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CURAT3D: A series of conversations with the people shaping the culture and technology of the new internet.
This series is produced by SHILLR -- the most trusted marketing, media & consulting firm in crypto.
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CURAT3D: Bryan Brinkman - Weaving Art, Technology, and Culture
Bryan Brinkman is a multidisciplinary artist who is art has been celebrated across the world for over a decade. And has made multiple appearances at both the Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses. From animation to code to physical work. Brian has a depth and breadth to his practice that few do.
The conversation explores various aspects of Bryan's experiences, including creative roadblocks, the changing dynamics of scarcity in the digital age, and the role of confidence in an artist's career. We also discuss trends in the NFT space, the importance of community in projects like Terraforms, and the future of museums. We cover a broad range of topics, touching on the challenges faced by artists today, and the evolving landscape of digital and physical art.
Bryan links
Website: https://www.bryanbrinkman.com/
X (Twitter): https://x.com/bryanbrinkman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brinkmanatee
Discord: http://discord.gg/SJhS7x4PqA
SHILLR:
Website: https://www.shillr.xyz
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/shillrxyz
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shillrxyz
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shillrxyz
as an artist. The only way you can really let people down is if you stop being an artist.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Curated, a series of conversations with the people shaping culture and technology of the new internet. This is a podcast series produced by Schiller, the most trusted marketing media and consulting firm in crypto. Before we jump in with today's guest, we want to make it clear that this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. I am your host, buna, and today I'm joined by Brian Brinkman, a multidisciplinary artist whose art has been celebrated across the world for over a decade and has made multiple appearances at both Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses. From animation to code to physical work, brian has a depth and breadth to his practice that few do, and I'm stoked to dive deep and unpack it all. Gm Brian, how are you man? I'm well. How are you?
Speaker 1:Doing good. Good to see you. Yeah, I hear you.
Speaker 2:It's been a good day so far, man, and it's nice and sunny here. As you can clearly see, here in Texas my room is very bright and, yeah, just highly caffeinated and excited for this conversation, man. How about you?
Speaker 1:I'm definitely caffeinated. I have one of these Kirkland cold brew cans. I'm a big fan of those Nice and yeah, no, it's a solid day. It's a little gloomy outside today, but I'm feeling pretty awake.
Speaker 2:Hell, yeah, hell yeah, plus, I mean, with natural meme coin season, it's like there's usually a natural level of anxiety in addition to the caffeine that powers you through the day. Yeah, people aren't sleeping much. Yeah, we're definitely in that no sleep zone or sleep not being prioritized zone. So happy to have you on the pod. Man. Longtime listener, first time caller We've had. We chatted about this a while ago in Austin, you know, and I just remember having a chat with you, meeting you there. It was at that little brunch that we did at Consensus, I think it was. So nearly a year later, man, cool to have you on no-transcript vibe to it yeah, that's about accurate.
Speaker 2:Um, austin's still like it's very austin's really interesting. It's like the. You know texas has its own stick like, has its own like reputation, and then there's like austin that kind of defies the rest of the reputation of Texas. So people kind of love it. Austin's a bunch of hippies, but we also own guns and we're very pro-gun culture here. So it's like it's kind of a wonderful, weird mix. It's got a great tech scene. A lot of people come here to you know just to do a lot of people come here to you know, just to do a lot of different things. So I often forget, you know, I've lived here for a decade and I often forget that like there's all these things that are always happening in my city and I just choose to not do them.
Speaker 1:Um, until like a couple years ago really no, I thought, yeah, you mentioned it being weird and that's definitely a big part of their ethos. Yeah, growing up I always saw Austin. I always kind of thought of Austin as the Alamo, drafthouse, mondo kind of hub. So to me it always had this cool indie film vibe, especially with the South by Southwest and stuff, and so it was interesting getting to kind of check it out and I love how kind of accessible it is, walking around and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we have, and we like our scooters too. You know, you probably rode around on a few skips, oh oh, I did.
Speaker 1:It was great. I became a real scooter guy in the last year. Because of that and VCon, you know I wouldn't dare ride a scooter in New York City, but for those type of towns it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I mean New York. It doesn't really make sense because, like, I mean walking, I don't know something about New York City makes me want to walk, like, and if I don't walk, I ride the subway, you know, and like the subway because you know what was really wild. When I first went to New York, I, like on Google Maps I never, I only use the function of like, you know, like when I put in my address on uh gps, I want to go to, it just shows a little car, like there's no public transit system. That's like locked into google maps.
Speaker 2:And I remember when I got to new york I just kind of refused to learn the public transportation system because I was like this is too complicated, there's no way I can figure this out. Um, but then I literally just toggled it on Google and figured out that it was just like by the second up to date and it was just always on point and it was the easiest thing to use. And I was like, wow, like Texas sucks in this regard, like we have nothing like this. It was incredible, but we got scooters.
Speaker 1:I do love walking around New York. That was one of my favorite things when I first moved here was just kind of walking in various directions and getting lost and then you slowly kind of piece together. New York feels so big at first, but then when you kind of connect the neighborhoods, the whole city starts to shrink in your mind in a nice way. And it's always that really exciting feeling where, like wait a second, I know where I'm at now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it takes a little bit to get there, though, like it took me two trips, you know, to kind of get a little bit more cozy with the city, because the only thing I knew about New York before this was Staten Island, because I had a friend that lived out in Staten Island. So I just flew into New Jersey and then just drove across the bridge and avoided the city. You know, I just never really went, did any of that. So, yeah, excited to be back this year, though it's shaping up to be a fun year.
Speaker 1:I'm excited for what was it? I don't know when this will air, but we're only about like a week or two away from NFT NYC and that'll be wild. It will be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it will be feel like, um, it's a little bit more exciting this year, uh, just seeing all the events in Paris, uh, and just seeing you know I I can't remember. I think there's there's something happening in Korea, uh, right now, and I know um yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:I know Grant Yoon's doing a show with Avalon Art.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, that's what I was, that's what I was getting at. I couldn't, I couldn't really remember, but, um, yeah, it just feels like an exciting week and I feel like a lot of people are going to be at marfa this year. That's like really what I think a lot of people are. I don't know, after seeing the fomo on the timeline last year, I think it's gonna explode this year.
Speaker 1:Um, I know marf is the thing that just eludes me every year. For some reason I haven't gone yet. It's one of my regrets, but there always seems to align when I'm doing another thing within a week of it. I can't make it work out, but maybe this will be the year.
Speaker 1:It's not really convenient to get there either, so it's like well, that's one of the problems is, when I go oh yeah, I'm going to go, and then you get on a trip planner or whatever and you're like oh it's, it's going to take me like 20 hours to get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yep, it's. It's also really funny being a native Texan. Everyone was like, well, this is your first time being a Marfa. Like why being a marfa? Like why haven't you come here before? Haven't you lived? Don't you live in texas your whole life? That's like I just don't casually make an eight and a half hour drive like across the state. Like it's like you know most people forget how big texas is and it's like like that is not just a normal thing that I go do.
Speaker 2:um, it's not texas is literally the biggest uh outside of alaska, but it is huge we're gonna upset, upset Connor here, because our creative director, connor, is based and from Alaska and he always loves to tell me how Texas is not as big as Alaska but as far as in habit, like a place, continental, in places you can actually live, texas is bigger but like geographically Alaska, you can fit two of Texas and Alaska, which is wild?
Speaker 1:Um, I don't know. I watched that new true detective season and I don't think I want to live in Alaska.
Speaker 2:That place looks scary, yeah, and the fact of it being dark every night, uh, or like for a good portion of the of the year, um, there's no way. I watched it too. That was a. What did you think about that like? Let me ask you this in comparison to the first one, like, because the first one's like the goat, you know, like that's like. Yeah, I don't know, I liked it but I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't want to spoil anything but, similarly to the previous seasons, I enjoy that. It really baits you into thinking it's going to be a supernatural thing and then it explains it all in a way that you don't fully. You wouldn't have been able to piece together very early on, I think. So I enjoyed the season. It was depressing and dark and all sorts of stuff, but I, you know, I especially the early part where it really leans on that kind of the thing aesthetic of like was there monsters in alaska, kind of thing. I liked that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I, the first season is really great and uh, the second season was solid I think I don't really even remember it very well and then I totally missed the third season so solid, I think I don't really even remember it very well, and then I totally missed the third season. So, but I did. There was a point in this season spoiler alert where they say time is a flat circle and you're like, oh yeah, they said it, they said the thing yeah, yeah, so season two was abysmal, season three was actually okay.
Speaker 2:I think season three suffered because of how bad season two was abysmal. Season three was actually okay. I think season three suffered because of how bad season two was. And then season four felt really good. It felt like they were like so fucking back, if you will. You know, like it was like okay, cool, we tried with Colin Farrell and the hip kind of city vibe kind of thing in season two and in season three. I think they really nailed season three, but people were still just like it was that bad, season two was that bad and it really cast a negative shadow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this might be controversial, but around the same time as True Detective, Fargo came out and I think Fargo is the far superior series and I think every season of that has been pretty great. I really enjoyed the recent season, but there's very similar shows. Yeah, I just like that. There's a little bit of humor in the Fargo one at least.
Speaker 2:Very true, and I'm not going to say that's a hot take, because I haven't seen Fargo so I can't defend that oh man, the second season especially is great.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're giving me some good things to go back and watch. Because, I don't know man, I'm kind of at least for the most part jaded on like current TV, like most movies, you know, with few exceptions. So it's like I find myself going back and discovering all these like hidden gems from recommended to from people that I trust and that I like, uh, to watch instead and bide my time until something good comes out. Um, it just seems, I don't know man, it just seems. Seems very content versus like actual storytelling that's being broadcasted right now and it's just I don't know.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'll have to check that out, man is that I'm constantly looking at the internet because of this wonderful space we're in and part of it is my attention span has shortened. I mean, we're in this new age of like TikTok, where everything is bite-sized and trying to watch a 60 minute long TV show sometimes feels like torture, and so I don't know, I'm much more of a 30 minute kind of guy, but no, I don't know. I think what I try to do is every night I try to go downstairs and watch like a half hour to an hour of tv, so that stepping away from the computer and spending time with my wife and kind of disconnecting from a few. Um. But yeah, I can't binge watch or anything like that. I'm just not built. Built for that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I might be in a set not in the camp of binge watching, but I still call me like a boomer for this mindset.
Speaker 2:But like I still really appreciate a three hour movie, like I, I just really I think that's, it's a, it's a huge risk to take and especially when you can pull it off, it's just a spectacle, like I think you know I got, we got spoiled with Lord of the Rings in the very beginning. And now you know, like I was like the Oppenheimer marketing department in web three, um, because I just thought that was a brilliant from start to finish in a docu series to be that captivating for three hours when there's no real action was an impressive I mean, at least for me, a feat. And now dune, you know I've read, I've read dune and dune messiah, and so obviously fan boyd about that one as well, and that one's running up to three hours as well, um, so yeah, call me, call me like old school, but like I just think that like the three hour, like the two and a half to three hour movies are, I don't know, I feel like not many people who like don't know what they're doing Do those, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:You know like, like, yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna be disappointed in me, cause it must've been about a year ago I bought Dune on Blu-ray 4k Cause I was like I got gotta see this in the highest resolution. And then every time I'm like I don't want to watch three hours of a movie. Right now I still have not seen it. And now the second one came out and I'm like, oh, just I, I see the blu-ray sitting on my shelf, yep. And I'm like, yep, I gotta watch this at some point. I just gotta pull that band-aid off, like everyone says it's incredible, I know it is, um, but I just gotta. But that's the benefit of theaters now, like Alamo I mentioned. You go there and eat dinner and stuff, and it kind of makes the three hours go by a little easier.
Speaker 2:It does, it does, and I think movie theaters are stepping up and they're really trying to understand it. People have great places to watch movies in their homes, so what makes the theater truly different than watching it in your home? Obviously, imax. That's not in most homes.
Speaker 1:I love gimmicks, I love 3D, I love 4DX, I love all that junk. I saw Oppenheimer and 70 millimeter or whatever, which I would argue looked worse than digital. The one I saw had like you could see like scratches in the film and stuff and I'm like, oh, is this a better experience? I don't know, it was like dimmer because of the projector was kind of bad. Yeah, you know it's, it's at its best, it's better, but at its worst it's not um, and so take it or leave. But I do love gimmicks.
Speaker 2:I'm a fan of all yeah, yeah, I mean that I think we had different experiences, because I, uh, I did watch it in 70 millimeter imax film um, and you saw the imax version.
Speaker 1:Okay, I saw that. I saw the regular theatrical 70.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, imax was the like, because there was only like a handful of theaters that actually showed it in that format, and like two of those theaters were in Texas. And so I said, well, the markets, the market's dead, everyone's at each other's throats, like it's 106 degrees in Texas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we.
Speaker 2:We're just going to do some silly shit and go drive, you know, two hours each way to watch a three hour movie, and that's how we're going to spend our time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was only one in New York, and it's Lincoln Center, which is essentially booked the entire run instantly because there's only so many seats and so many people in New York, and so it was impossible to see it in its true form, unfortunately. I can imagine, but maybe it'll I'm sure it'll get replayed at something like the Museum of Moving Image or something.
Speaker 2:It will Like. There's no way it doesn't. I know Nolan is his like notorious well, notorious is not the right word, but like he's known for re-releasing his films in you know that in that kind of special format. He did it for Tenet, he did it for tenant, he did it for, um, what's the other movie he did it for? I think he did it for interstellar. I know he did that one as well. Um, I think he did it for batman back in the day, uh. So you know no one is known for for doing that, uh, because he no it was a great song, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:Some would say it was the best picture of the year. One might say, though, some people would be the voting body of the osars.
Speaker 2:I mean, but the reality is, I mean, is there, was there anything in your opinion, even?
Speaker 1:close. Hmm, I really enjoyed poor things, even though it was very weird. Okay, um, I thought that that movie felt wholly original, um, even though it was a retelling of Frankenstein, but it felt so fresh and different and weird. I like some of his past. I really liked the Lobster, but that one was definitely up there. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1:I watched American Fiction the other night and that was good. I wouldn't say it was best picture, good, but it was fun. I mean, oppenheimer was definitely very, very cinematic. It was very well made, it was very meticulous, and so I really enjoyed it. But I remember it was that weekend I went and saw Barbie and Oppenheimer, yeah, and it was one of those things where I walked out of it and I go oh, oppenheimer is the better movie, but I liked Barbie more. Barbie was just fun and funny and I had a great time watching it. Where Oppenheimer, there's just this constant dread. Yeah, by the end of it you just feel exhausted and you feel bad about everything. And so it's a better movie, but it's not an enjoyable one.
Speaker 2:It's not one that I'll probably go back and rewatch, you know, yeah, I mean I can respect that, because there's movies like that where I think for me that movie was Dallas Buyers Club, where it was like the movie was phenomenal and that's the reason why I will not see it again, because it was that good. It was so good that it made me.
Speaker 1:Requiem for a Dream. That was one for me where I was like once you watch that, once you're like I don't ever want to sit through that again. But it's a great movie and that's why it's a great movie. It's because it made you feel something that you don't want to like feel again. Um, yeah, yeah. Well, that was the one in college. Everyone's like we got to put that on. I'm like why do you guys want to watch, watching people like spiral?
Speaker 2:um, I still haven't seen that one, to be honest. Um, oh, so I might have some homework to do. Good luck, I appreciate it Might be what I say for a little while.
Speaker 1:I'm curious if it holds up well over time. Yeah, that's an old movie. Some movies just definitely age. They exist within their time and that movie really feels like an early 2000s one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We'll see. I'll let you know um.
Speaker 1:I'll report back to you but um, we're we're going down some tangents I'm having.
Speaker 2:We are I'm glad because, like I, I part of me, part of me is like we're gonna get to your story eventually and we're gonna talk about what you enjoy eventually. But I think we're doing the second second thing though. So, uh, I think it's all part of the story to be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm enjoying this so far, and thanks for entertaining some of these tangents.
Speaker 1:I don't get to talk about it too often. Oh same, yeah, it's fun to I don't know At a certain point, and I'm more than happy to go down these paths.
Speaker 2:But uh, when, as an artist in the space, you tell your origin story so many times that you just start to look forward to the questions that come after you get through it that's kind of why I like I, you know, I've heard that before um, and that's kind of kind of why, you know, that's why we're talking about movies right now and then we can talk about maybe, yeah, yeah, talk about the space as well. So, um, yeah, I've heard that. Yeah, I've definitely heard that a few times. So, um, I can only imagine, you know, uh, like, I'm sitting here the one doing the interview, but, like, as someone who wants to do interview and get, get some media presence, it's like the same scripted questions over and over and over, and I've heard that before. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But cool man. No, there's nothing against it. It's important and you hit different audiences and it's all a part of it. But at a certain point it starts to feel like you're reading a rehearsed transcript, Because you say it so many times that you've honeded it down to its uh, it's the quickest way of getting through totally man.
Speaker 2:Totally well, let's start with a broad, let's transition to like a broad, open-ended question. Um, and we'd love to maybe do a little reflection on if it was the same, if you would have had the same answer today versus maybe when you started creating. Art is why art.
Speaker 1:Why art?
Speaker 1:That's a good question.
Speaker 1:I think, realistically, a lot of it boils down to being able to get reactions out of people creating reactions, and I think that's always been what hooked me into the art world.
Speaker 1:So you know, it started when I was in high school making cartoons on the internet and you'd get comments on like Newgrounds and people would say like this is great or this is terrible, and that feeling that I was putting something out into the world and it was being seen and having some sort of effect on people positive or negative was so exciting that it was like, okay, how do I create moments that are more impactful when people absorb them, and so that that that's kind of the driver behind the art. But um, and I think that's been the case throughout and various, you know, my career has always been about creating stuff to be seen in various forms, and sometimes it's serious and sad, and sometimes it's funny and made to make people laugh, but it's always about getting a reaction out of people I guess the question that leads me to is like, have you, like, before you were creating art, were there any moments, maybe, like where you kind of sought that attention seeking, like, like trying to get a reaction?
Speaker 2:you know what I mean, uh, I know what. Um, well, probably I was probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was an annoying kid that was trying to get my parents' attention or, you know, get the neighbor's attention. I was. You know my mom tells me stories about when we would take, like the Greyhound bus from Nebraska to Georgia and I would go up to everybody on the bus and say, hey, I'm Brian, who are you, what are you doing? You know, I would just try to. You know it was embarrassing for her but I was just bored and wanted to meet people, and so I think that I think there's always been that level of look at me from my childhood that still exists. But you know, I hope I'm not trying to be like a prank joke guy or anything like that, but I do think there is that drive for artists to feel seen and have their ideas and their messages and their creative art being seen and felt by others, and so I do think it's a continuation. Yeah, yeah, I mean, we all would. There's some psychology. A therapist might be able to summarize it better, probably, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's an interesting question because as adults, we just kind of find like there's certain things that we can change about ourselves and then there's certain things that we just like it's just inherently who we are and we just find ways to channel that in different, in different uh outputs or into different outputs. Um, you know, like very similar for me is like I was like I just enjoyed talking to people and so that's like why, like, I do it all the fucking time on a podcast, um, and you know it just, yeah, it was. I was always like that as a kid. Um, you know, just, sometimes too, I would always make fun of my father because I got it from him.
Speaker 2:Uh, we always made, always made fun of him, cause he would just always, he always knew someone wherever we went, and it was like this running joke between my mother, where, whether it was a brand new uh, you know Tex-Mex restaurant or if it was at a Rockets game or if it was at whatever it was, like he always ran into someone he knew, and so I think I just inherited that from him and like you know the irony of that, yeah, and now that's me on Twitter. You know, it's yeah, so, but yeah, it's cool to hear that. I mean, it's like I think that's something that, like, I've struggled with or not, maybe not struggle with, but like observed as a collector, uh, media host, observer, participator you know um, in this industry where, like you know, we have these, like we're in this because there's a strong push for decentralization. There's a strong push, you know uh, to to like kind of break down the current systems, um, and but I also notice, in a world of everything being decentralized, attention is also decentralized and it's incredibly fragmented um, where it's like you have x, you have instagram, you have a website, you have farcaster, you have tiktok, you have all these different places and, um, I've seen some like great efforts from you know, like, you know patrick uh amadon with like the 404 stuff, just like getting artists work, yeah, scene.
Speaker 2:So I guess the question here, or I guess the, the dialogue or wherever you want to take this, is, like you know, maybe what's missing, you know, for that like, uh, like, is that still a major challenge of artists just wanting their work to be seen? And, if, if so, kind of, what are the? I guess, what are the things that are preventing that from happening right now?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. Yeah, exposure, that's the challenge. Attention yeah, you can make awesome art, but how do you get it seen? There's a few things that go into that, in my opinion, as the artist. It's up to the artist to market themselves by telling their story and explaining their art and giving the content for others to share. I think that's a big part of it. And then the other part is connecting with other people, networking, building trust so that when you have that content to share, other people share it and it starts to pass around. And you mentioned a bunch of great projects. I'm doing a Click, create, drop next month.
Speaker 1:I do the show on Fridays with Adam, where we highlight emerging artists. I think there's a lot of ways that artists like Patrick and myself are trying to build platforms to help share, but again, it's all going to be limited to the amount of attention. With the show we do on Friday's Art First I do with Adam. We all bring three pieces, so there's nine artists that we share.
Speaker 1:At the end, patrick's 404 is like thousands of artists, which is great, but it's almost too much to fully. It becomes as crazy as the twitter timeline, where it's really hard to absorb it all. And so there does have to be a level of curation where things are whittled down to a degree and you know there's a lot of things in the space that do that very well. But how do you get on those curators radars? And that has to do with going back to marketing and having your, your story and your website and your link tree and all these things available so that when someone quickly goes who is this artist? I want to learn about them? They have that information within five seconds, because otherwise they're going to move on to the next distraction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think you touched on a lot of great points there and that's yeah, cause when we, when we host our Wednesday space for office hours, it's we try to like offer like free marketing and consulting support, you know, for people, whether it's an artist, whether it's a builder, whether it's founder, whatever the case may be Um, and that's kind of like our way to try to, you know, get the ball rolling or get you know, um, some some momentum going in someone's life, uh, that that just is looking for help. And that's like the one thing that we notice, or the one common thread is that marketing it, it marketing and art to a lot of artists just do not like, it's like a dirty word, you know where. It's like something they don't want to do. They just want to focus on making the art. They want to focus on just kind of, yeah, just doing what they do best, which is create like dank work to make us feel like a certain way or make us, you know, like yeah, which you know, uh, there's something to be said about that.
Speaker 2:But you know, there's this interesting yin and yang that I've noticed, where, in 2021, it was like okay, the establishment, no middleman whatsoever, even if the middlemen are like probably providing some value, like we're making so much money that we don't need anything right now. You know, to now going through my first cycle, uh, noticing like, well, hey, to now going through my first cycle, noticing like, well, hey, maybe there are some good intermediaries where it could take some of the pressure off of the artist, that maybe the cut kind of like back and forth go, cause I talk with post book a lot, and she was like she's honest, like all the time, like I would pay, gladly, pay someone to do PR, you know, and to do to market drops and to do some of this stuff because like it's, it's a lot of work and it's it's way different skill than just creating the art and telling the story. So it's just something I've noticed.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, she's incredible, um, and she's really good at marketing, not just her NFT work but her physical work as well. Um, I, I agree, but for me I find that the marketing is its own creative art form and how you go about marketing is its own. Its own you know presentation and its own kind of exhibition that you're you're creating your gallery exhibition with these threads and tweets and how you, how you explain it. And I really do think if you look at the, the biggest art in the space, it's often accompanied by um articles that those artists wrote about it, whether it's tyler hobbs or dimitri and how they explain it. Or with um, you know proof grails, where they interview the artists and give you backstory into the art.
Speaker 1:Having that kind of knowledge when you buy the art supplements the value in a way that really changes how people collect. And so there is this idea of oh, I should offload that to other people, and sometimes that's great, but it depends what kind of artist you want to be, and for me, I want my marketing to feel as kind of homegrown and authentic as me and my art, because it's, you know, I would feel weird if I had like a huge team that was like creating all this content or something, um. But you know, I do think at a certain point certain artists get really big and then you have to kind of go that damien hirst route or whatever. You have a studio, or you know, like rafiq, he has like a huge studio with dozens of artists that are like helping him out, and that's how he's able to accomplish these huge big swing ideas. So it really, you know, it's important to grow with demand, but, like you said, bear versus bull, I'd much rather be self-sufficient and not have overhead as they say Totally.
Speaker 2:That's a great point, man, and I think it all has like. I think that what you touched on was interesting to me is that there's obviously levels and career progression just with. You know, it's no different in art than it is in any other. You know profession and so it's kind of it's it's cool to kind of hear at what stages that that might make sense versus like what might not make sense. Do you and I know you said like right now you don't really you wanted to feel homegrown, authentic you, and not really have a lot of overhead. You know, have you ever envisioned a world where you thought, like man, that would be nice, or like what that would look like? If you like what would? Basically, what would you justify like? How would you justify having that? Where would you have to be in your career?
Speaker 1:have to be in your career at the top of the last, at the top of the bull market in 2021. I think I was like maybe I should go get a studio in the city. Um, so there's definitely. You know, there was that euphoria moment, um in in. To be honest, like I do have that system set up in that I'll do a drop with something like unit london and they'll send camera crew out and they'll film a behind-the-scenes thing and they'll create the marketing. But it's for one drop versus the whole thing. And the same thing like if I'm doing a really complicated 3D piece, I'll call in a buddy to help me do some modeling or something. Or you know, if I'm doing a generative art project, I'll call in a buddy to help me with the code. A generator of our project, I'll call and a buddy to help me with the code. And so it's certainly totally okay to have help and rely on others and collaborate, but I usually do it as a as needed basis versus having some full-time um team or something that makes sense.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, like I, I feel even just yeah, uh, if I were to be, if I, if I were to be, if I were to take the path of an artist like that to me would just I don't having too many hands in the pie all the time, it's just not super cozy. So I, I can definitely, uh, I can definitely relate to that. I'm of the camp of like figuring out how to do things on a broad scale, like breadth versus depth, and like just taking but just taking a little bit longer to maybe perfect and hone those skills, um, and maybe struggle a little bit in the beginning, but you build some of that over time. So when you do randomly need that one one-off thing, uh, from someone else, you can like tap someone and you know who to look for, because you know what works and what doesn't work yeah, right, yeah, no, that's been.
Speaker 1:I mean, one of the things I've tried to avoid in this space is accidentally becoming a business. Let me be fair. I have an LLC, I am a business, but like I don't do big 10K projects, I don't do any of these things that might require me to have higher mods and do all these things. You know, I try to keep everything I do pretty small scale because I don't want to ask, I don't want to become a manager, I don't want to have to worry about keeping people busy that are working for me. That seems like it's counterintuitive to me being creative yeah, that I mean.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense and I can imagine like, yeah, being responsible for people is really hard, um like, and you're about to like I'm not sure we can cut this out, if not, but you're about to be responsible for another human as well, am I right?
Speaker 1:that's right, yeah, cool, so that'll.
Speaker 2:That'll certainly divide my attention totally I and I I wish you luck on that because, like the parents here in web 3, I have the utmost respect whether, regardless of how you are involved here, this space consumes so much attention and learning how to, like you know you're not going to neglect your kit. It's like that. It feels like an unstoppable force, meets like an immovable object and it's just a constant like tug of war. You know, with that um and I just admire a lot of the parents here I just wanted I always give a shout out to the parents and I'm about to have a lot more admiration when I have to see how hard it is for sure, um for sure, man, um.
Speaker 2:So you, something you touched on is like wanting to do like a lot of different things, and you know, like maybe not keeping, maybe like not doing a bunch of large scale. Yeah, a bunch of large scale. You know whether it's projects or drops or whatever the case. However, you want to like whatever you want to call it. I'm curious, like I have my own definition, but I'd like I always, I'm always curious to know other people's kind of how they think about scarcity, and I'd love to riff on you, maybe a little bit back and forth with that. But how do you, in a digital age, how do you think about scarcity? And how have you thought about scarcity as you've grown as an artist?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So a while back I made a chart that was a kind of a pyramid cone. I talked about value versus scarcity and one of ones being at the top, and then generative, and then large additions, and then po-aps and all this free stuff, and I think of it like that where, like, I want to keep that structure where the one of ones feel rare, like last year I think I minted five, one of ones the whole year, um, so each one had it. You know, one was sotheby's, one was Christie's, one was AOTM they're made for special moments where they can have their time, and then what I like to do is just sprinkle interesting projects throughout. So I know a lot of artists are kind of of this mindset of like, ooh, I've got to do one big project for the year and then kind of do that. Ooh, I've got to do one big project for the year and then kind of do that. I think that is too risky because if it doesn't work out then you wasted a whole year, and so I would much rather do small projects on, like, say, a monthly basis, a monthly drop. And so you know, looking at this year, I did a Memes Lab trade-in drop in January and then in February I did Art Dubai, created four editions of 25 each, and then I did a drop with Super Chief, like a week ago, which was an edition of 50. And so I look at those as like okay, those fall into this mid-range edition size. So far this year I've put out a little under 200 editions into the supply of my ecosystem and I think if I can keep that to maybe like a thousand total NFTs that I release into the wild a year, that's a safe number to keep growing. But it does ebb and flow based on the demand of the space. And I have never done open editions and I try not to put myself in a position where I lose control of a project.
Speaker 1:I want to keep everything small enough that it feels special to hold. I do think there's a kind of threshold when you collect art. If you collect something that is too large, it doesn't feel special and then it just kind of it's like hidden folder material, and so you want to make sure that people feel special, whether it's the mechanics make them feel special for collecting it or, uh, the scarcity makes them feel special. But, like you know, x copy put out a thousand or a million, a million flies. Um, does anybody feel special holding that fly? I don't think so, but it's still cool to hold, but that's like that is essentially junk drawer art. Yeah, yeah, uh, it's a. It's gonna cool to hold, but that's like that is essentially junk drawer art. It's going to forever be a $5 piece of art and that's totally cool.
Speaker 1:And shout out to Neon Glitch who kills it. He did my Eminem Pepe. That I did with Memes Lab in January. I think he's just one of the best modelers in the space. But those are the things where it's like if you do do an open edition, you put yourself in a position where a million of them get minted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, uh, you're, you're very. I'm glad you touched on that because, as a you know, on the, I haven't had you know like where, where I fall into the the spectrum of collecting art, like I have very few, one of ones that are like my prized, prized possessions, but you're, you're. And then there's, you know, I I got very exhausted during oe season last january. That was, that was brutal, that was fucking brutal and it was, it was exhausting, it was frustrating, it was, uh, there was some that, some art that was really cool, that came of it. But at the same time, I watched a lot of artists lose control, like you just said. Like they, it's great to have 1500 new collectors, but how are you going to keep all of them happy? And most of them are not here for the art, right, like you know, um most that well, I think that's just touching on open editions.
Speaker 1:The success of open editions came from, I would argue, maybe three or four artists Slam Sunday, alpha Centauri, kid Terrell Jones and Daily Grace. Each of those had roadmaps with future burns built in and expectations. And so to do an open edition? Inherently the collectors, and we see it with this X copy. Well, I'm going to mint 100 of these because there's probably going to be a burn in the future. There's just an assumption and an expectation of speculation that makes me never want to do an open edition because there's a built-in speculation to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you, yeah, it's there. There definitely is like I, I would say the one with x copy with the max pain. That was one of the but that was a fun experience. Like he somehow found a way to make that really fun. You know, um, I'm not sure if you like so, but you're right, like that to me seems like a lot of pressure and I watched a lot of artists like crumble as a result of that, like not having that planned out before they did it, but just kind of catching the high train or catching, you know, and I think, and you have to, if you're going to do, if you're going to sell a roadmap, it has to have an end at the beginning, otherwise it goes forever and no one's ever happy in scarcity.
Speaker 2:Is that like I think the more digital we go, the looser our view of scarcity is? Like I think scarcity today, with how like we can store digital objects on a, in a, in a in an infinite space, um affects my perception of what a scarce object means. Like I think, in addition of 500, yeah, you know, is not really that's, you know, it's like, not really like that. It still feels comfy, you know, especially like in the context of an artist's career, if it's still very early, that feels super comfy over like a 20 to 30 year time horizon, you know, like that, um, and I think as we grow more though, like in the beginning though that would have felt, you know, that would have felt like way too much because we have physical, we have, we, we like, we only have so much physical space. And so I think at least the way I view scarcity is, you know, things that take out, like my apartment is a very scarce resource because, like, I cannot collect a lot of physical work because I only have so many walls, because I only have so many walls. But I collect a lot of art digitally and I am a little bit more frivolous with how I spend my time and what I spend money on.
Speaker 2:So I don't know, I think that a lot of people the point I'm getting at is that a lot of people, scarcity is important. I'm not going to sit here and say it's not, but I think there's such a strong emphasis on this where it's like if you are really looking at this in the context of your life, doing a maybe a larger drop here and there, if it makes sense, if it aligns with the story, if it has an intent, if it has some sort of an end to it, like with May's postcards. I loved that. You know, that was one for me. That was like the bright spot every single month I got to look for I knew what it was, I knew it was going to cost every month and I got to look forward to getting a new piece every single month and I allocated 0.05 every single month for that and it was great. But it is like a larger supply and I think a lot of people are very scared to do something like that.
Speaker 1:I certainly am, yeah, yeah, do something like that.
Speaker 1:Um, I certainly am, yeah, um, yeah, no, I think I learned when I did nimbuds on art blocks that was 400 generative additions and very quickly I saw like someone sweep the floor and have 75 out of the 400 or whatever, and he was able to manipulate the market. And that was a point where I was like, oh, I don't want to do large additions where someone else has more control over the narrative of this project than I do. Um, that that made me realize like, oh, there's a huge risk when you put too much supply out and people can then play with it in weird ways. Sometimes it works out great, like I think, like Jack Butcher did it and I think, talk about someone that figures out how to end games, like he's really good at figuring out how to say, okay, well, it's over, now you guys deal with it and I'm going to go do the next thing. A lot of artists we've seen can't figure out how to stop those things, because there's always going to be people that expect more I think you're right.
Speaker 2:But I think also, what jack does really well is he finds a way to like, make, like, even if it's not a direct tie, like loosely tie the next thing together, you know, or like to add to the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and I think he's really good, he is, and he's an incredibly interesting mind and like, honestly, I, you know, I had him on the podcast when I was still solo, before I joined Schiller, and this was before all of his, you know, like his massive career shift as an artist and I'll have to admit, like I am so lost in everything he does, like I respect a lot of him for what he does because he's captivated the minds of a lot of interesting people and given a lot of people a lot of reasons to think about things and speculate on ideas and go down rabbit holes, very similar to like squiggles. I kind of I kind of associate those two loosely together because, you know, people obsess at squiggles on on every. There's a lot of different levels of obsession and you can choose which one you want to participate in, whether it's just purely visual, whether it's just the traits, whether it's just, you know, the yeah, like, yeah, all the different things. So I yeah, you're right, he's a master at it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I look at a lot of what he does as kind of an evolution of pack. Um, I think a lot of his mechanics are building on things pack did, but figuring out how to rework them in a way that has a happy ending, um, but a lot of his stuff is very much the same, like simple art, interesting mechanics, creating and letting the collectors kind of build the lore themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're right and see, I was so lost on Pac, but now that you say that, I mean that makes a lot of sense. Obviously, Pac did something really cool, or else he wouldn't have gotten to where he's gotten, but he obviously did a lot of things that didn't sound too cool either.
Speaker 1:He wasn't able to tie it all together at the end.
Speaker 2:Which is what makes a good story. You know, I'm not going to watch a three-hour movie if the ending sucks.
Speaker 1:And you know I'm, you know, rooting for him to come back and figure out how to bring it all together. Totally, man totally.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, it's an interesting space, like that's. One of the things that's been always super interesting to me is, you know, when someone regardless of whether they're an artist or not like, kind of puts himself in a position like that, what's the comeback story? How do you everyone loves a comeback story. Um, you know, even if you didn't like the person who is coming back, um, there's, I think there's. What's the comeback story? How do you? Everyone loves a comeback story. You know, even if you didn't like the person who is coming back, there's, I think there's an inherent psychological thing in us that always loves to see how this plays out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I mean, pat gets a lot of hate, but I'll give him my props. I've collected his work. I think it's always very fun mechanics. I've played some of the the mystery games and he's collected my art. I appreciate that, um. But yeah, I think he took a lot of big swings ahead of their time. He made a meme, coin token ash. I remember that that meta. He made an ai project, lost poets ahead of the ai meta, and so the question is, will those things look? Will people look back on that and say, oh, this was inventive, or will they all say they were failures?
Speaker 2:I think that's the question yeah, and we may not know for a long time, but that's also what's interesting is that I'm sure a lot of artists that received a lot of hate in their day. Um, you know, like it doesn't really matter what the people in the moment were thinking, it just really mattered on its impact on the, on the longer, yeah story arc, you know, uh, I think his, his yeah, I was gonna say his his biggest mistake was that he kind of went.
Speaker 1:He just stopped creating and that's the. That's the only way you can really lose in the space. I mean, there's plenty if you scam people, that's one thing, but as an artist, the only way you can really let people down is if you stop being an artist. And I I've collected many artists that have left the space and stopped minting, and that is a letdown, yes, um, but I'm never gonna like fault them for it, but that you know. I'll never care if their value goes to zero, but it hurts me when I see them quit.
Speaker 2:That's a great point and I'm sure, as someone who's been an artist for as long as you have and gone through many different stages of your career, you probably hit some interesting roadblocks around, maybe not feeling inspired or wanting to create less, or wanting to pack it up. I mean, while we're on this beat, I'd love to maybe unpack that a little bit more. Is that, like you know, maybe what is one of the most memorable? Maybe not in the best way, but like what is one of the more memorable, like roadblocks that you came up against, and we'd love to maybe unpack a little bit like what you learned from that, like how you maybe move past that oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think. I mean, I hit creative roadblocks from time to time. We experience burnout a lot. Sometimes you work on something like I just don't like this. Um, one way I get around creative blocks is I I try to go learn new things. I go watch tutorials. I go watch you know, like I was feeling it in the past couple weeks where I'm like I'm not feeling very inspired. I'm gonna go watch some cinema 4d tutorials and learn how to do redshift rendering and that put me into a new canvas that I could start from. That I felt like I could just kind of play around with again and that inspired an upcoming piece, and so that's one way I get around. It is just kind of building more knowledge. And then I'm trying to think of like a specific thing in the past.
Speaker 1:But there's certainly I don't know there's certainly times where you make stuff that just never come out for various reasons, usually bureaucratic reasons, um, and that that's always kind of I wouldn't. I mean, that's a, that's not a creative roadblock, that's a, that's a, a corporate roadblock. Usually, yeah, and there's not much you can do to get around it other than maybe repurpose that idea in a different way somewhere else. But, um, yeah, I don't know, I'm trying to. I don't want to like throw any projects under the bus, but there's certainly um lessons to be learned from everything you do in this space, every single drop. I kind of do a post mortem afterwards and go okay, well, what worked about that? What didn't work? What can I do to improve it? Did this mechanic feel fair? Did it feel extractive? Is everybody happy? Is this something I should try again? I think it's important to kind of review and learn from the pros and cons of every drop in this space, and sometimes it's choices that I make in terms of pricing or supply or whatever, and then sometimes it's out of my control, stuff like contracts not working right or you know, doing.
Speaker 1:We're in this mode right now of doing a lot of stuff on l2s and chains and all that stuff, and I've done a lot of that experimenting over the past and some of them, like I did a drop on flow at one point and that was an addition of 10, but, like I, no one has it listed, no one could find it. You know there's no marketplace for flow in fds, you know, and so it's like that's the kind of the challenge of like you take these bets on like. Oh you know, flow has disney and mba and all this stuff. It's going to be. It's going to be a legitimate chain, and then it just is not an art chain, right, you know?
Speaker 1:And I found the same thing happened with like immutable x.
Speaker 1:I did collective uh, which I thought was a fantastic drop, you know, x copy a lot of joy, we were all a part of it, um, and thankfully you could bridge that stuff over to open c, but I don't see anybody doing anything on immutable x right now, and so it's.
Speaker 1:You know, those are the kind of the risks that I've been less likely to take, to my own dismay, probably because you know I was a little hesitant on ordinals, and now that's in and I'm like something I was working on last summer and I kind of put it off, and now it's going to come out in the next like month or two, but it's like I dragged my feet on it for six months because I was like I don't know if the general community has wallets and is willing to jump into this thing quite yet, but the people that did are rewarded, and so I think it's always a mixed bag of whether you take those leaps or not. And sometimes they work out and you're early to something like art blocks. And sometimes they don't work out and you're the first PFP on Polygon and nobody cares.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I like the way you answer that, because you kind of dove into how you view risk or how you deal with risk management as an artist, because the reality is that risking on Ethereum, we took a risk minting on Ethereum a while back. It started out as an ICO, it was not an established chain, but over time it obviously gained its credibility for reasons that it's the chain that we mostly transact on as far as art goes today. This is a time stamp that could change this year Until it's deemed a security in a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the this year, but um until until it's it's deemed a security in a week. Yeah, um, the uh.
Speaker 2:Yeah the memes on that, have been rich um, they've been rich, uh, but you know that, you, because this space is literally predicated on being early, but I, even for myself, I there's a lot of ptsd that prevented me from getting into meme coins this this time around, because I got burned. I think it burned, but like I just never made any money and if at best I broke, even during meme coin season on eth, because I was spending 75 a transaction you know, and I wasn't. Are you talking about last summer?
Speaker 2:or like 2019, okay yeah, because this was my first full cycle that I completed. I came in pre-Mania of 2021. Like, I came in right around literally March, like right around March of Okay. So it was like when things were starting to get frothy, like they are now, but it wasn't. We weren't like so fucking back yet, but like we were kind of on our way and I just didn't know anything. I had no conception of what this was, what I just stumbled into, what we were in for, um, I had no clue, you know, uh, but I knew that I wanted to spend my time here. That's all I did know. Um, and so now, completing my first cycle, yeah, I had I tried to make a little bit extra cash in the bear market.
Speaker 2:Didn't work out, so it's like, but things were not frothy, like you had to really study the charts and you had to really like. There's a lot of people that are just savage at meme coin trading and they're so good at it, um, and they just understand. Yeah, understand that shit to a t, not not a person, I can't compete with the snipers.
Speaker 2:And no, no, there's so many people that are so good at it, so I but I also sideline myself for everything that happened basically, or that has happened so far. And so it's interesting because, like you have to, like, what I've learned, at least for me personally, is that you kind of have to have, like the, the mind of a goldfish, where it's like, okay, that shit sucked, but it doesn't mean that the next thing isn't going to be somewhat fruitful. It doesn't mean I should hold back. It doesn't mean I should still experiment. You know what I mean, because it's so easy just to get in the middle curve and sideline everything, and it's frustrating.
Speaker 1:No, it's definitely. I mean, at this moment I think I only have a little bit of money in with the NFA.
Speaker 1:But when I say a little bit, of money and with the NFA, you know but, um, when I say a little bit of money, I mean like one Solana, um, but like, I've played, I've dabbled in it because it's fun to participate with other people in these things. But uh, I'm, I'm of the mindset of like I don't want to fall asleep with a bunch of stuff that could collapse while I'm sleeping, and so I did okay in the meme mania of last summer and this time around I didn't get into the pre-sales and stuff like that. But it's certainly something that I'm always learning from, because it's, in the end, whether these things work or not. Again, it goes back to marketing and you can learn from how these people are marketing and what is attracting people. And sometimes it's as stupid as saying, like here's my address, send it here. But sometimes it's. You know you look at like shroomies, they're putting a ton of money into trailers and marketing and spaces and like that rollout, and you know we can all learn from that, that method and how, what works and what doesn't work, and so, um, yeah, I don't know, I don't know how. I imagine it'll be a part of the space for this full cycle, as it kind of was before.
Speaker 1:There was always these kind of meme, meme coins. Doge was in the the last pump um, but it'll be, you know. The question now is which chain will it be on, whether it's base or avalanche or polygon or anything. You know, solana, you know, like blast, yeah, I could it's probably going to be on all of them and they'll probably be like five top coins on all of them then ride um. But in the end, I think it's really.
Speaker 1:I was talking to an artist today who um went through his up and down of of the last week, uh, and didn't sell the top and is kicking themselves and that's totally understandable and I think most people do. I think it's important for people to understand that people share their wins but they don't share their losses and the timeline is a false sense of everybody winning when really most people are losing. But yeah, I think it's. Oh, I go, I go back and forth on it, but I think it's. It's going to be a way for people to make money and it I'd rather they make their gambling money that way than putting it on the shoulders of artists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, I, I just feel and I think it. I think, though, there's a certain price point where it's with art, where it's impossible to look at art only as enjoyment and not an investment. You know, like, like, say, if it's, like you know, fifty to a hundred thousand dollars, you know, for one piece of art, it's like there's no way to possibly not consider that as a as, as you know, as an, as some sort of an investment. But yeah, I, I will, and I'm nowhere I say that with a caveat like I'm nowhere near that yet. So I just, I say this with a just some context of like.
Speaker 2:I've not like, any time I've had the inkling of buying art, purely where, where the financial aspect is it overweighs my interest in what I'm buying. It just doesn't feel good Like it just doesn't like it doesn't. It doesn't feel good for me to to do that because, number one, I've done it and it doesn't feel good doing it, um, but it, it just, I'm buying it, it just just, I don't know, it's just not enjoy, it's not an enjoyable way to go about it. So I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:It's not really fair to put it on individual artists for doing that um, and I mean as a collector and I collect a lot um, but I would never be interested in buying a fifty thousand dollar nft and, and the reason is I would get so much less enjoyment from that than I would from buying a $500 piece from a small artist and sharing them and uplifting them and seeing them grow and then hopefully they go and sell for $50,000 to other people. But where I get my enjoyment out of the collecting is not the flex of having millions of dollars worth of art, it's the ability to be a part of all these artist journeys, and so I think that's just what makes me tick in that way. Um, but I appreciate all the whales that are making, you know, continuing to collect these huge collections that are going to go into museums and all sorts of stuff. That's a huge part of it. But, um, I don't want to be, um, I don't want to have the responsibility of having a museum in my wallet.
Speaker 2:You don't want to be six by two, it's too much risk. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, no, it's a fair point I think you touched on. I think a lot of people don't think about why they collect and like. I think so it's cool to hear your perspective on, like, what it is that makes you happy and what it is that yeah, what it is that literally makes you happy and why you collect art.
Speaker 2:Because I think, for me, I went into it just willy-nilly. In the beginning, I just didn't know the fuck I was doing. I had no plan, I had no. It was just like I like it, I buy it cool. I like the person, I like it cool.
Speaker 2:Um, but I think over time, it's just things you start to think about, like, okay, what is it without any plan? Where did my like, what did I do the most of and why did I do that and what made me the happiest through all of these just random, not random, but you know all of these transactions that I made over the past two years um, and it's I. I get conflicted because there's there's part of me that like, really, you know, maybe one to two pieces, it would be really cool to have like a fifty to a hundred thousand dollar piece. Um, and I think where I find the most enjoyment, where and I know this because I've it's been the most frustrating because I just don't have the capital to do it consistently is that I feel like artists within the between the 1 to 10 eath range, and that's pretty big. It's a pretty big spectrum, but that's kind of what I consider.
Speaker 2:Like 90 plus is kind of like this, like breakout point. You know where it's like okay, you can consistently sell above 90 and you can consistently sell below one, but like that middle ground is that kind of like the trenches, in my opinion, of like, okay, how do you consistently sell, because from an investment standpoint it looks terrible. You know, it's a long term thing. A, it's a long-term, it's a long-term thing, but it's also where I view a lot of artists need the most help. Um, as far as like understanding how to maybe cultivate that a little bit more and correct me if I'm wrong but like that's like the way, I think I fall into that range, my one of ones selling that kind of five to ten-eath range, um.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, depending on the market, you know. You know, usually when it sells higher it's because it's a secondary sale, but primary wise, that's usually where I fall and I think that's a fine amount. You know, sometimes it's easy in this space as an artist to look at others and go. You know they're achieving this. Why should I be there? What? You know what? How do I grow to make my collectors happy and all that stuff, um. But in the end the market finds the price it wants to find and you know it's.
Speaker 1:Instead of comparing myself to the, the top artists that are selling for millions of dollars, I compare myself to where I was five years ago, where I was selling my, my one-of-one works for like $300 to $400. And it's like if I'm selling stuff for $8,000 to $10,000, that's a huge increase ramp over time. And so sometimes you just have to have that kind of perspective. But it is very easy as an artist in the space to compare and get down on yourself about why are those people in the book and not me? Kind of ideas, yeah.
Speaker 2:And to document it. I bought the book. I thought it was a cool book. It was a cool book and it's massive. I think that's what people don't really realize is how actually it's like a two foot to three foot tall book. The thing is huge.
Speaker 1:That's why I made my two inch books books. You can see them in the background here I love that man.
Speaker 2:Um, I love that and and that's something I've really admired about you man is that, like you find I I it's something I struggle with is finding some cheeky way to like, do a little, make make fun of the absurdity of what's happening on the timeline, and I've always heard that in your tweets like I'm just like man, like he just doesn't miss um, and or maybe you do, and I don't see those, like I don't anything that I've seen those get deleted.
Speaker 1:No, um, no, uh, no, I've always found it's easy, like, because in the end you, I'm a people pleaser, I don't want to offend anybody, but I do have opinions and sometimes things in the space annoy me and I want to vent about things.
Speaker 1:When you make it about yourself as a joke, it still passes the idea you're trying to present, but it doesn't attack somebody directly and that's a much easier way that doesn't hurt people's feelings. Because in the end, if, like, if you go, oh, I hate this meme coin, you're gonna offend a thousand bag holders of that meme coin. But if you make a tweet that says, oh my gosh, I'm releasing this jokey meme coin, you can say your opinion in a way that doesn't hurt anybody's value but it still gets a message across. And so you know, I think I have a. You know, my history and career has had all sorts of comedy aspects to it, and so it's fun to get that kind of. You know, my Twitter is essentially a monologue joke where I get fire off a few jokes that comment on the daily news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's impressive and it's funny. I think you touched on that. Like I've seen, whether it's artists or collectors like, just be just too kind of like in their emotional bag and it's like this could have been a text message kind of thing. You know, like this is this, probably should have been a text to your friend to like, say, like should I, you know, should I tweet this? Or like I just need to talk about this, this um, and I and I'm guilty of that too right, I think we all are. It's impossible not to. We're all human and we all. The space is, I think, the absurd of every part of the human um, of the human race, like everything here is the absurd version of anything that's not here, um, whether it's emotional intelligence, whether it's, you know, people who have copious amounts of money but no social skills.
Speaker 2:It's like the extreme ends of that um extreme, you know, like you know, I'm trying, I'm trying to say it without saying the words, you know, but uh, you, then you have extreme sales, extreme dips, extreme everything, and it's impossible to like, not like, lose your mind at least a little bit here, and and and want to, you know, uh, I guess, get angry um, and and think that shit is just so out of whack here at times, um, well, yeah, some of it's a natural reaction, and you talked about your father.
Speaker 1:I I took self-deprecating humor from my dad that's definitely him and I will say it's something I do a lot and it's something I'm trying to do less of, because often, um, someone will pay me a compliment and I'll dismiss it in a way. That's like, oh no, you know, and like be self-deprecating in a way, and that that's something I need to get better at not doing. Um, it's a, it's like a defense mechanism because I'm, you know, self-esteem and all sorts of other things going on, but I shouldn't dismiss, I should accept the compliment and validate it. That's something I've been trying to get better at at these conventions is when someone says, hey, nice work, I go oh, thank you, I appreciate it, I'm happy about it too, as opposed to being like no, whatever, it's stupid. So that's my own journey of getting better at accepting compliments, what's weird.
Speaker 2:It's weird because compliments and insults go down the same drain, you know, and I'm not sure if it's like yeah, I think you touched it's hard. It's really. It's like, yeah, I think you touched it's hard. It's really hard to be like, oh, thanks. Like I really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, it's hard not to Do you find that, like, you know, like, just for me, I always view it as like, oh, if I accept this compliment, my head's going to get too big, and like I have a fear of my head getting too big, you know, or like, let is that, is that yeah yeah no, I don't think it's that.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I worry that if I'm, you know, I look at the biggest artists in the space and they're all very confident. That's something I don't. I I just never got that bone in me of being like super confident about what I'm doing. I'm always going to be an insecure artist that goes is this good enough, is this working, is this right? But it is something collectors are attracted to confident artists to get better at, because it's not good to make people, you know, be dismissive or be unsure, because that will make the collectors go.
Speaker 1:Should I be collecting this guy's art? Does he know what he's doing? Kind of thing. And it's really. You know, I am confident in my art but I'm not confident in publicly telling people I'm proud of my art or something like that. You know, because sometimes I worry that I look at some of the artists in the space that are so confident and so like look at the sale I made, oh my God, this is the best piece I've ever made and it's a turnoff for me where. But that's me being in my own head about being jealous of their confidence. You know what I mean, and so I think that's where I put that on myself of if I do that, people might not like me because I'm so confident, or something like that. I don't know, I'm really going down a weird rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, no, and I mean I opened the door, so it's my fault for doing that, but I like it. No, no.
Speaker 2:I like it, it's so like, but also to kind of flip this around to the earlier part we were just chatting about, around you compare it like when it comes to sales, like what you mentioned is like you're easy, like you were able to compare your sales to like what you were making you know X amount of years ago for like 400 bucks, you know, and you're like now you're selling work for like six to $10,000, um, you know, and so would that not be the set, like I guess I would turn that question, or turn that into a question of like you know, when you were especially in the earlier stages of your career. Are you more confident and bullish in your work today, even though you still recognize that you have a long way to go? Are you still guys?
Speaker 1:oh for sure yeah, no, I think I'm, I'm proud of what I do, um, and I think I'm improving. Uh, when I look back at you know I'm putting out of this on cyber gallery, uh, that I'll be doing a tour with on friday, I don't know when. It'll probably be out when this airs and you can go find it. But it takes in four years of my work and it's interesting putting new pieces up next against old pieces and you go. Well, here's the connection between them. But then I look at the old piece. I'm like, oh, I could have. You know, I'm technically better and I'm also conceptually and creatively stronger now. But yeah, I don't, I don't know. Part of me doesn't ever wanna be content, because I worry that would make me stagnant, and so part of me wonders if being hard on myself is a strength versus a weakness. But I think it's all it's. Finding a balance of both, I think, is probably the key.
Speaker 2:I think we search for this like mode where we have it all figured out.
Speaker 2:We're like, we understand, you know, the right confidence level, you know every single time, or we understand whether it's a strain. And I, at least for me I'm only gonna speak for myself, as I always like search for this utopia of like this. This time I'll have it all figured out, you know, and it's like this carrot that I'm never able to catch, but I always, I always dangle it in front of myself, you know, and it's it's completely self-sabotaging at times, um, to do that, cause there's this, it's, it's, it's setting, it's, it's setting up the incorrect expectation. And I, I think you, we search for this, like this or that, and there's never it's, but life is never this or that. It's always a, it's always a healthy mix of both, like I chatted with chris f uh, from from flamingo down. It's like, you know, a beautiful life is a life full of contradictions, you know, it's like we always, we're just like it's a it's, it's wonderful and maybe yeah, I think it was close to that. You'll correct me if I'm wrong, but, um, we always there's.
Speaker 2:You say one thing and then you'll completely learn and grow from that and do something completely different later that maybe have contradicted your initial statement, um you know, but yeah it, I I sure I sure without myself too you know like whether, whether being hard on myself and I can find, you know like whether being hard on myself and I can find some very clear examples of being hard on myself not being an asset and it being a detriment, you know, and it being a liability, but there's also times where if I didn't have that, I wouldn't have pushed through. Some of those times, you know like it's weird. I don't know if I quite have the answer. Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I don't, yeah, no, I don't, yeah, no, I agree, I think it goes. Now I'm lost in thought. Yeah, I think it's a strength. We'll see how it goes. But I think over time, you know, what I've found is the space has validated me to the point where I feel like I don't need to prove myself as much. I mean, I still I stopped to prove myself every drop. I have to prove myself artistically, but enough people in the space I like can vouch for me that I don't have to like scream as loud as I once did, which is nice yeah, that's I.
Speaker 2:I see a lot of people in that screaming part of the journey and I feel like we all go through it. You just gotta yell long enough and hard enough and keep yelling consistently until you don't have to yell as much, but I think we're always gonna be yelling. We're re-yelling something. That's what they're there for.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I think that's, I mean, part of being an artist. I mean, even before NFTs. If you're an artist, you're hustling, you're trying to sell your art, and you know that goes back to me being in college selling acrylic paintings in the park on the sidewalk, just like does anybody want to buy this for 50 bucks, kind of thing, even, um, and that, that mentality of you just trying to get your art out into other people's hands, um, is something that never goes away, and so you always have to be a little extroverted, um, in order to sell your art. You can't be truly an introvert unless you have a gallery that does everything for you. But at times I think I'm an introvert and at times I think I'm an extrovert.
Speaker 1:I don't know which one I am. I think it depends. I think when I'm at home, I prefer being at home, but if I'm at a convention, I can be an extrovert. But it does take a toll on me. Usually, by the end of those weeks I get pretty depressed. I'm like so emotionally worn out um that I have like it takes me a few days to get like back in the groove creatively do you typically like clear your calendar for, like at least two to three days after those events like to?
Speaker 1:um, I don't.
Speaker 1:I mean it usually just falls on a weekend or something anyways, but sometimes I jump right into other stuff but I find, whether I try to or not, I struggle to like get back into that headspace Because it's not, it's not a.
Speaker 1:The depression comes from so many people at these conventions and again, this is gonna. This is my fear is me saying something that makes me sound pompous or something. But hundreds of people come up to you and say, oh, I love your work, you're great, and you go, oh my gosh, and you internalize that and, and then that stops and you have to like readjust, to like, oh, I'm not going to get praise also, which is, again, it's a very silly thing, but it does. It's a weird thing on your psyche where you know it's not like I need someone to tell me I'm doing great, but like going through that emotional journey over and over of people and you having to respond and acknowledge them and have a moment with them becomes draining on a certain mind level. But it's not something I regret at all. I really enjoy it, but I always find that it burns me out really bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, regret it all. I really enjoy it, but I always find that burns me out really bad. Yeah, I've had as someone you know. The one challenge I'd say for me with those is that with podcasting I don't really get a lot of feedback. You know, on on the timeline of like is this good, what, what? What adjustments do I make? I see very little metrics. There's not really much. That's that's documented.
Speaker 2:Um, and this was this. Nft nyc was like the first NFT NYC and also Art Basel was one of the first years where I had gotten validated before and some of my close friends would always tell me the truth. But kind of getting that, what you're talking about, that external, it's definitely what I crave. I'm not. It feels really good and so I think this is the first time of getting that for the very first time, and it was. But then it was towards the end like wow, like I got to go back to like reality in this, you know, like I love my apartment, but like in this little cocoon where I'm shielded from all of that and I'm just another dude on the internet again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I personally get sick, usually every time, whether it's COVID, whether it's a cold, whether it's just talk, cause like I can't stop talking to people, cause then you're like similar to you. You know, I think it has to do with the environment that I'm in. If I'm around like-minded people that I I just genuinely want to be there very much like you, where it's like I can't stop talking. But then there's moments where it's like maybe I'm kind of in a crowd where I don't have a genuine interest in being there. I'm not really going to talk as much, I'm not going to find it as interesting, I'm not going to engage for the sake of engaging.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't know whether that's introverted or extroverted, it just yeah, it's a false reality, because I reality, because I mean you go to those, we go to those conventions, we'll go to nft, myc in two weeks and everybody there is on the same page. We accept this technology, um, and then the next week you go back and there's a level of shame, um, which is I don't think it's justified, but it's put on us, uh, by the media, by anybody that says nfts are a scam. You know, crypto's terrible, all this stuff I find that I have. You know, I'm more closed off in terms of telling people what I do because I don't want to get into an argument about it.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, we kind of go into these false sense of security when we're in these conventions where it's like everybody's kind of we're all of the same wavelength, which is so wonderful, and then you have to kind of come back and and deal with the real world, which is much more apprehensive or dismissive.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't even think about that, um, yeah, you're absolutely right, because, like these, these events are euphoric because you don't have to deal with any of that doubt, like everyone's euphoric even during the bear market. New York was a vibe, marfa was a vibe, miami was a vibe. That was a lot of fun to go do those things. Because you don't yeah, I didn't even think about that. There's very few people in my social circle that I can just talk about this without getting head scratches or judgments or like still fucking crazy. Or you know like, oh, it went down 30, how you doing man. You know like, um, yeah, you know it's, it's, it's weird, so, uh, I don't think it's justified at all, but I, I guess that's. I mean, dare I say it, I guess this is part of being early. So, like it's just oh, yeah, yeah, yeah and it's something that's just not for everybody.
Speaker 1:I think so, like it's just yeah, and it's something that's just not for everybody. I think, you know, it's a niche thing. I think it's a false belief that, at some point, 100% of the world's going to be owning NFTs, but it doesn't need to be. I mean, it's in the same reason that you know, most people don't own fine art on their walls. We're targeting a different demographic of people that are more tech savvy and have disposable income and are interested in collecting in these groups of people and all these other things, and that's never going to be the majority. And if it does become the majority, it might lose some of its coolness. And so I think it's, I'm okay with it being kind of a fun, a fun corner of culture.
Speaker 2:I tend there's days, there are days when I don't agree with that, but I think at my core I do and I really enjoy that. You know, because that's part of what attracted me to this space is it feels counterculture, it feels unique, it feels like anything's possible and we've matured over the past, just for the period that I've been in it a couple years but it still has that specialness to it and there's part of me that just never wants it to change. But I also can't deny that in order for us to grow and evolve and continue to having fun, there are parts of it that do need to evolve.
Speaker 1:You know, like oh, I agree, and I think crypto will like I'm talking about NFT specific I think there will be a point in my mind where a third of the world has a form of crypto of some sort. You know, maybe 20, 30 years from now or something form of crypto of some sort. You know, maybe 20, 30 years from now, or something, um, that, or even these government coins or whatever. That could make it happen even sooner, but um, so like, but of that it'll always be this like kind of tiny corner.
Speaker 1:And you know, the same thing with the art side of the nft is like I, I look at the the amount of people that collect pokemon cards, to the amount of people that collect Pokemon cards, to the amount of people that collect fine art from Sotheby's, and it's a very small piece of the pie comparatively, and I think our space will mimic that in a big way, where there will be gaming assets and sports and trading cards and all that stuff will be the big things that people collect, and then a portion of that will be fine art and digital art. But if, if, the greater whole grows, then that portion of the fine art grows as well, and I, you know, I think we had a false sense in 2021 of art being the driving force of nfts and I think we'll see it kind of replicate and mimic the traditional in real life world of collectibles and art as well, do you think we'll have another 2021?
Speaker 1:In terms of, just in general, euphoria.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like we're kind of like where you know, maybe there's for the most part that's true where, like it's art was like the big driver of 2021. Do you think we'll see that in 2024? Or do you see that this is getting a little bit more mature, that most people maybe learn their lesson a little bit with just the willy-nilly of minting everything for absurd prices?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, guess, I don't know, I don't know. I don't think we'll see art take the dominant chunk of the attention like it did. I think it'll always be um, kind of the flex that people take when they, you know, make profits and meme coins or pfps or these other things that are much more liquid. Art is very illiquid and so that's kind of like Batsupium's chart where it ends there. But I do think over time people will see that art prices mature better than PFPs or meme coins, and so I think they will become a place where people kind of put their winnings into. But yeah, I don't know. I mean the question is, will there be another nifty gateway? Because that was really that was the driving force. But the reason it was so popular was because people could instantly flip the work for profit, and so that was not a sustainable pump. But you know, we saw a similar thing with open editions, where people got the open editions, then immediately were able to flip them for more.
Speaker 1:There will always be these projects, art projects, whether it's brain drops or art blocks or whatever that have their moments the space, are like a swarm of locusts and they go from ecosystem and projects, uh, until they kind of eat all the crops from that meta and move on to the next thing. And so last week they were solana meme coins. Next week it'll be base meme coins. Uh, maybe it'll be base open editions, we'll see, you know there, but they'll keep moving to whatever is the easiest way to turn $1 into $2.
Speaker 1:If art can be that, then sure, but I don't think it'll be widespread like it was on Nifty Gateway, where every day there were seven artists that were having that happen, because in the same way of like Artblocks, where it wasn't about the projects, it was just because this is an art blocks project. Yeah, um, yeah, and so I, you know that's the question is, will there be some sort of new platform ecosystem that becomes that thing then? Yeah, and then maybe that will be this little thing. But yeah, I just don't see it hitting the same hype as it did then, because I think the reason Nifty did so well is because it had fiat onboarding. People could use their credit cards to buy it and earn points and then sell it to get crypto, and all sorts of weird loopholes and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you bring up a great point. You answered that. Yeah, I definitely learned something there, because I art is it's, it's real easy. I think 2021 really fucked with our like perception of of a lot of things and, um, like most, I think most people before 2021, uh, or before 2021, everyone was real clear that, like you know, art is a flex and art is a luxury. You know, um that that people spend their, their money on. You know, um, and that kind of like, for that moment in time, it was not a luxury, it was just like it was a right. You know, like it was like a, it was it kind of defied physics in that in that sense, where, um, it kind of defied physics in that sense where it was very different.
Speaker 1:So I think, well, yeah, the first three quarters of 2020, editions were frowned on and they were highly discouraged. It was very much. Art should be rare. It should be one of ones only, and that was super rare.
Speaker 1:Maker's Place, known Origins, started to dabble in additions. It wasn't until rare bull came around with a rary token, in kind of the fall of 2020, that there was a token associated that incentivized you to mint, sell and collect on rare bull, which then started this like digital. You know, artists started doing it and you know me and alotta and sarah zucker and x copy were making these little rareable men so like 10 editions and it's fun. And then the d gens caught wind of it and they're like, oh, we're gonna make these hundred edition collectible projects and then we're gonna do the thousand edition. You know the game, that rary token, to the point where it no longer mattered um, and then that moved over to top shot, which became the next thing that you could play that game on, and then it became nifty gateway and then became board apes. And you know, yeah, it's just the same thing over and over and over, and so I think I don't see that this idea of metas isn't going to go away and we're we're seeing a repetition of metas and with slight variants, sometimes not even variating at all. But yeah, um, but uh, yeah, I, I look at that and I go okay, well, that was the moment where, like again, like I, I did the the art blocks.
Speaker 1:One was 400 additions. There was people, you know, in the discord. People were like you got to make more additions because there's demand or whatever, uh, but then there was people that reached out and they're like 400 additions, this is a cash grab. And this was at 200, you know, 0.2 mint or whatever, and you know, cut to eight months later artists were making like seven million dollars on a drop, you know, but like it takes seeing that shift of acceptance of supply go up.
Speaker 1:And Nifty Gateway, really, their open editions. You know I look at this week as open edition season 3.0. Yeah, because there was the Nifty one in 2021 and then there was the one a year ago and now I'm seeing this is now the l2 open edition season that I think we'll see for the next few weeks. Um, we'll see how it plays out, but you know, I think, uh, you know, x copy max pain, you mentioned it, that was an open edition from 2021. That was, you know, arguably one of the biggest of that meta and now you're seeing it's having to be burned and do all this other stuff with. But yeah, I don't know, it's interesting to see it all kind of go in circles, just like meme coins. This is like meme coin 3.0 in terms of my four years here, as Dee says, study the hot ball of money.
Speaker 2:Study hot balls of money. And where does it go next? Yeah, I feel like I'm Dee knows what he's doing. He really does. Yeah, I love the way he plays the game and I love his transparency around it because it's funny to watch him do it. Yeah, it's ridiculous At times, but so that makes me want to, you know, go into. I'm not sure, like obviously I'm sure you've seen him, but like I wonder how far deep down the rabbit hole you've gone on Terraforms and kind of what that project makes you think of Interesting. Yeah, and I maybe hear from, like an artist, like how you view, like how you view that, um, in comparison to like maybe what's, what else is out there?
Speaker 1:uh well, I minted a few. That was the first time I ever minted from a contract, so that project taught me a lot. And then I remember um 113 sent me a PDF explaining it and I was like this is the most confusing, convoluted project I've ever seen. I found it fascinating and there's so many fun surprises to it. I think that's the thing that that project does really well is that it kind of it gave you the blueprints to do whatever you want with it. Like you could draw art on it, you could turn it into a 3D landform, you could build it into like a Minecraft world. You can do all this stuff, but at its core it's just a bunch of math of like here's some colors and layers and stuff, and this is all connected and does this cool stuff. What's been interesting is to see the community that built around it and how they've really explored it and added to the lore. And now they're doing this whole 2.0 thing that I totally missed the window on by like an hour because I was distracted or something, but no, I think it's a really cool project and I think what it does there's certain projects that I find educate people on the technology in a way that is additive to the space Like.
Speaker 1:I think Matt Cain's Gazer is a good example of like showing how time-based a generative art could work. Example of like showing how time-based a generative art could work. Um, I think Tyler Hobbs did a great job of showing how long-form generative artworks with fidenzas and kind of showed his process and stuff like that, and that made people understand, um, generative art more. That was one of the challenges when I did art blocks was that most people didn't understand what generative art meant and they thought my stuff was just like stuff I made in photoshop and I had to like keep hammering that. It was done with javascript and it was live and on chain and you could do it interactive and animated and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, they move. You know there's there's a level of education, yeah, um, and so I think MathCastles has so much to learn that it's almost unlearnable for me. I've struggled to fully understand it for years because it's so dense and I think it just shows how well they built it, because it can be evolved, and so I think it's cool. I still have one. I meant to three. I still have one. I don't think I'll get rid of it. It's treasure, treasure trade.
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah, I mean yeah, and I'm like I love hearing your perspective on it. I think the thing that you touched on it which is what resonated with me the most, is kind of the community aspect that's in the excitement and the lore that's built around it, around kind of showcasing what can be done. You know, and like an early like you know, computers as a medium and networks as a medium, you know, was like way fucking abstracted you know from like way way too abstract for me to even like try to comprehend, you know, or try to consider or try to think through. But like I think that's what it's done for me and I think that's what it's done. It's kind of helped see what could be possible if we continue down this path, or just kind of think about what that could mean if a few other artists did something similar to this or how they could evolve it.
Speaker 2:And I think for me, as someone who talks a lot, I almost look at his spaces and some of the dialogue that he shares, as I think that's a big the studio's dialogue and the and what dialogue other people share around it is what. That's what's special to me and that's really where I've learned the most and it's allowed me to, you know, see it in a in a different way, without trying to, without understanding, um, you know, down to the code of like what, what, what all went into it, um, so I don't know it, it it was, was it's. It's super interesting to me and I I just I look at he always talks about, like, art history being open, you know, and that's kind of what you know. That's like the point I'm getting to here.
Speaker 1:You know, uh, years, well it yeah, it falls into a category of art that I I think is the most important part of this space, which is art that could not be done otherwise. You know, without digital, without blockchain, without code, without all this stuff, there's a this is not a dig at any of the other artists out there. There's a lot of art that could be sold as prints, that could be sold as photos or whatever, and that was, there was already a medium for monetizing that kind of art prior to nfts. When I look at nfts, I go animation, code, interactivity, virtual reality, like what are the things that we can showcase as being the next wave of art, and there's nothing wrong with bringing the previous wave into this space. But when I look at what I think is the most important art that will be looked at over time, it's the stuff that is showing what is possible and allowing. You know, allowing.
Speaker 1:It goes back to what we're talking about, with artists sharing the process and story so that the collectors can tell people about it. The thing that's fun about terraforms is you show to somebody to go, look at this and then you go well, actually it does this and look at this and look at this and you're giving them this ammo for sharing your art even further and bringing other people into it and explaining why it's important. And I think I think that's why it's such a successful project is because people like to share it and tell people why it's interesting.
Speaker 2:Totally dude and I'm really glad you said that, because I around a lot of like what is really important, because, like I view you know if I've learned anything and I still claimed, and like I still have so much to learn but, like one thing that I've learned from just doing, uh, doing these interviews and also just studying art history, uh, and and, and some of the free time that I do have is that, like you know, great art helps people see the world in a new way, you know, and like that's really like I really latched on and that made sense to me. I was like cause I've always, I would always wonder like why, why is something celebrated and something not? Like you know, there's all these. It's a very nebulous kind of uh, you know, uh, industry and it's like what truly is celebrated and why, um, I was always looking for that and I think that's really what. Yeah, like what you literally just said, it's not a, it is a, it's not a translation of a medium that we've had for hundreds or thousands of years. Um, it's, it's a new thing. It's like, literally, it's, it's completely new and it's a completely new way to look at the world, and I think that, as we go into more of a digital space, as we're not becoming less digital as as a society, we're going further and further and it's getting exponentially faster at the pace of which we're headed there. Like, to me, a lot of that art will be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just, this is a long winded say what long winded way of agreeing with you that, like, I feel like once more, people get comfy with being more digital than, or they accept the fact that they're more digital than physical that will be looked at and admired on a grander scale than like the fact that they're more digital than physical that will be looked at and admired on a grander scale than like the scale that we currently have. I guess is the point I'm trying to get. But, yeah, it's very interesting nonetheless, but there's a lot of conceptual battles to like overcome. Like, if I, if you talk to my mother, like she looks at people who code as engineers and not artists, you know um, like looking at numbers and code and looking and thinking that, as art is very, it's lost on a lot of people, you know Um. So, yeah, anyway, long way to go, but uh, no, I agree, I find it fascinating to go.
Speaker 1:But uh, no, I agree. I find it fascinating it it it's inevitable to me that digital art will become the predominant method of art. Um, probably within the next five years, I would guess. Um, yeah, just to you know, I I look at as being a digital artist, a digital illustrator. I didn't have a tablet I could draw onto the computer with until I was in college, and that was like 2006. And so that was 18 years ago.
Speaker 1:And now I would say everyone not everyone, but a vast majority of people have access to iPads that have pens that allow you to draw and procreate and you can do digital art. That is such a departure from 20 years ago. I had a head start in terms of learning this stuff, but now every teenager is growing up and they're going to be super well versed in all of this and they're going to be making insanely awesome digital art and everyone's learning how to code now and like to me, then we're we're only about to experience this like next wave of digital artists that are just going to be killer. You know, um, being a digital animator, I was a part of. You know, maybe thousands of artists in the us slash world that did digital animation for you know, 15 years ago, I would argue. There's millions of digital illustrators now because of technology evolving.
Speaker 2:So you're right, yeah, and it's easy to think about in different terms, but I think you're right. We grew up without cell phones and that was a trip getting to live through the birth of the iphone. You know like that was.
Speaker 2:Um, there were cell phones before that, but we had like fucking blackberries and palm pilots which like yeah, they used to flip open, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, um, but the iphone changed the way we, you know, view technology and the way we interacted with it, and it changed society as a whole, which was incredibly groundbreaking. And then they just took that, stripped the phone out, made it bigger and called it an iPad, and that changed the way art was created. So, yeah, I think you're absolutely right and it's exciting, and I think that's part of the reason for me, at least on a personal level, is like why I enjoy kind of being on the edge of something, because you can kind of see what people are spent, the concentrated dose of smart people and creative people where they spend their time, either if they're lucky enough to be here full-time, or just like hustling it out on the weekends, you know, or in any free time they have. Like that's what everyone's going to be doing in the next five to 20 years, you know, and yeah, I feel like I missed it.
Speaker 2:I was too young on the iPhone, like I was like 13 or 14 and the internet was like you know, there was an opportunity. There was opportunity internet, but it was. You really had to look for it and I didn't. And then you had, like the wave of social media, which I came in right at the end of that. So I had like two generations of technology where I'm like, okay, when I found this, it was like we're going all in and I'm not missing this boat. You know cause I missed the first two boats One I get a hall pass. Two, I don't get a hall pass. But you know, I think that's what's most exciting to me here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. I think that's what's most exciting to me here. Um, yeah, so no, I agree, um, it's one of those things where you know, going back to this, like outsiders talking about the space, and they go oh, do you think nfts are dead and do you think? Do you think it's really going to be the future? And to me, like I said, digital art is inevitable and the question is what is the best method of selling it? And it's going to be something blockchain related.
Speaker 1:I can't bet on which chain will be the dominant one 20 years from now and, in all honesty, it might not be on a chain that has a currency, but I do think digital art with provenance on the blockchain is the the most decentralized, best way, um, of distributing digital art. And so it's one of those things where it's like I'm not, you know, it's going to go up and down, and whether or not I become a success long term doesn't change my outlook on whether the you know, the technology and the inevitability of of this method will be a success I mean incredibly well said you know like we don't, you know like we don't know anything, and uh, it but it, but it but.
Speaker 2:There is like a certain inevitability where it's just like there's, unless something just completely crazy happened, where it changed, where we got less tech, like where we stopped using technology more, which I don't know what that would be, you know, um yeah, unless that happens, well there are a few things. I mean, there are a few things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the sun could zap everything or something. You know there's always these things, but I'm going to go on the path that things will continue to move in the direction they're continuing to move Totally.
Speaker 2:Well, cool man, we're coming up on the two-hour mark, which this has been cool man. We're coming up on the two hour mark, which this has been awesome man. Um, I've loved. We started this off with TV shows and movies and we're talking about the sun melting us, um, so I think we've run the gamut. Um, one question I am really fascinated by, uh, that I've I'm starting to ask people, um, especially especially artists or people involved in the art, uh, art that that touched the art industry is, you know, in five, in the next, let's just call it 20 years how do you view, like, how do you view museums? In the next, let's just call it yeah, like, let's just say 20 years, what do you think that looks like?
Speaker 1:um, that's a good question, I think. Well, one thing that I think will probably happen within a AR headset and that'll be your walking tour and you'll go look at a Van Gogh and then there will be a digital overlay of it that gives you, you know, curator notes and backstory on Van Gogh and you can learn more and all this other stuff. I think physical art will have a digital layer added on top of it in terms of that added context and everything, and I think that will change how museums work, because it will just create an exponential amount of content that you can absorb about everything in the museum. That feels like an inevitability to me because it'll just make museums more fun. Like an inevitability to me, because it'll just make museums more fun. And then, in terms of the nfts and museums, I think we will see um more and more start to pick up pieces here and there. I think it'll become you know, you look at like a museum moving image. You go to the lobby of that right now and they have low vids, tide projectors, um, tide predictors sorry, um projected on the wall there, and it's not projected as an nft, it's just projected as here's a live, generative piece of art on the wall. I think that is a blueprint of what we'll see more and more of. It's just art living within the context of other art, not being relegated to some nft room, um, and so I think that that feels inevitable to me.
Speaker 1:And then I think what we're going to end up seeing is digital institutions, say 6529. They become, they turn their om into an actual, true museum per se, and we'll we'll start to see these institutions that become just as important for artists to be a part of, as the moma and as the lacma and all those other things, because you want to be in these digital collections, and so I think we'll see how that plays out. But I think that is the the strongest path for the space is to have more like every artist wants to be in the moma, every artist wants to be in the met. We have to have more options for end games for the artwork, and that's going to come from the space in various ways and so and I think you will see it start to proliferate into a lot of smaller markets.
Speaker 1:You could see, like the museum in atlanta, you know, or you know any other city we tend to put like the top five, the pompadour and lacma and all these on the pedestal, um, but there's, uh, thousands and thousands of art museums that could, and probably will, start to collect digital art. Um, so I, you know, those are. Those are kind of three, three things.
Speaker 2:I think about it I like that, um, and I think those will happen at different periods and I think we'll have their own little run-ups to it. But I I really loved the comment on, like, in addition to how these music, the current museums, will adapt or how they'll, how they may function in, you know, the next 10 to 20 years, um, but also also having the digital footprint of that, the digital institutions that are just as regarded, um, I think it's so easy to like, want to like, seek and search for, like validation from, just only from the, the institutions that we put up on a pedestal, and it's like not that they're not important, but if we, if we seek too hard in that direction, or if we, you know, if that's the only thing we chase, then like we're completely missing the point of what's happening here.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, and you're probably setting yourself up for defeat, since they can only um take in so much, right, you know, and you're you're. It's like, um, you know, going back 20 years ago when I used to make film festival stuff. You know, yeah, you can submit to Sundance and you can submit to South by Southwest, but there's also a lot of other film festivals out there that are wonderful and are willing to show your work and they'll treat you great. And it's still a wonderful thing to have little laurels on your poster or whatever. And it's still a wonderful thing to have little laurels on your poster or whatever. And you know, of course you want to chase the biggest things, but don't dismiss the fact that there's so many other places that you could put your art in that would probably be shown, versus just put into a back room.
Speaker 2:That's a great point man, I think we're going to end it there because I think that was something to put a period in. Cool man, I think we're gonna end it there because that was a. I think that was something to put a period in. Um, cool man, brian, thank you again so much for, yeah, not only your time, but just, yeah, willingness to go down all the different rabbit holes that we went down. It was a lot of fun and we covered a lot. This was a lot of fun. Thanks, man. Yeah, we really did, and there was a lot of. It was unexpected, which is my favorite part about these. Uh, it's, I love doing these. I would not be a great podcast host if I didn't ask you what is it? This will probably air in about right around a month, give or take. What is it that you're currently working on? What are you the most excited, most excited about?
Speaker 1:and yeah, let's just, let's just leave it there yeah, well, a month from now, I will be in the midst of my click create curation credible uh and I will uh be showcasing three artists. I don't I probably can say, but I'll let people know then. Yeah, um and uh, if you collect all three of those artists, you will be eligible to either mint for free or get an airdrop of a new edition that I'm building or creating, and so I have to figure out the mechanics of how that works, but it's all to incentivize you to go and support these other artists, and I think it'll be really fun. There are three artists that I think are just really great, and I love what click create does and I'm excited to be a part of it. So if this airs a month from now, I'll be probably about to drop my my, my piece, so that'll be fun amazing man.
Speaker 2:yeah, I love what click creates doing um, and, yeah, really cool to get uh to like, incentivize the, the collection of all that, because I think that, yeah, what they're doing is special, it's important, um, and the way they've done their curation um is is admirable and and at schiller, we're big supporters of them and our company vault uh is full of click create art uh, and getting getting every drop that we can uh, I think we've gotten every single drop, which is, which is amazing to say, we do a little company collecting, which is fun, because not all the time we don't always individually get to collect all the pieces we want, so it's fun to allocate a little extra funds of the treasury to supporting people that are just doing great work and doing a lot of great work for artists.
Speaker 1:I'm excited for that man and I should also add, on Fridays and doing a lot of great work for artists. So I'm excited for that man and I should also add on Fridays, usually at 2 pm Eastern time, me and Adam Tastic do Art First, where we interview artists. You mentioned Postwick. We had her on last week. She was great and, yeah, feel free to. That's a live show and we always enjoy when people tune in and leave comments. And yeah, I think that'll be the case a month from now. I don't know what else will be going on by then, but we'll see.
Speaker 2:For sure, awesome man. Well, yeah, thanks for, yeah, yeah, thanks for plugging that. It's great to like see artists interview artists, like cause, like you know it, like I would have never considered, you know, so I love I meant to say that like earlier in the interview like I I've really enjoyed, like what you and Adam have put together on that and it's it's a new, it's a new way of looking, it's new way of seeing, it's new way of like understanding context and and and getting depth into a lot of stories that we all love and know.
Speaker 1:We were talking before the show about music for musicians. I hope that our show is like art interviews for artists.
Speaker 2:Love that man, love that dude. Yeah, if you say it and shout it long enough and believe it, that's what will happen. So, cool man, Brian, hang out for just a little bit. We're going to sign off here and just let it finish happen. So yeah, cool man, brian, hang out for just a little bit. We're going to sign off here and just let it finish uploading. But again, I appreciate your time and hope you have a great rest of your night. Thank you, you too, so you.