Fahad Karim (b. 1990) is a South Asian new media artist who uses self-developed code-based systems, generative AI, machine plotters and blockchains to reimagine tradition through automation. His work explores themes of architecture, folklore, humanity's relationship with technology and the passage of time, drawing on a nomad's life that has taken him across Switzerland, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Mexico and the US.,
Karim studied computer science at Cornell University, where a class called Computing in the Arts introduced him to generative art.He began experimenting with the p5.js coding framework around 2016, inspired by the generative work of Diana Lange, while working in technology in New York and drawing ink pieces such as Alternative Worlds, a collection exhibited in Brooklyn in 2016.,After discovering NFTs in 2021, he adapted his ink-drawing style into code for his first long-form generative art project, Alan Ki Aankhen, a 500-edition series selected for Art Blocks Curated Series 8 and released in July 2022.,The project's title, Hindi for Alan's Eyes, refers to Alan Turing's machine intelligence test, and its cityscapes of windows, pyramids and towers draw on memories from the places Karim has lived.,
In November 2022 he launched Pohualli, a 100-edition generative project with Bright Moments Gallery, minted at “NFT ART CDMX” in Mexico City.,,Inspired by Aztec mythological motifs and the Nahuatl vigesimal counting system, each Pohualli creature grows through a random walk algorithm and, following the Aztec belief that time is cyclical, dies and is reborn.The project was shortlisted for the 2023 Lumen Prize.,,His NEOCODEX, an infinite generative codex inspired by Maya codices, visualizes the ongoing transformation of the Yucatán Peninsula and is stored entirely on the Ethereum blockchain, revealing a new page every minute.In 2023 the Brooklyn-based Karim created Microcosms, 1,000 generative artworks distributed as a multi-year NFT ticket pass to CoinDesk's Consensus conference, with rewards unfolding from 2023 to 2025.,,His work has been collected and exhibited at Sotheby's, Christie's London, Zona Maco in Mexico City and Bright Moments Gallery in Mexico City and Venice.,
