Latest / TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast / 80: Artist Spotlight | Michael Beets

Transcript

80: Artist Spotlight | Michael Beets · TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Tezos Radio.
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, melissa True, and today I'm joined by Michael Beetz, the mind behind, here and Now, an immersive experiences platform, part of which is on Tezos.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: So, hi, michael, how are you today?
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good, yeah, great to see you.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: So, before we dig into your experience within the web3 world, I want to learn more about your background as a, you know, as a director in immersive experiences and live cinema.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: So what does that mean in practice?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose I'm most interested in I wouldn't say events, but I would say kind of bringing people together through experiences.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I think that's something that I really enjoy doing, whether it be a film or a virtual experience really enjoy doing whether it be a film or a virtual experience um, I love, I love, yeah, taking people on little journeys that happened in a short, specific time.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Um, they exist, you know, over a day or two days, and then kind of moving on to the next thing straight after that.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I don't like long drawn-out projects.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I like to create something, something that exists and then it doesn't, and then I'm sort of on to the next thing.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: But really, when it comes down to it, it's how can you take an audience on an open journey within an experience and on top of that, to do things differently?
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I get bored quick and I like to challenge myself and I think a lot of that comes with.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: You know my interest in storytelling and technology and a lot of the things I do blends those worlds together and emerging tech and also traditional sort of forms of storytelling and just mashing them up and seeing what I can do with it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So how did all of those forms of experimentation eventually lead you down the path of web3 and then eventually tedros?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: oh, it's, it's, it's.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It's a long.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's a long journey, um, I mean it has, as I said, in the same for most people it happened during covered.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I had a bunch of I had about three or four um projects that were doing really well and given quite a lot of exposure and we're hitting the fest.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: There are films, um short film, a live cinema project and then also virtual and interactive virtual experience, and they were all kind of confirmed for these amazing festivals and it was going to be a year of kind of traveling the world and and taking these projects I've made and and you know, and meet people and and collaborate and and kind of start talking about future projects.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, this was a really exciting um sort of year and you know, I spent three years previously making all these projects.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Then COVID came and basically everything was cancelled.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: All these projects got put on hold.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I was thinking how could I do it with the projects that I made?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: How can I basically use them to create sort of and find new audiences online?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And then I, yeah, so basically that's kind of how I started thinking about it.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who did really well Dilwit Shree.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: His name's Giant Swan and I watched him sort of just go on this meteoric rise as an artist, sort of just going this meteoric rise as an artist.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of when I first heard about him as he I suppose a band and a slightly serving tip Because of him, all his interest in it got me interested and then, yeah, I've kind of just threw some things at a wall and some things stuck and met a bunch of people and then just kept making things.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Really, I mean there's probably still a lot more nuance than that, but I think it just comes down to I mean, I like to experiment and Web3 really is a great playground for that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So, given your background, your style of work introduces a lot more, I guess, technical complexity or more complex media into the NFT space.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: When it really took off, we were still dealing with JPEGs, and so when you talk about bridging that gap from JPEGs to immersive digital experiences, it's quite the leap.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So what did early experimentation look like to you?
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: The first thing that I ever launched was in tezos um, which was a virtual experience, but you know it's funny because it's not necessarily connected to the blockchain.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Like the, the experiences live on servers, they're not on chain.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: That would be really difficult to do if the whole experience was unchanged.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: The size, no it's.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: You know the size of the size, you know the size of the quadrics, but you know, I think, yeah, I suppose I'm kind of interested in, at the end of the day, kind of like I was looking at EMTs and going, you know, everyone's holding them in these wallets and they're living there and they're existing there and they're living on these platforms and for most of the time it's living on Twitter and for the most of the time it's living on Twitter.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And I found it really interesting because you know people are buying these things and they're purchasing them, they're spending money on it and then they're kind of just sitting in these wallets and the experience of that felt quite cold in terms of, yeah, clicking this button and then receiving it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: So I suppose that's kind of where it started.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I was like how can you take an artwork and collaborate with an artist to create a sort of more meaningful experience around the process of experiencing the art and then also buying the art.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So the first experience really was structured around that.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It was structured around creating an experience working with a bunch of artists, taking their artwork and then designing worlds and spaces around the artwork.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: So it all connects.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So people can kind of go on this journey, visit these rooms, these experiences, see the artwork.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: It kind of you know, you're a little bit more connected to the experience of both witnessing it and purchasing it, either one.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Whichever journey that takes, just witnessing it is also important, I think, without the need to buy all the time.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: So really that was kind of where the interest of creating a virtual experience came from.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And it's funny, in the first experience I created there's a plaque.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: On the first experience I created there's a plaque on the wall.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: When you first walk in, the first door opens and there's a plaque on the wall and it was kind of a throwaway thing I wrote just kind of as a sort of a mission statement experience, almost Something along the lines of I promise to or my ambition with these experiences is to make you feel nostalgic and connected to the things that exist in your wallet.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I think that statement which I kind of butchered, is more or less everything that we've done I think especially with Joe.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Now that we've done for three years now I feel like that's also become a motto.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: I think that's why people enjoy the experiences, is because you know to bring it back around.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: It's because they really do offer a different way of experiencing art.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I do think the warmth of that connection to, I guess, a piece of digital media isn't necessarily just confined to the NFT space, it goes to general digital art and so building that emotional connection I think has long been desired.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: But as you began interacting with Tesla, I'm sure you sort of stumbled across the community and the nostalgia and that's just a warm, just like virtue of the people you're interacting with.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: So talk to me about, like that's, evolution or your.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: You know how you find a home within as a community for your work and how you use that to bridge into here and now experience yeah, I don't think.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don don't think I'd still be here if it wasn't for the sort of support you know that the first experiment we did and they've been to everything and collected so much, and so you know, I think that's a major part of this is that and I think that's true for a few people is that you're not just creating things for yourself.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: You've actually kind of found an audience and I take that personally, I take that very seriously.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: It's sort of a bench light for everything I do and it's next to why we make these things is the other day for an audience, and they've been super supportive of the project for, yeah, for a while now, and then we've, you know, obviously built new, new audiences along the way.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Today, as you speak about sort of the community side of things, I think this, the thing that that really um attracted me to tesESOS specifically, you know, was the sort of early kick-it-knock days which were really sort of rebellious.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Everyone was just experiencing and, you know, you really got a sense of the kind of art movement that was happening and it was really exciting.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: You know, half of the stuff didn't work, which was great for me, because half the stuff I was making wasn't working either, because I didn't know how the blockchain worked back then.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: So it was really everyone coming together and helping each other to figure things out.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I'd say the remnants of what happened those first couple months of Big Nook have completely decided the trajectory of how we want the saints especially it tells us to be.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: A lot of us still hold on to that kind of spirit, even though it was years ago since things sort of went down.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: I think those early days really set up a sort of expectation of what the community wants and what the community expects from each other, and I think those values have been really important and also have kind of driven a lot of what I've done, especially with here and now.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the early days of the Vietnam very much demonstrated that.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: There was this collective experimentation.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: There were no expectations.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: It wasn't supposed to be refined, it wasn't about finesse, it was just about creativity being thrown at a wall and to see what sticks, that sort of thing.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And I agree with you that it did set the trajectory for Tezos in a major way.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: But from your standpoint as someone who's been invested in this ecosystem for so many years, in your view, how has that space actually evolved over the last three or four years or so in your own experience?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like the evolution has been interesting.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: If I look at where things are now, the art sounds strange, but it's gotten a little more serious, which is expected.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: There's more expectations, there's people wanting a little bit more out of it.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: People look at it as a kind of like invalid way of living in terms of, you know, finance and living off your art.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: So I think it's a little bit more serious in that regard.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I think that's quite a positive thing Because, also, I feel like artists are evolving and maturing, understanding markets a little bit more, and with that comes you know, expectations.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I think platforms have become more art-focused, possibly falling into a sort of sterile way of looking at art.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I think that can also be an issue.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: As we're trying to become a little more art-focused, we tend to, I think, lose that experimentation right, because we're kind of falling into these kind of traps of what the expectation of art should be experienced or how we talk about art.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: You know these kind of languages that have been formed for so long.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I feel like falling back into that a little bit.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: So I mean, personally, I'd love to, I'd love for people just to experiment a little bit more.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, it's not a bad thing, it's just an evolution of the space.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I think it's not necessarily so much that you know a revolt, it's perhaps a little bit more about um sustainability right.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So the thing that really carved out the tesla niche of its art community was the fact that it was so offbeat with the conventional art world.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So the risk in it maturing is it potentially conforming to old standards that ultimately didn't serve these independent artists to begin with, and so we sort of might cause a bit of attrition in sort of the the the artists who begin to make names or build their profiles within this space.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Is that generally what you're getting at?
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I mean for sure.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I think let's just copy your answer and just lay it over my mouth.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: It would be weird, but I feel like that's probably better.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, exactly, I don't know.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: And it's funny because the more that happens, the more I feel like people like me want to find alternatives.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about Tezos, I'm just talking about the way you present things and how you get people to see your things.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Anymore.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about fizzles, just talking about the way you present things and how you get people to see your things, and more.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think it's like how can you I'm always interested in how can you suffer things a little bit and challenge people and challenge the experience of people, because at the end of the day, that's kind of my business, right.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Like I don't create websites or platforms for people to come buy things like this.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: That's just not anywhere near my skillset.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: But what I do do and what is really important to me is to surprise people, and if people come to hear a now experience and it's like the last experience, then people aren't going to come back.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, and that's the same for anyone who puts on your dance, anyone who creates a film.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: You're or you know even an artist who's creating artwork.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Um, I feel like you always want to surprise people, no matter how subtle or or obvious that is.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Um, I think you can always find meaning in surprising people.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I suppose that's kind of like where my thinking is is we've become so we're falling into similar expectations, so, like, how can we now really twist things and surprise people again and bring them back into the space with kind of you know, large amounts of experimentation?
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: So then, in terms of how this all translates to what you've created here and now and infusing this surprise and delight and sort of breaking the mold, sort of ethos behind all of it, can you tell me a bit more of you know, the motivation behind the project, the mission that drives it and what it's all about?
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Because I do know it's in its sixth and final edition so there's, a lot of previous material to dig through, but what's the I guess, the common theme that runs through the entire project?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: yeah, yeah, it's hard.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: There's a few things.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Um the few things.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: The thing that I think personally drives me in creating these experiences is collaboration.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: That's something that I really enjoy.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: These are not they're big experiences that they can't just be created by me.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not a 3D modeler, for example.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I can't create models.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: So I work with Beers, george Berlin, who does all the 3D models, so it's not just me making these things and then Dan just to help create and code and sort of create it behind it, but it takes a team to make it.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: It's a huge collaboration.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: It takes too much time to make and it needs a bunch of people to make it.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: It's a huge collaboration.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: It takes like two months to make and it needs a bunch of people to do it.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: But beyond that, it's really kind of the artists themselves who create artworks for the events.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Everything is stemmed from their creations.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: So I'll give them a theme and then they'll go off and create an artwork and really that's like the sort of source of inspiration that's where everything starts is the artwork itself.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think personally I'm really driven by the collaboration side of it.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I think an audience comes because they are hyper-hungry for something different and we offer that.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: We offer things that no one else is doing and you know there are big events and they happen.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: People come for an hour and they do the experience and then they move on to whatever's next.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: So I think it's like that idea of kind of nostalgia, surprise collaboration, and there's also an element of innovation that we bring into every experience that is always very different.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone does what we do with with my recent experiences in terms of the um, the interactive mixing experiences that we do, you know, these are really, really different and I think I think something that's really exciting in this space.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm kind of long-winded, random answers, but there's so much going on always.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I mean I did have a quick look at the sixth edition and there are, I think there's like five different dimensions to the experience.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: So you can rest assured that, if you know you are participating in the experience, that there's a lot to uncover, and I know you've also worked with some very familiar names within the Tesla space.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: A quick scan I saw George Goodwin for oh my God, I Drawed it Daniel King, tutu Moumoud San a lot of people who really built their names within the Tesla arena.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: So I know you mentioned that this was like a very collaborative approach, but what was the vesting process, if any, for the artists that you actually wanted to involve?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: How did you, how did you create this list of the those that are sort of featured as part of the latest edition?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: yeah, it's quite.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: It's quite simple for me, uh, when I'm looking for artists, um, that other artists that I can be inspired by, um.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: So when I look at the artwork, I go, okay, can I make these students around that, um, does it?
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Does it have something that goes beyond just the artwork itself but but has some kind of meaning?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Or the artist is kind of able to, you know, take on a theme and create a world, um, and I think, yeah, at the end of the day, we have to create experiences around the artwork.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So, if you look at someone like Dara Daut or Fouke OMG right, omg, yeah.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: If I look at his work, which is more the challenging one in terms of Edition 6 that we're doing right now, because it's so specific with the style, like you can't do anything else but his style you know like I'd love to step into that world, right, I'd love to like be in that experience of his artwork.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So I think, first and foremost, I look at the artists and think, can I create something for them?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: And you know, that's sort of the starting point.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And all these artists, you know like they all have something different, right, and Xerox, for example.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: You know we're not necessarily going to create an artwork, an experience that looks like his artwork.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: But Xerox is excellent with concepts and ideas and meaning and you know, that's something that really inspired me to work with him is that I know that he'll put a lot of thought behind his artwork and what we create will connect to that thought and to that kind of process itself.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think there's a few things I look for, but I'm not looking at, you know, I'm sort of not looking at the top 10 lists.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at, you know, who really would inspire me.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And looking more into the different dimensions of the experience.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So I saw there's the minting part, a vending machine, commissions, and there's also the deserts game, which is something I'm particularly interested in.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: How were you sort of I mean, as you said, george Goodwin's work, or OMG I drawed it is very immersive in and of itself.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: He creates all of these worlds through each individual piece that he, that he's minted.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: How are you kind of bridging that into a gaming sort of universe, when it relates to his PvP collection or Tezzards specifically?
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, his pfp collection, or tesla specifically.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is gonna be a fun one, um, so an inside new experience.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: You can play as a tesla, tesla, um, and you can basically yeah, so many games like the experience.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: So you know generally what the experience will be is.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: You'll be kind of immersed in this, um, dark, unknown kind of ground environment.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: It's large, there's lots of spaces to explore.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: You know you're kind of not sure where you're going, so you're kind of following your intuition and then stumbling across these beautiful and kind of amazing little moments.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: And then in the middle of all that, you know basically flip a switch and play a test game where it's just silly you have to collect bones and you know the top person.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Switch and play a Tezzit game where it's just silly, you have to collect bones and you know the top person who scores the most bones wins kind of thing.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: But it's fun, like to, you know, to kind of suddenly play as this kind of dinosaur-looking Tezzit and it's a nice little throwback.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: And surprise, obviously we all have a strong affinity towards I'm most of us for that strong affinity to the kind of folklore.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's been, it's kind of been a delight and and kind of an honor to to be able to throw that in there be giving that.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: You know, we're at edition six now, which is, you know, something that, uh, back in 2021, I, you know, promised to do, do, and so it's nice to be able to kind of do some throwbacks to those early times.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: And it all sort of bridges back to this notion of delivering a feeling of nostalgia through these digital experiences that we spoke about earlier on in our conversation.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the 6th edition, I did notice that your theme is 2027, memento Mori, so I'd love to understand what inspired that theme, but also what about 2027 it is that made you choose that year.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Why that specificity, I guess?
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a few things that happened with 2027 Origins, which is quite funny.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: But first of all, there was a tweet that went around for a month back about Tezos being dead and Tezos being dead by 2027.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And I mean that's just hilarious to me.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: It's sort of random and, you know, unnecessary and hilarious.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And also this is something I love about the community on Tezos is there's like a test poll right, like if something just doesn't make sense or something's done badly or you know, like someone writes a message that is kind of, you know has no bearing on anything.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I love that the community gets together and kind of, you know, gets together and comments about it and makes artworks about it and kind of rallies together in that way.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, 2027 started from that.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: There's tweets about Sizzle's being dead in 2027.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: And then, beyond that, you know there's so much going on right now.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: It's a funny time because, you know, 2021, when I first started, it was such a boom, it was such a hype.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Everyone was jumping on.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: You know, I was able to finance here and now for like a year of the first two editions and things have got, you know, much harder since then to the point where it's.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: You know it's hard to break even despite, you know, a lot of support.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: So there's also this kind of, I suppose, personal, um kind of theme going through there in terms of you know, what does the future hold Like?
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: What do we think about the future?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Where do we see ourselves in 20 years?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: And inside the experience, I've got this interactive minting experience basically, where inside you know this journey that you go on, you'll be asked to sort of be confronted with these questions about yourself Can you as a collector, or you as an artist?
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Where do you see yourselves in 2027?
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: So if you had to imagine, I think it's fair to say they ask you to imagine yourself in 2027.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Are you wrecked or did you make it?
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And then they go through a not going to give you too much of a way, but basically asks you to interact somehow with these questions.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: And each question that you interact with you'll kind of be giving Bear with me.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: You're going to be assigning traits to your generative artwork.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: So say, for example, this one interaction where you have to blow a balloon, and the more inflated the balloon, the better you feel about the question, the more positive you feel about the question.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: So if you inflate the balloon to say 70%, then you'll be assigning the traits.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: So you'll be like 70, you'll get a certain trait and then all those traits.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: By the end of the experience, all these questions that we've answered will go to the version properties generator and will essentially mint an artwork for you.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: So, essentially, by the end of the experience, you'll have created an artwork based around who you are and who you imagine yourself to be in 2027 and kind of how you're feeling right now about the space, I suppose.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of a snapshot of, yeah, your kind of vision.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: In a way, I'm really excited about this.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: It's really innovative, it's personal, it's intimate.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: There's nothing FOMO, there's nothing hype about it.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: It's just really like I'm hoping that people inside the Expanse can give a sort of honest account of what they think about the space and I think that, as a collection, will be very interesting.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: That was a side tangent, but, yeah, I'm really excited about this aspect of the project.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: It's the thing I'm probably most interested to see what's going to happen.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: No, I think that sounds really really cool because I think the other thing that it does, beyond sort of defining your personal relationship to this space or to this technology is and I guess a little bit ironically.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Again, the theme of Memento Mori is immortalize a part of that experience and basically give something to people that they can take away with them to forever depict that moment in time or that relationship that they once had.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: But I think what's also interesting about this space is because, going all the way back to what you were saying at the beginning, tela is filled with all of these sorts of interesting juxtapositions, like when we had something like art basel, miami versus something that was, I guess, a little bit more diplomatic, call it rustic.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: With tesla there's these conflicting narratives that people have about the growth and the potential and the challenge that existed over the last few years.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: So do you think that we are at a stage where we're coming out the other end of a very difficult period and we're sort of facing this renewed optimism?
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Or is this something where you're hoping the people who go through the here and now experience will be able to share and illustrate for themselves?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: You know, mental worry essentially means the inevitability of death, right, and I think that can mean so many things.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Personally, like, I don't think I'm not leaving Tezos, right, I'm not like saying that the chain's dying, um, but there is so much um negativity that that that that has happened, I think, over the last um year maybe, maybe a little bit less than that that, and it's so nuanced.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: There's so much that goes on around this, so there's so much you can't take a snapshot and understand it completely.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: There's so much emotion and finance and that kind of is all mixed together and also you're throwing that all into a social media app where people are just shouting at each other.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So it's nuanced and it's difficult.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: But I do think lately, you know, there's definitely an upswing of things.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling more positive than I felt in a while with some of the recently appointed you know, with Alexandra being appointed head of the mindset.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: That truly takes.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Moves like that, I think, are really interesting.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: I've seen some really great moves with Object 1 and Object and they're really promising, usually because you're really coming back to, I suppose, the community and at the end of the day, I think that's maybe where things have gone a little bit wrong when people you know it's fine an investment on Tezos Sheldon quite forgotten, but yeah, I'm doing personally quite positive about it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: You know I'm really happy to be wrapping up the 6th edition.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's a massive achievement and to me it's something that people will always be really proud of.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: That's something that I've, you know, completed A roadmap that I made in 2031 that actually materialized.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and personally I'm just, I'm excited by just, you know, kind of pushing things in a new direction.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I think that's, yeah, you know, just pivoting a little bit, experiencing a little bit more.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: So why is now the right time to end here and now like why?
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Why is the sixth, the final edition?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: well, when I say, when I say it's the final edition, you know it's.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: If it's the final edition of these six, like it's the, it's almost like series is complete, um, here in our, here in our time, I'm not very aware if it's it's just the final edition.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: So there will be other things definitely, but they'll probably look a little bit different, as there's some ideas that I want to start experimenting with and they don't live within the format of these editions.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: So yeah, here and now is just going to evolve, I think, into doing something a little bit different and similar, but different.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Can you share a bit more about what these new avenues of experimentation might actually look like?
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: What does evolution look like?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Without having to promise or commit to any sort of tentative roadmap.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Because, god knows, there have been so many of those that have never really finished or never completed themselves.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: So again, congratulations to you for having completed your announced first set, but what are the domains that you really want to start tinkering with and evolving this into?
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love to do something IRL.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I'd love to take the things that I've learned about here and now in these last three years and move it into an immersive experience that can tour, which is IRL but also has a virtual component to it.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's something that I'm really fascinated with, just because the last couple of years I've spent the majority of my time creating these virtual experiences.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I'd love to get out and see how people interact with actual kind of IRL experiences.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: It's way different.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: It's a way different way of creating kind of immersive journeys, because right now a lot of Q&A experiences are really solitary you you experience them by yourself.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: So I'm really interested in how you get groups of people coming together to experience things that have journeys but also encourages kind of intimacy.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm like really excited about sort of immersive theatre projects like Freak, no More, punch Drunk and a few other things in some certain films.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: So bringing those ideas and even here now the six editions very much so have some of the immersive theater experience qualities to them.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm excited I'll read it out to the real world.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: So a lot of our conversation is generally around how your background and immersive experiences in live cinema have translated into this Web3, completely digital realm.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: But are there any things throughout this entire experience that you feel are going to correspond back to, I guess, your traditional professional career?
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've always kind of since I was 20, to be honest, you know make films or create theater shows or create virtual experiences.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: So I think I think that the next step that I just mentioned in terms of creating more IRL based experiences is probably the next trajectory for me from a career standpoint.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: And you know, I'm kind of all in on Web3 and kind of how it can you know how things can exist on the blockchain and how the data of it all is very interesting to me, and the collection of things is really interesting to me that can be recorded and that I can have access to, to, you know, warn people or to understand people's journeys through those years is something that allows me to bring into IRL experiences.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot that people.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: There's a lot that can be done that people.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's where maybe the least experimentation is happening is how can blockchain be kind of infused, in terms of art, with coming-of-age-based experiences, because we live so online that we don't necessarily experience so much with the outside world.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of potential there for us.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: So seeing how this all, I guess, comes back and goes full circle is where we have yet to reach those final dots, I am very mindful of your time, I do want to ask one final question, which is for anyone who's really keen to participate in the final edition of here and Now.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: What do they need to do, what can they look forward to, and where can they look forward to and where could they find more?
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: information.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: It's basically finished, which is exciting.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Um, all you need is is um, the edition six token, which is the coin which is sort of synonymous with every experience and addition we've done.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Each one has the coin and yeah, so you collect that and you just, you know, show up on the day to um on the site that you know that will be given.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: I'm putting my profile on the website and log in and you can get an experience and there's a lot that comes with it, right, there's all the artworks from the artists which you can purchase.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: They don't need to be purchased if you're a holder.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: But beyond that, you know, you have commissions with free claims by artists like Nathaniel and Rose Jackson and a few others.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: So there's free art.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: You can claim that you get along with the token, as well as the interactive mints that you get, which is a larger collection that everyone gets one-on-one, and, of course, the experience itself, which is, um, you know, worth, worth the admission by itself.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, definitely come by if you want.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: There's still some tokens left and, um, yeah, it's, it's it.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: It's really a pleasure to kind of wrap it up and have this sixth one sort of stand its mark in history on Tezos.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's a defining moment and yeah, it's crazy, like someone from Columbia University is like writing all about this and researching it and kind of recording the history of here and now, and it's like, yeah, the idea that this kind of stuff could make itself into KSGs and live on and you know, and the education system is really fascinating to me.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: So, you know, if you want to be part of history, yeah, so it's very much about, I guess, the new frontier of immersive digital experiences and then eventually, you know, past this edition.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: hopefully we'll see it materialize in offline events as well.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Michael, thank you so much for all of your insights today.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I thought it was fascinating to hearing not only your story but essentially what you've built over the last three years, and I only wish you the best of luck with the event.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I'll hopefully buy a token not too long after this and check it out for myself.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Thank, you so much.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pleasure.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Thanks for taking your time to talk.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you.