Latest / TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast / 82: Aleksandra Art

Transcript

82: Aleksandra Art · TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of Tez Talks Radio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I am sat here with Alexandra Art, the new head of art at Trillatech, so we actually sat in London and we have the unique opportunity to have a live interview, which is something I don't often have the privilege of doing.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I'm great.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming by the office.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It's great to have you here.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: So you are newly appointed.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: You're only a few months into your role, but before we sort of get into the dynamics of your day to day, I'd love to basically start at the beginning and learn about your entry into the world of art and blockchain and nfts.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Where did it all begin?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: how long should I go?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: let's do a quick one.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Let's go through the start, from where you saw the intersection between arts and blockchain okay, amazing, um, okay, amazing.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: So then we might fast forward to.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I finished our business at Sotheby's Institute, where I was studying between 2014 and 2015.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And we had many different interesting lectures come in, and something I noticed early on is people who were working with data and analytics when it comes to art.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It really fascinated me.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: So we had one of our professors, anders Peterson.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: That was a big field of his talks that talked about data and how are businesses within the art world sort of utilizing it to get more transparency on the art market.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Fast forward to maybe 2016,.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I was fortunate to join a company called DotArt and the idea was the founder purchased the rights to operate the whole domain, so you have dot com, dot org, and now you had art and we were bringing it to the market.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And something that I was doing frequently it was checking the new registrations who registered what and all of a sudden, we see this new registration, dadaart and I was like what is this?
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And then we quickly discovered the whole dada project, which was an early project on the blockchain, and some of the artists, like Mahara Gonzalez, were there, and it felt like a completely new wave of creativity, of bringing artists together but also for them to being able to monetize their work.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Then, quickly, we noticed more of these come up.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So we saw Jason Bailey's project, also known as Artnome.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: We saw blockchainart and we started interviewing them.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: We started interviewing them mostly to celebrate the art, but then also through these conversations we learned, our team learned.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I personally learned a lot about this whole new movement of blockchain and in 2017, we were one of the partners sponsoring the first CADAF, so Crypto and Digital Art Fair that was taking place in New York and later in Miami, where, sort of like the Winklevoss twins bought their first punk.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So it's sort of like I fell down, I think 2016, 2017, into this world of digital arts and later in blockchain arts and over the years, just probably also as the industry evolved, it felt more and more natural progression to be in and it felt very exciting because every year or now every month, you see new use cases of how this technology can be applied.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I think it's so interesting because your timeline indicates that you sort of caught the beginnings of the wave well ahead, if not like four or five years before everyone else really did.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: You started to pick up on the fact that people were applying this technology to the art environment, but we didn't really see the NFT boom as we come to understand it now, till much, much later, arguably around end of 2020, early 2021.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So, as that all picked up, you must have had a very different vantage point in terms of the way you understood the dynamics between the art and technology, when everyone else was sort of first being introduced to the use case of art and blockchain.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: What was that like for you in terms of saying I've seen this for the last few years.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: How are we only hyping this now?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: To be honest, it was pretty exciting because before we would have like one event in like two, three months to go to and then all of a sudden you have 100 more people interested in what you're interested in.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: You have so many different events.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: It did get maybe a little bit overwhelming in 21 because there were not enough people who know this space, so I would receive calls like from all these like famous people, big artists.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I never thought I'm gonna work with like and I worked on crazy like advising a space robotics company on sending NFTs to the moon, or like educating like a very large UK based charity and like a gallery network, like doing series of educational courses, like it completely.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I never did it because you know, I needed to prove something.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: For me it was just like a passion and then all of a sudden that passion is being monetized and I think there were, I guess, different ways.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I saw the industry evolve like sort of like on the commercial side and then on the art side, and it's it continues to evolve until now.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: So how did this all bridge into Tezos?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: How did you stumble across Tezos and then venture into that arm realm in particular?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I think it was about 2020 when I saw the need for curation online, and this was before, sort of like, some of the major NFT marketplaces were around, especially the curated ones, and we would host shows and panel discussions and add certain enhanced experiences like audio guides and AR for digital artworks.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And on our third show it was February till April 2021, we invited a curator from Italy, humanissimo Artificiale I hope I pronounced it correctly, humanissimo Artificiale, I hope I pronounced it correctly to curate a generative and AI basically machine learning exhibition on our platform, and it featured very prominent artists, academics, some from the MIT Media Lab, and some of them like Sugwen no, not Sugwen Michael Taika I think that was the first one who already had blockchain experience before but never really minted NFTs.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So he was part of the 2018 Christie's Summit and obviously this is the time when NFTs are booming.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: It was, I think, still pre the massive Beeple sale and a lot of artists that were in um in generative arts were into sort of like the green nft movement and really the movement started with memo acton launching this website where you could measure the carbon footprint of, like, ethereum based transactions.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: So a lot of them at that time were looking for alternative ways and they discovered this platform.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Hiket Nunk and I remember when the platform launched we were in the middle of the discussions like do we want them into NFTs or is it like it's?
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: It's mentally not friendly, so a lot of artists don't want to do it, and it was just like such a perfect marriage.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: When it launched, we're like looks like we found a platform, but there are a lot of funny stories Like we made this like massive press campaign and then on the day when it was supposed to be to drop the platform, like it just shut down.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I think it was like 7th of March or something like that or no, like 14th of March, and then we had to like postpone but eventually like sold out.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: So it was still.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: It was still.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: It was still incredible and for a lot of these artists, like my, he never like he would sell, like occasional prints, but art was never, like you know, considered like, oh, I'm gonna make money on this and it was just rewarding to see artists for all their work also get a chance to have collectors now.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: It's always interesting because in multiple interviews that I've had on this show, Hicketnunk was always this sort of gateway into understanding the sheer potential of creativity on the blockchain, and I think it's so funny that, like, not only did you sort of see this wave building up, and then you entered the Hicketnunk universe and then to then see it shut down.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: It was kind of this.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Well, it didn't shut down, it was just one of those days when they were refreshing, I think it shut it, shut down months later okay, yeah this was like march 15th.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: It didn't shut down until, like, maybe summer, okay, so it was more of a technicality rather than yeah it was just infamous.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, got.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Okay and then.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: So that was your gateway and your entry point into sort of like the Tezos art universe.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: But as we know and as we've seen develop over the last few years, the art community on Tezos is so rich, it's so multidimensional, there are so many different facets to it, so many different levels of community.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: How did you sort of mentally organize that in your own mind?
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Hmm, that's a good question.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I think what I loved about it is everyone was sort of just doing their thing and there was no pressure to be fitting into certain marketing mechanic or whatever.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And because all of us were relatively early, um, whatever was good kind of easily resonated with the.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: There was no noise as we see right now and people connected and it was an open conversation.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't, um, it wasn't like certain groups or dows or like collectors club, like it was all in the open and you would see some artists really become pretty big pretty fast, um, but at the same time it continued offering opportunities for emerging artists to stand down or artists that never really sold their arts as art before.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Like they were really great in 3d design illustration and this was sort of like their stepping point of creating a persona.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Some of them were creating like a non-accounts so their colleagues don't find out they're an artist and, yeah, becoming becoming their own sort of artistic identity and then going from your sort of traditional art background, or at least academically speaking, and then venturing into this new wave of digital art and ways of expressing and also monetizing their art, how did you initially see the convergence between the traditional art world and, you know, this new wave of crypto art?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And then, also to tack on to the back of that question it's matured a lot in the last few years.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: So what are sort of like the key points of evolution that you've that you think I guess are the most notable?
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: well, it's interesting.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Um, digital art, as most people know, existed since the 50s but it was never considered, I would say, profitable for a lot of galleries, um, and auction houses.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: They it was always dismissed as outsider and it was a bit ironic to see that as soon there was money, quickly, quickly, everyone started flooding and I think that part of the art world is the reason I quickly left it and didn't sort of like want to be a part of it, because, at the end of the day, it's supposed to be about people who believe in something, and that's what I love about crypto, arts and the blockchain is that the first people who really led change was people who genuinely believed some of the ideals of what this is, and right now I feel like those ideals sort of sidetracked, like we have certain chains that are not really blockchains.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: They're centralized databases which are censored, and it became more of like a marketing mechanic for certain entities and like I guess that's the reason I love being at Tezos because it still kind of holds true to that ethos.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But the narrative definitely plays a big role and I guess, coming back to your question, in terms of some of the things I see.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So it's funny because one of the first things that Sotheby's Institute they taught us is you don't sell primary at an auction, and one of the first things I saw curated platforms do is do auctions for artists, and a lot of artists they love that.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: They're like oh I sold for so high, my next work now will be starting at this price and the next work started this price and I'm gonna double it and like I'm so successful.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: But like at the end of the day, it's extremely unsustainable and that's why galleries don't do auctions for their works, like they control and maintain the supply and it might take a year for you to increase your price point.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of artists, after the boom faded away, are we're struggling because they inflated their prices so much artificially.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Well, not artificially, but if a collector collects one work, it doesn't mean another collector will pay for another work the same price.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: It's such a subjective judgment right like it's not, like all your art is the same.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So I think a lot of artists were struggling how do they reprice?
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: And at first they were like my art's, my rules.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: But now we're saying artists just sell their work for free, like the free thing is like the new meta, it's like art is a postcard and honestly, I'm slightly overwhelmed and I'm just so happy that we kind of like our team has our value in place and we're working with all these different traditional institutions into contextualizing what is the differentiation between arts as a souvenir but arts as a cultural piece that is going to continue to live throughout the history of art.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I think that's what a lot of people ended up needing to navigate, especially when it comes to the individual artists themselves, because I think when people first entered this blockchain universe, it was all about you know, know, how do we remove the intermediaries?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: How do we create more direct relationships with our collectors?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: How do we foster that relationship?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: How do I monetize more effectively?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: How do I gain royalties?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: But it put a lot of pressure on artists that they weren't necessarily prepared to have to address because it would effectively distract them from the art themselves.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: So how have you seen the relationship artists have with those intermediaries sort of change over time as they, as they navigate the complexities of you know, art selling and collecting dynamics?
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: um, I think supply has been a very popular topic of conversation.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It's that a certain artist can have an incredible collection that he's known for and if he works with a gallery, the gallery typically thinks about the long-term controlled release, but if you work with a platform, it's often that the platform it's a business interest that if the platform doesn't represent you, their interest is short-term, and so I think what happened was a lot of platforms monetized on the momentum of the artists and then and I've seen a lot of these conversations among curators and especially on twitter, you like it's all in the open where they're pointing fingers who diluted which artists supply and it's so hilarious because, I mean, I love this industry because everything is in the open and like it's not like behind closed doors, secret handshake deals, like obviously there's some of that, but most of the things, like are public records and you see the transactions and you can make your judgments.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: And I think it's also like what people say, like we live next to a casino and for many artists it was really hard to sell digital arts and the reason they were able to is thanks to that casino.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: And like it's so obvious like everyone knows that Everyone knows that 90% of the collectors made money through crypto and some of them decided to invest it into art.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: So, denying the fact that your audience are teachers at this point, it's like come on, like let's, and there's nothing wrong about it, because some of these people who just entered the space through trading eventually did become really great patrons of art.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Um, so I don't, I don't see it as a bad thing, but I think criticizing the behavior of your collectors it's like, well, you don't have to do it if you don't want to.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: And obviously everything we're doing is to support a new group of maybe younger audiences, but we're also seeing across different ages, people from the traditional world interested in collecting digital arts, but they're not often the people that you're going to see online helping promote the artists.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: And right now, it's still very important to be present, to be online, and if not you, then maybe your collectors and supporters are the ones continuing to advocate for your art.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it very much sounds like what they were coming up against was the growing pains of trying to understand and navigate this new landscape.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: It's basically saying we don't have to rely on old mechanics, but what do the new mechanics look like?
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: How can I trust them?
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: What's the relationship we build between them?
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And I think now, when we see a lot of traditional institutions sort of coming into the fold and I think that initially, like you mentioned, it was a bit of a marketing tactic it was very trendy to have NFT in your press releases and you were cutting edge and you were modern.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: But now there's very much more this intentional push to start integrating these technologies into whether it's a museum or a gallery or an activation.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So that means that the relationship that blockchain based artists are having with these former traditional institutions is also starting to evolve.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: So what does that dynamic look like?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Because, arguably because their legacy, there's almost a greater bedrock of trust, but the transactional relationship looks a little bit different.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: So how do they explore that?
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: It's very different.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I would say I agree with you Like it's very different.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So how do they explore that?
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It's very different.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I would say I agree with you Like it's very different, and I don't know Tezos has probably done so much like in terms of how the foundation and here at Trilitech we work with different institutions.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: One of the partners, like WAC Labs, led by Diane, has a series of conversations and educational courses for museum professionals and this sort of like.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Early late spring, early summer we saw some of the presentations and it's a mix and different representatives have different opinions.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: For some the commercial element is not a problem, especially, I think, in Europe.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It's a bit different model in the US because there they rely more on private funding.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So that's how they get the commercial elements in, but maybe publicly they don't want to always say that they're actually facilitating any sales.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: From our experience right now there is a show uh, judy chicago's show at the serpentine and what you get it's not like art per se.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: It's sort of like a collect, collectible item that has an element of art by judy chicago.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: So you come, you record your answer and you get an nft with us that's visible, an object with jersey.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: It was a mixture of things.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: There was a physical sculpture which was interactive.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Together with FXHash Agoria, they created this NFT, which you could mint right there for free, but then separately they released a collection of works through ObjectOne.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: That was collected, and now we recently announced a partnership with Momii Museum in New York, which is very exciting because the curator for the show, regina she, has a lot of experience across these different applications, and so something that's going to be explored is how you can also collect maybe not sort of like the final big piece, but a fragment of the work for free at the museum, but then separately the artists would be selling outside of the context of the partnership they are still.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: They have the final piece that they created that can be sold commercially so sometimes there's this divide, sometimes it's all together.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: It really depends on the history of the institution and what their values are but the crux of it seems to be that it's expanded the way that people can actually engage with different artworks.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: So, whether it's, you know, the collectible component, whether it's they want to invest in the piece, the traditional artwork sorry, the traditional art world becomes a lot less closed box.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: It's really democratized access to art in that way, which I think is amazing.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's arguably one of the reasons we're all here, um to take this more towards your newly appointed role as head of art at trillitech.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I know that you're very fresh into the role.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: You've only been in it for a matter of two, three months, feels like two, three years already.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm sure two, three months in crypto years is about a decade, um, but what a sort of I mean okay to take this back again slightly like upon the news of your appointment there was so much positivity within the tesla site community.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: You were received with really open arms because you were very much a grassroots member of that community.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: You saw it grow, you saw it mature and now you've been given this opportunity in this platform to to help support it from another position.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: So can you briefly talk me through what your role actually entails and sort of what your focus areas are in your newly appointed role?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: no pressure.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Uh, well, first of all it it was extremely heartwarming.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Um, there are a lot of vocal voices in our community, some that joined the tesla ecosystem after I joined.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Some joined um.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Some were building, like in tandem, uh, different marketplaces and creative use cases.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who sort of like definitely invest a lot of their time and passion into it.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: So I think my ultimate goal is a the overall growth of the ecosystem.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: So how can we make sure that the artists get rewarded through what they do?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: How do we make sure more people join the ecosystem?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: How do we create cultural value out of sort of like this amazing community that we have and the amazing art that's already there?
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: And there are so many different things.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Like there's existing art that's culturally relevant, there's emerging artists coming in, there's artists whose career is growing and we need to, I think, facilitate at all these different levels.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Like it's not one initiative fix all solution.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It's it's a series of different initiatives that target different areas of the ecosystem that can be supportive, and a lot of my time it's a mix, like one day I'm speaking to a museum director, another I'm in DM group chats with people talking about their ideas.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So I kind of like I like being across the all different verticals because it all matters equally, like there's no one priority.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Um, and most of the initiatives that I'm exploring right now the goal is to really how much of an impact they can have across the ecosystem, because it's always a challenge when people come and they have a brilliant idea but it only benefits, maybe, like a certain group, and also you always have to measure, like what is the viability of this idea?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Like, given sort of like my experience working for eight years in different sort of like researching different online business models, I'm very grateful I'm able to bring that past experience, but also continuing to research and try to foresight like what is the next thing coming forward?
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: So it's a lot, but, honestly, like the thing I value so much is the support from the community and sometimes you know many people.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: They feel like some of them might not know me and so I'm always trying to see can we connect, can we have a call just for them to learn more?
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, at the end of the day, the whole point of decentralization is that we don't own you or what you have, so it's people sort of like providing a certain level of authority over what you can or cannot do, because a lot of times people feel like we have a sense of sort of like we own them a lot, but at the same time, I think that comes from the mindset of Web2 and Web3 dynamics, where you're a Twitter user yes, like you're on Twitter, it's a product.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: You often pay for it, so hence Twitter better work.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: But here is sort of you're the owner and we're here to provide the support when possible, but it is thousands of different people.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So I'm often sort of trying to be balanced in the sense of are we benefiting everyone equally, like are we prioritizing correctly?
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it's definitely a lot and I'm doing my best and I'm thankful for everyone's support.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: It is a lot.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone underestimates the mandate that you actually have sitting on your desk every day, and I think there's a lot of important considerations, especially when it comes to principles of decentralization, because, while it's about you know how much, how can we deliver impact that's going to benefit the larger part of our community?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: But it's also how do we do this in a way where we're not putting in our hand and controlling anything, but we're actually sort of just uplifting a little bit.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: So what do those uplifting dynamics actually look like?
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Because it's quite a delicate line to toe without basically saying you know we're going to provide support but we're not going to interfere.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very tricky balance and, like basically towing, it is quite a delicate, it's quite a delicate dance.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: How do you do it?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: yeah, it's tough.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just see, like the easiest decisions are usually when you see community initiatives that are working, um, and that have an amplification effect, and then sometimes we just provide some support and ideas and suggestions that people implement and move forward with that.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I think the most difficult decisions are when you see something's not working and then you sort of know that here's like certain things that could help improve it.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: But then the question is sort of like yeah, I guess it's always a very complex question, like to what extent do you provide support for something?
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: But it has to like, if people basically expect a certain level of support, they also need to show that this thing will actually work and benefit everyone.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Because if it's something that's not going to benefit anyone and it's just a nice to have, uh, these are like the moments I hate the most, because it's like, oh, this is great, it's so nice to have, it's so, it's such a wonderful thing, but then, like it doesn't, like, it kind of like takes resources from something that actually can work and can benefit everyone in the long term.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Um, so, yeah, a lot of tough decisions to make yeah, and it's.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: It's also difficult to make those decisions without it being overly politicized, because if there's anything we learn about the tesla's community or, frankly, most crypto communities is that they are extremely passionate and extremely vocal and sometimes a lot can get lost in that chaos and that noise.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: So basically, sort of having a fixed north star and consistently pushing towards that is is difficult, because maybe not everyone understands it as you push towards it.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Is that a challenge you've come across yet or is that something that you anticipate and are essentially just preparing for?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: no, we most of the time, like, I just speak to people and I say, like, what do you think about this, what do you think about that?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Because I don't consider it's like us and them like.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I've been a member of this community longer than most people, so to me I'm part of the conversation, um, and I always like to sort of like just discuss things in the open with the people who are involved, which really helps like if we're working with someone.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I just ask, like listen, you know this is my thought.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about it?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Um, but let's see, let's see.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest challenge and confusion comes when people only see like one side of the of the story, and that's something I learned being like here and meeting with different team members and seeing their motives.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: It's incredible how you know how much there needs to be like, shared.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't need to be shared.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: You know, everyone's just doing their job, but I feel like right now, especially a lot of things that are being said online, it's who can scream the loudest to get the most attention, and that's the nature of social media in many ways as well yeah, and, like so many, high quality projects get overlooked and then people tend to re-emphasize on the negatives and unfortunately this is like.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: If I go on Instagram and I look at any single post, all I see is rage in the comments and it feels like rage baiting has become this crazy phenomenon and it's very sad that we celebrate the downs more than the goods.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to see how can we shed more light on the goods and make them worth celebrating.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: And that all being said, zooming out again, what are some of the initiatives that you're currently focused on that you're able to share within the context of this interview?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: So I think it's summer now and we are working with a few community members.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: We launched a few initiatives in June that we will continue sort of supporting, which is sort of facilitating emerging artists, helping them kickstart a launch, a set of auctions.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: So this has been an initiative by Jesse and he's inviting different curators to join him.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So we kind of stepped back and let them do their thing.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: But so far we've been seeing like amazing uh results.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: At the same time, an event like um digital art mile that happened in basel recently has brought definitely like a more um bigger world's attention.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: There was a number of publications by like art news, our newspaper, decrypt that that really highlighted the mission and vision that sort of the Tezos ecosystem is pursuing.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: So we were the partners of Art Meta, helping make this whole fair possible and bringing all these different exhibitors together.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: So I think initiatives like that are a continuation as well.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I just mentioned earlier the new partnership that we recently announced with MoMA in New York.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: It's a year long partnership so it will continue having like giving artists opportunity to be exhibited within the context of the museum curation, which is which is very big I think, and it kind of points to the bigger mission of elevating artists rather than just focusing on the commercial elements of things, and there is some plans now being shaped up around the world.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Uh, we'll probably be seeing you in singapore.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Uh, for token 2049, and a few activations in europe, and then comes miami art basel so a lot on your plate on that domain as well, and there's a lot for everyone within the community to look forward to and also, again, given this is your first few months you've hit the ground running at a dead sprint.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: So it's very impressive.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: But I don't know if you've had some time to reflect on this as you stepped into the role, especially given how much you sort of come into working on from the get-go.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: But is there an idea of the kind of impact you want to leave behind or the kind of legacy you want to create in terms of the work that you do for the artist community, for Tezos?
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Oh dear um, I think, in terms of legacy, legacy is about time, and how can we have the art created today stand the test of time?
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And, thankfully, I think the institutional connection will help imprint a lot of what artists have created.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: But from a more personal standpoint, I think my highest priority is to really see how can we implement processes that help the ecosystem, sort of like restart the wheels, because I think a lot of things sort of like are not stagnated, like there's still a lot of innovation happening.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Still a lot of innovation happening, but in terms of the infrastructure that's available for artists to continue experimenting and to really start getting the momentum, I think there's a lot of um, yeah, I can't, I can't like fully explain.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Sorry for confusing.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: There's just like a lot from a strategic standpoint, that I think needs to be done.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Um, that can help us set a course of where we want to go and how are we going to go there, because the anarchic nature of everyone doing everything is great, but I feel like the times right now again they shifted, like over the years, it's not the same as it was a year ago, it's not the same as it was two years ago, and I think moving along with those changes is really important as an ecosystem, as an art ecosystem, keeping the values at heart.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Um, that's, that's a big step.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah so it's essentially investing your time and taking that time properly to actually create the infrastructure that's going to make this sustainable in the long run for everyone who's actually out here creating.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: So, rather than having all these different fragmented pockets of independent artists who might struggle to find the light for themselves, it's creating those mechanisms to make it as easy as possible for them yeah, and it's not like when I say echo infrastructure, I'm not saying like building wise, I'm saying more.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: The concept of an artist's career trajectory needs to exist within an ecosystem where for every artist, whether you just started or you're already established, there's a more or less identified career path.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: How do you get from point a to point b?
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And I don't think this is just like a tesla ecosystem problem as a whole.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's like blockchain as a whole.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: There are it's like blockchain as a whole.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: There are certain virtual signals, like being exhibited at an auction, like being at an auction or or being in this magazine, but, like in the traditional art world, being in an auction means you're either already dead or like you really really made it after 30 years.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of I guess paradigm shifts that need to take place as well.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Well, beyond just how do we use this technology to support artists?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: It's also how do we completely reconfigure the way we perceive the role of an artist and, I guess, the lifespan of their career and then just help them identify, like, at what pace to move.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: because I see a lot of artists like after being in crypto art, like they might've been artists for a very long time, but after being in crypto art because their sales are high, they get into an auction and so it's like rapid fire sort of.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Rapid fire and some of them don't sell and so that kind of is more damaging than beneficial.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: So it's just thinking sustainably about your artistic career in the long run, because right now it's like a Wild West quickly drop here, here, here, do this, this, this get as much attention.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: And maybe for some people it's fine because they just want to, like, make some money.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: But for others, who sort of like like a lot of great artists I know they had to work part time to sustain their artistic career.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: But because they didn't want to to sustain their artistic career, but because they didn't want to jeopardize their artistic career for quick wins, they wanted to have like a more long-term, serious potential so, oh, so much like.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Arts is not like any other industry, you know, there's so many moving parts yeah, and also, I guess, the way we value and appraise it is very different to say conventional business, because it's not just about, you know, sales or conversions or user base.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: It's very much about this really highly subjective appreciation of a piece of art.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: And I think that essentially what you've illuminated is that while artists may have struggled to enter the traditional art world because it was typically black box, then suddenly there was this open one, but it was very unstructured, so it set up this whole different set of challenges and question marks that made it very difficult for certain artists to navigate and some did very well but it wasn't very self-evident.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: So, basically, being able to create that almost I wouldn't say curriculum, but that, that framework, yeah, helps people understand it better and also just helps them but also collectors.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Like helps collectors identify which artists are at what stage, how to better understand like their seriousness and things like that.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: So to close out the interview, I don't want to put you too much on the spot again, but if there was a message you could leave for artists who are perhaps still trying to navigate this space, or maybe are new to this space, what's the kind of piece of advice you would give them to help them understand this a little bit better?
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: What helped me the most is identifying voices that I respect and sort of looking up to them and following some of the narratives that they're pushing forward.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Like I remember ever since, like I interviewed Jason in 2019, like Art Gnome, I followed him and he wrote about Manaloids, who later did an incredible collection of art on Hegadnog.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I followed some of the theses that he was pushing forward and the right click save and they're like a group of people that I sort of identified for myself and, unfortunately, not all of them are as vocal as before and we have a lot of new influencers who sort of say loud things but without substance, and I think for artists, it must be very hard right now.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Like if you come into the space and you see some of these things, like I wouldn't take advice for a lot like from a lot of these people.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: So just like, and I should post a lot myself, so don't take everything I say personally but like when I'm serious, I'm serious and I think it's just part of the behavior, like if.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I want to be serious.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go to university and give a presentation.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to post it on twitter.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: So I think it's just like be mindful that twitter is like it's more of a comedy show and certain people sometimes say stuff, but if you, if you want something more serious, it's better to go to lectures and conversations.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: To me, being online is about, um, looking at where the masses are like there's a lot of mass movement of like certain popular things and it's it's good to have like a reality check sometimes of are the things we're doing, even even speaking to you know what?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: What everyone else is interested right now.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so basically find your idols, but always keep a critical mind about it.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Always be scrutinizing.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Always think carefully about where you're reading, what you're reading or what opinions you're taking in in the context in which they're said to basically shape your understanding of what's going on.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because a lot of people right now who are the most successful artists, if you look at how they started their career, it was completely different to what their collectors are advising emerging artists, which is very bizarre to me.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: So it's always good to see the bigger picture, and the more you can study honestly, the better.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I said a lot of things, guys.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: It's all like NFA, you know NRA.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: No, it's all amazing and, frankly, I think you've dug into a lot of insights and a lot of key pieces of information that many haven't heard for a very long time or perhaps being exposed to for the very first time.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: So I think our audiences are really going to appreciate the honest take.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I would tack on a few extra questions, but I do want to set you free.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: But thank you so much for your time.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing your points of view and I think everyone with the tesla's community is so excited to see what you work on no thanks, yeah, and I'm dms are open and most of the time I'm online Perfect.