Tabor Robak: Human Resources and the Tabcorp shared universe

corporations have an outsized percentage of power. PFPs are essentially a replacement for the LinkedIn profile picture for an employee. You know, it's kind of like we are the PFPs that corporations are collecting. You know, I mean, and especially then when you take this further down the road to the like accelerationists or tech-steadows and dark-and-lightenment type of thing, in that situation people really are the PFPs being collected by the companies. Thank you everyone for tuning in for another episode of First Talks. We are joined again for the third or fourth time by Table Roeback. Tables spent a lot of the past year working on something. I don't know if this is more out there than anything that you've done the past table, but this is probably the most unusual projects we've worked on. And it's experimental in that it's a long way from just being a set of images. I feel this is kind of the closest we've come to while building as a artwork. And the project's called Human Resources. It's a series of 10,000 PFPs. And how you arrived here has been a real journey. It's been so much fun being part of that journey. I'm really excited that this is happening. I'm kind of nervous that this is happening. We're not really sure how to roll a PFP project out that'll own this kind of PFP project. So yeah, a lot of improvising. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. And I think there's probably no better way of explaining what Human Resources is about than going back in time a little bit and aligning how we got here. I think it's fair to say that this started with Broken Printer, which was a project you released on verse with Solos in April 24. So maybe we could start there. We'd love to get an overview in your words of what Human Resources is. So I think we'll have a bit of background. Sure. All right. Quick catch up. We released Broken Printer series of about 2,000. They were a generative artwork based on various printing techniques over time. And I have a history and working at a print shop when I was younger made a big impression on me. And one of my work tends to also address labor and the work day and so on. So there's things that wrapped up in the Broken Printer. And then started the recycling program where people could recycle the Broken Printer images and then I would kind of curate and create a new one inspired by what they recycled. That went us into the Tab Purp Labs program the next thing if you really see did where people could take their Broken Printer and I would then take them and convert them into a web type experience. Something maybe with audio interactivity, really just opening the floodgates of what's possible. But continuing this sequence of works, these things, it's all about embracing sort of experimentation and encouraging myself to put out more things, try new things. And you were kind of saying Tab Cool as an art studio. It was like these things that were spat out of the materializer as you called it. Obviously you were making them, but the joke was that these were the produce of art factory and so you know I started kind of imagining this shared universe that these things take place in like a Marvel universe. And you know Tab Corp is just kind of a joke. With Broken Printer, the joke was sometimes as an artist I can feel like a broken printer so focused on output that you know you turn something like making art into like labor. Seems you know, doesn't seem counterproductive, right? But I can get into that mode. And so Tab Corp became this kind of like joke like okay Tab Corp, that's me, right? That's me when I'm just like grinding. And then it became like a logo, you know, like my work experience, through Inspector graphic design and so on. So lots of times you just need a logo to throw into something for the composition to make it feel like graphic design, even though you're kind of like, you know, making an abstract image, whatever. So obviously Tab Corp's perfect for that. And that sets us up now for human resources. I've imagined that there is this corporation called Tab Corp that is here to exploit artists essentially. I mean, it's here to do, you know, all of the other things that we see corporations doing today, you know, the mythology or the actuality of the like evil corporation that's maybe not up to no good in the old action movie way, but maybe a little bit more up to no good in, you know, the everyday ways that we're so used to. And that's Tab Corp. And so how does human resources then tie him with Tab Corp? You know, I've established now in this shared universe that there's this like evil corporation and I started imagining, okay, there's all these off-shoot companies in the same way that Nestle, you know, owns Cracker Jax and Snickert bars and whatever. And the way that there's these like multinational conglomerates that branch down and control every little part of the universe, you know, and kind of imagining like what does this corporation look like? But honestly, that's all like on the back burner. This kind of shared universe idea. What really interests the picture here is just the notion of a PFP project as a genre, right? As an artist as a creator, there's just things you reflect on, things you're thinking about. And, you know, the PFP as a genre is so fascinating because it's kind of the primordial form of NFTs in a way. PFP is really the quintessential NFT. And yet we've also kind of culturally moved on from that moment. But they do solve such a fundamental need on the internet, which is you got to have a little picture of yourself there, you know, and most people don't want to use the actual photo. You even see it on like, you know, you create a PlayStation account and PlayStation has a bunch of ready-to-go-ill user pictures for you to choose from. You know, you can be Crash Bandicoot or whatever. So it's just like a fundamental deed, you know, like representing yourself online. And so I've just been, I've been reflecting on PFP's for a long time. And I noticed there's one fundamental thing that really stuck out to me about PFP collections as a whole. How, to me, overall, PFP collections seem very concerned with coolness and subculture. And it kind of makes sense. Like, you know, you're replacing your user photo. So you want to kind of belong to a tribe. You want to be a chill guy. So with this, you have hunk influences. You have like the Kauai type of collection. Now you got the anime collection. You got like more of a hip hop collection. You got like a graffiti-looking collection. You got a skull-looking collection. And you got a metal-looking collection. You have a low-poly 3D. We're kind of like PFP as a genre. We've kind of like checkboxed all of the subcultures. And consistently with each one, the vibe is cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And so like in the consistent treat of that. Trying to be cool. Trying to be, yeah, I mean, cool. Some actually cool in an ironic way. It really, you know, it's all about personal takes, right? But as a whole, there's as a group business, like real consistency. You know, so I kind of thought about like, well, what's behind this? You know, like it's so obsessed with cool and subculture. What is this covering up? It's covering up like blandness. And you know, like corporate culture, right? Like, okay, the leak didn't headshot, right? That was kind of my lightning bolt moment. The leak didn't headshot is the most bland, boring PFP. But it's also like, it's the original PFP in a way. And sort of it's a deconstructive take on a PFP that's not like reducing it purely down to like a white dot or whatever. Some abstract token type of thing. And so in that way, I see it as kind of an anti-PFP. You know, I'm using PFP as part of the conceptual framework of the project. So you decided to PFP projects will put a pin in what you're just talking about and go into that a bit more laser. So how did that tie back to tab core? Tab core? Yes. So we got this like tab core shared universe. We have these notions on PSPs. We got this kind of latent thing. We have my notion that, okay, there's these like evil corporations, you know, that have an outsized stay gone society. And it's just like cooking, right? The five different things I name come just like merged together. It's like, okay, I'm going to describe the corporate hierarchy of tab core, the web of influence and so on. And like, what are all the individual divisions of this company? What's the banal every day despair of this bland universe? But also like, where's the humor in this? You know, because in some way, they're just kind of like taking the piss out of corporate culture and out of like PFP culture in a way. Like, you know, I mean, I'm having a little bit of fun with it. But by combining all these disparate topics, it kind of starts to form its own little conceptual take. So I'm designing an evil corporation with 100 jobs in it, right? Like, there's so many fun things about PFPs, like the traits and like, the different categories and like when you browse through them, you filter them, right? So I've kind of decided like, okay, well, what's going to make this interesting and fun in a way, right? Made all the jobs, you know, assigned all these roles and everything from the things you expect there, like, you know, CEO and accountant alongside your gig workers, you know what I mean? Like, the people that are very clearly being exploited within this hierarchy. And then like kind of then getting into like, you know, a little bit of like fantasy with the like the fixer role from like an action movie type of thing, not fully going into fiction, but like kind of incorporating that. And then like, you know, every morning I wake up and I scroll red it, unfortunately, right? And it's always with all the shit that's going on, right? It's all like collapse, right? This is a familiar talking point, right? Social media has a way of collapsing the banal and the everyday and the cute next to the horrific and the. absurd in the abject, right? You have your ice agent right next to your video game reviewer. And so I start to see this like collapsing of all these reds into my project and sort of the non-stop exploitation of everything for content, basically, right? And the narratives that go on, like we know that there's corporations like Spotify, where you're investing in weapons, right? And you're also selling music. Or other companies, you're like putting out a game boy and you're making a drone from the same metal as the game boy, whatever, all of this type of stuff. This is the least of it. You've got your fentanyl producing companies buying up the artwork. You know, I mean, like every single artist in the fine artwork at some point, you're dealing with someone buying your artwork, who's money you don't want, right? It's just it's a reality. So whatever, I'm really rambling. But I've collapsed all of this fantasy, banality, absurdity, political theater, you know, truest and lies all into this one PFP hierarchy, right? And when you scroll through it, it looks very like a banal and plain, but it's kind of like when you dig through the trades, that's kind of like this insidious quality of it. So as I'm working on this, the obvious thing is like, I'm making a bad company, I'm making these characters. How do I decide that they're all white guys? And this is, you know, this is kind of like the conceptual crux of the thing, because it's such an important decision, but it's also like a weird decision, right? And something that I can't stand is the, like, fakeness of the idea of a corporate utopia, right? Like this project is anti-corporate utopia. This project does not believe in corporate utopia. And especially, you know, supposed to be a limb and all this stuff, we saw so much like corporate diversity washing, you know, I mean, woke washing and all this stuff. And that's like, it's not the conceptual angle of this project. I don't want to try to describe a corporate utopia where everybody's equal. The point of this is that everything's wrong, you know? And then likewise, there's like qualitatively evil. But it sounds like you're trying to get away from like the woke washing at the same time is on the evil side of things. I don't know. Is it kind of deliberately confusing? I mean, my logic is that the guy from the meme, like, you know, I mean, like somehow I've boiled it down to this is what feels right. And fundamentally as an artist, I don't want to be extractive myself. It certainly doesn't seem right casting a black guy as a grub hub driver and me making money from that PFT. There's not easy answer to this, but somehow this is like the conceptual, trickle, down situation that I've going to make this situation. And ultimately, I've made this higher of 10,000 dorks. That's kind of how I see it. Would it be possible to speak to the process of how you made it a bit? Because the way you've made them, I think there's something kind of conceptually interesting there, which I guess we can get to once you've explained it. Sure. But yeah, we'd love to just hear what the process entailed. Absolutely. So when you're making a PFP project, fundamentally you're making a paper doll. Right. And that's why we see what most PFP products are vector graphics or 3D graphics. It's easily and cleanly turn off those layers, right? Or also, you know, as we take the like skits, so the dry fill a type of PFP or the me lady type of thing, kind of like a Photoshop collage and unlike a board of seven thing where everything is clean and needs to fit together perfectly. That's kind of about that it doesn't fit together. Quite perfectly, right? So I started experimenting with how am I going to create the layering system for my projects. And you didn't need to do any of this given you working with AI. Well, we'll get into that in a second. You'll see how I came to the conclusion of using AI. Because that wasn't my initial thought, right? OK. My initial thought was, OK, somehow I'm going to layer traits to create these characters. And, you know, OK, I'm photoshopping these guys. And I'm putting, I'm dressing them in clothes like a little mannequin. And that honestly takes a lot of time. You know, cutting out the shirt and working it to the guy. So it fits just right. And then you can get the mannequin dressed pretty good. But ultimately, the finesse of the shadows and the edges and all this is where you're going to go from 30 minutes in image to like five hours and an entire day at eating one slow, trying to get this man realistic, right? So it's like, if only I could somehow use AI to, you know, smooth out and perfect the edges, whatever. So theoretically, you could upload these images one at a time to chat you with you and say, hey, make it look like this. And it also granted this as a feature that has only, we've only gotten used to in the past three months. But, you know, that obviously doesn't work for a batch process. It doesn't work for a trait-based rendering system. So my solution was somehow I need to learn how to use AI as a 2D rendering engine, whereas not really rendering the image from nothing. It's almost just rendering the last 10% of an image. But sorry, can you just, can you just speak, though, to why you didn't, why didn't make sense just to train a model and have 10,000's just knocked out like that? Why did it fit the kind of regimented tree-based? Yeah, I mean, out of respect to the genre and in terms of embracing the genre, you know, like that's part of what makes a PFP project, you know, seeing, if you will, is when you can scroll through that grid and you see that consistency, right? Or you didn't toggle one thing. You can see that those glasses are the same glasses, right? We talked so much about AI slop, right? And what makes AI slop? Well, it's just a little bit shitty, right? And so when you filter by the blue jacket, I want that blue jacket to look exactly the same every single time. And if you just type in, you know, mid-guy-wearing blue jacket on a Joshy-Petier, whatever, you know, three-quarters headshot of a business man wearing a blue jacket with short brown hair and blue eyes, you're going to get a completely different man with completely different everything every single time. And then when you look at an agritist, going to look like just a bunch of AI images, it's not going to have that sort of resident quality of when you look at a grid of PFPs and they all relate to each other. So presumably there's like an optimal number of traits. Too many traits and it'll feel like that's, you weren't even no-sissed. Not enough, it might be boring. Is that the case? Is there an optimal number? I really based my traits around the jobs and making sure that each one kind of embodied and expressed the jobs and this actually took a surprisingly significant amount of, I don't know, like creative thinking or whatever, you know what I mean? It takes me very clear, like, sweatshop or grids. Very easy to say, okay, this is kind of what closed this guy might wear, right? But then when you're talking about the difference between accountant and lawyer, okay, we can picture this business attire. But how do I embody this account? How do I embody this lawyer? What's the subtle differences in their clothing? Once clothing, the materials are slightly more expensive, and so on. And in some ways, this is also part of a way that I'm also evolving or continuing the thread of PFPs, doing my own thing a little bit, is that I have heavily weighted a huge variety of clothing options. And then there's 30 hair styles, a couple of various bases, you know, other things going on. But being able to then filter through like, okay, everybody that's wearing a tie. Let's see, every guy that's wearing a tie, or filter even simpler, like, okay, what's just divide between casual and formal, so on. Versus filtering specifically for striped shirt, blue shirt, you know, because in men's office fashion, you know, there's a lot of blue shirt mixed with blue tie, mixed with gray jacket, and all those things in different combinations. And so if the trait list is 2000 items of white shirt red tie, bleach, you know, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it gets very, it's kind of like meaningless, you know, I mean. So to me, it's more interesting if you filter by everybody that has a tie, or everybody that has a jacket, or you can do jacket and tie, and then blue shirt and they see, okay, this is the guy with black, you know, right. I haven't seen hundreds or thousands of these in one go yet. Is it obvious looking through it that traits are a thing? Because the punks 3D glasses, they're all identical. It's pretty obvious, obviously, you know, the blue jackets may be identical, but they're going to be rendered definitely. Some will be maybe older, I don't know. Yeah, how obvious is it that traits are a thing? Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious because of the consistency of it. Now, to some degree, we take for granted how familiar we are with punks. As we pulled up a grid of 50 random punks, there's going to be some duplicate traits there. It really not that many. And so as you scroll through, you kind of learn, okay, these are the traits, right? These are the very recognizable things. But you'll especially see it like in the hairstyles, you know what I mean? There's like 30 different men's hairstyles of various lengths and so on. You'll see that, okay, the strain is a pair of land the same every single time, even though they're rendered photorealistic, you know? I guess you've got more traits than punks. Yeah, I have many, many, many traits. The kind of constructing a person thing is a little creepy. You said at one point, it kind of asked the question, were we the PFPs all along? Could you speak to that at all? Sure, yeah. Are we all NPCs? Are you kind of making any kind of commentary? Okay, PFP is something we collect, right? It has a monetary value. Aside from just being a patient, though we stick on it, right? And PFPs are essentially a replacement for the LinkedIn profile picture, for an employee, you know, corporations have an outsize percentage of power. You know what I mean? And especially them when you, you know, take this further down the road to the like, you know, accelerationists or like tech-threados and dark-and-lightenment type of thing. In that situation, people really are the PFPs being collected by the companies. That's then like what human resources is. I guess the final piece is how. human resources kind of seeds the future tabcorp and what happens next. Sure, I mean, it's all just like speculation, but you know, a big part of PSP culture and PSP communities is like, okay, yes, PSPs were building a community. This is how we build. This is what, you know, I mean, this is what's coming down the roadmap, right? I've described this project as being both a parody of a PFP's corporate culture, but also something that I've sincerely put a whole lot of work and thought into. And so I want to do the same thing with that part of it, too, the utility and the community and all this type of stuff, you know. Are you hoping that human resources will become that kind of community? I hope so, but I don't, you know, I don't want a community where there's like a bunch of like voting and bureaucracy and stuff. I would rather create a community of art making and art opportunities and good art. And honestly, when I say community, I am thinking more artists versus collector. And what's great about that is that, you know, if you're focused on the artist, the collector's benefit, whereas typically I feel like community means these are a bunch of bag holders that hope to make a profit down the line. I'm sorry, very, very PFP's we far. Yeah, exactly. I'm kind of curious about something like, have you spoken to some of the artist's friends or collectors about it? And do they understand what you're building? Sure. I mean, that's a great question because it resonates with the project and what brought me to this project again is that you mention the NFTs or PFP's to most people. And they're like, oh, yeah, that was that monkey scam from a few years ago. I thought that was completely over, right? So if it's in with my yeah, exactly. So it fits in with my, my concept and that's why I like the idea that it's a crypto scam, you know what I mean? But have you spoken to people about this? I mean, I know your partner has really turned off by this project because they are white man. She asked me to explain, explain NFTs, explain the blockchain when she needs to go to sleep. Yeah, because it is very conceptual as a as a whole just the way you explain it. It's so clear to me how you arrived at making this project. It's not just a PFP project. It's like almost like a whole study on the space because you've been you've been working more in the traditional art world. And then you've been trying to understand the NFT space and then you release a couple projects. And I think it was kind of a way for you also to understand your collectors and to understand the environment. Do you think like it will reach new collectors? I know Jamie's spoken to someone who will say to a moment. You said Jeff Whitman, right? Jamie. I said, I thought you sell it to him. How did you, how did you explain it? So we had Jeff majied on the pod actually. How do we define Jeff? He's an art influencer. What would he? He's a collector who's become, he's got a now got a big Instagram account. His account is Matt Majeedi and he's excellent. And he was just asking me about NFTs saying, you know, is it all still all about speculation? And I was saying, there are some really great artists, Dablin getting involved. And I mentioned your name and he was pretty interested by the fact that you're doing this. I like the idea of Jeff owning one of these guys. Yeah. I mean, I look at these profile pictures and it's just so airy because they look so real. This is the part that freaks me out. They are kind of, but they also look, they're, they also, I think, deliberately look a bit less real than they did at one point. Yeah. They're both like very real, but also slightly uncanny when you get get of close. But none of them are, and the backgrounds are a bit off. Yeah. And because it's all my home cooked process, they all have that, they all have a unique texture that, you know, they, you know, they look AI on some level. They don't have that immediate, like, you know, like, all the, everything you, any AI image that's rendered from Chatchee B.C. Well, it's like a Chatchee B.C. AI image, right? And the AI image rendered by Gemini looks like once specifically from Gemini, right? And so this is my own like weird cooked up, you know, many step process. Yeah. They're all like weird kind of uncanny flavor. They definitely look less realistic than they did about a month ago. And the backgrounds looks disjointed. They, they look as if they've just been like stuck on the background. The ones with a non-blank background. I think that's because you wanted them to look a bit more timeless and thought that by making them a bit, is that right? What was the, yeah, I think that having them be a little bit awkward, you know, when you zoom in, you do kind of get the sense that these are actually kind of like Photoshop from like kind of different pieces, you know what I mean? And they've been, you know, blended together to look very integrated. But it's just a little bit off. I think that that feels a lot better than something that looks, you know, too perfect, you know, and for a long time, I was like so obsessed with like getting the nose pores, right? You know, I mean, getting like every chicken whisker rendered perfectly. And it's actually kind of not the point, you know, there's, it has its own like kind of unique fingerprint. I know you've been thinking a lot about the traits and you were just talking about that. How many will they have, table? Okay. So to put it simply, there's 100 jobs within those jobs. There's 10 classes, right? You have your top class, which is your super rare is all the way down to the bottom class of 10 jobs, which are your commons. So each job tends to have at least 10 to 12 outfits that are only in that job. For example, like a, you know, tweet suit with a strike shirt or whatever, or, you know, a torn up black shirt. And then there's also traits that are shared between jobs, right? Like ironically, the same like tattered black shirt that the sweatshop worker wears, the graphic designer might also wear because it's fashion, right? So this is crime cross-pollination of traits between jobs, but there's also some traits that only appear within specific jobs. Speaking of clothing strictly, then on top of that, there's the like base genome of these guys, you know, I mean like whatever lab these these men have crawled out of, whatever that is goo they're made from. There's just just like three of those, right? Then there's like your basic accessories, right? Like 30, 30 glasses, 30 hair styles, more traditional in a few traits. And then each each uh job, there's a hundred jobs. Each job also has five potential image backgrounds, which are very rare. It's like one in 10 to get on top of whatever chance it is for your job to get an image-based background. Most of them are standardly didn't white, right? To give you that real grid of despair feeling. But did the ones that have the image backgrounds, you know, it describes the context of this whole thing more, you know, and I put a lot of thought into what you can see behind these people as a way of describing this whole tabcorp universe, right? If you're a distilter only by has image backgrounds, you really get a fleshed out view of a consistent universe where the uh the tabcorp prime delivery driver, you know, is posted for the tabcorp prime truck. But then later on in a different one, you see the same tabcorp prime truck is like bombed out behind the paid instigator, you know, what I'm saying is like the shared universe is like all throughout. So yeah, so what I'm saying is five times a hundred. There's also 500 image backgrounds, five per job. So most of them, so most of them won't, won't come out in the in the mint then. Um, I'll, it kind of like depends like if you, because you know, if you think about the bottom tier of jobs, right? Like, uh, tier, tier zero, you know, it's going to, it would be like, you know, 16% of the collection, tier two is also probably about 16% then you get all the way up to tier nine, only when we're said the entire collection. So yeah, the backgrounds will be, or will be pretty rare. Uh, but you'll see more of them at the lower levels, you know, statistically. This kind of seeds tabcorp in the tabcorp community, I guess. So this is a series of table right back out works. And what is, what is tabcorp then going to be going forwards? And if I hold a few human resources, what does it mean in terms of my kind of relationship with tabcorp? It's, you know, to be determined. You know, I mean, like I specifically do not want to over road map this. I want to keep it as an experimental art project, but, you know, I can't say that making NFTs has been something that I really, really enjoy. And it's just as fulfilling and, uh, you know, wonderful for me as making, you know, traditional fly artwork that I do in the galleries. So it's not going to stop. And, uh, everything I've been making is all kind of building upon each other. So can we, can we say that tabcorp is going to be releasing works on a long-gain basis under the tabcorp brands? Yes. Yeah, it's absolutely. And yeah, ideally this continues to have synergistic effects that are beneficial for everybody. And I already have some surprises in store. But again, what Like, I'm not roadbapping this thing. I'm not making a hundred promises. - And will you be making the tabcook works on a long-term basis? Are you gonna be using tabcook sales proceeds to pay other artists to create future works? - Right. So yeah, ideally, like I was saying, when I was speaking about community, and I was speaking about community of artists, you know, a big driving force in my artistic career or whatever has honestly been the influence of a handful of small opportunities that I received when I was younger, when I was at the right place at the right time, whatever. And I would love to be able to create those opportunities myself for whoever the next generation of artists or whatever creators may be. So I would love to be doing things like, you know, grants and collabs and commissions with younger upcoming artists, things like this. And so when I say community, that's what I mean by community of artists, instead of community of pseudo investors. Kind of Opef and Star then. So people create Opef and works and benefit from that Opef and community in the fact that there's a big network around it. - Yeah, right, network. That's a great touch to, and definitely a little bit less blockchain savvy than Jack Woodger, but somewhere. - So TopCorp then, Tevor is an art company that-- - A fictional art company that's kind of becoming an actually real art company. It's fictionally, yeah, it's fictionally evil, but realistically good, maybe. - The opposite, it's the inverse. - That's the inverse, the cool place slope. Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, to get us completely off track for one second, this is one of the most annoying things to me, is that when you think about movies and fiction and stuff, like the bad guys, they're supposed to be cool. And so sick of bad guys being uncool in the real world. Sight. - But you're actually gonna be a good guy. Oh, TBD. - Yeah, sorry, let's see how it's successfully gets. All that might affect. - Okay. - So, okay, so TopCorp, from what you're saying, sounds like it's a proper community. It's not a, as you said, stage community. It's a proper community for creatives. And TopCorp will be releasing artworks by a number of different artists, maybe including yourself. - Yeah, exactly. But I'm not saying there's gonna be some discord that you log into, or probably gonna be a little bit more traditional, like I'm emailing somebody and we're, you know what I mean, making our thing and then we're gonna share with everybody. - And it sounds like you're still at idea stage. Like you're still in the world building right now. These are just possibilities that may or may not help happen. But it feels like with this project, the number one thing that you're focusing on is just creating a proper network of a real community. - Scene where it goes, you know what I mean? Like that is one of the PFP type of things is by doing an addition of this size. There is the potential to onboard a certain number of eyeballs that creates and that can have a network effect. So yeah, I'd love to be able to build upon something like that, you know, with my own vision. - And I guess for it to be sustainable, you're gonna be TopCorp's first CEO. And you being able to do it on a long, long, ongoing basis is subject to future TopCorp mints, doing sufficiently well to compensate you for your time, frankly, I guess. So best case scenario, first few drops go incredibly well. TopCorp is flushed with cash, can expand, can-- - Open other locations. (laughing) - I mean, yeah, best case scenario is, you know, putting out innovative, creative, interesting artwork, you know what I mean? And some level functioning maybe as, you know, a publisher, as a curator, you know, all this type of stuff, there's so much wonderful art and there's so much great creativity and like there's always new technology to play with and stuff, you know what I mean? Just like, you know, amplifying that. - If it was to go really well and you found yourself wanting to actually just focus on making work and not worry about running TopCorp, does the world exist where an enthusiast puts the hands off and you just say, okay, you know, you take this and time it in something great. - Yeah, sure. There is some possibility, there is some universe where this could be like a real company that I don't need to help that is focused on art production. I mean, there's plenty of reference points for this already existing out in the world. Like whether it's a current like Blue Chip artist studio models or whether it's, you know, boutique fashion houses or even a high-end functional design, furniture studios and whatnot, you know, there's, yeah, there's a blue sky scenario wherein TopCorp becomes something like this. - Have you seen how Pudgy Penguins are excusing on their roadmap? I saw they announced a partnership with Mancissi a week or so ago that looks pretty interesting. - Big TopCorp in the last couple of years. - I'm really getting the cells out there. Sorry. - I said TopCorp is more freeze leveled, like, you know. - Maybe, probably, yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen a lot more of just Penguin stuff in general, like on the streets of Paris, you know, the tourist kiosks. There's now like penguins that are very Pudgy adjacent that say Paris on their belly. - Amazing. - Yeah, I mean, so it's, yeah, the Penguin, this Penguin thing is definitely entered the broader awareness, even if people aren't knowing that this is a Pudgy Penguin type reference. - Yeah. - My wife, since me, Pudgy Penguin gives constantly, not knowing that it's a crypto thing. - That's amazing. - That's a cute, yeah. - Yeah, they kind of create IP, right? That's the goal maker on Hello Kitty type of situation. - Well, I think like, self-ridges are selling the teddy bears, which is kind of unbelievable. - Great effort. - I was gonna ask you, are you worried at all about the lack of diversity in your PFP collection? Are you worried that people are gonna have a go at you? It's pretty loaded. It's like the worst time to be intentionally. - Yeah, it's also the best time to at least try to take a stab at like, as a white man, addressing my issues with white men. I mean, I have found a perfect way to do that. But this is an attempt on my part, you know what I mean? And, you know, yeah, you definitely say, what does that mean, then? How should that be interpreted by the project? What do you mean? I guess what is the stab? You know. - Well, comment that you're making, I guess Jamie is saying, is that what you're saying? - Yeah. I mean, there's a million things that you could say. You know, is that the face of evil today is very banal and very bland and very just plain. It's passed off as some wonderful technology company that's doing something great for you. There's some media figure that's lying to you. I mean, they all definitely share a certain skin tone and common, we see America. Likewise, you know, within this mass of like bland white guys, it's simple for me to say that as a white person, as a white guy, the more you align yourself with it as a bland white guy, the safer you are and the closer you are to power, right? If you have like a mohawk or you have a pure scene, right? You take one step away from that source of power, right? Both, right? It's the intersection of patriarchy and white supremacy. I don't mean neo-Nazis, I mean, whiteness being a power that system that protects itself and ensures that white people stay powerful, right? And there's a safety in being a bland white guy, right? You pass through that corridor of safety. You know, I mean, you take one step to the right, you become gay, you're in danger, right? You get too many piercings, you're in danger. And so I portrayed this like this bland middle with affection, it's not like a hateful thing. I'm trying to capture it in its complexity with a sense of humor, but also there is a quality of this that yeah, it's kind of like abjects, like it's not a cute penguin, right? It's like it's a boring white guy. You don't necessarily want this, but it's a conceptual art project, you know? - But it's also two sides though, 'cause I think yes, being a white man, yes comes with power maybe, maybe, but I think it's also kind of tricky to be, I mean, I probably gonna get in control of saying that maybe I won't, 'cause I'm not white or now. But it's kind of also tricky, 'cause you know, there's a lot of presumption that you were privileged already, just because you're white and male, you're privileged, full stop, and that's not necessarily true. - Well, you are. - It's one hundred percent true in my opinion. Yeah, we used to have the privilege of a certain level of bodily safety at all times. - How do you mean? Like you're not gonna walk down the street and be assaulted for the color of your skin, not gonna be told you can't get abortion, right, you're going to be more likely to get approved for a loan, more likely to get a job, all these types of things. Have you ever felt unsafe for the color of your skin, Leyla? - The pens were, I think it depends where I am. No, I haven't recently, and I never felt subject to it, but I grew up in a very, very predominantly white neighborhood, and I was definitely very aware of looking different, but I was never in danger. I didn't always feel welcome, but I've never never in danger. By the way, that's a whole separate conversation. - Yeah. What's the worst that can happen of going down this route? You nervous about how it might be interpreted? - No, not really. I think that when I make art, sometimes I'm making a pretty picture, but lots of times I want to try to make something that's. expresses something that has some some level of bite to it like I'm trying to express something here and they may not be doing it exactly right but by even by taking the chance to try to express something complex you you know you take you're taking a chance right you're making something that's not just a pretty picture and as an artist I don't just want to make pretty pictures a little time so yeah there's a risk there but I don't know I think my my intentions are in the right place and I'm also you know proud of what I've made I've somehow found a way to make this a fun project I mean looking back in 50 years time you've got a 10k pf pivol white guys that's topical but also in an era I mean just like you were saying table where the most powerful forces are exactly the kind of people you are yeah representing their tech white male you know is it is a reflection of where we are at and you know what is really happening what is you know the main power is in the hands of these people is it a good thing is it about thing I mean it is a reality and they look like really friendly people care about the environment but they have basically a whole life in their hands it's pretty insane exciting yeah one more for it yeah I mean I mean I know this is my I've got to say it's very long it's very long it's this it's just my complete deconstruction of what a pfp is I guess yeah can we talk a little bit about how we are releasing it yeah yeah is this the me me one or you on table I mean we didn't really come to a firm decision I guess we can be open about that we can discuss this so it's actually our first pfp release with solos I don't think we've done any pfp's before on solos or in verse and general like I don't think anybody has everything we've done nothing close to this no this is our going to be our first pfp and we have been thinking about it a lot I've been really hoping that we'll do it one day because you're right it is like such a fundamental part of the culture and I could never quite understand it because I was never pfp holder so I'm excited to become one with it or speculator or a gambler community all of it I want to be all of those things cool well I'll have a I'll have a crack at how we're rolling it out very loosely because there's going to be a lot of improvisation but this week come up so when this is going to go I may have gone out by the time people listen to this but Thursday the 22nd of January is going to be the very first claim window so tables existing collectors will be able to claim up to two thousand or so works for free in week one we're then going to be opening it up for various web 3 pfp communities we're then going to be doing a kind of VIP slight change in plan as of early as the day layla we're going to be one by one inviting friends I feel this is the best opportunity I've had to say to so many art world friends have a look at this great artists it's free I wonder how well people will deal with this though a white man pfp well interesting I mainly talk to people they might tell friends yeah it's going to be great I mean I just want to get reactions out of people and faggot went take screenshots of when I ask them like do you have no context I think a lot of people won't win but we're going to be doing what we can on the kind of PR side of things we're going to be reaching out to every journalist we've ever come across if people that you know if we tell people about it and then they hear about it elsewhere maybe they will get involved so I think I think the three of us going on a big push to just like tell friends that this is happening will probably count for a lot I also think there's an opportunity to just get people telling their mates who they've wanted to get into NFTs for a while anyone listening to this in a month or so we are going to be doing a giveaway of 500 anyone we was get one so please tell your friends we want to on board more people to digital arts NFTs I think I think this is a pretty good opportunity versus really easy to use if you don't have a wallet you don't need crypto to buy so yeah that's kind of the free plan beyond that I think we need to see what happens I think we need to improvise we try putting a plan together but I'm not sure how much sense it realistically makes because we also may be in a completely different market in a month's time apart from anything else have we involved PFP communities probably I would love to hear it. We're starting to reach out now it's hard to know exactly how to be on just giving them access if anyone's got any ideas please let us know we need to cut this out what do you think later I feel like there's a lot I mean I've been obsessed with PFPs for the longest time not obsessed but just trying to understand what the allure is in it and also how they live on post their hype well I think hunks aside they only really do if there's an active team right working hard to get it out there and think it global no pressure table also I'm thinking about like cute punchy penguin teddy bearers and then human resources yes pretty different vibe yeah I mean I think first way is to improvise and I love that it's experimental and I love that it started from broken printers that came basically there was a narrative with your work and that just continued it got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger it made me think a lot about have you seen uh Senator Kennew York seeing it yeah yeah senator was my senator it is senator so it's a neck it's a neck it's such a great film but you make me think of him a little bit because your your mind just works a little bit like that he wants to make a play and then the play becomes a play of the play and you just become sort of bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and before you know it his life becomes the artwork and it's been really fun watching you develop this work because it wasn't a one night idea it's something you've been thinking about for a really really long time and it's nice seeing it come to life and on that note what do you consider the artwork to be yeah there are similarities with the boss of projects I think um Maria created bossa bossa in our has life of its own um to an extent I think that's kind of going to happen with tab cope at least I think that's kind of the plan um as the artwork the human resources project is it each individual pfp or is it um just this entire process well I think that's a great question I think this is again what kind of a special thing that NFTs do I think it kind of relates to the coin term like long form generative art where and there's a sense that the artwork is both the individual captures right the individual tokens but the artwork is also the thing as a whole and you can only experience it by browsing the other tokens within the artwork right and I think like I said I think it's a special thing that uh NFTs have done have created yeah I'm kind of curious to know how this fed into other parts of your practice do you keep it quite separate is this sort of you i give your NFT project and then are you working on anything else art worldy on the other side um or the tool overlap what happens do they feed into each other yeah the the energy definitely feeds into each other and the themes and topics definitely bleed back and forward I mean what's been great about working on this project is that I've learned so many new things the in the process of learning you know come to UI which is a like local AI node based workflow opens up the floodgates for an insane number of image making possibilities to be able to integrate a little bit of AI at any given step in an image making process while still being able to you know work with code and manipulate images the possibilities are just endless is that I haven't been this like charged up about a tool since I first learned like video game engines you know and that was sort of the backbone of my practice for a decade so what do you think this will unlock for you would like do you have already like other projects in mind that you're going to use this tool for yeah I mean I have a ton of projects and a ton of ideas and you know what's interesting is that the way people relate to AI generated works AI generated text AI as a tool all this it's like very emergent right now it's hot it's cold it's this it's that you know and so it's very right there's a lot of content there there's a lot of things to relate to and there's a lot of abilities but on the simplest level throughout the entire history of my work there's always this element of sampling wherein like with broken printer like I'm sampling this huge clip art library right or in my previous works I'm you know sampling free 3d models or screenshots from video games or whatever it may be so you know this really creates the ability to kind of create your own samples you know is the way I like to think about it you know I mean instead of you know having to find a resource you can kind of quite create your own resource library and then aside from that I am learning how to work with light guns you know like the arcade where you have arcade game where you have a gun and working on a project that incorporates light guns into a you know sculptural video interactive artwork sculptural video interactive artwork okay so is it actually like you are to use the light guns yeah you do it baby Basically, last time I was in the States, I go to the grocery store and literally everything is locked up. Now, the diapers, the baby formula, the underwear, the deodorant. - What do you think is locked up? - Instead of just being on shelves, it's now behind welded steel. - Really? - Where were you? - We were through Pusset and Glass. - It's so rough. - It's not just an organ and it's like, so it is stopian and it's so anticipating someone, it's anticipating someone who's so desperate for those diapers, they're coming here with an oozy and an ax. That's how reinforced this thing is. That's what the architecture of it seems to anticipate. And so I'm just imagining it, taking to its logical conclusion, why is this scenario that this grocery store has anticipated? I was on the low key there trying to prevent casual shoplifting, but this thing's ready for a full-out assault. So that's what I'm imagining in this artwork is this assault on the grocery store and assault on the products in the Shelby and the so on. - Wow. So you were creating these laser guns, sorry, I need to know this. I know we're going off topic. You're reading these laser guns that then people will use in the exhibition against each other like a laser zone for adults. - It's no, no, no. It's a light gun which is connected like a vehicle in control. Like in the arcade, there's games like, Area 51 or Time Crisis or whatever, right? And you shoot the screen and you get your points, you hit the targets, whatever. So yeah. - It sounds like so much fun. Can we please do this exhibition? (laughing) This sounds great fun. - Can I, can I. - Oh, sorry, I mean, you're going off topic. Go on, sorry. - No, I was just gonna jump to a completely different topic altogether. You've got a really successful, you've been really successful in the art world table. You're in a town of the world's top museums and I can't think of many, if any other artists who have found success in the art world who are exploring this world in the way that you are. And in general, I can't think of that many art world artists who are really pushing the boundaries of contemporary art today. What is it about you that's making you explore where others aren't? And why do you think so few people are really digging into this? - You mean NFTs? - NFTs, I mean, it feels like you're kind of exploring NFTs in crypto and the simulation is a medium almost in some weird way. - True. - It's pretty fascinating. - Yeah. - I just can't think of any exhibitions I've been to at any galleries or museums that are five percent as interesting as that. - Why? And tying in art bars or zero town, I'm not sure if you followed what was going on there, but it was great. And it really did feel that the digital world is certainly a lot more avant-garde than the traditional art worlds. Do you have any point of view on why that might be? And yeah, and why do you think you're an outlier on that, in that sense? - Sure. - Okay, so to start with the question of why am I working with NFTs and crypto conceptually, the tools themselves, whatever it's been, when I was a kid, kid picks in Mac painting to then video game engines and HTML and all this stuff, the tools themselves, they have an artwork inside of them waiting. And by worrying the tools, you get ideas. The tools themselves are also a reflection of society and culture at a moment in time. They inherently say something about where we are as a culture, what our abilities are, what we value, et cetera. So there's always a way that you can conceptually address the tool in the artwork, whether you're addressing filmmaking itself within a film, you see how you would do that all the time, et cetera. And so for me, it's just a natural thing to do, and it makes it conceptually rich to incorporate the medium into the concept essentially. And then you ask why I've been interested in as someone who has some sort of foothold in the traditional art world, bridging the two worlds, right? So one thing is that it's just natural to me, 'cause you have to understand that I was initially an outlier in the traditional art world, right? Digital art was what crypto is now. It was not accepted, it was not understood, yada yada, then all of a sudden, oh, it's just completely commonplace, everybody gets it. It's still a fraction of the market, right? But it's simply natural for me to work with digital tools. And then you see the same thing now, like 010. Not that that was exclusively crypto, but you see that not only is digital work getting a little bit more of a presence there, so is crypto, it's no longer just a niche thing for scammers or something that's tacky. I mean, there's enough energy around this that it needs to be. But people still really turn their noses up at it. I mean, people turn their noses up at photography, and you know, you'll turn their noses up at music they don't like, and you know. So sure, there is something to be able to-- But why do art critics who make a living from embracing what's supposedly interesting, discussing what's supposedly interesting, why do these people seemingly blind to-- Some, there might be an attachment to tradition, unwillingness to embrace newer things, but there's also a fundamental cultural difference. Like, the art world traditionally is kind of hush-hush, it's back room, it's, you know. And NFTs, you know, like the price tag is on the sleeve for everybody to see. And more traditional person might think it's tacky that the commerce is so close to the artwork, right? They're not keeping churches state far enough apart. But everybody who actually works in the art business knows that, like-- I think tech and traditional art doesn't always blend well. It's better now with, you know, with AI and a lot of really big artists using AI and being well-known and people accept out of that. But I think generally traditional art and tech never really blended well. It is changing now, though. I think it's just a lot of lack of understanding because it's just not their territory. It took me a really long time. I still understand a lot of things. I think it's just completely different culture and understanding, speaking a different language. So I don't think that they necessarily closed-minded and turn-- no, actually they do. And they do turn their noses up. But I think it's mostly because, yeah, the projects that make it through the media just don't come across as very sophisticated projects. They come across as more, let's say, speculative projects. Those are the ones that make it into the media. They don't know about people like Rhea Myers. Of course, every art world person would love Rhea Myers. Because she's amazing. It's like, it's facts. It's facts. It's not even a subject of things. She is-- nobody can dispute that she matters and that her work is thoughtful. But I think it's just like the stuff that makes it through the media is always the speculative, loud stuff, the big numbers. Whether that's ever going to change. I was going to ask you-- you said that you were sort of a little bit on that outside because you were a digital artist. Do you feel like it's changed now? Yeah. I wouldn't say I feel on the outside at all in the art world, like digital art. Only in terms of-- And how we felt to start with-- Only in terms of market share. But everybody recognized-- I mean, whatever. It's very well recognized that digital art has a place in art history and the gallery. No one has an issue with that. Absolutely, yeah. Very quickly on the market table, I'm not sure if you've been following the slow decline, the slow death of the NFT. [LAUGHTER] And with January Blues. Are you aware of you being-- Yeah. Keeping track of what's going on? I mean, to me, it's like every other time I check it, it's up, it's down, it's up, it's down. So I mean, what's the difference, you know? Nothing, actually. Yeah, I mean, every time it's not up, it's down, and every time it's not down, it's up. That's a very good way of explaining the market. It definitely feels like it's died some kind of death, even if not an absolute death. I mean, you were saying they look Twitter feels-- It felt like at the end of a party. That's what I said. It feels a bit like the end of the party. And only like five or seven people are hanging around at the bar. So table, you're doing a highly speculative project while there are three people left at the party. But they're so drawn to getting ready people up, honestly. They might be the right people. I think culturally, what people are very tired of being online. You know, I mean, I don't-- I think it's a problem within FT. I think it's a cultural wide thing. Oh my god, you're so right. I mean, just look at our NFT space right now. Most spaces, platforms, most galleries have a space, do exhibitions. That was when we started off absolutely not always the case. But now that's increasing a lot more in person. I mean, I know there was always bright moments. But I does feel like there's a lot more of that going on in person meetings. I think you're completely right. People are a bit tired of online culture. I'm sorry. This is going to be really jumping around. Maybe we don't keep this in. But each PFP in the bottom left, it says the level of the employee. What does that mean? So in order to make it clear and to kind of like get that visual texture that I needed, you can see each employee has first their class number in a little white square, right? So zero is the lowest, nine is the rarest. And then next to that they have a level which is kind of like a calculated rarity within that class. And the class and the rarity are kind of independent to each other are they? They're related. They're directly correlated. And then they're like job name. And then an underscore and then a little icon which is a trait like a quirk about the person, like a fun fact, you know what I mean? Whether they're, you know, a smoker or have, you know, plus one plus one to defense. Well, this is a teddy bear without sleeps with a teddy bear. And then you can see it's a it's a dot tab file, right? Because these are my human resources. So there's always in the file system. And cake cools the cake, sweet tooth. And my products I frequently like to have kind of like a BS trait, you know, I mean, a way of like winning the traits be part of the artwork that's not immediately like reflected in the artwork. Like in broken printer, like I had signature, you know, I mean, I guess that's in the artwork or, you know, I can color space. I had, you know, favorite food. So this was just another opportunity to kind of like imagine something about these characters, give them all personality. What's the foot? Sorry. But finish love that. Okay, sorry. So the so the very first thing is the rarity. And that's from once nine from zero to nine. Yeah. Sorry, there's nine. Then the level. Yeah. So your the levels are gated based. It's really more like a decimal point, you know, but the levels are gated to the different classes. So you'll never have a class zero, you know, with a higher level than a class nine. That about this a lot. And I didn't decide that this would all I was like, okay, what if there's a level zero, a class zero, it's level 99, you know, but then you get you pull that ultra rare class nine and it's like a level one. It's not going to feel right. So whatever. And you know, another big influence on this whole thing or there's like scam mobile games, you know, they reference in a Twitter video where it's like level one gangster and they get punched. Then like a magic fairy comes they turns it to like a level 100 mafia boss. So again, scams. Yeah. So 99 is the top. Yeah, 99 is the. And that's presumably CEO and C sui so yeah, it's going to be CDO or whatever other weird stuff I have up there. And there's only one CEO. No, it's statistically can expect that there will be 10 CEOs and there'll be 10 back cats and there'll be 10, you know, level 100 crime bosses. But you have to wait and see. Okay. And what does it mean to get a CEO? Yeah, it's somewhere to getting a you know, crypto punk alien. It means he got something very rare. Okay. So it doesn't necessarily mean any more kind of perks read future tabcorp. I mean, we'll see what becomes a tag group. You know, it is kind of interesting having different roles like there's, you know, the IT department and the garbage department and whatever. So see how future artworks maybe they relate future artworks relate to different departments. You know, I mean, see how the you know, this is the like the meta game and it's fun to see how it could all relate. I'm just making it up as I go. Cool. Are you going to minimize yourself? Are you going to take a big slice of the pie? Oh yeah, it definitely. Tabster. Tabcorp's trashy. Tabstragy. If you thought about that. Well, I do think that having a sort of a fly wheel mechanism is kind of a fun quality of some of these web three projects. So it would be fun to come up with a way to conceptually incorporate something like that. I think of obviously this question before. Has playing go to effects of the way you think about the reality we live in? Three simulation theory? Yeah, I mean, on the on the simplest level when you do a project like this, you become very aware of underlying visual systems. Like I noticed in terms of men's hairstyles on a given day, you see, there's a very low range. You know, I mean, the these PIP projects out here are very really over-representing how creative our appearances are. I mean, not that they attempt to, you know, stuff like this or like the sellties of like men's suiting. You know, I mean, the various winnel layers of communication of like, you know, when the color is like angled like this or the color is angled like this insane, unimpressive wheel as people and easy to hold. Yeah, I knew once the communication has especially men's office clothing, which is so conservative. There is still some stunting. No, not, you know, I mean, how much research did you do into this thing? It was honestly just endless. It was I was not prepared for the level of detail, especially like I was mentioning before and trying to visualize these roles is different to distinct and not just put everybody in a white shirt. Yeah. Even though they're, you know, white shirt will be very common. It felt like the kind of thing you could have just gone on just develop forever. Yeah, absolutely. Thank God for deadlines. Because presumably it's like the corporate culture is something you've been always very far from, right? I don't know. Were your parents in the corporate world? Yeah, I worked these various jobs in print shops and Photoshop, job and stuff and so on. But like the climbing the corporate ladder was never a part of my family. But there's always been this understanding that it's very stressful and it's like it's for lots of people going to the office even if it's not super corporate. It's kind of like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. It can be very high friction for a large percentage of population to fit into that type of environment. The talk of labs works. I think it's fair to say you underestimated how ham you were going to go. Is there any updates on that? Do you have any sense of timings? Yeah. Well, I'm going to get right back to that. You know, I kind of set aside everything in my life in these last couple of months. But yeah, I'm going to get back to that as part of my daily process. And you should expect the next one out somewhat soon after the straw. I've been working on it a little bit in the background. Yeah, I did underestimate precisely what it would feel like to create these. Making them be spoke. It's not something where I'm going to make the exact same one every time. But also interestingly, the way technology has changed just in one year, I can really measure in the tabcorp pieces. When I was making that first couple of tabcorp pieces, VideCoding wasn't really in the conversation. I was using AI to assist me in coding. But you were one-shotting apps like you can now, with a quad or whatever. So it's really the way I think and relate to these tabcorp labs works. It is constantly evolving. And you know, it's very interesting. But yeah, I have to be very thankful for the patience of the collectors and so on. If anyone listening hasn't had a look through this collection of works, please do. It is incredible. Table sold, I can't remember how many met passes, 100 or so met passes. And each one is effectively a bespoke commission and completely bespoke. Some video games, some of music videos, and they are absolutely incredible. When I first saw, in particular, Silent Assassin, I couldn't really believe how much I've gone into it. And part of it was amazing because it is a great artwork, but it also definitely had some wow facts of how much you've seen when you've gone into it. In 50 years time, do you think people look back at them and still think, yeah, these are great artworks. I'm not sure how to articulate this. Do you kind of see what I'm saying? I mean, they're definitely time capsules, you know, of this moment in time and what I can accomplish in one or two weeks of working on a thing. Like something like Silent Assassin, for example, even though I spent like a month working on that, which was, well, I'm happy that I made it probably not the best usage of my time, but like I had an idea and whatever, you know, sure, I was able to make that in like a month, but a year or two ago, that same thing we've taken way longer. I mean, I've even been possible, right? You're going to need to offer up some kind of option to trade in your mint pass for a certain number of tap-court. Yeah, that's a great idea. Keep a resource, is it something? Yeah, or something. Maybe maybe, you know, maybe unlock the next layer of the matrix, you know, and whatever. Yeah, curious to know what you think, how you think it's going to be received? Are you prepared? How do you think this is going to roll out? I mean, I'm really bit nervous for you, actually, and us. How do you feel about it? And how are you? I mean, it's clear that our audience on Twitter and anybody who's been following solos and verse will know about it. Do you have any plans? Like Jamie said, beyond how you're going to communicate that? Yeah, what is what are you hoping? I think that when people see are able to like experience it as a whole, I hope that people appreciate it as an artwork, which is why it is. I'm treated with the same level of of authenticity and passion that I do with any artwork gallery or NFT. And in fact, this has been the most demanding project I've ever worked on. Clearly, I'm very, very bad at estimating how much work these things take. Well, because I think that's not how you think. I think you were just creating. And then you just go down the rabbit hole. But how much are you going to lean into this like tap corp as a corporation? Because I think that's really interesting. We talked about this very early on when you were thinking about re-easing it. I think you and Jamie were exchanging messages on making references that every successful art studio is almost like a corporation. Think past, think coons, more upcoming, whatever. I mean, the really, really top artists are like a factory in a way, a really good factory. Yeah, how much do you want to lean into that aspect of tap corp versus, you know, human resources being by product of it anyway? I mean, I definitely want to see where it goes. I think that that's very interesting. The studio model in art making is very interesting. And there's lots of potential there. I think there's a lot of what that can be done with it that hasn't been done. And, you know, we'll see where it goes, I guess. Are there any examples of art brands? Does that assist the parisandre shows you make the shoes are commonable? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good example. Even like streetwear, like Supreme putting their logo on crowbars and kayaks is, that's art. Yeah. Branding is the intersection of branding. Yeah. Art. I mean, I think you just hit the nail on the head. It's about branding. It's about what branding. It's, yeah, our arts change in that way. It's not about being niche and this peculiar thing that no one likes. It's about this success is the one that millions of people love. Yeah. It's also like saying art. Our brand is a little bit of a oxymoron, right? It's kind of a contradiction. Yeah, exactly. I guess, ladies. I mean, cool is this kind of an art. I mean, yeah, they will. 100%. It's, yes. The red, the red ship scene, if you will. Yeah. It's very relevant to this. Yes. Daniel Arsham, all those pretty big. It's a bordering on design. Yeah. How, how political do you want us to get, by the way? Yeah. Is this more fun or is this like, is this, or is this like an actual hall, cool, political statement? I mean, I've tried to ride the line through the, through the middle of the vibes or whatever. I've tried to hit the middle ground to capture this as a, I could pluck something rather. The artwork, like I was describing with the gun game kind of thing, came from a process of taking various ideas to their logical extreme and then putting it together as a sort of like inevitability. So the politics are baked into whatever the act of doing this is. Yeah. And as I've, as I've made this, I've had to reflect on what does this mean to me? Like the, the idea, the lightning bolt idea that this makes intuitive sense hits me way before the why am I making this and what does it mean? If that makes sense. Could you say it again? Sorry. Sure. The, the, the like subconscious intuition, you know, like the lightning bolt of an idea. I see. Right. When that strikes me, the, the knowledge that this makes some sort of sense and that this is an artwork that hits me way before the, the why and the what does this mean comes to me? You know, I mean, that makes sense. Yeah. Just very last year promise on the marketing side of things. Jack butcher, Sam Spratt. These guys are so good at communicating and I think have had a lot of the success they have because they're so good at conveying their ideas, interacting with their collectabase, people who are interested in the work. And undoubtedly that work is a massive part of their work as they see it. It, it seems like you're, you're, it seems like you. Yeah, it's not. I don't mean your, your, your, your interest lie, your interest lie else where and that's obviously completely cool. But yeah, it's been very, very clear that, yeah, your interest has, has lay in, and making these as incredible as you possibly can. That's been the only thing that you've really cared about. Yeah. And that's great. And fundamentally could not do what they do in that sense. Right. I do not have that type of intelligence or aptitude to communicate that readily with that number of people. You know, I mean, you two are the first, first people I've spoken to in a must that aren't, people that aren't my wife or the people that's not the store. So she's not, it's just not who I am. Sorry. You don't talk to anyone other than your wife. Is that what you're saying? Generally, like, it's how insular you, you keep your life. No, I got that sense when we met in Paris, but I actually, you actually are that is actually how insular. So the idea of communicating to thousands of people is pretty overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, as you've probably noticed in this process, when it comes to the communication steps, I'm like, what do you think about it for an entire day? No, but still you're doing it. It's, it's, it doesn't really matter. It's one person or a thousand. It's still you're still just saying what you need to say. It doesn't matter whether it's a million people or one person. Yeah. I mean, but it is, it is really fascinating how it's like the social aspect can definitely be part of an artwork. But it's not even really social. It's a network. It's a different kind of social. It's, it's social, but it's a different kind of social than if you were smoothing at an opening, let's say, right? It's a certain type of communication that Jamie's right, like Jack has incredible ability. I don't have it either. Very feedy, very feedy. Very few do exactly. We need to find a tab called marketing. Yeah. So I go to the marketing of yes. Oh, you know what table put it, put it, put it, put it, feel around. Yeah. I do think that like if I, if I were to hire a position for myself, it would be like that basically marketing or like social media or whatever. It's a full time thing. You've got, you've got to really get your head in this and you can't get there. I feel deep in building out of 10 KPFP. Exactly. Well, yeah. Thank you so much table. I can't wait to see what happens. Yeah. How are you feeling, Layla? I'm excited. I think it's going to be a slow and like it's going to evolve over time. I don't think it's going to be an overnight thing. I think it's going to take people a moment to understand what's going on. Just as frankly, it's been taking me a moment to understand. And I think for other people as well, kind of there's so many layers to this project. As you said, there's like, you know, there's the theme, the conceptual base of it. Then there is political. Then there is it being a continuation of broken printer. Then there's the tabcorp aspect of it that this could become more than what is it? I mean, there's so many different layers to it that I think it's going to take a moment for people to really understand what's going on. But having said that, a lot of people have reached out and have said, you know, I have so many broken pictures and my eligible. So, you know, people who do know you and know your work are eager to be part of it, which is already really great start. Yeah. I guess I'd one take aways that I hope people invest some time into the world building of this product. Yeah. Despite the politics or whatever that we've talked about, there's a lot of, there's I've placed a lot of thought into this ecosystem, the imagining of this company, the different traits, the different clothing, the freaking facial hairs on these men and how they all relate together. I also kind of see it like, like there's so much cool stuff, you know, I mean, in your wallet, you got so much cool stuff. This one's going to stand out by simply being different. It was probably making the most different thing in your wallet. Yeah. I mean, I genuinely can go into LinkedIn because I find visually it just, I don't know how anybody goes on it. I think so. The headshots and all those like people in their shorts. I just think, oh, this looks so ridiculous. Who would take this seriously? I genuinely don't get it. You know, it's never been my world and I just don't get it. And this is exactly that, isn't it? It's sort of a parody on. Did you read the Vizhalic Corpus Lope post-layer? I did. It's the one you put into our group chat, right, table? Yeah, that was like uncanny and how I was like relating to it completely. Anyway, table, thank you so much. Yeah. Really nice to chat to you. Yeah, it was good. I probably got to be in touch every day for quite a long time. So yeah, chat seeing it. Sorry about that. Thank you, table. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks guys. Thanks guys, have a great night. Bye bye. So run a boat.