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“Hardware && Hardware is about the body as a machine: the body as hardware, the mind as software. I use that duality as a metaphor for AI. AI is not becoming conscious and nothing about it is ephemeral. It is calculation happening on chips. At the same time, we forget how remarkable our own bodies are as machines.
Here the machine gaze is reversed. Before, the machine looked at the human body. Now it looks at the hardware: an inner gaze, turned toward something it doesn’t realize it is running on. A model can never know what it runs on.
These figures are not a moment of becoming. They are the final destination of something that lives in between. The glitches stay visible, because I don’t want to fool anyone into thinking this is reality. I want to bring the medium to the surface.”
— Ivona Tau
“Hardware && Hardware is about the body as a machine: the body as hardware, the mind as software. I use that duality as a metaphor for AI. AI is not becoming conscious and nothing about it is ephemeral. It is calculation happening on chips. At the same time, we forget how remarkable our own bodies are as machines.
Here the machine gaze is reversed. Before, the machine looked at the human body. Now it looks at the hardware: an inner gaze, turned toward something it doesn’t realize it is running on. A model can never know what it runs on.
These figures are not a moment of becoming. They are the final destination of something that lives in between. The glitches stay visible, because I don’t want to fool anyone into thinking this is reality. I want to bring the medium to the surface.”
— Ivona Tau
Tau explores her models through a tool she built herself, making roughly a hundred adjustments for each image she keeps.
The chips carry real code. Every circuit in Hardware && Hardware is layered with source code from nanochat, Andrej Karpathy's open-source, minimal GPT implementation. In her words, it is "a statement in favor of more open AI."
The series follows two earlier bodies of work. UNBEAUTIFUL (2024) examined how popular AI models idealize the female body. Body as a Machine (2025) explored forms between the organic and the mechanical. Hardware && Hardware, which she calls "the rawest of the three," makes the idea literal: the body, built as a machine.
Ivona Tau (b. 1990, Lithuania) works across photography, moving image and installation, and her main material is the photographic archive. She trains her own generative models on images she has made or gathered herself, from analog film to family archives. She holds a doctorate in artificial intelligence and a master's degree in mathematics.
Her work is held by ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and Francisco Carolinum Linz, and has been shown with bitforms gallery, Kate Vass Galerie, Art Dubai Digital and Art Basel Miami Beach, and offered at Christie's and Sotheby's. Solo and two-person exhibitions include ViVi Gallery, Hangzhou (2026) and Galerie Met, Berlin (2025).
She was named an Onassis ONX Fellow in 2026, won the Speculative Agency Award of the 4th CIFRA Award in 2025, and has been a finalist for the Lumen Prize, the ABS Digital Art Prize and the Digital Art Awards presented by HOFA with Phillips.
Every work in Hardware && Hardware can also be collected as a 24 × 24 inch print. Tau thinks of the two as one living system, like mind and body: the digital work is the software, the print is the hardware.
Print Details
Paper: Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308 gsm, 100% cotton matte.
Print Size: 24 × 24 in. / 61 × 61 cm, unframed.
Price: $250 USD (.11 ETH)
After the digital release, collectors can add the matching print of the work they hold, hand-signed by Ivona. Each print is available only to the collector of its digital work.
Buyers are responsible for any applicable import duties or VAT on their print purchase. Please allow up to 10 weeks for your print to arrive.
Collectors of Ivona's work and ICONIC's collectors choose the exact work they want and collect it in USD. Pre-sale closes Wednesday, November 11 at 10 AM ET.
Collectors of Ivona's work and ICONIC's collectors choose the exact work they want and collect it in USD. Pre-sale closes Wednesday, November 11 at 10 AM ET.
The remaining works open to everyone at 0.11 ETH each. Each collector receives a work from the collection, revealed once collected. The sale stays open until December 11 or until every work has found a collector.
The remaining works open to everyone at 0.11 ETH each. Each collector receives a work from the collection, revealed once collected. The sale stays open until December 11 or until every work has found a collector.
Collectors can then add Ivona's hand-signed 24 x 24 in. print of their work.
Collectors can then add Ivona's hand-signed 24 x 24 in. print of their work.
Founded in 2015, ICONIC releases digital and physical works with leading artists and cultural institutions.
Institutional partners include Art Basel, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Museum of Art + Light and the White House Historical Association. Artists released through ICONIC include Tyler Hobbs, Emily Xie, Snowfro, Sasha Stiles, William Mapan, DeeKay Kwon, Jeremy Booth, Osinachi and Des Lucrèce.
Learn more at iconicmoments.co.
Each collector receives one of fifty unique black-and-white works, Hardware && Hardware #1 to #50.
After the release, each collector can add the matching 24 × 24 inch print, hand-signed and numbered by Ivona Tau, for $250. Each print is available only to the collector of its digital work.
Hardware && Hardware releases on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at 12:00 PM ET. Each work is 0.11 ETH.
It is a blind release: the work you receive is assigned at random. The public sale stays open until December 11 at 12 PM ET, or until all fifty works have found collectors.
ICONIC Art Pass holders have priority access through the pre-sale, which closes November 11 at 10 AM ET. The public release opens at 12:00 PM ET on November 11.
After the primary release, Hardware && Hardware will be available for secondary trading on OpenSea.
A 10% royalty applies to secondary sales. Every time a work changes hands, the artist continues to participate in its value. As it should be.
Hardware && Hardware is issued as ERC-721 works on the Ethereum mainnet, with provenance recorded on-chain from the moment of release.
Collectors can view their work in any standard Ethereum wallet and display it through any compatible viewer or frame.
Work made with third-party AI models is often impossible to reproduce once a company retires a version. Tau trains her own models and keeps their checkpoints in storage, so the system behind each work can be run again at any time.
The physical print is individually hand-signed and numbered by Ivona Tau.
For questions about collecting, prints or delivery, contact the ICONIC Collector Services team at hello@iconicmoments.co.
“Hardware && Hardware is about the body as a machine: the body as hardware, the mind as software. I use that duality as a metaphor for AI. AI is not becoming conscious and nothing about it is ephemeral. It is calculation happening on chips. At the same time, we forget how remarkable our own bodies are as machines.
Here the machine gaze is reversed. Before, the machine looked at the human body. Now it looks at the hardware: an inner gaze, turned toward something it doesn’t realize it is running on. A model can never know what it runs on.
These figures are not a moment of becoming. They are the final destination of something that lives in between. The glitches stay visible, because I don’t want to fool anyone into thinking this is reality. I want to bring the medium to the surface.”
— Ivona Tau
“Hardware && Hardware is about the body as a machine: the body as hardware, the mind as software. I use that duality as a metaphor for AI. AI is not becoming conscious and nothing about it is ephemeral. It is calculation happening on chips. At the same time, we forget how remarkable our own bodies are as machines.
Here the machine gaze is reversed. Before, the machine looked at the human body. Now it looks at the hardware: an inner gaze, turned toward something it doesn’t realize it is running on. A model can never know what it runs on.
These figures are not a moment of becoming. They are the final destination of something that lives in between. The glitches stay visible, because I don’t want to fool anyone into thinking this is reality. I want to bring the medium to the surface.”
— Ivona Tau
Tau explores her models through a tool she built herself, making roughly a hundred adjustments for each image she keeps.
The chips carry real code. Every circuit in Hardware && Hardware is layered with source code from nanochat, Andrej Karpathy's open-source, minimal GPT implementation. In her words, it is "a statement in favor of more open AI."
The series follows two earlier bodies of work. UNBEAUTIFUL (2024) examined how popular AI models idealize the female body. Body as a Machine (2025) explored forms between the organic and the mechanical. Hardware && Hardware, which she calls "the rawest of the three," makes the idea literal: the body, built as a machine.
Ivona Tau (b. 1990, Lithuania) works across photography, moving image and installation, and her main material is the photographic archive. She trains her own generative models on images she has made or gathered herself, from analog film to family archives. She holds a doctorate in artificial intelligence and a master's degree in mathematics.
Her work is held by ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and Francisco Carolinum Linz, and has been shown with bitforms gallery, Kate Vass Galerie, Art Dubai Digital and Art Basel Miami Beach, and offered at Christie's and Sotheby's. Solo and two-person exhibitions include ViVi Gallery, Hangzhou (2026) and Galerie Met, Berlin (2025).
She was named an Onassis ONX Fellow in 2026, won the Speculative Agency Award of the 4th CIFRA Award in 2025, and has been a finalist for the Lumen Prize, the ABS Digital Art Prize and the Digital Art Awards presented by HOFA with Phillips.
Every work in Hardware && Hardware can also be collected as a 24 × 24 inch print. Tau thinks of the two as one living system, like mind and body: the digital work is the software, the print is the hardware.
Print Details
Paper: Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308 gsm, 100% cotton matte.
Print Size: 24 × 24 in. / 61 × 61 cm, unframed.
Price: $250 USD (.11 ETH)
After the digital release, collectors can add the matching print of the work they hold, hand-signed by Ivona. Each print is available only to the collector of its digital work.
Buyers are responsible for any applicable import duties or VAT on their print purchase. Please allow up to 10 weeks for your print to arrive.
Collectors of Ivona's work and ICONIC's collectors choose the exact work they want and collect it in USD. Pre-sale closes Wednesday, November 11 at 10 AM ET.
Collectors of Ivona's work and ICONIC's collectors choose the exact work they want and collect it in USD. Pre-sale closes Wednesday, November 11 at 10 AM ET.
The remaining works open to everyone at 0.11 ETH each. Each collector receives a work from the collection, revealed once collected. The sale stays open until December 11 or until every work has found a collector.
The remaining works open to everyone at 0.11 ETH each. Each collector receives a work from the collection, revealed once collected. The sale stays open until December 11 or until every work has found a collector.
Collectors can then add Ivona's hand-signed 24 x 24 in. print of their work.
Collectors can then add Ivona's hand-signed 24 x 24 in. print of their work.
Founded in 2015, ICONIC releases digital and physical works with leading artists and cultural institutions.
Institutional partners include Art Basel, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Museum of Art + Light and the White House Historical Association. Artists released through ICONIC include Tyler Hobbs, Emily Xie, Snowfro, Sasha Stiles, William Mapan, DeeKay Kwon, Jeremy Booth, Osinachi and Des Lucrèce.
Learn more at iconicmoments.co.
Each collector receives one of fifty unique black-and-white works, Hardware && Hardware #1 to #50.
After the release, each collector can add the matching 24 × 24 inch print, hand-signed and numbered by Ivona Tau, for $250. Each print is available only to the collector of its digital work.
Hardware && Hardware releases on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at 12:00 PM ET. Each work is 0.11 ETH.
It is a blind release: the work you receive is assigned at random. The public sale stays open until December 11 at 12 PM ET, or until all fifty works have found collectors.
ICONIC Art Pass holders have priority access through the pre-sale, which closes November 11 at 10 AM ET. The public release opens at 12:00 PM ET on November 11.
After the primary release, Hardware && Hardware will be available for secondary trading on OpenSea.
A 10% royalty applies to secondary sales. Every time a work changes hands, the artist continues to participate in its value. As it should be.
Hardware && Hardware is issued as ERC-721 works on the Ethereum mainnet, with provenance recorded on-chain from the moment of release.
Collectors can view their work in any standard Ethereum wallet and display it through any compatible viewer or frame.
Work made with third-party AI models is often impossible to reproduce once a company retires a version. Tau trains her own models and keeps their checkpoints in storage, so the system behind each work can be run again at any time.
The physical print is individually hand-signed and numbered by Ivona Tau.
For questions about collecting, prints or delivery, contact the ICONIC Collector Services team at hello@iconicmoments.co.
