In this episode of Verse Talks, Leyla and Jamie speak with digital art historian and researcher Noah Bolanowski about the overlooked history of digital art. From street art and the early days of Nifty Gateway to the NFT boom, blockchain, and the pioneers of computer art, Noah takes us through his journey into uncovering the people, works and stories that helped shape the medium.

00:00 — Introduction: Noah Bolanowski
01:43 — Becoming a digital art historian
03:16 — Street art, collecting & the origins of Nifty Gateway
07:22 — Keith Haring, Timothy Leary & early digital art
11:59 — Becoming a “digital Indiana Jones”
15:15 — Discovering NFTs & collecting on Nifty Gateway
18:37 — The NFT boom and sudden six-figure valuations
23:27 — Speculation, collectors & the pandemic NFT market
30:48 — The 14-year-old CryptoPunks millionaire
33:03 — What happened to the NFT market?
36:48 — What can blockchain actually do for art?
38:19 — Museums, smart contracts & exhibiting NFTs
43:49 — Rethinking how digital art is displayed
45:15 — Museums and the 70-year history of digital art
48:19 — Why blockchain changed access to digital art
50:21 — 1OF1 and the institutionalisation of digital art
51:47 — Bill Gates’ early digital art displays
55:32 — Do we actually want screens in our homes?
58:49 — Why Noah turned towards digital art history
1:02:48 — Who gets canonised in digital art history?
1:04:05 — Questioning established narratives & the importance of provenance
1:09:13 — The forgotten pioneers of computer art
1:10:43 — Charles Csuri and the unlikely computer art pioneer
1:13:40 — Making computer art in the 1960s
1:16:49 — Why digital art history still needs to be written
1:18:58 — Collecting historic computer art
1:21:15 — How early digital artworks survive and are preserved
1:23:28 — Charles Csuri, treasure hunting & Part Two
1:25:17 — Investigating the past and rediscovering lost histories
1:28:03 — Closing & Part Two

You can find Noah on X @Noahbolanowski

Jon Wubbushi is one of the most unconventional thinkers we've spoken to.

After building companies, he became known for his AI-generated artworks before unexpectedly turning his attention to theoretical physics. Today he leads a research team working on what he believes is a new framework for understanding reality itself.

In this conversation we discuss creativity, AI, quantum mechanics, consciousness, religion, death, morality, and why Jon believes the next decade could fundamentally change humanity.

Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, it's a fascinating conversation about some of the biggest questions we can ask.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

01:20 Why Jon keeps changing careers

03:30 Becoming addicted to flow

05:00 From entrepreneur to AI artist

06:30 The trilogy of Jon's early AI artworks

09:20 The question that led him into theoretical physics

10:50 Quantum mechanics and the double slit experiment explained

13:15 "We may have discovered how reality works"

15:00 Information, consciousness and the foundations of reality

18:10 Souls, consciousness and reincarnation

22:20 Entering the world of science after becoming an artist

26:40 Could this discovery change humanity?

29:30 Spirituality, religion and why society feels more divided

34:00 AI as a reflection of humanity

35:40 Does the universe have an objective morality?

38:15 What happens after death?

41:40 Is God real?

43:20 Are all religions describing the same thing?

45:30 Why Jon stopped calling himself a Christian

48:20 Aliens, consciousness and advanced civilizations

50:15 Is Elon Musk human?

51:15 Time travel, meditation and the Monroe Institute

54:30 Are we living in a simulation?

55:15 Jon's biggest lesson about life

58:30 Why suffering gives life meaning

1:00:30 The inspiration behind Jon's newest body of work

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About

Jon Wubbushi is one of the most unconventional thinkers we've spoken to.

After building companies, he became known for his AI-generated artworks before unexpectedly turning his attention to theoretical physics. Today he leads a research team working on what he believes is a new framework for understanding reality itself.

In this conversation we discuss creativity, AI, quantum mechanics, consciousness, religion, death, morality, and why Jon believes the next decade could fundamentally change humanity.

Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, it's a fascinating conversation about some of the biggest questions we can ask.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

01:20 Why Jon keeps changing careers

03:30 Becoming addicted to flow

05:00 From entrepreneur to AI artist

06:30 The trilogy of Jon's early AI artworks

09:20 The question that led him into theoretical physics

10:50 Quantum mechanics and the double slit experiment explained

13:15 "We may have discovered how reality works"

15:00 Information, consciousness and the foundations of reality

18:10 Souls, consciousness and reincarnation

22:20 Entering the world of science after becoming an artist

26:40 Could this discovery change humanity?

29:30 Spirituality, religion and why society feels more divided

34:00 AI as a reflection of humanity

35:40 Does the universe have an objective morality?

38:15 What happens after death?

41:40 Is God real?

43:20 Are all religions describing the same thing?

45:30 Why Jon stopped calling himself a Christian

48:20 Aliens, consciousness and advanced civilizations

50:15 Is Elon Musk human?

51:15 Time travel, meditation and the Monroe Institute

54:30 Are we living in a simulation?

55:15 Jon's biggest lesson about life

58:30 Why suffering gives life meaning

1:00:30 The inspiration behind Jon's newest body of work

In this episode, Mat Dryhurst joins us to discuss how digital art has evolved over the past decade and where it's heading next.

We talk about blockchain, NFTs, AI, and the idea of protocol art - works that are defined less by a single image or object than by the rules, systems, and networks that produce them. Along the way, we discuss collecting, curation, online communities, software as an artistic medium, and why some of the most important developments in contemporary art are happening outside traditional institutions.

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction
01:35 – Growing up in Kuwait & finding his way into art
03:09 – Collaborating with Holly Herndon for two decades
05:26 – Music, software and creative beginnings
09:29 – Discovering Ethereum before it launched
11:07 – DAOs, crypto and building new institutions
14:00 – Why ambitious artworks take years to make
17:50 – Building a practice outside the traditional art world
20:06 – Making artworks that exist as real software
25:54 – Artist vs Creator
31:04 – Is autonomous art a productive lie?
35:04 – Why we value art we don't always understand
41:14 – Inside *The Call* and designing participatory artworks
44:45 – Why they never create work for the market
48:28 – AI, backlash and losing friends
53:46 – The biggest misconceptions about AI
58:18 – Oxford, AI policy and the future of regulation
01:01:44 – Matt Dryhurst on NFTs
01:07:25 – What NFTs got right
01:12:30 – Crypto art, digital ownership and why it still matters
01:18:05 – Building culture on the blockchain
01:23:10 – Final thoughts

Connect with Matt Dryhurst:

• Twitter
• instagram 

In this episode, Mat Dryhurst joins us to discuss how digital art has evolved over the past decade and where it's heading next.

We talk about blockchain, NFTs, AI, and the idea of protocol art - works that are defined less by a single image or object than by the rules, systems, and networks that produce them. Along the way, we discuss collecting, curation, online communities, software as an artistic medium, and why some of the most important developments in contemporary art are happening outside traditional institutions.

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction
01:35 – Growing up in Kuwait & finding his way into art
03:09 – Collaborating with Holly Herndon for two decades
05:26 – Music, software and creative beginnings
09:29 – Discovering Ethereum before it launched
11:07 – DAOs, crypto and building new institutions
14:00 – Why ambitious artworks take years to make
17:50 – Building a practice outside the traditional art world
20:06 – Making artworks that exist as real software
25:54 – Artist vs Creator
31:04 – Is autonomous art a productive lie?
35:04 – Why we value art we don't always understand
41:14 – Inside *The Call* and designing participatory artworks
44:45 – Why they never create work for the market
48:28 – AI, backlash and losing friends
53:46 – The biggest misconceptions about AI
58:18 – Oxford, AI policy and the future of regulation
01:01:44 – Matt Dryhurst on NFTs
01:07:25 – What NFTs got right
01:12:30 – Crypto art, digital ownership and why it still matters
01:18:05 – Building culture on the blockchain
01:23:10 – Final thoughts

Connect with Matt Dryhurst:

• Twitter
• instagram 

00:00 – Introduction
00:45 – Dropping out of art school
02:20 – Family, comics & collecting
05:20 – Discovering NFTs
06:00 – The birth of Drifella
08:45 – Ethereum, Solana & finding a community
12:20 – Why the Solana art scene exploded
16:30 – Building the Drifella universe
20:20 – Why Drifella 3 became a breakout moment
24:00 – Why trading cards?
27:00 – How Card NFT is made
31:00 – Burning NFTs for physical artworks
33:00 – Curating 100,000+ images
37:30 – AI, intuition & making images
42:00 – NFTs, galleries & the future of art
45:40 – Collaborating with Parker Ito
49:00 – Building a community online
52:00 – What's next for Evil Biscuit?
55:10 – Multiple artistic identities
57:00 – Closing thoughts

Artist Ed Fornieles joins Verse Talk to discuss Borrowed Lives: Anon 2026, a  body of work exploring how the internet shapes identity.

The conversation ranges from Tumblr and 4chan to memes, online belonging, gamer culture, masculinity, AI, and what it means to grow up in a world where images never stop arriving.

Along the way, Ed discusses his wider practice, why online communities matter, and how visual culture quietly changes the way we think about ourselves.

00:00 Introduction

03:45 Introducing Ed Fornieles & Borrowed Lives: Anon

05:45 How Tumblr inspired the project

08:35 4chan, anonymity and internet culture

12:00 Cell: recreating online communities in real life

20:25 "The memes meme you"

22:55 Why Borrowed Lives isn't a traditional narrative

25:10 Growing up through images

29:45 Building Anon: research, internet rabbit holes & image collecting

34:40 Inside the artworks: grids, chapters and visual storytelling

37:20 Why it's called Borrowed Lives

39:45 Are online communities inherently dangerous?

44:35 Masculinity, belonging and growing up online

49:45 How the artworks are actually made

53:00 Pepe, Wojak and the evolution of internet identity

56:10 Future characters, AI and where the project goes next

58:50 Raising teenagers in the internet age

1:02:15 Final thoughts

00:18 - Welcome Trevor Paglen

01:17 - Co-curating Zero 10 Basel

03:34 - Beyond labels and distinctions

05:36 - Blending traditional and digital audiences

08:45 - A blockchain agnostic view

11:44 - NFTs, legitimacy and cultural perception 

15:08 - How the art world has shifted 

18:00 - The collapse of the mid-tier gallery 

20:45 - NFTs as an alternative path for artists  

22:58 - Selecting artists for Zero 10 

27:00 - Why digital galleries do fairs 

31:00 - Presenting digitally first work in a physical context 

32:29 - Verse as a cultural archive for the internet 

35:00 - Art, collecting and cultural stigma

36:55 - What success looks like at Zero 10 Basel

40:04 - Programme highlights

https://x.com/trevorpaglen 

00:24 - Welcome Jalil 

03:29 - From art to coding 

07:04 - Finding Web3 and NFTs 

08:05 - Finding Visualize Value and community  

14:01 - The Permissionless Apprentice and connecting with Jack 

18:47 - Embracing Ethereum and learning Solidity 

22:10 - Scapes  

24:24 - Experiencing the NFT boom  

29:46 - From rock bottom to Checks  

35:08 - Building the Checks contracts  

39:39 - How Checks works 

41:53 - Rarity, MEV risk and gaming the system 

43:26 - From Checks to Opepen and an ongoing collaboration  

44:24 - Creative roles, collaboration and ego 

45:58 - The impact of AI on Jalil's practice 

50:38 - Obsession as a path to exceptionalism  

53:58 - Exploring an individual art practice again     

56:43 - CryptoPunks V1 and V2 

01:00:50 - Fixing V1 trading on-chain and the issue with wrappers 

01:04:22 - V1 drama and shifting views on IP 

01:09:33 - The birth of Networked 

01:14:32 - Building for wider understanding with EVM Now  

01:18:40 - A new auction house for Punks 

01:21:01 - New launches and ideas at Verse  

Scapes: https://scapes.xyz/ 

https://jack.art/checks-originals 

https://opepen.art/ 

https://x.com/jalilwahdat

00:14 - Welcome Nuclear Samurai

02:51 - Expectations going into the mint 

06:13 - Why choose Verse for BRAINROT 

08:59 - Early explorations in digital art  

11:59 - Fine art to fashion photography  

16:04 - Rediscovering NFTs in 2022

17:30 - Finding community on X

20:27 - New technologies and artistic freedom 

24:21 - Cultivating a broad audience 

28:03 - The Artist as a Founder   

29:14 - The importance of a considered rollout  

33:28 - Timing the drop, attention, and outreach 

36:50 - How trends shape culture 

38:28 - Scaling the work 

41:06 - The power of a custom contract 

42:51 - The next steps for BRAINROT 

46:34 - Community and Discord plans

47:55 - Why BRAINROT resonated so widely  

53:29 - Zeitgeists and references 

Nuclear Samurai: https://x.com/nuclearsamurai

BRAINROT: https://verse.works/series/brainrot-by-nuclear-samurai