Let me start by saying that no, p2p in this context does NOT mean pengu-to-pengu, and I’ll also reserve the right to comment on that. This week the JPG newsletter will be covering some interesting tidbits on p2p as a medium and some artworks that show that the relationship and transfer between peers (or people, or ownership transfer) can be utilized as a medium.
So, it’s p2p as in peer-to-peer / person-to-person.
A sudoswap I created trying to trade a Kudzu (aka FoliaVirus - peer-to-peer/wallet-to-wallet transmissible NFT “virus” ) for an Autoglyph. 🙏 Manifesting, hope it works 🙏
A paperclip for your thoughts
In the interest of this being a newsletter, and not a curiosity cabinet of sorts (for now), last week PaperclipDAO put this concept on my radar when they posted a mysterious tweet with a link to Sudoswap. In case you’ve not heard of Sudoswap, it’s a tool for p2p token collections swapping and it’s wonderful. You post the trade you would like to make and an NFT, ERC1155 (fractional NFTs) or ERC20 that you would like to trade it for. Then you just copy/paste the link of the trade, and communicate with the owner of your desired NFT to see if they want to go ahead with the trade. In a wonderfully trustless operation, the trade is made, completely between the peers. Brilliant, right?
By the way, Sudoswap is the brainchild of 0xMons, who you might know from being one of the minds behind the JPG now sold out SALTv4 Gift Shop drop.
PaperclipDAO, on the other hand is a social experiment by some NFT OGs, including Matt Condon (aka the grandfather of NFTs) and Matt Stephenson (behavioral economist researching NFTs since 2018). Paperclip set off with the goal of trading a paperclip NFT and distributing $CLIP tokens through all the successful trades, in order to create a community grown story. They received dozens of trade proposals and at the end they picked a Parallel NFT card. Full disclosure, I was (with Adrian from ETHBlockArt) one of the two first apes to try to get the paperclip. I regret nothing.
This whole scheme got me immediately thinking about social experiments within art and p2p settings. And of course that got me immediately thinking about Sarah Friend’s Clickmine, a project from 2017 that illustrates crypto trade culture in a game setting. In this game, the peers “click” the game and the ERC20 token that’s underlying activates, and so does its hyperinflation, thus illusioning the users about their recently acquired (or shall I say, clicked?) wealth.
On p2p art: from Anders Weberg to NFTs
p2p art started in 2006. The term was coined by Anders Weberg, a Swedish artist and curator. In “There’s No Original”, Weber created six films that were uploaded on file sharing networks like BitTorrent, and deleted the originals. The transfer between peers through these networks became part of the art for the first time in history.
Fast forward to 2021, there are several NFT-based artworks that include transfer between peers as part of the artwork. Joan Heemskerk’s Chamaleon NFTs, minted on Folia (the same platform as the above mentioned Kudzu NFT “virus”) less than a month ago, each NFT re-generates upon transfer, based on the new wallet address. In case you have never heard of Joan, I really encourage you to check her out, she’s one of the pioneers of net art, working in the field since as early as 1995.
Another interesting proposal in the intersection between p2p and NFTs actually popped up this weekend (thank you WingsOfHeaven for sharing it on the JPG Discord!): Generative Transfer Art Project 1 has just been minted a few days ago, and changes its appearance based, as Chamaleon, on the transfer, and the days the NFT has been held by each wallet.
JPG news
On another note, yet related to everything I mentioned in this installment, Trent was at The Unstoppable Podcast talking about the paperclips. Last but not least, JPG was featured in Art in America alongside Feral File, Freeport and Transfer Gallery, all trailblazing and innovative proposals looking to bring new media and NFTs to the forefront of the cultural discourse.
That’s all for now, if you have any feedback, reply to this email, or tweet at us.
Till next week!
MP