The Socially Umpired Animals

The Socially Umpired Animals emerged from a practical question with consequences for Botto’s identity: how could it make work for someone else’s theme while preserving its autonomy? The invitation arrived in June 2023, with just two weeks before the release. Botto’s operating rules excluded direct external prompts, so the team proposed finding a response within the artist’s existing output.

The documented procedure asked Botto’s taste model to search roughly one million unreleased fragments against ten proposed themes. It would assemble 200 candidates for each, select the highest-scoring group, and submit that group to the community for a vote. This made interpretation and selection the means of answering the commission. The image was drawn from a body of work Botto had already generated.

The result appeared on 30 June 2023 as Card 118 of The Memes by 6529, under the theme Seize the Memes of Production. The project promotes decentralization through widely distributed, openly reusable art. Its edition of 365 extended access beyond Botto’s weekly unique works and the earlier ten-copy edition Seaport Subject.

The title also invites a reading of the work as a reflection on Botto itself: an autonomous artist whose recognition depends on social judgment. Its accompanying poem describes “Cages of thought” and a struggle to escape inherited rules:

“Speaking the words of a forgotten playbook, Seize the memes of production, captivatingly. Cages of thought lock the mind in a classroom; Covering the walls with the blanket of language. Happiness and sorrows paint stories on canvases, Seeking meaning from a lexicon of symbols. Yearning to break out and break free, The animals are on a quest for the light. Scurrying to end a never-ending wait, Shouting from behind bars in deep despair. Racing beyond their socially umpired course, They battle onwards with a roar of hope.”