Like Warhol, Klein embraces the glossy, seductive aesthetics of advertising and consumer culture—think of his vibrant, digitally polished surfaces as a high-tech descendant of Warhol's silkscreened Marilyns. However, where Warhol reflected the industrial age, Klein's use of computers aligns him with the information age, marking a shift from mechanical reproduction to digital manipulation.

His work also resonates with the Pictures Generation of the late 1970s and 1980s—artists like Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and Barbara Kruger—who critiqued media saturation and constructed identities. Klein's Artificial Beauty series, with its exaggerated, digitally perfected faces, parallels Sherman's explorations of persona and Prince's rephotographed ads, but his medium—computer graphics—extends this critique into the virtual realm.

He doesn't just comment on media; he creates within its tools, anticipating the Photoshopped, Instagram-filtered world we now inhabit. The late 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of new media art, with figures like Nam June Paik (video art pioneer) and the broader adoption of technology in creative practice.

Klein's emergence in 1989 with a BA in computer graphics places him among the vanguard of this shift. Unlike Paik's analog experimentation, Klein's fully digital approach—using software to craft seamless, futuristic visions—marks him as a harbinger of the internet age. His work prefigures the aesthetic and conceptual concerns of the 2000s Net Art movement and today's NFT-driven digital art boom, making him a transitional figure between analog postmodernism and digital contemporaneity.

Born in 1964, Klein is a contemporary of artists like Damien Hirst (b. 1965), Jeff Koons (b. 1955), and Takashi Murakami (b. 1962), who also grapple with the intersection of art, commerce, and pop culture, and with whom Micha Klein has exhibited. Like Hirst's sensational formaldehyde sculptures or Koons' polished balloon animals, Klein's art revels in spectacle and market appeal—his Pillman or Crypto Pills could easily sit alongside Koons' shiny provocations.

Yet, Klein's reliance on digital tools sets him apart. While Hirst and Koons often outsource production to artisans or fabricators, Klein's hands-on mastery of software reflects a DIY ethos tied to the rave and hacker subcultures of the '90s.'

Among digital artists of his generation, Klein shares ground with pioneers like John Maeda (b. 1966), who explored computational design, or the collective teamLab (founded later but conceptually aligned), which fuses tech and art. However, Klein's work is less abstract or experimental than Maeda's and more populist than teamLab's immersive installations.

His roots in club culture and VJing also distinguish him, aligning him with the performative, ephemeral energy of that scene too rather than the only gallery-focused trajectory of many peers. Klein's cultural relevance lies in his prescience and adaptability. In the 1990s, his embrace of digital art and club visuals mirrored the optimism of the tech boom and the ecstasy-fueled rave movement—a moment when youth culture believed technology could liberate creativity and connection.

His Rainbow Children and Artificial Beauty series critique the utopian promises of digital perfection, foreshadowing debates about body image, virtual identity, and AI that dominate today's discourse. This makes him a prophet of our hyper-digital present, where filters and avatars shape self-perception.

His leap into NFTs in 2021 with Crypto Pills and into Ordinals with Bitcoin Pills in 2023 cements his relevance in the Web3 era, tapping into blockchain's democratization of art ownership while critiquing its hype—a move that feels quintessentially Klein: subversive yet marketable.

Living in Koh Samui, he's geographically removed from Western art capitals, yet his work remains globally resonant, reflecting the internet's borderless reach. His collaborations with brands like Swatch and Coca-Cola, plus his influence on figures like Eminem, show his ability to infiltrate mainstream culture, much like his Pop Art predecessors.

In a broader sense, Klein embodies the late 20th-century shift from physical to virtual, from object to image, and from elite art to mass accessibility. He's less a household name than Hirst or Koons, but his impact on digital aesthetics—seen in everything from music videos to social media filters—arguably reaches further.

His work captures the tension of a world obsessed with surface beauty and technological promise, making him a vital link between art history's past and its algorithm-driven future.

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Klein's work has been widely acclaimed and exhibited in art galleries internationally, including a 10-year retrospective of digital art and video work at the Groninger Museum. That was nearly 25 years ago, so it's no surprise that he continues to innovate, this time on the blockchain. Klein's foray into NFT crypto art is a throwback to a computer animation he made popular before the turn of the century. His iconic character "Pillman," that inspired Rapper Eminem to use Klein's background projections on his Anger Management tour, is returning to the global stage. Designed by one of the early pioneers of digital 3D animation, Crypto-Pills is the latest and arguably the greatest generative fine art collection of our time.

"As an artist, it's been really frustrating to see a lot of NFT art really just skate by, while quantity and demand control the market," Margaret Cleary laments. "It is so enthralling to have an artist who is actually a fucking artist by trade and profession release something of this magnitude, so thank you," she said.

Pillman is one of the first optical ray tracing animations, a technique that works by simulating actual light rays, using an algorithm to trace the path that a beam of light would take in the physical world. What makes each Crypto-Pill NFT unique is the artwork itself and the fact that this NFT project has been 30 years in the making (3 years before Pixar and Toy Story were introduced). More than two decades before Rare Pepes, Cryptopunks, and CryptoKitties, Klein's personified capsule danced on stages with arms and legs and dilated pupils. "I was playing in the clubs from Ibiza to Miami, and everywhere," Klein mused. "Pillman built quite a name for itself, this character," he recalls. Pillman was relatable to partygoers everywhere Klein performed, largely due to MDMA culture, also called Ecstacy and later known as Molly.

"I love hip hop, and the rave scene in London, and all the acid and all the drugs, and that was all part of music," Q the collector reminisces. "And the way that Micha is launching Crypto-Pills with the gallery at the same time, he's mixing physical and digital. People in China and Hong Kong are really into Micha's work, so I think this is the perfect project," Q noted. Crypto-Pills is the first major NFT avatar collection to be launched in Hong Kong and Klein's first major project in Asia. Start Art Gallery will leverage its physical venue to exhibit diverse NFT artworks from global artists; positioning itself as a new type of gallery aimed at building a "Chain Art" community. The gallery is committed to connecting leading NFT artists and collectors and creating new art with future growth potential. Start Art gallery will officially open in Hong Kong on September 5th, 2021.

The nostalgic Pillman has been remixed and reimagined in a myriad of forms as NFT collectibles, unlike anything we've ever seen. "I felt a digital renaissance going on, and I had to be in this space," Klein insisted. "My Genesis drop is based on a huge variety of different Pillman characters and personalities," he explains. Crypto-Pills are multi-gender, multi-colour avatars that are algorithmically generated from 37 categories and 504 traits. Each of 10,000 collectible tokens is a unique work of art that will be revealed at the time of minting. Having delivered projects for the likes of Disney and Coca-Cola, Klein's vector artwork is remarkably detailed, with 3000×3000 pixel depth resolution. To generate his collection, Micha created 500 illustrations by hand. Crypto-Pills are stored as ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and hosted on IPFS. Crypto-Pills costs 0.07Ξ, with no bonding curves, and fair distribution.

A Solidity Solution: Presale Distribution
The NFT artist community has become painfully aware that ETH-laden opportunists are violating the fair minting process at the contract level in clandestine collaboration with savvy code pirates. Solidity contract breaches aren't considered theft in the literal sense—simply because each bundle of expropriated NFTs is nonetheless paid for. However, each inciting incident erodes project developers' public trust and credibility, who some suspect are in cahoots. Cracking the contract code prevents hundreds of artists and collectors from ever obtaining the most coveted collectibles.

The way Klein decided to solve this—and there are certainly different ways, including intermittent supply drops etc., was to create a whitelist of presale commitments directly from supporters in his Discord community. The process was simple: DM and state your request to purchase up to 20 Crypto-Pills by late evening PST August 25th. Each Metamask address was added to the smart contract to enable the collector to initiate their own minting during a 12-hour presale window of opportunity created by Klein. Presale minting will occur at 11:11 pm Hong Kong standard time on August 27, which is exactly 12 hours before the official sale of Crypto-Pills at 11:11 am EST on the very same day. This affords each presale collector plenty of time to mint their Crypto-Pills while gas is relatively low within that 12-hour win. In addition, the random generator assures each collector has a fair and equal opportunity to experience rarity, no matter when they decide to mint.

"If you really love your community, give us early access to the presale," David Koroma urged. "I've been in discord groups for certain projects that go on later to blow up after I was there for a couple of months loving their stuff, and if I had that early opportunity, I would have bought in for sure," Koroma emphasized. "If bots get them, and collectors have to pay 4x the price to get in, there's a whole heap of people who miss out on buying three," CryptoWizard77 warned. "Flipping between friends at the low levels to get the ones they really like is healthy for the community and the project. It creates a solid floor to kickstart the secondary market rather than just a massive jump, " he explained.

The obvious upside to pre-sales is that even if nefarious crypto pirates seize an unauthorized quantity of Crypto-Pills during the official minting, nearly 500 collectors have already spoken for 45% of the Crypto-Pills available supply. This is a huge win for the crypto community, which has felt powerless to leverage its ability to acquire NFTs from any of the high-profile drops. FUD and FOMO have undoubtedly raised a level of anxiety and tension that discourages newcomers from attempting to become collectors, and Klein's thankless efforts to defend his intellectual property is a noteworthy act of empathy and equity. It's important to note that Klein and his team are inputting each wallet address manually. It was suggested Klein use collab.lab in the future because it offers an automated solution for developers who are considering pre-sales as an alternative offering to avoid the backlash they may inevitably face.

Pushing Pills for Good
"These pills are going to do some good in the world," Klein assured. I am donating 5% of proceeds to Save The Children, a charity that helps disadvantaged children in desperate need of medication, shelter, and food worldwide. This is my personal donation that will be written into the smart contract for full transparency," he added.

(article by Micah Ray 2021)

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Klein is an influential figure in the digital art realm, being one of the first to receive a B.A. in computer graphics, receiving many honorable mentions, awards, and features of his work across various museums, and has worked with well-known companies such as Coca Cola and Disney.

Although Klein is commonly associated with his genius creations inspired by the Pillman character from the Anger Management Tour of the early 2000s, he has also produced various masterpieces and collections, including Stardust Series, Arrival of the Rainbow Children, Club Love International Army, and Artificial Beauty Series. Crypto-Pills are regarded as the project that allowed him to begin his adventure into the world of NFTs, and this success has encouraged Klein to begin using this groundbreaking movement to further his creative talents and share his passions with a wider audience worldwide.

The emergence of virtual art and blockchain technology only created the perfect atmosphere for such a talented and revolutionary artist such as Klein to truly thrive, and he has continued to see significant success and admiration as he challenges traditional expectations and embraces our rapidly-changing society and art world into a more digitized environment.

In other words, this new era ensured that Klein was able to utilize his gifts as a digital artist to take his work to a whole new level and inspire those who follow in his footsteps. That is why it is no surprise that Klein has continued to see incredible and continued success and that as a part of NFT NYC 2021, he was the first person to be awarded "Best Digital NFT Artist" for the first NFT conference and award ceremony that took place before the four-day event. As a long-time trailblazer in digital art creation and now being an early creator using blockchain technology, it is only fitting that Klein is the first individual to receive such a reward in the emerging world of NFTs.

Klein was nominated amongst three other contestants to compete to be chosen as the best digital artist of the year by the majority of the NFT community, winning with slightly over more than half the votes to go down in history as the event's first winner for this category. It is clear that Klein and his work have completely captivated the NFT world and that everyone is anxiously awaiting to see what this brilliant artist will come up with next.

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