Jack Butcher, Adrian Pocobelli and Emir Dino: The shifting state of the digital art market

In an environment like this, you essentially have no one left, but the people who believe in the medium for what it is, because it's very unlikely that you're getting some exponential return in the short term just based on the number of participants and they amount of capital that's flowing around. So to be able to sell work in this environment should make you feel extremely confident that there's intrinsic value in the thing. It's not just a vehicle for speculation. All right, I'm going to just kick off, because otherwise it's going to go on. Welcome everybody to another episode of First Talks. It's been a while, but we're back, and we've got some brilliant guests today. I am joined by, well, I'm actually going to allow you all to introduce yourself. Dino, why don't you start as the first one? Hi, firstly, thank you very much for having me. I'm Dino, co-founder, Silk. Silk operates, it's a long-term creative and strategic partners for artists. So we work with artists from ideation all the way down to release. Artists come to us with their ideas, which we develop together. And the project they were currently working on, which is a Jack's project, they were going to take to Art of Buzz of Hong Kong. Amazing. Adrian, Poco Belli introduced yourself. Who are you? Thank you, Leila, and thank you, Jimmy. Yes, I wonder the same thing to myself. No, thanks for having me again. I had a great time on the podcast last time, and thrilled here. We have another show up on the verse website, Martin Bruce's, "Gio Cities." So yeah, I'm Adrian Poco Belli. I guess I'm most well known in the space for a show. I was doing till recently, and I will do again called "Artist Journal," which you can find on YouTube if you just search "Artist Journal." And it basically talks about the digital art scene online. It is primarily blockchain art, or art on the blockchain, as I like to call it. And it was mostly emerging artists, I suppose, for lack of better term. It was all the art that I liked, that I felt got no attention. And so I did about 470 shows, and I stopped in January, just 'cause I'm working on another project right now, which is taking all my attention. And so I'll probably start back up in June after that deadline is met. Amazing. And we're also joined by Jack Butcher, who maybe doesn't need an introduction. He would introduce himself. I'm terrible at introducing myself. I started a company about six or seven years ago, it's called Visualize Value, and it's basically this post-COVID attempt to take my design practice onto the internet, and then stumbled into the world of digital art about three or four years into that journey, and have been almost exclusively making art ever since. Amazing. Does everyone hand their each other? No. I haven't met Adrian. It's a pleasure to meet you both, Jack and Dina. Nice to meet you. This came out of the space where Jamie and I took quite a long break from the pod, well mostly the problem being time, but also, I don't know, it felt sort of quite difficult to get into this spirit of running regular spaces and feeling like we've got interesting things to talk about. And we hadn't done a round table in a very long time. And when we were discussing, somehow your names seem to be like the really right combination of people that we wanted to talk to, because it feels like so much of our work is about trying to make sense what we're doing in this space that we're building and renavigating. And I feel like all of you, Jack, you being an artist, Adrian being an artist, but also somebody who critiques other artists and does shows, and Dino being on the production side, and working with artists. It's really interesting for us to hear how you guys are seeing it, because I think hearing it through other people's words also helps us learn from you guys. I think one of the things we wanted to talk about is just sort of like the state of affairs. It's been pretty dire on the timeline, but also exciting on other ends. I don't know, when I invited you all, it was very dire, and then there was a number of tweets going out where some support was going out to some emerging artists, et cetera. Yeah, I don't know if any of you want to kick off just talking about how you feel about where we are right now and how you're navigating that. Can we start with Jack? I would love Jack, I'd love to hear about how you as an artist are thinking about the primary market, because, yeah, secondaries are doing fine, ish, but how on earth do artists release new work these days, and how are you thinking about it? Well, I think maybe the bigger thing that I always come back to is the coupling of anybody that's working in crypto exclusively. So much of the volume and interest of their work is downstream of the crypto market in the moment, and I think the people that are outside of that criteria, there's a very, I think select few people that probably have a collector base that would support a small-ish release consistently, and that's not been my practice whatsoever. It's been way more of these bigger surface area collections that have maybe deviate from their original premise or your experiment on top of them, but even those things you need, like a critical mass of attention, energy, network effects to make happen. The first thing I think is that, obviously, the crypto market, whenever that is soft, that's a hard environment to launch into, because the majority of people who are interested in this stuff, that was the gateway, or that is at least the world view that supports their belief and interest in these bodies of work that are adjacent to cryptography and cryptocurrency. And then the second thing I think, which is way more under-discussed, is the social algorithms changing so significantly. Like I think in the last maybe 12 months or so, X specifically where all of this conversation and releases occur and where people have primarily built the culture of this little space, the rules of the game have changed like every week for the last 12 months or so. And it's like violently swings back and forth. And I think in contrast to when I would argue that I had an outsized amount of attention on what I was doing, it was when the market was quiet, it's almost the opposite of today's, maybe not the opposite, but one of the things that's different about it is like, people were still curious enough to spend time reading about these ideas and sort of following along with the practice. And now the first punch has to be this like massive thing to be distributed at scale rather than this like slow, drip narrative that you can build. The way the algorithm functions, at least that's my read on it is like, I was able to spend 600 tweets in a thread about like every creative decision you're making. And it feels to me now like the texture of the algorithm and even the internet more broadly is different. It takes like months to absorb how the network has changed and how you get work out into it. And then the way you practice is sort of downstream of that and either aligns with how that service is content or it doesn't. Does that make sense? - That makes sense. Do you feel the way that you're looking and thinking about it? Are you the only person in this particular position or do you think there's something in there for artists who are maybe, who maybe have a more kind of conventional releasing 25 JPEGs kind of where they're doing things? - I think this is just getting harder and harder just because the service area is smaller and the place this stuff is launching into is getting louder. And even for myself, that's like friction you feel, right? To my first point as well about the market, it's like your bias towards like an internet art practice only running on crypto rails is hamstringing you too, right? It's like the working on the broader perception of your work as like the internet is a canvas. This maybe this happens to be the way you enable ownership on the work you're doing on the internet with Ethereum 'cause you know, that is the best technology to support the stuff lasting a long time and creating the relationships with people who want to collect your stuff. But I don't think anybody has sort of successfully done that yet, right? It's like you've gone from crypto artists to internet artists 'cause I don't think that's maybe there's not a bucket for that yet. That's the thing that needs to be crossed and the kind of perception of the crypto artist has really strong headwinds into what would be accepted by like a bigger cultural group of people. And I don't think that's impossible. It's just we are 90% tired with whatever the perception of crypto is at any given time and that's the difficult gap to jump, not impossible though. - Yeah. - I constantly have that battle in my mind and you also have so much context to deliver to people that don't have it. Or at least you think you do maybe that's the wrong perception but I had this internet presence before I worked anywhere near crypto artists called Visualize Value still exists. There's still tons of people that sort of follow that work and are interested in that work. But I would actually just like the interesting cultural differences like you have Instagram where that works circulates and you have Twitter or X where that works circulates. And I don't even bring the crypto narrative to Instagram 'cause it would just be rejected entirely. And Instagram is much more indicative of the pulse of culture more largely, right? Especially to get to the scale of artists that you would know in quote unquote traditional art or whatever you wanna call it. Even getting your start in crypto and making that a part of your practice as opposed to the only thing you do is a, again, I don't know if it's been done yet and I think there's obviously like really good examples of people attempting it, but that's the lagging in the process. I haven't even, but I haven't really even articulated this out loud before but those are the, those, Those are the things that jump to the top of my mind. The difference between crypto art as an internet artist and if there is one even and the sentiment that sits on top of whatever your crypto art practice is being obviously consumed only by people who know how to use the rails it lives on. Yeah. So, do you mean that it then primarily reflects on your audience, right? Because your audience of the crypto artist is limited and the internet art would be another audience that sometimes is hard to cross one over to the other. Yeah, I mean, I try and think about the narratives from like a 2021 or a 2022 of, you know, before you have enough information that this behavior hasn't scaled in the way people assumed it would scale in 2021, for example, right? Where you say, I think one of the really common ones was like kids by objects in games. And that's like a precedent that we're going to use to justify that owning digital art can be a household scale behavior or an accepted thing. And I just don't know if that's any closer to being true than it was then. Also, the number of people who understand this and decide to opt out of it over time is the demoralizing thing, I think, for people practicing and this stuff, right? It's like the active number of people participating is the downward slope. And in order to break that, you have to kind of present something that is not associated with that. Maybe there's an exception to that rule that could work, but it's like a format issue now. It's not even like a work issue in some ways. Like there's so many people that have put together like really sophisticated, interesting, profound work, but the idea that the front end of it, and maybe this is not a technical thing, it may be a small, like a narrative thing, a behavior thing, a cultural thing, is a big aheadwind and to kind of start experimenting outside of that and making the things that are amazing about digital ownership, a part of those experiences that aren't native to that ecosystem. I think that's where people are trying to experiment to like broaden their practice outside of the graph that goes down only essentially at the moment. Just to what Jack was saying, sometimes I see some things and I was like, I need to own that. That feeling has to scale beyond our space and yours is a very different kind of work. Jack, I think you're incredible what you do and I own some of your work, but it's a totally different feeling that makes you want to own a Jack butcher work. And yeah, could I respond to that as well? Yeah. Yeah. I think that that is also a bias of mine that I'm maybe misdiagnosing some of this with too, is like I have definitely been way more interested in pursuing these things that have like high barriers to entry in a lot of ways. Like in order to have to interact with the system, you have to go through all of these technical hurdles as opposed to what you're describing, Jamie, which is like, well, I have to have that on my wall, I have to own that. So to call that out as well and that's like to sort of re-root your practice to something like that and try and stay true to the ideas that are sort of keeping you up at night and you want to express the medium of Ethereum and like having a network of people that follow your practice so deeply is very different. I think I use this analogy the first time we went on the on the part was like an Instagram page versus an art show for the work that you put on Instagram. The reaction you get on Instagram is incredible. And then if you take that stuff out of context, just stick it on the wall somewhere. For me, at least I would say my work is not universally interesting or beautiful or like a person on the street would understand it. And I owe that to the internet and crypto. I think that's another thing to sort of reckon with is like, does your practice scale beyond the people that are like medium aligned, you know, how do you scale these ideas? Because it can be done and there are obviously thousands of ways to execute an idea or bring a system to life that doesn't rely on a specific technology. But you know the to a hammer every problem looks like a nail. You get into that. And then you get into that scenario too. We have bias for the systems that you've seen work. So sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to say that too was like sometimes they're not even comparable as. Let me just kind of say like this is probably going to work better if everyone's just barging in and we're just debasing and chasing and arguing. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking that I was like I'm in the eye and doing for about 15 minutes. When you're mentioning because I think I think Jack is actually nailing. He's tempting to call it the core issue which is that the crypto scene can't tend to get beyond itself and that the world is not embracing it. And it's almost like, you know, as you say like what artist has really broken through and maybe there are hints here and there, you know, and the numbers seem to be declining. You know, if anything or at least that's the sense you get on the timeline. And as you put it Jack, I think accurately if crypto goes down, then the whole sort of digital art thing on the blockchain seems to, you know, echo, have like an echo move or echo that move. So like to me, the issue is like ideally the way this gets solved is you have a gallery outside of the space that doesn't give a damn about crypto culture and is going, well, we just need to use this. You know, I saw a news story today. It's like, okay, the European Union needs to turn to Ethereum to do a stable coin is a discussion and it's like, it's not because they love crypto. That's for sure. It's because they need to do a stable coin and they're going, what's the best option here? And I think that's how it's going to move beyond crypto culture because in a weird way, crypto culture is its own worst enemy when it comes to digital art because as you put it, it's very insulated and it's a whole bunch of inside jokes that even if the world understands half the time they don't even like for whatever reason because they're not in that culture. It's maybe a generational thing, it's a cultural thing. So I think you're really accurate in your assessment that there's an issue there between an artist growing on the crypto rails, so to speak, and not being able to break through, not being able to put their work on Instagram and get the same kind of reaction, you know, 95% of the time and then there's the 5% exception. There's also the inverse where people build a practice on Instagram and they're getting traction and then use crypto to monetize their practice and then lose their fandom. Oh really? Yeah, I think like the association with crypto in some cases has been, and I think the early criticism of that was like, these aren't true crypto, like you're not to your point about the like self-cannibalizing thing. You have the people that supported you before you did that feeling betrayed that you're using that medium and then you have people in crypto are accusing you of writing the hype train or you know, taking advantage of these people who are very ideologically aligned to crypto and you just see it as a sales channel. So those are the other like points of friction between the two that just think have not been massaged out and the two groups don't understand each other, talk and pass each other and like the self-cannibalizing crypto thing is very, very real. Yeah, and just adding to your point finally and then let you know, jump in here, but it's almost like the art bezel success. You know, with that kind of success and everything, people literally made like the world headlines there for a day. He was on the front page, so to speak of the world news. And where are all the artists flowing in? If anything, it reinforced this divide that you're pointing out, Jack, of people being like screw that stuff, not really into that. Instead of you know, we'd be in a opening the floodgates of people going, wow, this is for real. Actually, we should take this seriously. Where are the new artists? Yeah, I'll just say no. I can really agree with what you're saying, Adrian, but it was just art bezel works really well. I think for that moment, it was just really one moment where people got exposure towards digital art. And in my opinion, I mean, to get to your question, I think the talent is still very much there, but the digital art market is really at the mercy of crypto, the liquid cycles. And the truth is that, you know, most digital art collectors have made most of their wealth through crypto. So when the liquidity dries up, automatically sales dry up as fast as well. And what we see also happening is that, you know, the notion of buy what you like and the impulsive buying stops and it becomes more of buying what they think will hold value. So that's where the money is flowing. That said, there's also this notion on X where we think that people have left. You know, we start saying things like, oh, it's sad to see artists leaving the space. Actually, they're not really leaving. I mean, I speak to a lot of artists who are in Turkey or in Brazil, in Indonesia and so forth. And they're just very active in their local communities or doing physical works. They have to do a sidestep to be able to continue. And actually, they are very much active in thriving. I can even say, but the collector pool remains too little, you know, as long as digital art is really tied to crypto. I think crypto was a great start. The blockchain was a great start for this to flourish. But we do need to go to be much bigger audiences and have to bring the art out as much as possible, bring context to works that are being created as opposed to one waiting for the market to become better. Because I mean, that's really not up to us. That's why I see it personally, you know. I also give maybe a couple of examples. Maybe bring up like the Tom Sachs crypto chapter, which I think I conceptually was very well executed and like took advantage of the secondary nature of crypto and thoughtful about all the infrastructure that lives on top of tokens and blockchains in a way that wasn't, you know, someone from a different world coming in and releasing it. images into like a pool of liquidity essentially, which is what you saw a lot more in 2021-2022. I would argue that that's like one of the best things you could hope for is people being so interested and I may be wrong in this assumption, but I would imagine the things that get people's attention are these like massive sales you see happening and interest in those constraints more specifically. And that is your very human thing to get interested in that because there's you know there's attention there and there's money attention in the internet you're saying exact thing. It's also fascinating that like chicken and egg nature of it right. Like what were the catalysts versus you know was the production of these objects the thing that were generating attention or was the you know crypto market looking for a meta that created this thing and obviously you can't argue that it's produced these amazing careers and objects and commentaries. But I think to just sort of exclude all of the like butterfly wing flaps that led to that moment is to kind of miss the point a little bit too. Like there are things that need to happen outside of this for it to come back in a slightly different form or to adjust your practice so it doesn't alienate people that don't understand or don't want to use crypto directly. And maybe there's like we're talking about this in a sense of like how does this get closer to a basically if you want to have a successful art career you need to continue to find people to buy your art right that's like what it boils down to and strategically speaking even what Dino is saying is like putting all your eggs in the basket of producing crypto native art for the vast majority of people that's a tough but that's true in any art market right I don't know the statistics any practicing art as struggles to sell their work. I would argue maybe it's that you know maybe to even contradict my whole point is like it's probably to go from zero to one and crypto art is probably still easier than like selling a physical artwork for the most part because you have this network that exists I'm not saying you're going to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars of work but people like monetizing their creativity through crypto is probably still by far and away the most like zero to one from you know hobbyist to paid artists that's ever happened and maybe there's like a massive layer of speculation that is driving that behavior but it doesn't you know overwrite that the fact that a lot of people sold their first piece of art I got their first collector through this medium and I think there's something to obviously to be said for that. Can I ask you something Jack on the note of reaching a wider collector base etc I mean you were equally I think it was you and people who had most of the headlines you got a ton of press for what you were doing in Miami at art masal and yeah I want to know and a lot of you know we're interacting with you so I want to know did this change at all part of your audience was it just the press was it like how how has this I mean I don't think that they were buyers but they definitely you got eyeballs yeah how did that affect your practice at all I did like I did make a few connections with people that are like curious about this stuff and from different like you know private was the wasn't the auction a non crypto didn't wasn't X museum yeah it's not a crypto art museum necessarily I think they have a lot of digital work in there and sculpture work but you know the thing they even have an Ethereum wallet so pretty fascinating to sort of cross that medium and I think maybe the thing it does have in common or the thing that has been so interesting to me about these systems that people interact with is like the economies of them and I think that's been maybe the thing that transcends crypto is like these economic systems or this like their games in a lot of ways is like some of the best crypto art collections have this game quality to them or at least like you have to understand other parts of the network or the other objects that are like orbiting this thing in order to really get it and that I think appeals to a certain type of mind that may not even consider themselves interested in art in a traditional sense a lot of the conversations I had with people who were just I'd say this like not not interested in art but like I think a lot of the headlines and maybe that was a lot of it was produced by our own mouthpieces but it was like people hung around these booths more they had more conversations like the artists were there in front of the exhibits that they found out it's like an access thing and that's been true I think of crypto art from the beginning is like you're interacting with the people who are making this stuff and that is maybe the one of the more profound shifts where this is not like here's this thing I give it to someone else they sell it to you and they mediate the relationship that we have if at all or they actually kind of get keep the relationship because they're just better at managing it the new and the exclusivity and scarcity all plays into that I think some of the stuff that was it wasn't even about it being digital it was like you can play with it it's like something you can interact with and even before crypto art was big a lot of these art battle headlines was stuff like that right well like just I was heavily inspired by that mischief piece from a few years ago the cash machine you go and do the select the absurdity of the balance being shown and broadcast out and that is like it's alive it's interactive it's interesting like it's you know a spectacle people obviously did an incredible job of that and maybe sometimes we just think too small about the only people that will ever be interested in this are people who self-cuff study cryptocurrency I just I don't think that's accurate but in the same thought it's like for these things to be interesting that's kind of like what we're trying to prove with this self-checkout system is they don't need to have this hyper active secondary market necessarily just turn that off and they can be provocative and interactive in a way that actually makes you think about like what why am I interested in this what's cool about this and these like economic artworks or systems as artwork are not bound to crypto as a medium even though it is best suited so that I think all the headlines and stuff are accurate in that people spend a lot more time over there and it's maybe just more about how artists practicing individual mediums think and what art can be if it doesn't have the constraints of like a static object that obviously unlocks a massive amount more of possibility so I don't think that's going anywhere but all the while it's a downstream of like the price of two assets that are downstream of like geopolitics then you you're just like you're penned into this tiny environment I don't need to be but I'm not I'm not I think art itself at the high end kind of a subject to that too I mean Jamie you would know a lot more about that than me but like art as a quote unquote asset class is like downstream of like liquidity and markets and like how people feel about the future and any degree of massive uncertainty that gets introduced is like okay maybe I'm going to stop just like spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on paintings so I think that's also why it's just dark too I think physical arts aided by cool factor and digital assets hindered by the total opposite I do know and Adrian I don't think we saw you and Miami what you'll take from afar like it feels like you've got the cool section and then the cool bro section I mean I thought I thought I thought Zero-Tem was a lot more interesting but there's yeah there's nothing cool about about laser guys just you know speculating on stuff and but not not that's not not that's necessarily what's what's going on here but I think it's definitely the perception I mean yeah how do you say it Adrian? I later mentioned a conversation you guys had where I think you were talking about perception from the non crypto world so just for context yes I think in our as you were saying Jack in our in our space we think wow this is the best section at most of the attention etc etc and then I speak to other people I think it was including you Adrian too was saying well actually the perception wasn't all that positive um yeah I just want to know what it yeah what what is the other perception of I think there were a couple of things like I think from within the space and you actually see it now on the timeline with this almost this there's a bit of I don't know if I'd call it a rebellion but there's kind of an anti-establishment sort of vibe right now and I almost wonder to myself if it was an echo of sorts of art basil because to generalize and to over generalize for all the other artists what they saw but was more of the same right okay we're gonna push the same names the same artists and fair enough you know if they're gonna sell the most well okay fine so I think from within the space those that weren't those say 10 artists or 20 artists whatever the case may be I think there was just kind of unspoken sense of here we go again and that this is ultimately and hey let's not forget I mean at least as far as my understanding is how this happened the joining boards okay we're gonna get on the board of art basil and then okay then we're gonna you know help move things along so that we have a digital space it was the same thing with moma to my understanding with their acquisition it's like oh well we'll go on the boards. This seems to be the strategy. This is hard some poetic revolution that the young people are saying we have a new vision. You know, so for the poets to over generalize or to, you know, simplify, they look at this and they go, "Okay, let's better go ahead." "Well, I'm just saying this is not an organic revolution from the public is what I'm saying with that. I'm not saying, hey, in a sense, it's all fair to a certain degree. I'm just saying if that's how it's going to come about, we won't call it a people's revolution of sorts of, you know, there's a new artistic and it's breakthrough, you know, that doesn't happen at the board." And I think just finally on this point, so that was probably, I'd say what I'd call like the poetic perspective of, let's say a lot of the artists in the space, but I'd also say that was probably also part of the perspective, a lot of the public. It's like, here we go again. It's like they're still trying to sell us this people stuff, right? And it's not like, it was like here the same story from five years ago, they're replaying it and, you know, and I think we saw the reaction which was sort of like, I don't see galleries jumping, you know, and maybe it is happening, but I just don't see a huge change when you get the front page of the news like that, you should have a huge change, I would argue, and we didn't see anything. I think it's given people definitely a different perception. I think people's status has changed after Audemarsal Miami. Tell me if you think I'm wrong. I feel like before that it was, okay, he sold for 69 million why this is crazy, whatever NFTs don't get it, this is nuts. I don't even get these pictures. What is this about? But I do think Audemarsal Miami, people felt like, okay, I get what he's doing. There is some, you know, underlying messages within his work and people kind of really understood. The irony within his work, the satire, and I do think he's been put on the map as a more serious artist, not that he wasn't before. I'm saying in the eye of the contemporary art world that can be very snooty. I don't know, do you agree? Because I'm going to expect to see him in the top 100 lists this year. I think you make a good point. And actually, and everything I said, it's not to disparage people, actually. I actually think he did quite a good job, you know, with robotic dogs, the Boston dynamic dogs with the heads. And like in terms of winning a, the front page, so to speak, and kind of winning art basil, you know, you don't just do that because you're people. If anything, you know, the tides are against the forces are against you, you know, pulling that off. So I think he has to be given credit in that regard. And I do agree with you. Like in a sense, like I had more respect for people after that. So I was like, in a sense, you can't fake that. And it was kind of like you might say, you know, as I said on my show at the time, it's sort of like, you can't say, oh, the banana is so great. And then say, oh, people, what's this crap over here? You know, we're going to make the art, the performance, so to speak, and winning the headlines and basically getting in the associated press on the New York Post. We're going to make that the measure, which we shouldn't, but we do. Then you have to give people credit as much as you're going to give Morris, you know, Cadillac credit. Adrian, as someone, oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. No, yeah. I was just going to add to to Jack's point. I think so I wasn't in Miami. So this is more something that I should ask you actually, but it seemed as though there was a lot of physical expression of digital arts, right? Jack's work was that way people's people's work as well. And when we speak to a lot of, you know, traditional art collectors or even people and kind of trying to understand the space, they're mostly asking as how they can engage with the art, you know, is it just behind the screen? And it seemed as though at least from the outside, not having been to Miami, as though that resonated really well with people, you know. When, because, you know, I read the same tweets about people saying this was the most exciting section of the fair, et cetera. And it seemed as though that was a very good catalyst, being able to express that art in a physical manner as well. So I'm curious to know, firstly, you know, what you think about that. Secondly, as well, you know, to Adrian's point, I do agree. I mean, you know, who seems to seem tweets, people mentioning why aren't you in a warrant? They're any emerging artists, why is it all the same? On the other hand, I feel like they feel the same to us, right? They feel like the same to people who've been in the space for a very long time and have engaged with these artists and such, but from the outside, again, speaking to galleries and institutions, I'm very, very nearly shocked every time, you know, that I realized that they don't know any of these platforms, they don't know most of the names that we think are very established and usually it's just a few names. So I do think that that kind of, you know, commentary is valid for our space, but when it comes to takes for sure for a wider audience, I'm not thinking of it as much as a problem personally. I mean, Adrian, what is the space supposed to do with what you were just saying? What's the takeaway there? Like, I can tell you, like, yeah, like personally, like I've taken a few months, like I'm kind of on X kind of here and there when I need to be, so to speak, but you know, I haven't been doing the show since January and I have to say I love it. And like, as personally as an artist, like I've never been more excited about the contemporary art scene, you know, and I kind of was one of these people five years ago was who was so excited about what was happening with crypto finally, you know, with NFTs and everything and the liquidity and it seemed like this is a great thing, but then it just seemed yeah, like it feels like it's just kind of hit its cultural wall as we were sort of discussing earlier its limits. And now I just feel like, you know, if this technology is going to take off, it's going to be like some Chinese kids on TikTok are going to start also in TikTok, we'll put, you know, some sort of technology in their app and then they'll start using it and that's how it's going to take off. It's not going to be because the Ethereum community is finally going to break through to the mainstream. Like they've kind of had five years to do that. Which is also actually not super inclusive in my opinion. Like it's pretty tight knit if you think about it as well. It's not like as open arms to everyone. I do think it's quite tight knit. I mean, yeah, it's pretty status quo, right? Like I mean, you don't get too much change and it's yeah. So as far as what artists should do, I think they should go beyond acts is what I would say and go to like physical art. If you're a serious artist, you should be trying to work with the gallery anyway. I would argue even if you're, you know, and this was actually a whole other thing. Like there's the people like I think a wolf leaser at the digital art museum in Berlin and you must look at this and he's like, well, here's all this digital art and art basil, but it's a bunch of crypto art. Like what about what about what I've been doing here for the last five decades or however long it's been, right? So what's that about? And it's like it's kind of like well, the board of probably decided that it should be the crypto people, right? So it's like so someone like me looks at this and just goes, well, that's nice and it's impressive, but who cares, right? I actually, I was going to say one other thing about the like it's kind of like one of the big parallels is like the adoption of Bitcoin by traditional finance. There's so many interesting parallels there with the established art institutions interacting with crypto art. And I think one of the things that is like fundamentally different about the way the two worlds work is the transparency is a, it goes from a feature to a bug when it gets into a different type of world, right? Where you have a gallery carefully managing an artist career and their market and the way that stuff moves around where it gets placed, how often it moves when it goes back to auction. Those things are really choreographed, telegraphed, you know, by social engineers of sorts. And then the price discovery in crypto art is like the complete opposite of that, right? So you put work out, the market is judging it 24 hours a day, like it's going up, it's going down, the liquidity dries up, it's not selling. You can kind of patch the narrative, I think, if you don't have that visibility into it into the real world. And it's the same thing with Bitcoin as like what's the criticism of Bitcoin as a store of value? If I get paid in Bitcoin, one week I pay my rent with Bitcoin, the next week I can only pay half my rent or you know, 20% discount on my rent. So volatile. And that is a way close approach for what's true. And I find it more interesting and you know, it's more like invigorating to work in that space, but it's also way more demoralizing on the downswing and you don't have as much insulation. And as an institution, why would you want to introduce yourself to that? And maybe it's just like that is happening to every artist career just in slow emotion on different rails. But there's just like this deep contrast between like, oh, I just bought this piece of art. I'm going to go home, take it, put it on my wall. I'm not going to immediately check the secondary market for this beautiful painting I bought, right? And see how everybody else in the world is valuing it. And this like mimesis that is locked into crypto art and price. It's like a double edged sword, right? The beauty of it is you can launch into these liquid markets and get feedback immediately. But it's also makes very transparent to people whether your work is getting more valuable or less valuable in real time. And there's like huge emotional swings that happen with that. And obviously people have weathered that. And like every month people has to read a tweet that is it is 5,000 every day is worth 20 bucks, right? Because there's only one offer on that collection or whatever whatever the extrapolation is. You still have people doing that now, right? Of like these 2021 pieces and just extrapolating the offer even though what they're saying isn't true. These like fundamental qualities of the medium is like this narrative is burned through through all the people that find that interesting and everybody else has been like, that's not for me. Thanks very much. But there are some markets that I've really embraced that. That's why that meta moves on to the meme coin thing, the prediction market thing, the, I wanna participate in these frenetic markets and I'm taking my capital with me as I go. And we were able to capture the imagination of people myself included, it's like, "Oh, this is something that I wanna do forever now." So interesting, but it's downstream of my interest in Bitcoin and internet markets and all of these things. It's not like me discovering an artist work and saying, "I wanna own that thing." It's like second, third order effects and me being obsessed with the internet and the narrative on X is not real life and all those types of things. Sorry, I'm rambling. I've spoken way too much on this podcast too, so I'm sorry for taking off this. No, really interesting. I'll just add one thing to that, to what Jack was saying. So indeed, you get immediate feedback, right? Like you're able to say, "Okay, I'm into this work. "What is it worth now? What is it worth today?" So it may seem less valuable, but is it really less valuable? Or is it just because, you know, crypto markets are tanking and, you know, and we were seeing this especially in a lot of emerging artists, they're very, they're feeling very, very demoralized because they used to sell for certain amount of, you know, money, for instance, you know, 20, 30, things, etc. And they're very committed to their practice and suddenly feels like their work is valued best, but it's just not the case. It's just that there's no money in the market, you know, no one's really able to afford their artwork anymore and they're feeling very stud, so if, as Adrian was saying, they stay on X and they become somewhat of an X artist, then it's very difficult for them to reach back the numbers, you know, where they used to sell at. And which is why again, is it becomes so important to look for new audiences or even look for different forms of expressions again, you know, hybrid or go physical and, you know, try new traits, different things that can get you to, to other audiences because I think the, you know, value going down is a misconception and it really paralyzes a lot of artists, I think. - I agree with that. How should I just think about releasing new works in general right now? - I just have one quick thought on it is like, if you wanna take like the paradoxical view, this is like an amazing time to release stuff because the expectation is zero. You know, you don't have this backdrop of like thousands of artists selling work for ridiculous prices. It's just like you, zero is almost, zero is almost an ordinary exaggeration. - Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know if I've ever spoken to you guys about this, but we worked on this protocol last year, it's called Mint, and it's an open edition protocol, and it's basically the price of gas is what you pay to the artist. It's a 50/50 mechanism, so whatever it costs to mint the piece, the artist also gets that as their compensation. So if you mint 100 pieces, you pay whatever the gas is, and then they get 100x that. Even the way Ethereum has changed over the last 12 months, like a lot of those are like one cent editions now, two cent editions, and then on the secondary market, there'll be four cents, five cents, six cents. And that to me is like a really interesting way to express this stuff, as people try to really hyper-financialize these social media networks, we saw a lot of that on base, and these creators couldn't just burned through so much money and attention that way, but to Dino's point, one of the things that is absolutely fascinating about crypto art is like, you actually struggle to go on open-sea and find something that's worth nothing. And that is like a, that's kind of interesting. Like I forget who said this, but it's like the value of most content is near zero, but not zero. And you are like by every piece of work you create and put on that infrastructure, if the price is not zero, after the fact you have created value, right? You create a surface area for your work, connected to do people. The expectations at the moment are not like, you may get the very odd comment, but in like 2021, 2022, people would be very furious about you releasing new work, because you know, keep the numbers down, keep the surface area small. And in an environment like this, you essentially have no one left, but the people who believe in the medium for what it is, because it's very unlikely that you're getting some exponential return in the short term, just based on the number of participants, and they matter capital that's flowing around. So to be able to sell work in this environment should make you feel extremely confident that there's like intrinsic value in the thing. So to me, it's very interesting, but like I could totally see the demolizing side of it too, or it's like you do draft off of the momentum of the market at large too. So it's not a simple answer, but when, say one more thing, sorry, when in 2023 and early on, when the checks thing got some momentum, I remember the whole back catalog of VV work started to pick up people like finding all this little thing. Like I had open editions that never minted out. I had all these things that I'd put up prior and then attention fizzled out, and then all of that stuff got discovered. And it's like, if you're practicing in this medium, just keep recording your work, and then it either hits a scape velocity or it doesn't, and all of the things we discussed on the part about like being intelligent about exploring different mediums and going to places where there is like more of a steady by a pool and a surface area of attention is obviously smart too. And that's how we are able to sort of introduce people. So like here's this other part of my practice that uses Ethereum because I can do all of these different things with Ethereum that can't do on a canvas or with an object or whatever else. So hopefully we can inject a couple sentences of positivity into this, into this 70 minute doom space. Yeah. (laughing) You don't want to hear what I was going to say. Say it Adrian, Adrian, say it. It's like, I'm almost wondering to myself, like are we seeing kind of like the slow motion kind of death of the 2020-2021 thing? Tell me this, like I'm curious to hear, like does it feel like we're reaching a point where as a culture, that Ethereum 2021 culture, is it starting to feel a touch pass A is what I'm wondering to myself and I don't know what anybody thinks about. So is that you Jamie's happy? Yes. (laughing) (laughing) Cut everything else. You don't want to add that to the question. It's ended on that heavy breath. (laughing) And you collapse as well. No, I think you're right. I think you're right too. I think you're right. It's so good. You practice in something that has so many dependencies beyond yourself, right? But if you're in a medium that's like, you could say the art market is affected by the market at large, but here you're downstream of so many different dependencies. And that is a risk you are taking as a practitioner, right? You're like to spread the risk you're taking. You don't want to be downstream of like, of a Talik tweet if you can help it. What do you mean by that, sorry, Jack? You're saying like if a Talik puts out a tweet saying, you know what, a layer twos or be a sort of whatever the case might be, and then your market is affected as an artist. Exactly. This is what you're saying. And it's like so nice and volatile. And that works in both directions, right? Obviously like that's what happened in 2021. And I guess what I'm saying is like, even myself who the only reason I'm doing this and I'm able to like, associate myself with any like adjacent word to "ah" is because of Ethereum and crypto. And what I was doing before, I'd never would have thought of myself that way. And now approaching it from where I was when I started, would I do the same thing? I don't know how I'd answer that question, but like the network kind of was the environment and that was the medium. And there's things I think are still true about like interactive and digital artwork that people want to experience. But the dependency thing is what adds drag over and over again. And if you don't have the ability to kind of ride out the longer stretches of this interest, I can see why people are like, "Oh, I've got to go and do something else. I can't just practice in this one medium." So I get, I totally understand why people lose momentum. Yeah. But I have to say though, like personally, you know, like as an artist, like in a sense I like the bear markets, put it this way, I'm as excited to put out work as ever, regardless of the, you know, of his institutes, of the crypto market, you know, which is kind of weird. And it's even like all the better if there's less people doing it because then I can feel a little bit better rather than if the whole world is trying to do it than I'm just one of many and who cares. There's nothing, it's not as special. It almost becomes kind of underground. If all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, nobody's doing it." Okay, I feel much better in that kind of pool, so to speak, culturally speaking. I don't know how you guys feel about that. I feel like survival becomes your mode. And I think that's valid for artists, but also platforms. That's something we spoke about with Jamie actually in London, if you remember. Because it's so tough to survive. And it's the same, it's very valid to the artist side, also on the platform side, which is why unfortunately we're seeing so many of them close down. For any other industry, you know, when you're building something, you're really having to worry about competitors about being fast and building faster and not being less behind, etc. Here it's mostly about sustaining and growth and being able to survive. And then if you do survive, it's a model that becomes very, very difficult to replicate. Because it's really based on trust, on relationships, on network. So therefore, like you're saying Adrian, the time that is being put in during the bear record is actually very fruitful. Can become very fruitful if you're successful at it, I think. Well, actually on that note, Dino, maybe you can talk a little bit because you guys are just launching, actually. Or have you officially launched? launched yet. And how do you feel about it? Love the design, by the way, Dan. That's awesome. Thanks so much. Thanks, thanks so much. Thanks, right? And we're very optimistic, to be honest with you. So we're looking at it in a different perspective. So we don't exactly work as a gallery because our thinking is that we want to work on a project by project basis with artists. So artists really come to us with an idea, with a vision, with a grand vision, even that they'd like to make come through. And we have a team of 11 people and we work across editorial storytelling, marketing, brand partnerships, tech, design, everything to make these projects happen. Our primary goal is to bring, firstly, context around the works that we bring up. So I'm hearing my voice a little bit. And secondly, to bring the art to the world. So one thing that we realized that was really missing was, you know, there are all these engagements happening on X. And their little bit is happening actually in real life. So that's why we're doing these global events. We try to bring the art and the artists all around the world. And again, as a collector myself, you know, the more understanding you have behind the work, behind the artist, the inspirations behind it, when you connect with the artist, the more likely you are to collect the work as well. So in terms of, you know, because we talked about, you know, how do artists get out of the space. So what's very interesting to us is the Eastern Hemisphere, you know. So it's not that we're not looking at the United States or America, but everything that's really east of Istanbul, if you will, you know, Turkey, the Gulf region, the Far East, Southeast Asia. We see tremendous, tremendous opportunities there. You have first of all, the very young demographics, the middle classes rising very fast. And there's a whole generation who are being exposed to art for the very first time because they just, you know, previous generations didn't have the means to be interested in contemporary art basically. And they're getting to know art through digital art and immersive experiences. So digital arts feels very, very natural to them, you see. And so I've been in Southeast Asia for the past 10 years, I'm based here. And we see in the events that we do here, the enthusiasm towards it, how open they are towards it. And the reason why I felt the physical expressions of digital art can be interesting is because there really is a culture of collecting physical objects, physical collectibles. And I think that's one area that we're going to be focusing on. So we're soon launching a store, an online store that's really dedicated to physical first collaborations with artists. So think about it from anywhere, from prints to books, but also physical objects or collaborations with jewelry brands, fashion brands and so on. So that's also one way of exposing the artist and the art to much bigger wider audiences. So that really is our focus, basically. And you guys are going to have a booth in art basil Hong Kong speaking of the Far East. And I know you are representing Jack there. So can you share what you're showing, what's going to be happening, can you share already? Yeah, so on the work itself, I'd rather have Jack comment on his own work, he'll do a much better job than I would. But I can tell you how it began, basically. We collected Jack's culture called work over the summer. And then we met with Jack and Alistair Ferrasper Studio in London. And we mentioned that we would really like to bring context around the work and be able to exhibit it when the time is right. And so we had this discussion in December with Jack and we said, you know, we have the opportunity to go to art basil Hong Kong. And he came up with a wonderful project that we've been working on. So I'll let him kind of go through the details. But part of the project, one thing that I can say, again, so this is part of the art house mentality that we have, kind of structure that we have. We're not looking at simply listing artworks, but also really treating it as a whole big project. So we're also going to be producing a 12 to 15 minutes documentary that traces, you know, Jack's journey from Nashville to Hong Kong. We're going to have an in-relight activation a couple days prior to the event that's very visualized value light. So I'll tease a bit on that. I'll let Jack see more about the project and the artwork itself. Thank you, Dino. Yeah. And I just want to say having silk work on this has been amazing. So massive props to Dino and the team. It's hard to do this without visual cues, but if you know the work sculpture, it's basically this progression of like a very high fidelity Michelangelo-esque David Hand to a cursor, just the apple pointing cursor. And there's four hands that kind of gradually get more, like reduce the polygons on the hand to get to the cursor essentially. And there's just a couple different ways to interpret it, but the intention is like this transition of work from very manual craft to values by grating digitally, even in artist practice. And this visual from really early VV works was called work versus luck. It's basically this graph that goes up from the left to the right gradually. It's this kind of compound curve. And then there's luck, which is essentially a six flat dots. And in the middle there's this like tall bar, which represents this kind of moment of luck or randomness. And we're essentially bringing another sculpture to Hong Kong in contrast to and in conversation with work. And then these four hands and then the second sculpture is called luck in its six dice set and silver by Asprey. They're both sort of life size, so the hands are life size and the dice are the size of regular dice. The only difference on the dice is the one is all ones, the two is all two is the three is all three is four is all fours and so on and so forth. So essentially the idea that the result has been determined before the role happens. And then we have a couple of interactive experiences built around that. This silver set is purchasable as an addition, the perfect set. And then we have similar to what we did in Miami. There's an interactive component where you can roll six dice to acquire a resin set of whatever the result is you rolled. So the silver set is perfect and you also can participate at a much lower price point by rolling six dice. And the pieces that you would take away would reflect what you rolled, but in these like dice that have removed variants entirely. So the idea there is, you know, if you have the capital, you can just buy the system. You don't have to interface with luck whatsoever. And if you participate as a attendee of the fair, you get what you roll and the system kind of dictates your outcome. And we have a couple other details like of the system and how it works just hard to get into over a verbal explanation, but these two things are kind of like working together to tell a story. Sorry. So you get what you roll, what do you get? So if I, sorry, because you were cutting out a little bit. So if you roll the dice and I, I get what for the same dice, we have the same dice manufactured in resin. So like, okay, in a much larger quantity. So the dice you roll, basically determines the set you get to take home. So if you roll, okay, you'll get those as the, as the dice that have had luck removed from them as a set that you take home. If you roll one, two, three, four, five, six, that's the perfect set and you take the perfect set home. So the other kind of in theory, the idea is we create this like secondary market on the floor of the fair where people are swapping and trading the dice they get to complete a perfect set. As the silver version that staged is this perfect set of silver, you can just buy that. You don't have to roll a bunch of times or talk to anybody to try and complete your set. So one of the activations we're trying to build around it is to encourage people to have these conversations and trade their way to the perfect set of one, two, three, four, five, six. And those will be in the same way the self checkout installation had a copy that you took home and a copy that went into the installation to make this the cumulative representation of the experience at the fair. What we're doing here is we do a carbon copy of the rolls beneath the sculpture of the dice. So the one of one of of luck is this set of six silver die with the cumulative dice from the fair rolls underneath it. So you have this like actual representation of how that distribution played out over the course of the however many days of the fair. And I suppose you could participate remotely because you're buying on the secondary. So you can participate from anywhere. So we're working through the secondary experience, but yeah, you'll be able to you'll be able to participate remotely. And yeah, the secondary component obviously with the layer of crypto integrated makes that very interesting too. It's like how do you use crypto as a way to distribute this artwork and help people complete the set that they're trying to complete and then redeem it and send it wherever it needs to go. So we're working through that part of the experience, but that was a really cool aspect of self checkout. The demonstration of people playing, you know, you walk up and there's no one in front of the key us, but the thing is printing and people like what's going on there? It's like, well, this, you know, the artwork has a network that is bigger than anybody that's standing in front of it. So we'll aim to replicate some of the things that we learned in Miami, hopefully in service of people seeing the value in digital art. Like, why would anybody do that digitally? Why do they care? Well, they've been following the story along for years and years and years and 99% of people who have ever bought a visualized value object. You haven't done so in person and like the digital network still vastly outweighs and out numbers the physical. So they hopefully complement each other in interesting ways. And then again, over time, maybe the people that interact with it physically see a reason to dig deeper into the digital side of it too. Hey, you're muted, Jimmy. No, no, I was just saying it's like, see it. - Absolutely, we are going to be there. I actually don't know how to think about this fair. It feels already, I don't know who the other participants are. The kind of nice thing about our spaces is that nobody is a traditional gallery. Like there are a lot of new people that I don't know that seem to be on the floor. So yeah, excited to see what they're showing. We have a fairly traditional booth, actually, as we did last time, funny enough. - Realised we've been on a while, but maybe we could briefly touch on that soup and kebals, if any thoughts. - I'm happy to chime in anytime here. - I'm in. - Just to someone who had an opinion. - I think I can help. - Let 'em rip. - It was funny. So first of all, you know, I think this actually kind of fills in actually in conversation. - I'm sure Asian Association needs. - I think it's also just to give a 10 second overview of what we're talking about for anyone who misses on Twitter. - Right. So and help fill in the gaps if I have some here. But basically, Betzouk is a prominent collector on Ethereum and he announced recently that he was gonna buy, I think it was $100,000 of art to help people to-- - No, to start a fun. - It was almost as a response to the team. - To start a fun, the fun. - Yeah. - Yeah, to start a fun. - But basically to support emerging artists and it would come out to something like an etha week. But it almost seemed like it was almost a response to some of the kind of anti-establishment sort of voices being like, okay, maybe a time for some other kinds artists to look at. So I just want to preface what I say is I think that there's nothing wrong with people supporting the art that they like, right? And I think that's-- it's kind of an important thing as people criticize, say the crypto art scene. There's nothing wrong with the crypto art scene wanting to buy what the crypto art scene wants and to celebrate it and just-- like, there's nothing wrong with that and to spend a bunch of money. So from my perspective when I saw that, I did think, okay, here's more of the same though. And it almost dovetails somewhat into Jack's earlier point about how everything kind of gets-- - What do you mean by-- - The emphasis is on the financial. - What do you mean by-- - What do you mean by-- - Has more of the same, sorry, Adrian? - It's like meaning is dictated by money in the crypto scene. And it's like the more money something sells for the more meaningful it is. And it's like, okay, so here, oh, and now we're all supposed to care because someone who's probably has millions of dollars in spend, so I think it's great. Don't get me wrong. Maybe he'll buy one of my works one day. Who knows, right? So I don't see anything wrong with someone wanting to do that. But I just saw it as symptomatic though. It's like the crypto art scene where it's like, here we go again in the sense of, let's just, we'll spend $100,000 and now it's all meaningful. And it's like, money doesn't create meaning. Like that is the ultimate problem that the crypto art scene has. I would argue. It keeps trying to throw money. Look at how much we sold at art basil. Look at it. And it's like, the rest of the world is still kind of left-saying, you know, where's my poetry? So that is, I think, the core issue. And don't get me wrong. I think the contemporary art scene to a large degree has a not dissimilar problem. It could be a larger symptomatic of the culture that we live in right now. I think it's less. I think it's less the problem. But I agree with you. I think money is used as validation very often within our space. Price-sex are used as validation as meaning or even. But don't you think like everything felt pretty stagnant? But then suddenly 100 year, 100 there, 100 there. Things felt a little more. No. I mean, look, maybe it wasn't as dark because it was, to your point. Okay, it's less stagnant now. Their bad soup is at the top of the trending things, right? But again, I feel like it's this echo chamber of the same 20 Twitter personalities that we see that have been kind of, you know, dominating that space for a-- Yeah. And they've earned it. It's not like someone gives you a ticket and, you know, they weren't born into that. They earned their way there. Yeah, isn't the issue there that no one else is bulging their way in rather than they're doing-- Well, is you wanted KJME? No, no, no, no. Who is your 100? You can. Let's see the cash. I just think it's its own worst enemy at the end of the day. And the problem is, is like, let's say you have some hotshot curator from outside the system. What's the whole amount of money? I don't think it do. Well, just our detail on what's actually happening. As far as I understand, it's actually not a fund. It's about suit buying for himself or themselves. And he has asked from what I understand, Lanette, Benic Brant, to effectively decide what to buy. So, yeah, hopefully she's going to spread it around a bit. Does that change anything? Yeah, and I don't know if it changes anything, though. I think it has to come from outside the bubble. Like, I almost think this scene needs to kind of die to a certain degree. And then from the ashes, some counterculture kids in 2040 are going to be like, "Hey, let's take this forgotten technology that nobody's using anymore and let's sell our art on it." And that's when it's going to catch fire. But culturally, I just feel like it's shot. It's, you know, shot. And it's just like, you know, you kind of saw it on the faces of the people looking at the people thing, right? And I'm not even saying they were right. I'm just saying, like, you saw it on their faces. I think of people like family members, friends, like, they're not going, you know, and they think of what they want on their wall or what's hot and cool. Like, they would just be skeptical immediately. Right? There's probably a lot of your family and friends would. Well, I. If you were trying to sell them on, you know, the scene. But do you think, "Bats, who doing this is a contributor to the space shooting at SHELT?" I think it helps the crypto art scene. And I think that's great. But, you know, as I've always said, the crypto art scene, the way I see it, in 50 years, will be its own little room. And it's probably going to be a bit of a ghetto, actually, where you may not even want to be associated with it too closely. In the digital art museum that I see in the future. Why? Because it will have to be addressed. Why would I not be associated? Because this is the underlying thing. And I put out a tweet, which actually went quite strong. I didn't tweet for a while. But basically, it has an art problem. At the end of the day, and I'm not saying the contemporary art scene doesn't have an art problem either, but there is an aesthetic issue that is at the core of it. And no matter how much money you throw at it, it doesn't change the meaning of the work. It doesn't change the work itself. And that's why I speak in generalities. I don't want to start talking about that. Because it's lame, saying, "Oh, that person sucks." And whatever. But there is an aesthetic. There's a cultural issue. Like, the world kind of looked in. And you might say if we were to use a name. It was epitomized by the board apioclub. Right? We can use that. And people just went kind of like, "Thanks, but no thanks." And this is still on the wrong end of that spectrum. I just think that's the. That's why it will be in its own room. And you know, like. I just think we're going to disassociate from all of that 2020-2021 NSD era. Like, I mean, from the apes and the dogs and whatnot. Well, I hope so. I hope so, but I don't think it's going to be from the crypto art. I guess it's a part of its history. And that's why I use. I always distinguish between crypto art, which is art that comes out of the. Almost as Jack was mentioning, art that comes out of the culture of crypto. And then there's art on the blockchain, which is just artists who are using it, who are probably digital artists already, like myself, and just go, "Oh, awesome! Awesome! I actually have a way." Because the challenge of a digital artist before 2020 was how to make your work physical. So that you could sell it. And all of a sudden, you didn't need to sell it anymore. Right? So there's all these artists out there who don't really care too much about the crypto. See, they're kind of involved because they have to be. And maybe they even enjoy speculating, you know, on it. They're not necessarily full-on, culturally speaking. Right? There is a divide there. So in that respect, I would say, "Yes, do you know?" There is a separation, but that's where I see the separation culturally speaking. So there is a lot of attempt for all of us, all of us who are working in this industry, trying to reach a wider audience. Thinking of node, what do you think? I mean, I didn't make it there. But what are your thoughts on that? I mean, they specifically opened a space in a tech-forward environment. Yeah, I'm curious to know what you think about that. Are you asking me? I'm asking you, Adrian, yes. Oh, more of the same. It's more of the same. I didn't see anything. I saw more crypto punks. Like, I didn't pay too close of attention to it. I saw Cosmo de Medici being associated with it. I just saw it as more of the same. And, you know, again, they can get the moment to buy this stuff. You can get art basil. You can put money. It doesn't change what I'd argue is the underlying issue. Now, maybe that's controversial. There's no problem. My life, most of the world's strongest us is secrecing digitally at the moment. The work is out there. Isn't the issue just that those artists aren't doing an effective enough job or people working with those artists aren't doing an effective enough job of actually getting seen? It is an interesting question. I mean, I do think there is an underground. I mean, that's why I did my show. I felt like two-year point that there was enough strong work. And I felt like there was a show there because it wasn't getting any attention. And is that the work that we're seeing at node? Like, it's kind of always back to this issue of taste in the sense which we can only come from our own perspective, but that's always been the issue, you know, to overgeneralize, you know, with the crypto art scene and what we saw. And again, painting with two broad of a brush here, because there is great work out there, Jamie. But yeah, but it's not like, again, I see status quo everywhere I look in the crypto scene. And I think that's what people were really almost like speaking to the broader theme of this podcast, which is like, where we at and where our things, that was what I think where you started getting this kind of anti-establishment vibe coming up. I was delighted to see. I thought way overdue, but I think that's where it came from where it's just like people are bored out of their minds, I think. And I think that's why it's dying. I think if they were actually incorporating more people and there's so much talent, I mean, this show with Martin Bruce I'm thrilled about that we're doing here and credit to you, Jamie and Layla for inviting us on. So we can do these kind of cool, what I'd consider to be pretty cool shows. But that's not what I'm seeing in Node and wherever I'm seeing crypto punks. It's just like how long are we going to vlog this dead horse? You see fresh, you know? Coming all current show. It's really good. I saw a tweet. I saw a tweet, like Botto, I think RJ, right? And again, I'm not trying to cast shade on the crypto art scene too much. I've just, you know, this is just my analysis here of what is happening. So I think, you know, I think super rare has been putting in an effort. I actually think. And their website looks great. Yeah. And you know, and they don't look like they're going anywhere, you know? So and they've always been kind of the trailblazers of crypto art platforms, right? Like I think they're the first really fine art credible. Like I'm on super rare and I was thrilled. I still am happy to be on super rare as an artist, right? So, you know, like I think they deserve a lot of credit. At the same time, for years, they did kind of foster this overly insulated view, which I think at the end of the day hurt the crypto culture because it became too stagnant to use Layla's word. It became stagnant. And what do we mean by stagnant? It was more of the same. There's nothing new. Where was the poetic energy, right? And so maybe with these new shows, they'll have some, you know, like I mean, I don't want to write the obituary too soon here. I wonder why they never applied to like art puzzle. Like they they wonder Miami. I don't think they're going to be in Hong Kong. Do you think they might be in Hong Kong? I don't think they're there. No, they're not. They're not. Yeah, why wouldn't they? But it's actually shame because I agree with you Adrian, they were one of the very first ones. I mean, it is a big commitment for platform to do it. We have to think 10,000 times so that we can expect this. This is also why it's all the same actually, right? I mean, you know, because that was the commentary. Why is it always the same artist? Because it really is very costly, honestly, to be to go there, to go to art puzzle. And so you do have to make money. You do have to at least not lose money, especially in a market like this. Right. And there are very few names that will allow you to not lose money, honestly. So that's the truth to it. Yeah. I think that's a fair point. Yeah. By the way, like that's a very fair point. To know the defense, by the way, I do agree. By the way, Adrian, I do agree with that. I mean, I understand it really well. Just on to their defense, though, I don't know them personally. I think you have to at the end of the day see it as a net positive, you know, because it's true. I mean, it's just not very surprising that it started out with crypto punks. That criticism, I completely agree, but they own the IP. So it's kind of I see the almost as a natural first step for them to start that way. I've read an interview they did that you would learn them. And they were talking about, you know, doing different nodes. It's a whole point of nodes apparently to have different nodes across different institutions, different parts of the world. So I think what we've seen might have just been the first step. And it's true. That was very kind of crypt oriented, but I'm hoping personally that that actually evolves in time. Yeah. Like I'd love to see David Hockney. You know, like can you just throw a bunch of money at David Hockney to the whole world at his feet? Well, I mean, just to convince him to show up to your thing and do it. And it's like, and to a certain degree, I totally agree and look, David Hockney's been completely overplayed in the last seven years. For the right reasons. How many David Hockney shows? Right. Right. But I'm just saying in terms of expanding beyond, you know, what's become these cliches. Put it this way, if David Hockney was selling NFTs at Art Basel, I think we'd have a lot more interest right now. And I think we'd have a lot more interest from-- Well, this is fun to say that because that's what I was going to bring up earlier. I had a discussion with someone who was saying why are you bringing these people that are not really, really deeply in our space because we're bringing Petro Court right in Lory Simmons. And I said, well, actually, my argument is, this is a good bridge for somebody who comes from the traditional art world because at least it's like knowing someone from your country. And it's like, yeah, I get it. You know, so they are doing also NFTs. But I think they felt sort of that wasn't right because they are not 24 hours on Twitter and communicating with everybody. And I agree with you. I agree that if there was someone like Hockney that people know as an artist who has shown who has a long career, but has decided that for one reason or the other, he decides to sell the work on the blockchain, then that kind of makes sense. I mean, you're saying John Raffmann, Leila. I mean, John's going to make a difference. John's going to change the world. I think verse does that extremely well. Do you guys do that extremely well? Yeah. Thanks, see you. Thank you. No, I was going to say, I mean, what you do really well is actually not only focused on artists that we get to know and get to see every day on Twitter. On the contrary, you know, I know myself as well, I go on verse two, find out about new artists of the creations impeccable. And to Adrian's point, I think we're actually going to see more of that bridge happening. That's what I believe. So, you know, he mentioned Hockney. I think we're going to end up seeing a lot more of that, which is why I think this space will not die, but it will rather morph. And personally, when I speak to traditional artists as well, there is a lot of interest with just lack of knowledge, basically, as to what to do, where to start. So, I don't think it will necessarily die, but we're going to see a lot more of these bridges happening. It's not going to be crypto, like, you know, just crypto art. I think we're going to move from that very, very quick. I think because that's the only way to surviving my opinion. And that is a note of optimism. Like, I actually totally agree with you. I don't think it's going to die, but it's going to morph. And it's going to be somehow people on the outside are going to adopt the technology because the technology is great. It's awesome that we can do this, right? Buy and sell digital objects. I mean, that's incredible, right? So, I agree with you. Again, and that's a note of optimism. And it goes back to what you said earlier, do you know that liquidity has gone down? So, people are a lot more calculated and thoughtful about the acquisitions that they make, the things that they want to collect. And how do you make those decisions? You look at somebody who has exhibition history, whether that's in the art world or whether that's in our space, you kind of track their history a little bit more. So, the impulse of just buying for the heck of, well, let's see what's going to happen. And maybe I'll it'll pay off. It's not there anymore, but what's come in is people really, yeah, thinking twice whether it's worth it or not. So, there's less buying. But I think maybe more even substantial buying. So, I think it's a good time to release, like substantial play there on Adrian. Yes. I know I'm probably going to lose now because I'm on this. Oh, it's about to wrap up. I think great. Adrian, what are we? We're eight minutes away. Such good work. Just shows you good work. Yeah, I just wanted to add something. So, funny enough, we talked about liquidity drying up, but where did it dry up? It dried up in the crypto market, right? And SMP 500 has been putting all the time out day after day after day after day. But there are no collectors from that side looking into here, right? Otherwise, there's plenty of liquidity. There's more liquidity than ever actually up until very, very recently. So, that's one thing to really keep in mind, I think. And second, I do agree with your point about bringing contacts, the meaning behind the works, etc. Which is why the Gathering Module is still very important. Because also myself as a collector, I do want to know whether this artist is going to be supported in the long term by the gallery. So, it's worth for me to kind of invest in this artist's trajectory basically. So, that part, I think, is very important. Do you plan on working with the same houses on a long-term basis? Do you know? So, what we're definitely not going to do is we're not going to try to lock in the artists into exclusive representation. We're going to try to keep the relationship alive as long as we can provide value. And there are very specific areas that we can provide great value. And the goal, of course, is long-term partnerships. Because, I mean, for both parties, that's where we think it works best. But there will also be instances where we will only work with the artists on a specific segment of their career, whether that's activations or physical work or band partnerships, etc. So, we will only be there where we can provide top value. We're actually trying to put a bit in. Sorry. Are you awesome? You work on that, Leyla. So, for you. You just concentrate on the bit, I think. All right. Do you know, let me, I don't know if there's a chat here. I was going to send you just so you know what we're here. This is the show, Martin Bruce, Geo Cities. And it's going pretty well. What do you think? Like Jamie, you know? When Leyla mentioned it was going to be an auction, I will be honest, I raised and I brought. But yeah, it's doing great. Yeah. I mean, Martin Bruce, he has collectors. Like, they showed up though, because you don't know if the collectors are going to show up. And bids are still coming in here in the final five minutes. Sorry, I can. This is a problem. We can never have a release while we're probably recording a podcast. No, no. Yeah, it's okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. We should probably wrap. We lost. Yeah. Adrian, will you be in Hong Kong as well? No, I won't. Unfortunately. But thanks for asking. No, I just moved to Paris. I'm working on a book actually for Ritledge. And yeah, I'm excited. Adrian. Yeah, I can I condense them Congrats. I persuaded them with the proposal to work on the atrocity exhibition for road ledge So yeah, so that's taking all of my All of my energy And it's a tight deadline June 1st, so yeah, incredible. Yeah, so it's exciting. Well, show us now wrapped up Well just in a in a nutshell very very quickly. So Adrian is everything dying. Are we gonna be okay? Dino I house What a time to be launching a business how you feeling? Show me the long term I think to Dino's point I actually really like how he I think it's it's gonna change But this way even if the crypto culture kind of dies somewhat it would still you know, it art on the blockchain Even if they found other uses for all this stuff or it just kind of died as a culture I think art on the blockchain would continue unless a better technology came along and until then it'll just morph So I'm optimistic in the sense that all of this kind of stagnancy and Anti-establishment kind of vibe. I'm glad like because the sooner we can put this behind us actually the better where we can actually have You know a scene that's not kind of ghettoized and so I I applaud it and look forward to it and new voices Is there not always gonna be a loud scene that dominates attention and put some people off? Yeah, but I think it just needs to change hands It doesn't need to be into my hands, but just like the art scenes. It's never always just the same people You know, okay, it moves from Leo Castelli to someone else right or whatever the case may be and new generation And I think that's just yeah, I would just need some fresh blood. It's kind of how I see it So I see this all is actually incredibly positive rather than if everybody was cheering and things were going for records And it was just more the same and we're gonna keep doing this for another 15 years I've seen it happen like I grew up in Saskatoon Saskatchewan and it actually had surprisingly a pretty good rave scene But literally 20 years later I would visit and it would be they'd be still Doing the same party because it was so great 20 years ago and so I've seen this before like it can go on for decades This kind of you know stagnancy and just thinking well, that's the greatest thing ever So it's kind of weird that way and also there's just a break and then the change happens fast It's not necessarily a slow kind of evolution. So I'm kind of I'm not convinced that one Dominant group of people on Twitter come at the cost of other people getting attention I didn't see why there can't be Yeah, and I agree with you. I actually agree with you, but I'm speaking in plot in generality So I was gonna say in platitudes, but I'm speaking in generalities. I you know like it There doesn't need to be a bit of a story I was a bit sad that VVV died off so quickly because they haven't died off No, they haven't died of organ's blazing. No, no I know they haven't died off, but they definitely also had a bit of a pause like things required on that end and it felt like they're gonna overrun everything and it was so exciting to just feel a new energy more than anything It's just new people new energy. Well, that's it. That seems so there that seems it is very small as well I think that that seems there and I mean I met the founders well in Bangkok and There were very answers asked about what they were building but again There's that there was a speculative spike again, you know, so it's again, you know Why is it quite now because people saw though perhaps this is kind of like the next art blocks on on Solana etc And the excitement comes with the intent of making money, unfortunately, you know These things go hand in hand in this world and when that spike, you know goes down automatically Everything feels like it slows down, but I do think that you know, there's their value there and I'm showing evil biscuit at an art for an LA. I think great art does come out of it and yeah And I'm really excited about it. I think it's he's great and I'm so thrilled that he's part of this group of artists but it did feel like there was like a new group of collectors pushing ways and Yeah, and I and I hope that does continue. I hope they do grow They just didn't kind of cash in like a lot of the Ethereum collectors, right? The lot of the Ethereum collectors really made a gain of it and then it gave them liquidity to buy more and they they just never had that cycle so it's slightly different I suppose yeah, but they but they were great I mean that is probably the most exciting thing that happened in the end and FTC in the last six months to a year Right, I mean it was just this boost of energy. It was kind of it felt a little bit more organic like oh this is is a Poetic illusion you could start careless, right? Yeah, is this a generational thing right and and so that's kind of I think what made it exciting Like this is real or whatever it was Well generally that kind of carelessness about art the one where you just go for the creativity You just do things without thinking and it just feels right it feels spontaneous I mean that's when it gets really exciting and you want to be part of it right like I mean that's why I got into the art world I did not get into the art world because I wanted to make money or wanted to collect anything I just wanted to be surrounded by really cool people and interesting people I think it's the biggest pull I think at the end that's the biggest pull and if you if yeah if an industry can convince you that That's what it has to pull you in then it's exciting and you'll invest in VV is cool. VV is cool. Yeah, it felt that's what I'm saying you felt like you want to be part of it Yeah, exactly it felt really promising But yeah, we'll see what the future brings and yeah, thank you so much for joining us It's been really really great and thank you Dino. I know it's gonna be so What time is it? Thank you very much for having us What time is it? One AM. One AM. Oh my god. Yeah, thank you for having me It's always a pleasure to talk to you guys Um, thank you so much for joining Adrian so great to have you Um, more soon, please and um Jamie, I talked to you all the time so Thank you Thanks everyone for listening. It sounds good. Thanks guys. That was great. Nice to meet you Dino