Everyone has heard of Beeple, but not many people have heard of John Karel. The hottest NFT platform currently is not on Ethereum but on Tezos. HicEtNunc.xyz is the platform. We talk about Karel and his move from Ethereum to Tezos and how climate change plays a crucial role in the move.

We also discuss the aesthetics of John Karel's artistic style. What influences we see in it.

We talk about how John Karel has in such a short space of time become influential within the artists that make up the HEN collective.

Transcript Below;

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Sabretooth:

Welcome to the Floor is rising podcast. We talked about NFTs I'm sabretooth with me is Kizu.

Kizu:

So today's topic is really about another artist that has been very active in generating a lot of attention. For his art on a different platform. And that artist is John Karel.

He has basically been the, hot new property on the block. I think his artistic style is one of the things obviously, but I think a lot of, attention has also been paid to the platform that he's active on, which is a Hic Et Nunc, which is Latin for here and now,

hic Et Nunc which has been abbreviated to hen or hen. And specifically the blockchain and the token that it's being active on is, Tezos.

Sabretooth:

Tezos, is one of those OG layer, one blockchains. They did their ICO, you know, ancient like six years ago to 2015, I believe raised around $500 million. And basically since then, no, one's heard a peep about. basically anything happening there. Most people have kind of written them off. And lo and behold, in sort of Feb, March of this year, 2021, this sort of platform, Hic Et Nunc, just comes roaring on the scene.

Basically out of nowhere. And as of today a lot of people say that it's sort of, up there with open sea as the largest NFT platform in the world, essentially. And a very unlikely story to come out of Tezos. No one knows exactly how and why it became so popular, but the topic for today's conversation, John Karel I think personally is somewhat responsible for that popularity. I mean, he was. Quite early on the platform.

Kizu:

I think that there's a bit of a deja VU element I think, in, in Karel's work. That's not to say that, you know, Beeple's work isn't derivative or doesn't have references to, you know, early two thousands, 2010s internet culture, which it does, obviously.

I think that's very much foregrounded and I think it's a big part of. The way that it's resonated with particular than slightly younger gen YZ demographic. And I think there's something similar in John Karel except that I think that the kind of timeframe that's referenced is a little bit earlier.

Specifically, if Beeple is more like a 2010s meme based kind of, aesthetic, I think Karel's is about 10 years prior to that, I think there's a, there's an early two thousands Y2K kind of like retro computer graphics. Very strong style to that. Obviously a lot of the works are animated, kind of GIF like things.

There's obviously some similarities with Beeple but there's a little bit more of a hearkening back retro element specifically I would say. And I think that he's mentioned this in interviews. He's very cognizant of these references and specifically this timeframe at the same time, he does seem to be very aware of pop artists that have dealt with similar material specifically pop art from the sixties, like Warhol, Oldenburg.

I think the color palette is pop, it translates well on the screen. The more vital elements, I think with any NFTs, it's obviously a visual medium, specifically it performs well on a screen as opposed to obviously like a canvas .

There's a flatness to it. Perspective wise, it's quite flat and it's pixilated....