New episode - @sutu_eats_flies

joins us to discuss #NEONz and the #Sutuverse, an indie metaverse he's creating in opposition to VC and corporate funded metaverses. We also talk politics and the time he was denied entry to the US cos of TRUMP? o

We tend to think of the major art styles (impressionism, abstract expressionism, surrealism, etc.) as they relate to a visual structure or language. For crypto art this understanding has been somewhat alighted. In a way we can think of PFP projects as their own style because visually there is something in common, they work as a personal likeness or avatar. That being said most are just jpegs and not necessarily art that has been enabled by the blockchain.

Generative art however produces a certain aesthetic due to how that work is generated by code which could (somewhat) be classified as a NFT art style. Good examples of this would be OG artists like Eric Paul Rhodes or Tyler Hobbs, specifically his Fidenza series. In these cases, because of the algorithmic mechanism which is medium-native to crypto art, there are stylistic similarities which Kizu feels would classify as a major art style within NFT art.

Beyond this we also have things such as illustration or painting, which could be used as classifiers but these come from a time before crypto art and we can not really view or classify them in the same way. Moreover, those are merely techniques, which can be helpful for ranking skill level, but in the end that doesn’t really get to the point of why we classify art.

While Kizu and Sabretooth both acknowledge their level of cynicism, they bring up the idea that ultimately, art being classified is a biproduct of the market. Sabretooth talks about how collectors will buy a certain artists and then look for a narrative in which to place these artists. The reason being that, works are worth more if they are part of something bigger than just the work itself. Sabretooth finds that overall this effort has been unsuccessful in the sense that they have not been powerful enough to break through to the traditional art world. He gives the example of Beeple who has sold for ridiculous amounts of money, has a large fan base in the crypto community, but is not accepted by traditional art people.

Kizu talks about the use of of Punks as profile pics or RTFKT sneakers and the signaling of value in the metaverse, how we communicate, the transactions, etc. to point out that there is a narrative and it is about the money. He also draws a comparison between the NFT space and the art world of the 90s where, art from the developing world got recognized because there was a movement to promote these artists. It wasn’t really about their style or aesthetic rather their background and what they stood for.

Many major DJs are launching projects and that’s not a surprise as DJs and NFTs are both on the cutting edge of popular culture. Despite this, Sabretooth notes that music has stopped being the cutting edge of niche subcultures. Minority expressions don’t start in music anymore. There are cheaper or more viral ways such as creating a tiktok account. Because it has somewhat lost its power due to these mentioned elements Sabretooth feels that NFTs are ahead of music in creating subcultures and thus he is not as interested in the topic.

The idea of tokenizing real world assets has existed since 2016, it has not yet taken off nor does Sabretooth think it will. The reason why brings us to look at what is called the oracle problem - how do you bring data from off the blockchain on the blockchain and still have it be trustworthy? Especially in the case of real estate or other tangible items, the question moves to – if someone steals your NFT do they now own your house? The answer is generally,...

Part 1/2 - Newbie interview episode with Meta, the podcast assistant, find her on Twitter

Time Stamps

[00:32 – 4:38] Meta asks what websites to use for references, specifically sites like RaritySniper and Rarible. Sabertooth says if you need to use these type of websites, you probably don’t know enough about that project to be investing in it. For kizu, the analysis is useful in an objective comparison. Sabertooth disagrees and says it is actually subjective. He also warns to check out the business model for those sites. 

[4:38 – 6:52] Sabertooth says that he doesn’t personally use any websites for educational purposes and recommends that you simply listen to Floor is Rising for the info you need regarding trends, projects, etc. 

Continuing, he does says that a helpful way to get more information is by looking at wallets. Using the example of CryptoPunks he says, check out what wallets have Punks then see what other NFTs that wallet owns. By this you will see patterns and transactions.

[6:52 – 11:55] Meta asks about the distinction between the different marketplaces. Sabertooth notes that it is helpful to break them down in to categories of primary and secondary sale. Primary examples would be; SuperRare, NiftyGateway, Foundation, async.art, NewWorld, etc. In these cases the artist is minting a particular work and you buy directly from him via listing or auction. Secondary sale sites include; OpenSea,Rarible, Zora, and you would buy from collectors. 

These previously mentioned pertain to Ethereum. Hic et Nunc is different, it is on Tezos. Every blockchain (Solana, Terra, Dfinity) has an NFT ecosystem and thus its own marketplace. Most NFTs are on Ethereum but Tezos and Solana would be the next up.

Kizu recommends, especially for those from the traditional art world, to check out some of the NFT gallery spaces for a more curated experience. One he likes, that was even mentioned by Kenny Schachter, is FeralFile. Kizu says that on there you can even find OG artist like 

Jon Burgerman

• Jon’s website
• Social Media
• Twitter - @jonburgerman 
• Instagram - Jon Burgerman 
• Facebook
• Youtube: Jon Burgerman
• Shop
• BurgerPlex
• Art listed on
• Nifty Gateway
• https://superrare.com/jonburgerman
• Foundation

Time Stamps

[1:01 – 3:41] Jon was introduced to NFTs in 2019-2020 when he was approached by Nifty Gateway (founded by Griffin Cock Foster and Duncan Cock Foster and later acquired by Gemini run by Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss) to drop NFTs on the then new platform. He began working on NFTs in the spring of 2020. The first drop sold out quickly. Jon credits this with giving him a lifeline in the pandemic when everything else was being cancelled and closing down. 

[4:40 – 6:34] Jon doesn’t know why Nifty Gateway contacted him early on, but says they saw his work in other forms, and imagined it would work on their platform. Jon has a traditional background, but his work has existed across different mediums over the years, including digital stickers and wearables for @PlayStation Home.

[7:35 – 10:26] Jon says his career is like a pizza with each slice it’s own medium (painting, books, etc) but as a whole it’s complete. His advice is to make your work and put it out there. Once you make something, people see your concept and how your work would look. People are looking for good work and good artists - it’s important to make your work discoverable.

[10:45 – 12:36] When working in different mediums, Jon leans into what that medium can do that others can’t. With NFTs he likes that you can interact with people, build up collections and have drops. The goal of the work is the same, just different outlets for creativity that are distributed in different mediums.

[13:45 – 15:12] Jon is still adapting to the community aspect of NFTs. It’s a time investment to keep up with the social aspect of the NFT community using channels like Twitter and Discord. This is a different skill set and a different kind of art will emerge from it.

[15:28 – 16:17] Collectors of Jon’s NFTs are different from collectors of physical works. In 2020 early adopters were buying NFTs, but there is still skepticism and a long way to go for mainstream acceptance. Many of Jon’s physical collectors aren’t interested in NFTs.

[16:49 – 19:49] Jon discusses the blurred lines between collectors and artists with the engagement thru social...

RubenFro

• Ruben’s website
• Social Media
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Videos
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Art listed on
• objkt.com
• Foundation
• SuperRare
• Showtime NFT
• Kalamint
• DAT Collections
• Henext
• Audio Tracks
• Soundcloud

Time Stamps

[0:58 – 1:23] Ruben’s first experience with NFTs was March 2021. He was working on the @pussyrrriot music video Panic Attack and they released an NFT collectible of the music video divided into four parts.

[1:32 – 1:48] Ruben is Italian and moved to Tokyo 15 years ago to work in software development and was doing that until 2 years ago.

[1:53 – 3:10] Ruben has always been fascinated by interactive installations. Two years ago he went to France to do an installation. Inspiration came from Rhizomatiks and @daitomanabe. Installations work was small but grew. Stopped when the pandemic hit. A year ago started doing more video art, but plans to go back to interactive art. 

[3:14 – 5:47] Ruben discusses his process. He uses @unity for 3d art and started looking into point cloud. He got into using Unity more and going deeper and built his framework with shaders he built in Unity. He uses photogrammetry mixed with 360 photography to capture large areas. This allowed him to move into large areas to record the streets of large cities. He built tools to process footage using his framework and shaders to create the interactive installation.

[6:07 – 8:25] In January 2020 Ruben worked on a project in Vietnam that fascinated him and realized he enjoyed this more than creating apps. He decided to focus on video art and music videos. He then worked with Acronym and @ASUS_ROGNA for short films. He started his visual effects company. He is happy choosing his projects to connect with artists such as Pussy Riot and @DEATHPACT

[8:45 – 10:08] His most recent footage is from Vietnam. He’s more attracted to his footage from Vietnam than his scans from Tokyo. Ruben hasn’t had requests for his videos to be stereotypical Japanese. He’s had freedom to explore and use scans from everywhere. 

[10:44 – 11:50]...

Episode interview with some of the Botto team (choobie, Mario Klingemann, Simon Hudson) find their Twitter or more info on their website

Time Stamps

[0:55 – 3:16] Mario is the artist behind and the project and he has been doing generative, algorithmic and AI art for about 20 years. He says that at some point when dealing with these mediums you start to wonder, can I pass this last step of choosing and learning to a machine?

With blockchain taking off in 2018, Mario felt that this could be the time for this project, but he couldn’t do it alone. So he built a team to help him with the other side of things.

[3:16 – 6:37] Kizu asks about decentralized art and other movements where artists were so engaged with the community. Mario laughingly states that he would never use the term decentralized art and that for him the most question for him is, if a machine can reach true autonomy. He feels that, if possible, decentralized systems and DAOs are the tools that would allow the machine to do . 

Right now they are still working to get to a level where the machine could be so autonomous that it could make its own decisions, even fire/hire people. For now, Botto is still in a toddler phase, the AI needs help making decisions, and that’s why the community of stakeholders is so important. 

[6:37 – 10:04] Simon started as a member of the community then decided to get more involved. Simon elaborates on the idea of decentralized governance and DAOs - the emerging subtleties of  structures and principles that are needed to uphold them.

Simon was working in AI for the past five years and became fascinated with Mario’s work back in 2016. He was drawn to the idea of open, community oriented sourcing as a way to train AI as a reflection of taste. And within that, crypto as a great tool for getting the value to loop back to that same community. 

[10:04 – 13:30] Sabretooth notes that Botto is using GPT3 neural network which is widely used in other NFT projects such as Pak’s LostPoets, he asks about the feedback loop and how the experiment evolves to be more autonomous over time. 

Mario comments that Botto uses GPT3 for the description generation and that for the image Botto uses VQGAN + CLIP. Botto is a prompt miner, each image is generated from prompts. Botto finds good prompts which then produce interesting forms (aesthetic or mental). 

Botto is constantly producing new fragments, about 3-4k every week, it then selects about 350 out of that week which get added to the voting pool. Botto pre-curates what the community sees and that process is influence from previous voting. This trains the model to mimic the voting behavior.

[13:30 – 17:34] The other way that the feedback comes in is that when particular images or topics receive more popular results, Botto will examine those areas for new ideas rather than generating new prompts. Botto is also built to...

Dalek’s website

• Social Media
• Twitter - @DALEKSPACEMONKY
• Instagram - dalek2020
• Art listed on
• OpenSea
• Hic Et Nunc

Time Stamps

[0:55 – 2:41] Dalek was introduced to NFTs by his friend, @lurklovesyou, who told him about @hicetnunc2000 on @tezos. Lurk told him that it was easy, no gas, cheap to mint, and easy to put work out. Lurk set up a clubhouse Dalek joined with @mumbot and @_sampierson and other artists. Dalek liked the community aspect.

[3:01 – 9:29] Dalek got into anime and comic book culture going to high school in Japan. He was into punk rock and early hip hop such as RunDMC, @KurtisBlow1, @DJFlash4eva, SugarHill Gang. He moved to Chicago and got into graffiti in the early 90s. TD who ran Undercover Magazine and Kaws were big influences on Dalek. He moved to California and met and was mentored by Chris Cycle and Mike Giant, Greg Carroll. This was the era of Twist, Amaze, REVOK, @Saber. Kris Markovich convinced him to move to San Diego where he met @OBEYGIANT, the founder of Obey, who introduced him to printmaking and stickers, and taught him to use Illustrator. Dalek did group shows with @new_image_art curated by Rich Jacobs and included Mark Gonzales, @TempletonEd, Chris Johansen, and Barry McGee. He says he still didn’t know how to be a professional artist. He moved to New York to take a step toward becoming a professional studio artist. When he saw @takashipom’s paintings the first time, he knew that’s what he wanted to do. He reached out to Murakami and started working for him.

[11:45 – 13:54] Dalek says artists were interested in certain aspects of Japanese pop culture. Some artists like KAWS, Stash and Futura would go to Japan, but Dalek was more focused on being in New York and learning. He was spending time with Brian McGinnis, and @steveESPOpowers, and anyone he could. His experience with Marakami wasn’t so much about what he was painting, he was way more interested in the technical aspects.

[14:19 – 18:58] Dalek discusses his relationship with his

• Christian’s Social Media
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Michael website
• Social Media
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• June Art Fair website
• Social Media
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

[1:11 - 4:01] Christian was introduced to NFTs when Michael approached him with the idea of bringing NFTs to the JuneArt Fair. With the emergence of NBA Top Shot and Beeple he saw a need for something for the established art world. Michael said you could have NFTs created by artists of the caliber of Jeff Koons and NFTs collectors wouldn’t know who it was. Michael wanted a place more in line with the old fashioned art world where art is curated and JuneArt came from this.

[4:27 - 6:52] Michael says there is a difference between the traditional artists and crypto artists. Generative art projects may look interesting, but mostly sell because people want to make money. Bored Apes and Crypto Punks are interesting from a cultural perspective, but not as art works. Vice Magazine has linked NFTs to a generation. Michael credits the internet with the ability for anyone to use OpenSea and other platforms to publish.

[7:34 - 8:45] Michael says you can look at NFTs or a medium or a scene. The scene is 99% generative art. Michael and Christian look at NFTs as a medium. They work with renowned galleries for JuneArt that have artists working to make new and interesting art. NFTs are an opportunity to take art further.

[9:18 - 12:07] Michael discusses how the traditional art world is internal with small groups vs the large groups of the crypto community. The benefit of the large crypto communities is it’s more accessible and provides the ability to create awareness for art. That creates the possibility to build your own large audience which hasn’t been possible for many in the old fashioned art world. With more accessibility this may lead to more advanced art.

[12:08 - 13:21] Christian talks about galleries opening online viewing rooms(OVRs) to sell physical art digitally....

Website: https://oliveallen.com/ 

Linktr.ee https://linktr.ee/oliveallen

• Olive’s website
• Social Media
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Art listed on
• OpenSea
• Nifty Gateway
• SuperRare
• Christie’s online

Time Stamps

[1:02 – 2:32] Olive got into NFTs in 2017 after learning about Crypto Kitties. She delved deeper when she travelled to Asia and heard about ERC 721s. Olive played the game Fortnight in those days and had the idea that it would be great if she could trade skins she held in the game and give those virtual items a status. This gave her the idea for her startup company, Decadent.

[2:49 – 5:04] Decadent was an early version of marketplaces that exist today. The idea was a marketplace to exchange virtual objects such as game items, art, music, film aviators, and more. Olive moved to Silicon Valley and met with VCs to raise money and faced resistance to investing in crypto. She thinks she had bad timing. She decided to focus more on being a creator vs a company founder which tied her up with administrative tasks with less time for being creative. She moved back to New York in 2019.

[5:19 – 6:48] Olive’s career took off when she was 17 living in New York and creating as a traditional painter. At that time she was in a group show that was critically acclaimed. She wanted to be more innovative and create something remarkable. She always felt tech was the future. 13 Dreadful and Disappointing Items was the first drop in the history of the NFT space. This drop got the attention of Duncan Cock Foster and Griffin Cock Foster at  Nifty Gateway.

[7:27 – 9:31] Olive thinks the NFT world is about assets and the traditional/fine art world is a tiny facet of that. She says artists have explored technology, but crypto art is more of a movement. She believes the world needs a critic or curator to define this for the bigger art world to better understand it. For now people are acquiring and selling to prepare for the bear market. 

[9:32– 11:13] Olive was at Art Basel and

Episode interview with A L Crego, find his Twitter and some of his works at MakersPlace

Time Stamps 

[1:11 – 4:23] For Crego, NFTs were a natural step and it was as far back as 2014 that he started to use the internet as his canvas. Originally he moved to crypto more for protection than sales. By 2019 he was contacted by MakersPlace to be a new artist on the platform (where he now curates). Connecting more with the NFT scene happened once Crego joined Twitter. 

Crego clarifies that his work is actually not generative and that he does it by hand, frame by frame. That people are often confused even as to what a GIF is, despite it existing for 34 years now. 

[4:23 – 13:56] Regarding underrated artist, Crego feels that most of the artist who started digital art are underrated. His position comes from noting that many people in the crypto scene only look to those who are on Twitter and ignore those artist like Pi-Slices, Kidmograph, Glitch Black, and Etienne Jacob who were doing digital art long before on places like Tumblr. He finds it painful when people call him and above mentioned artist as emergent. 

Crego goes on to talk about his dissonance towards social media and the business of NFTs as a whole.   

[13:56 – 17:49] Crego has coined the term GIFtilism as a homage to Impressionist pointillism. Crego explains; what the point was to traditional art is now what the square or pixel is in digital art. He goes on to make a correlation between comics and GIFs; while comics were originally not taken seriously they have evolved into a high form of literature and he feels that GIF art now being sold on the blockchain also has the room to evolve into something of more value. 

[17:49 – 21:43] Looking to the importance of a pixel, Kizu brings up Murat Pak’s sale of a single pixel for $5 million. For Crego, he respects Pak’s work (and even did a similar piece) but finds it to be a bit repetitive. 

Crego first got into GIF art as he saw that it was a space that could still be improved. That many of the artist in the space moved on to produce video art but that he stayed with GIFs because he found them to be a powerful tool. He sees the repetitive loop of a GIF as the visual equivalent of a Tibetan mantra. 

[21:43 – 26:48] Kizu asks about Crego to elaborate on his views regarding the psychology and philosophy behind GIFs. Crego says that GIFs are the most human format. That our memories work as GIFs. 

Crego felt limited in photography (mentions Cartier Bresson for his ability to capture motion in a still shot). Says poorly made photo animations are like the autotune of GIFs. For Crego, time is what gives art value, not money.

In a digital world where almost everything is free, what has value is what calls your attention… and GIFs and motion call your attention, especially if done in a hypnotic perfect loop where the eye can not detect point A from point B.

[26:48 - 31:51] Sabretooth asks Crego about his artistic...