When my artwork became an amiibo

When my artwork became an amiibo

Back in 2020, one of my artworks ended up somewhere I definitely didn’t expect — on a tech blog.

Not an art blog. Not a photography site. A proper, geeky, “let’s take this apart and see how it works” kind of blog.

The piece in question is one of my photo-artworks — a composite built from multiple images, layered and transformed to create something that sits somewhere between photography and painting. The kind of work where people often ask, “is it a photo or is it a painting?”

Apparently, the answer in this case was: it might also be an amiibo.

If you’re not familiar, amiibo are those little Nintendo figurines with embedded NFC chips. Tap them on a console and they unlock content, characters, or features in games. They live in that interesting space where physical objects and digital experiences overlap.

So seeing my artwork discussed in that context — as part of a conversation about digital experiences, objects, and interaction — was equal parts amusing and fascinating.

You can read the article here: This artwork is an amiibo.

If you enjoy thoughtful tech writing, Terry Eden's blog is well worth a browse. He’s been writing it for nearly 20 years — even longer if you include his “necroposts” (from physical sources such as magazines and newspapers), which go back to 1986. My blogs only go back to a mere 1995, when I was documenting (before they were called blogs) what Linton and I had for dinner.

Creating amiibos is not something I set out to do. I wasn’t designing for games or thinking about NFC tags. But it’s a nice reminder that once an artwork is out in the world, it takes on a life of its own — sometimes in completely unexpected directions.

And, curiously, it was “A Quick Study” that ended up an amiibo. This surrealist, steampunk piece featuring a toutouwai burning the midnight oil took all my Photoshop skills to create. And the book the robin is reading? My PhD thesis, which takes geekiness to a whole new level.