The JPG newsletter: is this thing on?
Low effort edition - but not as low effort as Christie's Art Blocks display.
Hello everyone,
Sitting down to write this newsletter, against my will, on a chair instead of in the bathtub. Why am I oversharing this? Because Brian Frye, that self-describes as “America’s most Dadaist Professor of Law” made an NFT of papers he writes in the bathtub. If there is an intersection of the many intersections we, as multidimensional web3 natives should explore, is doing business from our bathtubs. But this newsletter is written on a laptop that’s best when not drenched in bathwater, so here we are.
I would honestly make the entire newsletter about the Belle Delphine of jurisprudence, because his latest project, Adopt a Design Patent is definitely the most exciting thing that happened in the metaverse this past week, but it has come to my attention that JPG is a company, that we have a community, investors, and that you are all reading this to also learn about our progress.
USD62253: W. Danson, Statuette (1923) - Adopt a Design Patent, Bryan Frye 2021
So yeah, follow and protest the legist-in-the-tub at all costs, not only because his projects and viewpoints are great, but also because he is a great influence, as he likes to be clean, and that’s always a good idea.
The second thing to be mentioned is that one of the nicest projects out there, Sarah Friend’s Off.supply, just released the second batch of NFTs. Off is a multi-player game and an artist’s edition that’s been running since June. What happens is that you buy NFTs on Matic that allude to digital devices, and you get access to a Telegram group where people are trying to solve a puzzle together. Since not everyone that bought an NFT joined, we’re still far from solving it, so please, if you got one, or buy off secondary, get in touch and let’s get you on the group, anxiety’s killing us.
On the IRL front, I really enjoyed the show she took part in, Radical Gaming at HEK Basel, where you could lose yourself playing games and interacting with different pieces from artists we know from the metaverse like Nicole Ruggiero (I loved the myspace/geocities/guestbook situation!), Theo Tryantafilliids and more. I also got to mint a POAP there.
As a part of the adjacent exhibition, Unfinished Camp, Sarah introduced her Eve And The Interface, which happens to be on Vimeo, so enjoy :)
Sarah Friend, Eve and The Interface, 2021
The NFT discussion I took part in, hosted by Simon Denny, with Holly Herndon, and Dan DeNorch from Folia, also in Basel was a lot of fun. You can watch it on Facebook, suboptimal platform to show this, but anyway. And Holly wrote a thread about it in case you’re not into watching.
Also special mention, Holly+ launched its DAO, that’s meant to create a common governance about the destiny of the community created productions that leverage Holly Herndon’s likeness and I can’t wait to see how this experiment turns out.
Holly+ access token
Last week, some images on the Art Blocks on display at Christie’s surfaced, and yeah, that was messy. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. For every time a major auction house does a terrible job at displaying internet native work, we, the internet native, build better systems, better platforms, and even curate much better than traditional institutions. So at the end of last week, 0x650d showed the work he has been doing on JPG, curating 104 “floor punks”. The exhibition is not just about displaying punks but about a combination of actions, from “sweeping the punks floor” to using different financial instruments for wider distribution, and finally leveraging JPG for an on-chain curatorial record, the viewing experience and transcending the one we had access to before (where you would only be able to see punks on the Larvalabs page or maybe OpenSea, with no narrative or particular ordering to help).
Punk Pieces by 0x650d on JPG
Punk Pieces (blogpost about it here) is the first community-owned JPG gallery, and this week we are getting two more ready - and one of them is an Art Blocks exhibition, further cementing the point that we can leverage our own tools to allow internet native work to achieve the gravitas it deserves via a curatorial experience, without relying upon or bowing down to traditional institutions. But this does not mean the traditional art world and our metaverse are mutually exclusive. It just means that we can collaborate to allow web3 cultural objects to get to more people, and artists to get the respect they deserve by getting their works displayed correctly.
Another thing worth mentioning is that in a few days, a bunch of us NFT degenerates will be landing in Prague at the Lobkowicz castle for their event, Non-fungible Castle. The event is comprised of an NFT exhibition, a forum featuring discussion panels, and other social events. JPG got to know the people behind the event and NFT concept back in July and learned about their motivations behind the event and NFT sales. The Lobkowicz family has a large collection of art and historical objects, and during World War II they were expropriated by the Nazis and forced to flee as refugees to the US. The properties and art collections later fell into Soviet hands and during the 90s, after extensive legal battles, they were returned to the family. Fast forward to 2021, William, who’s one of the heirs and looks after the art collection, discovered NFTs and decided to create a bridge between his family’s institution and novel technologies. The story is pretty cool, and I’m looking forward to the event - Mitchell Chan, Maria Shen, Laura Shin, gMoney, yours truly, and more will be there taking part in the panels. You can find more and buy tickets here.
Anyways, this week there will be more news on JPG and beyond, but in the spirit of keeping this newsletter going on a regular basis, we’ll leave that for the next one.
See you next time,
MP