The human need to create portraiture runs deep. People have been going to artists’ studios to commission portraits of important figures, in paint or in clay, for centuries.

Enter The Machine continues in this tradition into the digital age as a portrait studio for digital entities. Its subjects are digital files, folders, apps, and systems, and they’re rendered in pixels.

I invite you to help expand the boundaries of portraiture to digital subjects by commissioning a portrait of a digital file, folder, app, or system that holds significance to you.

– Eric Corriel, artist

I’ve kept a digital notebook since 2005. As of today it contains over 300 ideas for things I might one day make—art projects, films, furniture, a water fountain that runs on tap water imported from Flint, Michigan. Most of them I’ll never get to, but they’re all in there and it’s the closest thing I have to a record of my creativity. So I made a portrait of it.

If there’s a digital file you could talk about for two minutes without running out of things to say, that’s a candidate for a portrait.

Maybe it’s the first draft of something you finished. A photo you took. A video you saw. A song you heard or made. An email thread that changed your life, a folder you’ve dragged across five different computers, or an app you’re nostalgic about. Just about anything works.

Larger and more complex files produce denser, more intricate portraits. Read more about choosing a subject.

You select the file/folder/app/system/whatever. We meet for a private consultation to talk about what it is and why it matters. I create the portrait over the following weeks (generally 4–12) depending on complexity and current demand.

Once the digital portrait exists, we decide together what physical form, if any, it should take.

Commissions generally range from $2,000 to $15,000.

First The Digital Portrait

• Starting at $2,000: static portrait consisting of a single file that is not animated and does not contain sound, like this or this.
• Starting at $3,500: animated portrait consisting of a single or a few files that does not contain sound, like so
• Starting at $5,000: animated portrait consisting of a single or a few files that does contain sound, like this or this
• Starting at $7,500: animated portrait consisting of many files that contains sound, like so

Pricing will vary based on total file size.

Second A Physical Form

An archival fine art print is included with every commission. Illuminated light boxes, digital canvases, and site-specific installations are quoted by scale and fabrication—see examples below.

Payment by credit card, crypto, or installment plan.

Every commission begins as an internet-native artwork, which can then be translated into physical form.

The Digital Portrait

• One-of-one digital portrait
• Private consultation with the artist, to clarify priorities and intent
• Fine art print, professionally produced for display
• Authenticated provenance, recorded on Ethereum
• Official documentation, recorded on Arweave
• Digital artifacts, detail images and motion studies for social posts

Physical Forms

An Enter The Machine portrait can live on your wall as an archival print, a handcrafted illuminated light box, an animated work on a digital canvas, or something built custom for your space.