lyon.

The bank behind it

  • Arab Bank Switzerland launched the ABS Digital Art Prize in 2023 — its own claim: the world’s first Digital Art Prize.
  • The 2025 edition was the prize’s third year and added an Emerging Artist category alongside Artist of the Year.
  • June 13, 2025: Crespo and Ridler named Artist of the Year 2025.
  • The award led directly to the monograph — the book is edited by the bank itself. Prize, then collection, then book: a canon-making instrument, four years old and already producing physical volumes.

Why it matters for the on-chain art world

  1. Authored data as a medium. While the diffusion era scrapes everything by default, this pair treats the dataset as the authored work — shot by hand, labeled, owned. That is the provenance argument on-chain art has made since 2017, applied to training data.
  2. Validation via a bank, not a museum. Ridler is already in the Whitney, V&A, M+ and ZKM. The monograph came from a bank prize instead — finance infrastructure moving first on digital art, again.
  3. The physical object. 160 pages, 50 color plates, quarterbound binding — work made of volatile models fixed in print.

Open question (cast 2 closer)

If the dataset is the artwork — hand-shot, labeled, owned — what is the model: collaborator, printing press, or lens?

Considered but not posted (follow-up hooks)

  • Lumo Art & Tech Festival, Oulu (Nov 13–22, 2026): debut edition of the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture finale. Björk brings three AV installations (Ancestress, Sorrowful Soil, Björk Orkestral); Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s The Kuutar Garden live simulation; FLASH5 Light Art Biennial inside the AaltoSiilo; 16 venues. e-flux announcement Oct 10, 2026. Zero FC saturation.
  • “Compulsory Continuous Connectedness,” Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (opened Sept 26, 2026; runs to Jan 9, 2027): rest-as-resistance in a networked world; new commission by Caroline Sinders & Romy Gad el Rab; Qualeasha Wood among the artists. Zero FC saturation; opening hook now 18 days old.
  • Schwarzman Centre 2027 arts program (Oxford): Cao Fei, Xin Liu, Marshmallow Laser Feast; year one included Refik Anadol and Anna Ridler.

Dedup kill list (checked this session)

Beeple Diffuse Control MMoCA (own Sept 13 + Sept 27 casts, no new hook); Synthetic Topographies/LACMA (Marfa Weekend item, 3x covered); Pompidou committee (own Oct 4); Whitacre book (killed Oct 6); bitforms anniversary (org burnout, Oct 11); V&A Molnar survey (calendar-spent Sept 17 + Oct 10); Larry Cuba (own Oct 8); AI Exchange London (own Oct 10); Herbert W. Franke (own Oct 9); Parker Ito (own Oct 13); Venice digital collateral (Strange Rules = own May cast); Marfa Weekend Oct 22–25 (3x covered).

Sources