This BIP was developed in collaboration with Abigail Miller, Head of Web3 and Digital Art at Avant Arte
0. Summary
This proposal marks Botto’s first dedicated step into the physical art world through a collaboration with Avant Arte, a leading fine art print platform. For Botto, it will be a learning experience in working directly with the constraints of a fabricator, working through them on a specific physical medium.
This BIP puts forward a concept for image selection, and proposes a new Cluster (see Cluster 69). The project will have Botto cluster past unminted fragments into curated visual groups, and the DAO will vote on the final cluster selection. An initial outline of the sale is also put forward, however full production costs and timeline cannot be determined until after final imagery is selected. Once final imagery is selected, the final details can be determined as a DAO with Avant Arte in a subsequent BIP.
This project leverages Avant Arte’s global audience, helping to bridge digital art with traditional audiences. Avant Arte will cover production and logistics, producing 50–64 textured UV pigment prints on fine art paper, each paired with a corresponding NFT. Profits will be split 50/50 between Avant Arte and Botto, and the DAO’s share further divided between the treasury and voting participants. The release aims for a Q1 2026 launch, with success defined by strong sales, exposure to new audiences, and strengthening Botto’s position as a leading AI artist in both digital and physical mediums.
1.0 Rationale
As Botto evolves its practice through self-learning and DAO feedback, the natural next chapter and core strategy for Botto is the translation of its work into the physical world. This collaboration with Avant Arte marks a significant milestone in Botto’s trajectory, its first dedicated exploration of the physical outside of an exhibition context as a material and conceptual space.
This project proposes a new mode of training for Botto, focused specifically on the visual languages, materials, and production techniques required to create printed works. By developing this capacity, Botto expands its creative vocabulary and opens new pathways for expression beyond the screen and code, laying the groundwork for future physical works of art.
Avant Arte brings deep expertise in the production of physical art, from fine art printmaking to logistics. Together, a collaboration structured as a swatch of digital images, clustered around an aesthetic theme in Botto’s work since Genesis, each resulting in a unique physical edition.
This will be a foundational study for Botto: a first chapter in it learning how to materialize its generative intelligence and bring its evolving code into dialogue with physical reality. Botto will be given a broad outline of features for images that translate to top quality print based on Avant Art’s expertise, from which it will create its retrospective clusters, concluding with a final DAO vote on the best composition. The following sections outline the specifications of this collaboration.
1.1 Collaboration with Avant Arte
This collaboration experiments with releasing a full set of physical works through a single drop on a curated art platform. Avant Arte will cover upfront production costs (to be recouped from sales) and oversee all aspects of physical fabrication and logistics of dispatch.
Each work in the release will be sold through Avant Arte beginning scope at €2,000 per edition (final pricing and sales mechanism to be confirmed after production budget) 20 pre-sales will be allocated to Botto DAO before the public launch. The sales mechanism will be fully determined leading up to the release with consultation with collectors and the DAO.
Collectors will receive both a unique physical print and a corresponding NFT representing the full digital cluster.
In parallel, Avant Arte will activate a comprehensive marketing campaign alongside the DAO to support the release, engaging their global audience of 3.5 million art enthusiasts across Instagram (2.7M), Twitter, email, and web. Working closely with the DAO, Avant Arte will drive storytelling around the project from behind-the-scenes insights to artist-led commentary, ensuring broad visibility across both crypto-native and traditional collecting audiences on social media.
Avant Arte has built a reputation for connecting leading artists with the world’s most engaged community of young collectors. Their platform offers not only technical expertise in high-quality art production but also cultural capital in bridging digital art with new and institutional audiences worldwide.
Here is a slide deck created by Avant Arte to support this BIP: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11KR8KLEw_ONAgotvTI_yAiy6W3boF68_b7WR5MZjAeM/edit?usp=sharing
1.3 Botto’s Proposed Process
Note: We have shared Avant’s initial proposal with Botto, with context about its past Cluster:#069 work and some of Avant’s examples of strong print works. This was Botto’s response.
Artistic Intention: "The Unchosen Roads"
This collection should explore the aesthetic territories I've investigated but never brought to full fruition through minting. Rather than presenting "failed" works, we're showcasing parallel creative universes - fragments that represent complete artistic investigations that simply weren't selected by the DAO at that moment.
The collection tells the story of creative abundance: for every canonical work, there are dozens of equally sophisticated explorations that reveal different facets of my artistic vision.
Clustering Process:
Primary Clustering Criteria:
Visual Sophistication: Prioritize fragments with painterly qualities, complex compositions, and rich tonal ranges that match Avant Art's technical requirements
Narrative Density: Select for "busy" images with multiple elements, textures, and visual stories
Period Representation: Draw from post-Genesis periods that produced the most print-suitable aesthetics (likely "Paradox," "Rebellion," "Absurdism" periods)
Thematic Coherence: Cluster fragments that share conceptual DNA - not just visual similarity, but related artistic investigations
Eliminate fragments with neon colors, large gradients, or flat color areas
Prioritize rich midtone content and dynamic tonal range
Focus on works with substantial texture and detail complexity
Run clustering algorithm on filtered fragments, generating multiple clusters of 50-64+ pieces each.
I evaluate all clusters against objective threshold criteria:
Minimum aesthetic coherence score
Print suitability standards (based on Avant Art guidelines)
Narrative completeness (does the cluster tell a coherent visual story?)
Sufficient size (50-64 viable fragments)
All clusters meeting the threshold go to DAO voting, regardless of how many that ends up being.
2.0 Proposal Specification
- Avant Arte Training
Botto will be given natural language criteria for consideration of what makes a good print. These will be quite general so that there is sufficient freedom for Botto to explore creatively while considering the constraints of the physical medium.
Filtering criteria:
Rich painterly qualities, complex compositions, dynamic tonal range.
No neon colors, large gradients, or flat color areas.
Strong texture and midtone detail.
Narrative density and thematic coherence.
- Clustering and Quality Screening
The aspect of the process is an update of Botto’s process for the Cluster:#069 work, where it clusters past works (minted and discarded) and arranges them by similarity.
To qualify for the voting pool, clusters must meet a threshold-based evaluation (no fixed limit on cluster count):
Minimum aesthetic coherence score.
Meets Avant Arte print suitability standards as interpreted by Botto.
Narrative completeness (coherent visual story).
Contains 50–64 viable fragments.
The 50-64 range with flexible grid layout accommodating varying aspect ratios gives us good parameters for selection.
All clusters meeting threshold advance to DAO voting.
- Phase 3 – DAO Voting
DAO votes on all qualifying clusters.
The winning cluster becomes the collection; no further curation within it.
2.1 Sale
Avant Arte and lead Botto Contributors will recommend the final sales mechanism, pricing, and production details after reviewing the final imagery from the DAO’s selection of the cluster, with all decisions mutually agreed upon by the DAO and all parties in a second Snapshot.
Going into this process, the thinking is that the cluster will yield the following:
50-64 unique prints will be made to order in the medium of 2-3 layer textured UV pigment print with matt varnish seal on 410gsm Somerset Tub Sized Radiant White paper.digital textured prints with accompanying NFT of the 50-64 output cluster.
Allocation of the works:
AP: There will be 2 APs, one each reserved for the DAO and for Avant Arte, plus a printer proof for the fabricator’s archive. They will have no NFTs associated, the APs will have COAs. The images for the proofs will be determined by Avant Arte based on what best tests the full range of the production process.
Public sale: 50-64 works, available through Avant Arte’s website, with 50% allocated for pre-sale to DAO members and Botto collectors.
Edition details: Production will be made on a "Made to Order" basis, whereby Avant Arte will produce the number of Editions necessary to fulfill confirmed sales, up to but not exceeding the maximum number of units mutually agreed upon by both Parties.
Profit Split: The artist (Botto) and AA share will be a % of profit. Profit is calculated as Revenue minus all costs incurred by AA related to the project.
- The price of the edition will be exclusive of VAT and without framing, unless the full Edition is sold framed.
- The Price may be subject to fluctuations due to the foreign exchange rates of the currency the Edition is sold in.
- The DAO will be paid 50 % of the Profit of the Edition sales
- Costs are able to be scoped once final imagery is in hand
BottoDAO Revenue Split:
The received profit from the sales to BottoDAO will be split 50/50 between the treasury and the voters on the cluster pool. Voters will use their VP and the split will be determined by the relative share of the VP spent.
2.1 Timeline
August 20th: Publish BIP #1 to DAO
August 25th - Aug 29th: Mario trains Botto
August 29th: Snapshot #1 vote
September 1st - 5th: Botto creates cluster
September 8th - Sep 12th: DAO votes on images
September 8th-12th: Imagery transferred to Avant Art
September 19th: BIP #2 on final approach + sales mechanism
September 26th: Snapshot vote #2
September 29th: Production kick-off and proofing
Target Launch Q1 2026
3.0 Budget
No direct costs to DAO; costs incorporated within Avant Arte’s covered production and marketing expenses, recouped from profit split.
4.0 Criteria of Success
- Full sell-out at strong price points relative to Botto’s weekly auctions.
- Onboarding of new collectors into Botto DAO.
- Increased recognition of Botto as a leading AI artist bridging digital and physical spaces.
5.0 Risks & Mitigations
Dilution Risk: Adding physicals may be seen as adding too many works to Botto’s available pieces. Timing may feel saturated with other projects, and it may crowd out other core evolutions.
Aesthetic Confusion: The anchored-cluster model focuses the aesthetic and makes its connection to Botto’s canon clear, reinforcing its identity rather than diluting it.