At JPG we have many topics and verticals we would love to cover with this newsletter, and try our hand at giving our readers the opportunity to discover past and present art and news, interesting articles, and beyond.
In contrast with the wider cryptocurrency scene, where novelty is celebrated above “legacy” (whatever that means in this context), the NFT scene is lately experiencing the most interesting archeological discoveries. And since I’m essentially geriatric when it comes to NFTs (I got sucked into the rabbit hole around March 2018), I’m stoked about it.
Boomers, so hot right now
Mitchell F. Chan begun his Yves Klein-inspired NFT series Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility in 2017 “specifically, empty digital spaces imbued with an immaterial artistic sensibility”. The last drop of the series sold out last week, in a record sale for this incredible conceptual artist. You’ve probably heard of this series as FingerprintsDAO and other major collectors have been onto them for a while, but in case you haven’t, take some time to watch this lecture also from 2017.
Two drops that happened in the past week or so and brought strong pre-pandemic vibes were Heaven computer - super fun and beautifully designed project, and Market Scammer, that, in case you weren’t around Prague in 2018 when RaveCon was organized, took us back to that moment in time.
All of you might already know Etherocks (est. 2017) especially because it’s been pumping lately and probably because these are really just rock illustrations worth 6 figures and more. And while exploring this phenomenon, I stumbled upon a project from the same creators, NFTsprites - which feature AI generated people. I love this project, it has the right amount of creepy dystopian we need to counteract the cartoonish cute imagery of Pengus, without scaring the shit out of us, like Polymorphs.
During my 2018 NFT first infatuation, I got to know Billy Rennekamp, whom I would end up collaborating with quite a few times. Billy was back then, working in Cosmos and building Clovers, an NFT game. In 2019 we set Billy and Clovers up in a Cryptoeconomics lab at ETHBerlinZwei, where they officially launched and spent the whole weekend vibing and 3D printing Clovers. It’s been so refreshing to see the project being brought to Cryptotwitter’s attention - it’s truly one of the good and timeless ones. Here’s the history of the project as told by Billy.
FlowerTokens, also an OG NFT favorite, has been getting a lot of traction. Conceptually perfect and carefully designed, FlowerTokens started off in 2018. This thread by Gabagool explains them really well. During the past weekend, the team behind FlowerTokens, Terra0, released a wrapper, finally allowing these historical NFTs to be traded freely around the metaverse. For those of us who missed out in 2018 and last weekend, anon Gabagool organized a DAO with the goal of acquiring flowers.
In other peripherally botanical news, Sarah Meyohas’s 2015 Bitchcoin has been reborn. Besides having a project name that really speaks to me, Bitchcoin is one of those artworks that live in your head rent-free forever. While right now there are a few artists experimenting with collective decision-making over their practice and financial instruments (Jonas Lund being one of them), Bitchcoin by Meyohas was the first one. Bitchcoin was offered by the Phillips auction house last May, and recently also incorporated into the FingerprintsDAO collection - and Sarah’s joined the DAO. Bitchcoins are available on OpenSea.
Some other stuff that will make you instantly smarter
In other (non NFT but related) news, Furtherfield’s People’s Park Plinth is a project by the incredible think-tank, and has opened their Culture Stake decision making app to choose digital art experiences to experience at London’s Finsbury Park, and I really recommend you check it out and participate. I had the privilege of visiting the premises and meeting Ruth Catlow (here’s an interview we did in 2019!), Furtherfield’s co-founder in 2019, and have been following and fangirling avidly since long - if you like to see people pushing the boundaries of activism, technology, and art, Furtherfield is where it’s at.
And because JPG loves you and wants you to get smarter and mentally nourished, I’d like to share this interview with Lynn Hershman Leeson, that’s been at the forefront of exploring the relationship between humans and technology for decades, on how she sees the current generation.
(praying nobody tries to NFT Lynn)
Wrapping up - I would like to make an open call since my view of the space might be skewed and I want to provide a wider perspective. While the projects presented in this newsletter might not be perceived as new for some of you, my goal is to have the new generation of artists, collectors, and aficionados discover the work we have been doing during all these years, as well as novelties that might be lost among all those animal pfp projects.
Please share with us your news, thoughts, as I would love to include some of them.
Till next time.
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