BBW23 – Day 2 – The Art & Culture of Web3

[Music] definitely check out the pis art uh in the other room when you get a chance it's really great that they have that here for us and uh the the studio itself is downtown in Boston so definitely check that on Newberry Street as well uh hi everyone I just wanted to shout get us this uh art panel art and culture going and um lead with the simple question in the web 3 space how does you know art and culture play an role and uh let's start with the where we are now and then go back and kind of cover some history as well so uh yeah I'll I'll start um I think uh the best way to think about these type of things is sort of like an from an application standpoint so I've been a crypto investor for a long time and um I've always loved art but in many ways the traditional art world is somewhat inaccessible like you have to you can feel intimidated collecting or walking into a gallery you don't know like exactly what to look for but with web 3 um all the walls sort of like disappeared and and the integration of the technology as proof of ownership and the ability to like know that you own this there's no counterfeits like paper coas are good but like you know uh that's not like as good as it could be and not even close actually um so yeah the best way to think about this is is um how it affects our entire progression as a society from a technological standpoint for example like I have two kids they're going to grow up in the metaverse um as opposed to like me playing Nintendo or something um so their digital identities will be will become hugely important over time and for me I love art so I started from the collector standpoint and now I'm you know working on a you know a project a digital art studio project but um I just started buying stuff and stuff that I liked and I W up meeting uh some of the best artists in the world because of that so I think that was a really easy way to to Break Down The Walls of of traditional art and um sort of like higher end culture I suppose oh and also can you just say your name Quick oh I'm sorry I'm David PES I'm the CEO of Skynet Studios and I'm the Digital Arts director of pis Gallery which Isabelle owns thank you uh we just all do intros now yeah do the intros as well yeah I'm Carl cleanthis uh I'm an artist you can look me up at Colorful Carl on prettyy much anything uh colorful karl.com I'm also the founder of Epic made we're a creative agency that works uh in entertainment media and Tech um we do lots of Animation digital art type of stuff so I'm Isabelle I'm a woman of many hats a uh art advisor art dealer art collector traditional art mostly but we've gotten into the space of nfts and digital art I own P Gallery which is a Newberry Street in Boston so hopefully you can come and David is there um many days of the week Tuesdays Fridays Tuesdays yeah Fridays Tuesdays um and we have a digital art gallery on the back which is a totally immersive space um with artist that we represent so with David's point on digital identity and uh uh you know web 3 kind of opening up so many possibilities outside of like the strict definition of web 3 uh what other points do you guys want to highlight that this is kind of bringing into this web and culture space yeah I mean the the foundational part of web 3 right is financial sovereignty right and that spills way over into us and like the when when web 3 Hit and crypto started going it was mostly like really techsavvy Financial Savvy people and no one really knew what it was and it was kind of this Enigma and you know is that a scam is it whatever but when when crypto kitties hit and all these big collections started coming people like what is this it was the artist the artist that defined the culture that blew this whole thing up that put it on the national and international stage that everyone was excited about so I just think that like that same vein bleeds through this part of the arts and culture side is that like we just want to be you know a more Equitable space more inclusive space we love the idea of secondary royalties and getting to make a good chunk of money in perpetuity potentially whoever wins these royalty Wars and and the whole idea that like the attribut of our work and perpetuity like who made this thing like we're creating these memes and these interesting things that are a huge part of our culture and no one even knows who made these things so there's an ability of a mutable record in the blockchain to be able to track these things and give people credit where credits du that's humongous so what we're talking about here are really at the core nfts right and and the basics there is just a non-fungible token something that's holding the the essence of that creative Endeavor in it and is able to be verified that that is in fact who created it who wrote it and that what that information is um do you want to expand on my definition at all or I think that actually can be somewhat problematic uh to use the word nft in regards to traditional art um the reason why is because nft is just simply a technology right there's there's nothing like um connecting that to art specifically however integrated with digital art it's a very good use case um and the problem is that like people from who aren necessarily like involved in the space like you guys are they hear the word nft and they're like oh it's a scam it's cartoon animals like it's all it's there's so many negative associations with the word that I actually have stopped referring to nfts other than as a point of Technology like uh I just refer to it strictly as digital art or digital Fine Art um so the stuff that you see in the in in across across the the way in the in the gallery setup um those are some of the best artists in the world um one of one of the artists um just got hired to create uh Netflix first like IP AAA game um so these guys are like these guys are the best and get and that's the one thing about nfts web3 is that you can actually like because there's everything is so new you can actually like just try to do something and then you wind up like meeting these incredible artists or working with these incredible teams whereas like trying to do that in traditional art like I literally walked into the gallery naively in 2021 I was walking up and down Newbery Street as a buyer thinking hey maybe in art galleries where they might sell digital art of course that was a crazy notion but I walked into uh Isabella's gallery and we W up having a lovely conversation and instead of like being like Oh no we don't sell any digital art which some of the other galleries did um um they were actually very open-minded partially because of uh the owners are very young um but also they were willing to take a risk and um we went up producing uh as far as I'm aware Boston's first um digital Fine Art nft Show at a traditional Gallery space and it was a huge success we had 700 people outside the door in a uh cold no February night and we sold over a million dollars worth of digital art which was it which was really incredible um and seeing like Boston being put on the map and you know things like this are done in New York La Miami but um Boston were supposed to be a tech Centric City and we we we really didn't have anything wow that's really impressive and it's so cool that artists can start out in this space and find such great opportunities to connect with other institutions or other great artists do you see there's a lot of friction still in getting digital art into institutional spaces outside of maybe the pelis gallery um I think there are many many issues with that um starting from the technology from a person who collects traditional art and who's very interested in digital art and very interested in nfts and blockchain but is not as an expert as a lot of you guys are who are in the space and having all of these conferences um the technology is not there for a regular person who's not in this space to understand fully we use some applications on our phone to display the digital art and it can become tricky for someone who doesn't have a David A Digital Arts director to explain sit down with them um so with technology comes a lot of Education it's amazing that you guys are doing this because that's what people need a lot of people are interested we saw it on the Boom in coid there was a lot of free time there was people could spend 10 hours in front of a computer on Discord and and talk and ask questions and communicate with the artists but now when we're distracted with our daily life if this is not your world I think there's a huge barrier um I think there's also a lack of willingness to put all your eggs in one basket as a gallery standpoint we did take a huge risk because people only see what is shown the day of but behind the scenes it was 7 months of planning it was um partnering up with son with Samsung with um the different artist and there's a lot of monetary risk that we had to take it ended up being amazing and we're very lucky that we it was the right timing but for a gallery who is just starting and wants to educate people I think that's a huge risk so I think those are some of the base the very superficial problems that could happen but at the same time there is a lot of happiness and enjoyment to understand the space and we still see a traditional artists trying to be part of the nft and digital art space um David was telling me about these auctions and it's Keith herring's estate which is a master they released this a nfts that he had created on online when he was alive and they went for 600k like like yeah it was like it just happened yesterday five digital artworks that he made like I think it was on an amga computer or something like that um in like the 80s um they found and and basically put them on the blockchain and oxygen Christies and the five of them sold for like over $1.5 million um so that's like a huge that's a huge example of how like traditional art can actually use utilize blockchain technology and like it's preserving preserving the asset essentially in like a collectible format um and it's and it's authenticated by by the estate itself so that that's like a huge a huge thing of a crossover and like is has a great point about like the education standpoint like imagine like a 60-year-old person walking into your uh art gallery and like finding their way to the back section being like oh what's this on the walls oh that's digital art oh how do you collect it do I need to buy the screen if I buy that piece does it come with the screen like I'm like trying to get them set up with a wallet it reminds me of like when I was trying to buy my first Bitcoin like going on these random message boards and like it it was a nightmare um but that said like it takes time like it took like five six seven years like just to get to the point of like where it could even be somewhat Mass adopted um so I think that all that like it's just going to take time education and people like you know the co- panelists to take risks put themselves out there and and really educate um and and you see it melding into the traditional art World Rafi anadol like you know widely considered like the premier uh Premier um AI artist his work is on and display in the in the front section of the MoMA right now and um on the Las Vegas sphere which is the largest LED display in the world um and at the Grammys as well so you're going to see guys like that really make their Mark and be collected by some of the top collectors in the world yeah that's great uh there's just so much passion in the space uh well it's a it's a struggle to see you know um sometimes getting art out there and getting out out we are seeing now that that's occurring with these famous artists being put in these amazing places but the accessibility I do want to highlight that that that's still a challenge and still something that the space is fighting through Carl do you want to touch on that at all yeah I mean you know our keynote earlier like they built a platform that allows creators and it doesn't matter what the industry is but you can onboard Fiat offboard Fiat get paid your nfing your content like that's humongous right that's the kind of things we need not just for Fine Arts but the whole culture of this and I think it's difficult to for everyone to still understand because we do have that education barrier like you guys said um like nfts are just a piece of cryptocurrency that's permanently associated with a file it doesn't have to be an image it doesn't have to be it could be a contract be a document could be any sort of metadata uh at all so like there's not we have to understand on the core of what we're talking about but I think like some of the other panelists have said once we get to a space where no one's no one has to think about that when you're on theat platform you're making this this is just like you said certificates of authenticity that's huge uh in our space so yeah I I think you know as this moves forward it becomes easier for people to get on it's going to just make sense for everything of value in our society to have an nft associated with proving that that's the original one that's not the fake right if I took a Michael Jordan card and I rookie and I printed it you know and made it exactly the same like it doesn't have any value cuz it's a copy right that's how we're doing this in the digital art world like we're saying this one's the real one because the artist said that and the artist assigned the value to the Creator right and these over here are fakes these are copies right and they're not worth anything and they're you know celebrations of this piece if you will um but they don't have any value so I think as we understand that more and more I think people will adopt this more when the barer entry comes down so yeah sorry um just to add on to Call's Point like there's a lot of um there's a lot of friction but I think like even more so than the education itself you just need some cool applications like I'm a sneaker head so uh utilizing a company like Nate which spoke earlier uh yesterday or Nike bought artifact Studios so I have a hoodie and I'm going to get some Air Force Ones by morami like I love morony I would have never been able to collect as like painting because it's too expensive but I can get as sneakers with an authenticated authentification like basically via blockchain technology with via Visa via NF NFC chip so like all this stuff is um all that all the cool applications are coming imagine going to an art gallery like pelis like getting your brain scanned and then H you know collaborating with a with a generative AI artist and seeing like your emotions as you're watching images of your family and how that transforms into like an artwork that you can just take home similarly like you get your ey scan you have those like blowups of your eye um it'll be of your brain and you know all those all those cool applications are coming they're just not here yet like um but when they do come that's going to work a lot better than trying to sit and do panels like these because people actually want that stuff and they'll educate themselves more so than like us talking yeah I I paring that like we all have to understand this like we do right we're we're we're in this be we're in this deep bare market right everyone that's here actually gives a about this technology no one's here just like oh I'm going to make a million dollars and screww a bunch of people over we got rid of all the grifters and like half the of this so the core group that's here it's like on us to educate people remove some of these myths about what this stuff is and isn't and just be Champions if this we've never had technology in the history of humankind that can build Bridges across communities like this across the whole world like we're not bound about a religion or a language or or what we look like or what like any kind of thing it's just I like this idea that this piece of technology proposes to represent and you can create connections everywhere that's massively powerful so like I mean I I so it's on us to spread that message right it isn't just like oh make a quick Buck I'm in here I got high risk tolerance and I'm going to make millions of dollars like yeah whatever that's all like that's that's not about what this is this is the cultural revolution that we're doing and a great place to start a revolution uh might be Massachusetts so I don't know like I heard that before so I'm mean that's what's so great and fascinating about this technology is is we're talking about just being to make smaller smaller connections and verify that information but then that gets into the metaverse that gets into these great ideas and and Grand visions of how we're going to be able to interact and view each other and share our culture and who we are so closely so Carl we talked before this and I just wanted you to touch on your art with your father and what you've done there yeah thanks so like I got into BL I've been in advertising and marketing my whole life my dad was an artist was an artist so in 2016 um he passed away and I told him I'm going to get this out all right anyway so on his deathbed I was like look D don't stress about your art I'll get it out there you know and I didn't know what that was like I knew I wanted to do something cool he's amazing artist right so a lot of times like there's so many amazing artists in the world they never get their due because they never get the exposure but like in 2021 my buddy told me about nfts he's like man you should take all of your dad's work and mint it to the blockchain I was like yes right I I don't know what the hell that means but let's do it like so I I went I took all of his art I have 700 pieces of his work and I minted them all to the blockchain um and I wrote little stories on each one and I basically just like talked about them the whole time so I think at this point it's still the first of its kind nft art meno so I told stories about him minted his amazing work to the blockchain created a 72 piece Genesis collection and in doing that I decided to start promoting it so we we we uh we had a show in uh the nft HK nft Gallery in New York so Hell's Kitchen nft Gallery uh that we did in 2021 at um nft NYC anyways long story short I started making these really cool postumus collaborations that I've continued to do so every Wednesday night like I'll take sketches of his work and then I'll I'll take his work and build on top of it with a live audience on a live stream and make really cool like ridiculous pieces of art I mint that uh so that's recorded to YouTube then I'll mint an NT of the art in the metadata I link the YouTube video that like has the whole story and the creation process of me making this and who was there on the stream and all the crazy we said it's so much fun really cathartic it's been so healing and it's like that kind of like what other technology could you use to do that that's a permanent record maybe maybe I never succeeded making my dad a famous artist but maybe in 200 years somebody thinks this was cool cuz the ethereum blockchain sto around and like oh my God check this guy out now he's like van go or something you know I don't know just the possibilities are beautiful like I upheld my promise like maybe it'll happen maybe it won't but like it's possible forever no matter what that's amazing so what else do you guys see is just the Forefront of possibilities what is what is in your mind as something that's so cool that blockchain is enabling right now sorry I have a question when you sell the art do you sell only the NFD or the piece oh great question uh so I have 700 pieces I have 40 on my walls and like seven on my ceiling my wife like loves my dad too but you know there's a limit right so I have so when people buy the nft they get the original work of art as well as the nft as a certificate of of authenticity and then New pieces I make that are digital collaborations I print off on art paper like a really nice high quality AR archival print and it's the one of one signed and authenticated print so they get that as a momentto so they basically get two assets when they buy the art so had some success with it it's pretty cool so it's it just feels so good like I don't even care if I ever make any money with it like I love this a true artist at heart yeah for sure so thank you for taking the time to you know di a little bit deeper into that but I do want to reiterate get you know where do you guys see this space moving and what do you see as some of the coolest things coming out of it there's so many um I this whole convention we I could list like five or 10 that I think are really cool probably the top two I'd say are utilization of AI so like yeah you know when mid Journey or like Dolly came out obviously dol's getting updated a huge update this week um I started using it almost as therapy I'm not an artist uh but I I have a writing background and I using word-based prompts to be able to create art is incredibly therapeutic So like um taking a childhood memory and then you know writing that out and seeing what the AI came up with and then like fiddling with it and playing with it and like getting it to like look how I didn't even think it could look but loving it you know and that that is like an application that expands the creative experience for people that um you know otherwise wouldn't have accessibility to that given like human limitations so stuff like that is really cool I think just like basic things in terms of like um dyn like Dynamic stuff so like for example there's a piece that corresponds uh to like the time of day or the weather or you know like let's just say like uh you're you're uh an incredible like Orchestra and behind the screen is a is a piece of evolving art that is taking data the sound data coming from the orchestra and then translating it to an image on the screen like stuff like that is like really really like next level stuff um and that's going to like it it honestly blows people's minds when when they see it in person for the first time so like but the best stuff we haven't thought of yet so yeah very true I think there's an opportunity to save us from the uh pitfalls of AI using web 3 and Technology like you think about like what the last presidential election cycle was like and how like the disinformation and Insanity of things that is out there like you don't know what to believe anymore right the truth is almost IND discernible so you know maybe there's a solution with web 3 where we can do you know a zero knowledge thing where we meant directly to a blockchain hey this is what happened in Congress this is exactly what the guy said or the lady said or whatever and like this is what they said not this crazy manipulation and all these other things are actually fake like there's a chance there that we don't lose abject truth which I think is a danger of AI because you can create a deep fake that sounds and looks and everything like it how do you discern that how does the Layman person go is this real what am I supposed to believe like who do I vote for like that's a cultural existential problem we're going to have here coming up I'm kind of concerned about it so it's scary yeah it's terrifying it's going be scary for me um the possibilities are endless I think think artists I'm going to talk in art um the artists are very creative we have a one of the most famous living artist Damen Hurst he came up with the project a couple years ago um he created physical works and then the nft so you could choose to buy the nft or the physical work and whatever you didn't buy he would either burn or completely destroy the one or one um it's also exciting the space in general because none of us grew up with it but the generations that are coming up now the new generations they are growing up with it and it's so funny to see when you're in the gallery a kid comes and he knows he's like oh my God that's an nft oh my God and they start talking and sometimes the little kids know way more than a person that's in their 30s or 40s or 50s so it's it's very interesting to see what new generations will come up with in the art world in real world and the metaverse yeah yeah these kids have been coding since they were eight it's very uh terrifying as someone who did not get that education background to do all of the magic that the internet can provide today I've had to learn it myself you know compared to getting it in school uh is there any final shout outs you guys want to give out to projects you're working on things going on in the space that you're involved with yeah we just launched uh a Genesis a Genesis pfp collection uh well we just completed the art for it um set up you know like your traditional you know there's an avatar with eight parts and different unique pieces to it but uh it's for an exchange that's find the paragon.com it's one of our clients um but basically it's going to be an nft management platform with all kinds of robust features to allow people to you know rent and and then uh you know fractional ownership of a bunch of different features like and don't quote me on exactly what the features are but it's going to be what it what it should be for creators in mind and it's really awesome stuff and the art we did was just like it's stupid like I'm so excited about it uh and you can find that they're on Twitter and everywhere you know so just find the Paragon it's a cool project I'm really really jazzed on so thanks Carl yeah um for me I'd say make your first purchase um whether it's a piece of art uh something fashion related um just go down the rabbit hole take the time like if you have to like get a metamask or just just message me on Twitter I'll tell you how to do everything um and find what you what actually interests you and that's that's really the best way to grow the space and you know obviously like uh don't risk too much money you know but uh just just find something that that interests you and that you like um and feel free to reach out to me um goo 2121 at Twitter or just come to the gallery come to pelis Gallery I'm there um and I'll show you like some of the best digital artists in the world and yeah your minds will be blown um great well thank you everyone really appreciated the panel and we learned a lot today and I I have a advocacy uh webinar that I do so if anybody has a group of people that really and just need the basics of crypto and leading into nfts and like some of the like ways that this can go happy to you know donate that webinar and do that for people no problem so if you guys need some just Reach Out thank [Music] you