Against trustlessness - no, not like that. Let me explain.
This is the JPG newsletter choosing violence
Yesterday we had a fantastic Twitter spaces with Clara Peh, Sofia Garcia and Tina Rivers Ryan (and Jon Ippolito’s guest appearance that inspired this post). They all explain the many nuances behind curation, the origins of this profession, and how they support artists. One salient topic was building relationships based on trust, and on the assumption that curators have the best interests of the artists in mind when it comes to giving input on their work, or giving advice.
Artists, curators and other workers in the art industry build networks of trust by helping one another. They share resources, advice, accountants, and many others. Like in any other community. So when the art world is confronted with NFTs where some blockchain marketing bro is yelling everything should be trustless and something something no middlemen no gatekeeping while flexing a bedazzled apple watch that shows their latest expensive dynamic on chain iridescent probably horrendous jpeg, from the latest collection by Chris Brown, who for some NFT people, is only known for his music and not for beating up Rihanna, then naturally, the artworld and their mothers will freaking hate us.
Back to “trustless” or, how I like to call it, bullshit: according to the dictionary, it actually doesn’t mean what the blockchain bros want you to think it means.
See? It’s not good to call a system trustless outside of the crypto echo chamber. Who made it up? Satoshi Nakamoto? I don’t know and I don’t care enough to google. What I do know, is that the systems that we are building in web3 should be called trustworthy instead of trustless. Because these alternative systems we are building are meant to remove the element of human trust where it’s most eroded, on verification and transaction (and of course, there’s computer science stuff like randomised generator of numbers, for which trustlessness is necessary, but I still would argue the choice of word), and you are meant to not need to trust the system that’s allowing the verification to be automated and genuine because the system is by design, not fallible. Which doesn’t mean it’s not deserving of trust, as Merriam Webster defines trustless, it does not necessitate the trust, it is already trustworthy by design.
But these “trustworthy” systems are not needed in many instances around the NFT industry. NFTs are cultural objects, born from context, artistry and ingenuity. They need people to be originated in a way or another. There is always a human component, even in the most advanced of AI - someone had to code that initially. You also don’t need a trustless curation platform, that’s totally made up, what you need maybe is a transparent curation system, and the users verifiable (verification can exist on chain or off chain as well!). Trustlessness, in the context of NFTs, is needed on the transactional layer, and on the verification of authenticity one. For the rest, it makes no sense.
NFTs are not only cultural objects but also networked ones, and these networks are not formed by nodes, but by people behind addresses. NFTs make up for a web3 native cultural social graph. There’s no need to remove any human component there, just make sure the social graph is not in the hands of evil overlords like Meta or so. So if I were to defend the “decentralized” and “trustless” flags, I’d honestly start by calling out those companies that work with Meta and its satellites, and maybe those influencers that are bending over backwards to work with big corporations, or Coinbase, that apparently fancies selling cute packages of your data and geolocation. But do not use words that don’t mean nothing to market NFT platforms and protocols.
And certainly there is the argument for trustless storage and preservation of NFTs - which is partly true, but honestly, artists are already doing a lot and stretched out too thin, so really? we’re also gonna offload the preservation of art on them as well? Anyways, on this topic, I am actually gonna host a follow-up Twitter Spaces with Jon Ippolito (who came on the Twitter stage on the Spaces yesterday to ask the aforementioned curators what they thought about “trustlessness” and is the catalyser for this rant of mine) and Regina Harsanyi who knows everything. Stay tuned for more on that.
One final note, on the topic of networks of trust, art and DAOs, Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty plus incredible contributors like Hito Steyerl, Jaya Klara Brekke, the BlackSwanDAO people, Rhea Myers, Legacy Russell, Mitchell Chan and our own Sam Spike, are publishing a book this coming week - Radical Friends. I am very lucky these people somehow like me and allowed me to read the draft, and it’s fantastic - so mark the calendar for the book launch at Serpentine if you’re in London, and place a book order, you won’t regret it.
Now, after this long preamble that has been angry-typed, the newsletter!
First off, I want to thank Sam, Charlotte, Olivia from Daata and a couple other people that I met in the past weeks, and said really nice things about my newsletter, and encouraged me to continue writing it. NYC has also been incredibly nice to me, and I got to hang out with fantastic people, share good conversations and actually enjoy good times. To the surprise of nobody, the vibes are not contingent on market conditions, actually on the contrary. All events I visited were meaningful and fun, I saw friends, and got to sit in a 2007 Kia Sedona which was the highlight of my week (for those of you who don’t know, Jay Peg’s Automart was a hilarious NFT project from 2021 that sold 2007 Kia Sedonas)
My favorite things about NFTNYC (in no particular order):
Sarah Friend’s Subway Extravaganza of an opening for OFF:Endgame
The E.A.T Works Salon0 event, where Gizel Flores gifted us some stunning photographs printed on glass that are also NFTs :)
Sofia Garcia’s alpha, especially the one concerning an artist I love, Maya Man
The TokenART unconference where all the cool people went and got covid
Meeting Clara, Sofia, Deafbeef, EDG, Charlotte, Gabagool (after we wrote that epic newsletter together!), artists Nathaniel Stern and Scott Kildall for a panel at the depths of hell aka NFTNYC together
Hanging out with friends that I knew from before was another fun thing
I need to reiterate the Astaria event (if you haven’t check the project and want to know what it can do with your most expensive jpegs, check it out immediately) where the Kia Sedona initiated one of the best LARPs I have ever seen.
I did not make it to see this exhibition, but Riesgo Pais was an exhibition by Argentinian artists (Julian Brangold, Frenetik Void, Lulu, The Internet Office, and many more) and I hope to have these guys on the JPG spaces soon because I really feel like supporting this initiative, even from the distance. Riesgo Pais, for those of you who don’t know or aren’t argentinian, is an economic index that shows how risky a country’s economy is - and it’s the two words we get bombarded with the most in Argentina to show us how fragile everything is, all the time. I really appreciate these artists coming together and showing their art stemming from a constant feeling of precarity, instability and uncertainty. Even if I immigrated from Argentina 9 years ago, I share their feelings - it’s one of those things that you can never brush off.
And it’s been a while since NYC so I probably forgot lots of things.
Some things to watch out for or to explore right now - because this is a trusted newsletter that only gives you trusted good shit
I found this new collection by Nicole Ruggiero, How The Internet Changed My Life, really cool - if I remember correctly, I saw some of these pieces at HEK in Basel which is a fabulous centre for everything tech and art, last year in September
I forgot where did I find this, but I had a lot of fun playing with Prosepainter, text to image generation into paintings.
Matt DesLauriers has single-handedly lured me into finally buying Tezos to play with his brilliant Seed Poems project - I have an earlier NFT called also seed poems, photos of flowers that when you buy them, they reveal a seed phrase, so this topic is a big interest of mine. Can’t wait to play with Seed Poems by Matt.
Jakob Sitter, an artist studying at HBFK Hamburg, created a fantastic project - lifetimes, inspired by Sarah Friend’s Lifeforms. Lifetimes need to be transferred based on a particular block time assigned to each Lifetime at birth, and dependent on the block time at time of birth, wallet address, etc. The graphics are stunning and also on-chain generated. It’s a free mint - on Polygon, so just mint a couple, they’re really cool :)
My informant Chris (who worked with me on creating NODOUS, the Folia curated exhibition we did in Berlin), just shared Beecoin alpha with me. They launched a DAO during Documenta and apparently the ceremony was spectacular. Big FOMO. For those that don’t know Beecoin, it is an experiment with bees, data, and art. Explore here.
DIS’ Deathclock upcoming drop. Not only the concept is fantastic, but they also make killer memes to promote it, and if you have read this newsletter from the early days, you’d know DIS actually changed my life when they decided to curate a giant headless Rihanna for the 2016 Berlin Biennale.
That’s it for today, see you around on Twitter spaces, we’re really hosting good ones!
Follow us on Twitter to stay up to date with new exhibitions, spaces, and others.
Oh and I thought for the next newsletter maybe I show you my favorite jpegs from my personal collection, aka The My Bags Edition of the JPG newsletter? What do you think? (rhethorical) stay tuned. Its coming. And a history of Berlin Blockchain Art edition, because one thing that actually bugged me from NYC, is that you all think NFTs were essentially just a USA thing on the early days.