The JPG newsletter is back!
Sorry for bailing, The Internet was just too good, and got distracted for weeks
It’s been a while. And the reason for the radio silence during these weeks was the internet, it’s just too amazing and following all that petty-fighting-constitution-buying-gasspending-jpeg-worshipping rollercoaster honestly takes up a lot of time.
The internet is an incredible place. Not being optimistic or a thot leader here - I just think these past weeks on the internet were top-notch shit, high-class meme material and I’m having a blast doomscrolling. I’ve become a shitpost that nurtures out of shitposts. The ouroboros of bullshit.
But enough with excuses, let’s dive deep into more bull…..I MEAN JPEGS.
New gallery on JPG:
On Blockchain Aesthetics curated by Gabe Wise for the GN party in New York:
“Perspectives within crypto communities use the political, social, and aesthetic to argue whether the present moment will inspire a techno utopian or techno dystopian future. The story I set out to tell in this exhibition is about this impending future, and the aesthetics through which these opinions are communicated.”
Featuring art by Sarah Meyohas, Harm Van Der Dorpel, DEAFBEEF, Rhea Myers, Spectral Beings (one of the nicest sort of understated projects around), Artblocks, IXShells and more.
Keeping up with the jpegs of JPG:
Trent, Sam, and I did this awesome Zero Knowledge Podcast with Anna Rose and Tarun Chitra
Sam and Trent podcasted with Brian L. Frye. The best part is Trent’s “new drop, pump, dump, new drop, pump, dump” which I think it’d be hilarious as an actual new project in the intersection between hardcore memeing and NFTs. Just dropping it here and hoping someone picks up this concept and does something with it.
I took part in the incredible Rhizome event, joining Michael Connor and Artnome for a panel. If you have time, watch the whole event. The lineup is the best I’ve seen. If you don’t know about Rhizome, also dive into their website and different initiatives. They’ve been doing decades of amazing work in the intersection of art and technology, and the NFT space sometimes needs to be more cognizant and appreciative of those paving the way for a long time (hint in case you are a bit lazy: the preservation section is where it’s at)
Team JPG met IRL for the first time in NY - was so wholesome.
Took part in the NFT text-based performance NFT Culture Proof, that I mentioned in previous installments. For our prompt, we used one of Sam’s best tweets :)
We’re hiring a design lead and developers, and interest has been quite crazy, we’re really thankful and doing our best to reply to all of you!
Trent and I will be around Art Basel Miami - schedule TBD but slide into our DMs if you got an interesting proposal
Last but not least we’re now working on a new iteration of our curatorial interface and it’s looking amazing + thinking how to open the protocol and onboard users in a fun way
Other jpegs:
Sarah Friend finally released Lifeforms. I’ve been eagerly waiting since September, and am very excited to finally, and for only 90 days, be in the custody of four forms. After pondering for a while what to do with them, I decided it would be fun to give one away (you need to take care of the Lifeforms by giving them away after 90 days) to one newsletter reader because actually, you’re cool. Also, if you have any other ideas on what I should do with a second one, would be fun to chat!
Brian Frye release the Andy Warhol Pantry NFTs, which he gave a uni lecture about.
Dhof released Corruption and I could not resist it because ASCII but also because they’re dhof’s but also because they’re actually fucking good. The whole community discovery of the different hints and clues, data dashboards, and so on make this drop even more interesting.
Also as spotlight and not related to a particular drop, I’d love to mention Stevie P one of my favorite crypto artists/satirists around. You should check him out.
On the topic of satire that borders performance art that borders dada, last week while ConstitutionDAO was trying to “save the constitution”, some of us were trying to save the whales (the ocean ones, not the bag holding ones). A quick, yet landmark project, was started by a group of whaletrepreneurs that are still trying to figure out how to save SeaWorld before Ken Griffin fucks that up as well.
Also last week we saw a dev in Australia claim that he had right clicked saved all the NFTs and created The NFT Bay, for torrents of all of them. Which would have been amazing, if only it was real. God knows we need all the methods to make sure the digital files are stored and preserved correctly, but he forgot to fill more than 75% of that torrent with something other than just zeroes.
Regarding preservation, i’d like to highlight and send some followers the way of Regina Harsanyi who is a subject matter expert.
(this last point is better experienced if immediately right after you start reciting “Click me, and then right save me, till I can get my, satisfaction, satisfaction” to this tune - though probably most people reading this are too young to appreciate this meme)
Those that have been in the space for long enough (aka are old) remember Ascribe. Ascribe was a platform for provenance and ownership on Bitcoin, that was developed around 2013. Lately there have been some efforts to dig into digging into the project and its history, including this blogpost by Trent McConaghy, and Tim Daubenshütz’s digging into the codebase (he doesn’t have Twitter any longer but has a great substack). Check Trent’s Interdependence episode here as well.
This one is a contribution from Micol at VerticalCrypto art: The VerseVerse is a new text-based art platform. Super happy to include it since ive been reading and enjoying co-founder Kalen Iwamoto’s writing for a while
Finally, and as I mentioned Spectral Beings above, the artist eeedg released a new generative and very pretty drop called Phantoms
(lol to 2018 me that claimed she needed NFT rehab - yeah that did not work out well)
I’ll close this edition with the ONLY lesson learned during my NY visit: IRL art is incredible, but jpegs are more fun. While my position has always been more towards IRL art, seems I’m flipping - not only jpegs, but also in how I see things.
Anyways, this newsletter is already very long and we have a new DAO to buy shit to tend to, DuneDAO, and maybe some new memes, idk,
Till very soon,
MP