It's the First Annual MOCA LIVE Awards Show! We give out awards for all sorts of things —good, bad, ugly, completely FUBAR— that happened in 2023. It's a trip down memory lane, for better and for worse, with your uproarious hosts, Max and Colborn. Join us for laughs, tears, a frankly unsettling amount of curse words, and our thoughts on a pretty nutso year in crypto art. 

On Current Events this week, Max and Colborn talk about an AI scandal and whether artists should have a responsibility to disclose AI use, how artist/influencer cabals work, a week full of various crypto hacks (are we back?), and why so many artists seem to be moving towards the Solana ecosystem. 

Max and Colborn are joined for the second time by artist, curator, and TimeAI100 laureate Linda Dounia for a deep-dive, all-encompassing AI power-talk. Linda leads us into a conversation about homogeneous AI monoculture, how it affects us, why we're sick of it, and how to destroy it outright, before we go off on a series of tangents: Where does culture come from? Why export a dying western aesthetic? What does it mean to grow up in an AI-entangled world? And finally, Linda talks about her Speculative Archiving project, a bonkers new vision for how AI can be used.

This week, Max and Colborn talk about the TezPole phenomenon from a few angles: The beautiful community response, the pathetic Tezos foundation, the best and worst of crypto art, all wrapped up in one chicken-wire-wrapped cylinder. After that, they discuss why EtherRocks are selling once again, the merging of RugRadio with Decrypt Media, and what people really crave from their art: human connection.

Max and Colborn are joined by the two brilliant Argentine artists, Julian Brangold and Frenetik Void, for a chaotic discussion of all things AI, starring their strange, provocative, oddly-endearing AI-assisted collaborative project, PsiPsiKoko (which you have to see to believe). The conversation ranges from using AI as a tool vs. treating it as a collaborator, to the homogeneity of most AI artwork today, the way AI is changing how quickly artists can imagine new worlds, and more.

See PsiPsiKoko for yourself here: https://www.instagram.com/psipsikoko/?igshid=NGVhN2U2NjQ0Yg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Max and Colborn start off discussing what Bitcoin breaking $40,000 (at long last) means for crypto and crypto art, if anything at all. They go on to discuss Observer's male-dominated list of blockchain art power brokers, ROBNESS taking his JPEG talents to Ebay, why crypto art won't make the traditional art world play by it's own rules, and aliens. 

Joining Max on the show this week is Subjective.art curator and creative director, Clay Devlin. The two talk about Clay's now-extensive experience curating IRL exhibits that bring together physical, digital, and crypto artists and audiences, the roots of crypto art's crisis of individualism, how connected crypto art really is to mainstream artistry, curation stories, advice to would-be curators, and more. 

This week, Max and Colborn talk about the seeming blood-feud between artist Refik Anadol and critic Jerry Saltz, how multi-layered performances by Matt Kane and Operator are stretching the crypto art paradigm ever-higher, why crypto art continues to take itself so seriously and how that's hurting us, and more!

A wild and wacky podcast as Max and Colborn attempt to breakdown a wacky and wild document: Hugo Ball's 1918 "Dada Manifesto," which may or may not have elevated modernism to new heights in Europe. This is a text about nonsense, the absurd quite literally, giving things names and taking them away, the invention of an entirely new language. As crypto art everyday fights further to solidify its own existence, the "Dada Manifesto" feels more important than ever to analyze, dissect, and understand. Why don't we do so together? 

Max and Colborn are here for the return of the cryptocurrency market, and here also for the supposed return of many uncommitted crypto art folks who may or may not have gone MIA during the bear market. Many people don't like that, they think of these people are opportunists. Others celebrate them as mental-health-prioritizing geniuses. We break down both sides, trace this conversation to its core, and litigate whether our feelings change depending on who exactly we're talking about. Also is this all Pak's fault? Enjoy.