Exploring Art Style Narratives in Web3 — Collectors & Artists Views
Speaker 4 Hello. Hello. Welcome. Hello, guys. What's up? Welcome to another show. Cheers. Cheers. Waiting a little bit more for the guests. Just let me DM them, and then we are good to go. Welcome, everyone. Backwards Geometry. Really nice to see you here. Mikey too. Leslie, how are you doing? Let me invite you as a speaker. Mental noise. Hello, Lola. Yes. Do you you are muted. Leslie, you are muted. Let just let me know if it's working while I invite Thiago also to speak. Invitation. Hello.
Speaker 4 I'm feeling very well. How about you?
Speaker 5 Good. Still fighting jet lag. It's been a week and a half. I've been up since 02:30 this morning. So
Speaker 5 And I have such a busy day today.
Speaker 4 Okay. Where are you right now?
Speaker 5 I'm in Texas right now.
Speaker 4 Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
Speaker 4 you were traveling from?
Speaker 5 From Northeast India.
Speaker 4 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Holidays or work?
Speaker 5 I was, photographing the different tribes in Nagaland, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Speaker 4 Oh, that's that sounds very interesting. I want to learn more about that. Doxy, I just sent you an invitation for cohosting the space. Let me know, if everything is working. Yes. You are muted just to make sure if everything is working. One Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. To see you here, my friend. How are doing? All good? All
Speaker 8 good. All good. Perfect. Perfect.
Speaker 4 So just a quick introduction of today's spaces. And, Thiago, do you do you can you just say something just to clarify if it's working?
Speaker 9 Yeah. I was just setting up. How are you doing,
Speaker 4 everyone? Nice to see you here too, my friend. Welcome. Welcome. All set. All set. Looking forward for these spaces. So just a quick introduction. Today's spaces is about arts, narratives, and styles in Web three, and our collectors analyze them while collecting. It all started with a question by Doxy, which is here today running the spaces with us as cohost, with the following question to NFT artists and collectors. When you start selling art, you start the concept, an art style. Right? It is okay to change and start selling different art styles. Is that bad for collectors who know for your type of concept and style? Well, we will be talking about this today and about the general crypto art narrative. And for that, we have gathered a good number of friends that are very experienced in the sector, and that will help us answer this question in the next hour.
Doksha, let's start by introducing yourself a little bit and what led you to ask this question in the first place?
Speaker 11 Yeah. For sure. For sure. Just check you you can hear me well because I I'm testing a new Bluetooth phone here for
Speaker 11 Yeah. All good? Okay. Okay. Nice. It's Christmas. I guess it's Christmas. Let's do it. Okay. So for those who don't know me, I'm a three d artist and VFX artist for ten years, and I starts started selling NFT art during my livestreams last year and then selling on foundation. And I start selling creating networks, three d networks on Houdini. It's a three d software for VFX and so on. And after a while, I start, like, getting bored of creating Networks because it was always the same principle or the technical side was always the same. And I was struggling, like, to change my art style because I'm I'm more of a tech artist than a concept artist. Let's create like let's say like this. I'm more of tech artist, so I create random stuff And a lot of different art styles from two d to three d, from abstract to super realistic stuff.
And I was struggling with this. I I even talked with my collectors last year about this because they they knew me from my space and my, like, artworks. And then if I start selling arts with the three different arts completely different art stuff, they would, like, stop collecting my my art. And since I was struggling with this, I kept my work because I'm a teacher, and I do tutorials online about three d art. And I stopped selling NFT art because of that. And this question always bugs me. Like, now I want to get back to NFT art and start selling again. This is a question that always struggles me. And, yeah, this is my background on the art space. I I'm a developer too. I developed some NFT projects related to NFT collections security app and so on, but that's more of technical stuff.
Speaker 9 important. Let's talk. Paul, tell
Speaker 4 me about parts. Of course. Of course. Well, first of all, thank you for for presenting and addressing such an important question. And, also, thank you all for being here today, and a special thanks to all of the guests that are going to be explaining to us their perspectives according to this subject. Leslie, why don't we start with you? Since you were the first to arrive, let's start. Just a quick introduction about you. You are a photojournalist, storm chaser, as you say, and a creative portrait artist. You have been working in the industry for over twenty five years, and you have, your work published worldwide. So just to kick to kick start, how much, of your work has changed in the last twenty five years?
Speaker 5 Wow. Well, in the last twenty five years, I I think it's changed quite a bit. It's I've grown in my work quite a bit, but my styles have always kind of I've always kind of gone with the flow and gone with the next thing that I think would be big. So, I I've changed a lot. I'm actually now despite the fact that I do I I came into this space doing a lot of different genres. So, I was always like that. I always did different genres. And, you know, I thought it was gonna be a big issue for me at first because I was told by collectors, you know, maybe you should just concentrate on one. And I I didn't listen. I did my own thing, and it seemed to work out fine for me.
However, this next year, I'm actually gonna be a lot more purposeful in in what I'm doing, and I'm going back to my roots, which is photojournalism and documentary photography. That's what I started out doing, along with some travel photography back in the day, and I'm kind of going back to those roots now. But, I think I've really, I've changed a lot of the years just because of, you know, my experience. I I've been working in this industry for so long. I've been done so many different genres. So I think, you know, all those different genres have helped me with each of the different genres. So even, you know, storm chasing has helped me with other aspects of photography. Wedding photography has helped me learn light and stuff and different types of light and how to work with them and stuff.
But but I I I use flash a lot during weddings, and now I'm going back to using no flash again.
Speaker 4 Nice. Nice. It's always good to be back to the roots, and I think that's something that we can see artists doing. So it's it's it makes totally sense what you just shared. So but also according to that, it was, an adaptation, an organic change, to current expressions. How do you see, coming back to roots? It was totally organic. Right? That that's also very important.
Speaker 5 Yeah. It was totally organic. And I will say that the people here, within this space have also inspired me so much. And, and I've changed a lot because of the people in this space. You know? And they've really helped me grow a lot. So, yeah. But it's it it was totally organic. You know? I I I went and started doing some of what I used to do and just I I basically fell in love with it all over again and and knew that that was the type of work that I ultimately want to be known for and want to pursue from here on out.
Speaker 4 Wonderful. Wonderful. And since you're also a collector too, if an artist that you have minted artworks in the past and you have been collecting is changing his art style, what will be your first thoughts around that?
Speaker 5 You know, it doesn't bother me at all. There's a big artist that, is known for photography and then started doing AI, and, I've collected both from that artist on in photography. I've collected their one on ones for a thousand tests. A thousand tests. Yeah. And then I've also collected, you know, some of their AI work for 500 tests. So, it it doesn't bother me at all. Everybody's free to experiment, and and I've seen so many artists that are photographers that are doing a lot of AI now and stuff like that and are branching out and stuff. And, I mean, it just shows that, you know, how talented they are in my opinion, you know, that they can do different forms of art.
Speaker 4 Yeah. It makes sense too. Yeah. Yeah. I totally understand. And the adaptation also and the exploration of different mediums while you keep creating, that's the beauty of it too. And that's something that we are here to discuss too along, alongside this this beautiful group of people. So
Speaker 5 And I will say one thing. You know, I'm kind of jealous in the fact that they can do that because for me, all I have is the ability to do photography. So the fact that they can do that is like, wow. That's that's amazing.
Speaker 4 Yeah. For sure. For sure. It makes sense to explore different mediums, and and maybe during this exploration, you can find yourself too. That's the beauty of it. So I I'm going to move now to Ben the Ben Meadows. Do you hear us, my friend?
Ben I am. Can you guys hear me okay?
Speaker 4 Yes. All good. Thank you for for for being here today and to join us. It's a pleasure.
Ben Absolutely. Glad to be here.
Speaker 4 Perfect. Just to to clarify to the audience, anytime if you guys want to to say something, if you want to make any question, to address something, just raise your hand. We would love to to hear you too. Doxy, the same. If you want to interrupt me, just feel free anytime. Yeah. Yeah. So just a quick introduction about Ben. You are an executive with fifteen years of proven results in construction and distribution and with significant expertise in sales, operations, management, and technology. So my first curiosity and question is how and when did you start your artistic journey in web three? Yeah.
Ben So I think, the artistic journey kinda goes back before that. Because if you look at my career, I've mostly been in construction industry. I've run big companies. I've owned them. But when it comes to art and technology, I grew up with technology, going all the way back to my grandfather, working with hard machines and and IBM mainframes, and I was lucky as a kid to grow up with computers. And, likewise, I grew up with a good art education, whether it was art appreciation, whether it was piano lessons as a young child or making art with our hands and painting classes. I'd always been exposed to kinda art and technology. And so technology was kind of a main hobby of mine, and so was art, whether it was making music or, you know, remixing songs or playing in a band.
And so the two kinda came together with Web three, slowly at first and separately. So I started with crypto back in 2012, 2014. I I bought Ethereum in 2016, but I was really interested in the technology, and the economics of it. It wasn't till 2021 when I quit my job as an executive that I had time to look into NFTs, and I really couldn't understand it. I understood blockchain, crypto, I but didn't understand these NFTs. Like, how how does this token and art work together? And so early twenty twenty two, I started collecting NFTs. And like most people, probably, I started in PFPs and then slowly started moving into art. You know? But photographic art was easy to understand than generative art. And and I would say it was really over the summer, that I wanted to understand, DALL E and OpenAI, but it was a closed beta, and I couldn't get in.
So I started playing around with mid journey and then stable diffusion over the summer. And at this point, I've made thousands of images. And because of the background I have, I was able to edit them and and, you know, Photoshop. And my little brother is a very talented illustrator. So I've been exposed to that and around that. And so for me, artistically, I'm not real great with my hands. Heck, I had hand surgery on my left hand Yeah. From an accident when I was, like, 18. But it gave me this ability to express, you know, sort of what was in my inner world through technology. And so, artistically, that's really what got me fired up and excited was the ability to use all this context and all these years of art appreciation to make something and to actually get from my head to maybe not paper, but digital pixels, what I had imagined, and then be able manipulate it and was really exciting to me.
Speaker 4 Amazing. Amazing. I see that web three has show you also, a way to explore different, mediums, and that's also what we were ending the conversation with Leslie. You know? Like, while you keep creating and exploring, you just keep finding new things, and you you can't just stick with with a single medium of expression or or or a single tool. You need to keep developing and searching. That's what the mind of an artist is. So I need to I would
Ben say one of the as a queen to die, one of the coolest things about that is I've got twenty years of photography, and I've sold some photography because it's a it's an easy it's very technical. Right? It's a it's a way to understand it. It's different than learning how to paint with tempura or or watercolors. And it's amazing how far the technologies come. I can take photos from 10 ago that were, you know, multiple images at different exposures that I combined into an HDR photo, and I thought they looked cool. And nowadays, you can use AI algorithms to upscale that photo. You know, I can run it through a generative or a GAN and and come out with, you know, all these different, you know, visions from the single old photo at higher resolution with a entirely different look.
And so even in that way, you can take old art, and make it into something new. The technology is really incredible.
Speaker 4 Amazing. Amazing. And my first my second question to you is that since you're a member of, a few web three artistic communities and a lot of them are very known in the space, Fingerprints, GMDAU, ULTRADAU, DijinDAU, Tender Art. How do these communities explore the different art styles in Web three while collecting? This is something that I'm very curious about too.
Ben So I think this was something interesting, and I've been sort of intentional in terms of, you know, a lot of these things cost a fair amount of money, to get into, you know, these communities, these these higher end fingerprints. I think it was 2025 East at one point back in the day. I was talking to Harm, Vandendorfel, and it was, like, 20 or 25 East. And I was telling Harm, I'm like, I I can't get in for this. I don't know. GM is five or six east now. UltraDAU even was, you know, half an eighth. These are not insignificant amounts of money. I think a tender pass now is, you know, several $100. And so one of the things I had to look at was, you know, you can't be in all of them. Right? I can't be in, you know, Railers and GM at there's just too many out there.
And so I did try and choose the communities based on how they're different. Right? And so fingerprints, you know, you look at that, they're they're much more focused on, I would say, curated collecting. They do less drops than, a GMDAU or an UltraDAU. And they've got some significant figures in the space in there, Grenfell and FarmVan Vendorfeller members. Ari Greenberg is a great member that's well known. And so they're they're kinda very high profile, curated, less about drops. Then you go to, like, a GMDAU, and, of course, GM Studio, is well known for their curated general drops. They generally stick to slightly more, I would say, established generative artists. However, you get into their community, and they were they're way more open to discussing every kind of art, you know, whether it's AI art or photography or or Tezos drops. And then you go to UltraDAU.
Chris from the Woody's that runs that, you know, they're more focused on up and coming generative artists. They're a very new sort of sort of group. Tender, of course, is sort of the premier tender. Yeah. I mean, Tezos collecting group, and they stick to primarily gen art, but then they've got some subgroups that talk AI art and other things. Dgen, I would say, is more open to everything. That's the group, they have coffee with the captain, which is a is a, you know, pretty well known podcast. But I would say when it comes to Thing. They're more focused on PFPs and projects like that. And so for me, there's not a ton of overlap there. There's a little bit, but by and large, they each have sort of their focus, and that's what I enjoy about being in those different groups.
And that's why I'm not in, you know, Grailers and GM at the same time. I enjoy having, you know, each of them has their own flavor and focuses on very different narratives in the, web three art world.
Speaker 4 Yeah. Okay. Thanks for for clarifying because it's also interesting as a as a perspective of an artist, where to engage, and and and you just clarified also. But according to your, as an individual, how if an artist, for example, that you have been collecting in the past change his art style, for example, What will be your first thoughts around that? I'm also curious since you have now, gathered a perspective from a community and and and the community side now, I'm very interested in knowing you as an individual. How you see that?
Ben So as both somebody that collects and makes art and and from a collector standpoint, I mean, if you go look at my Ethereum wallet, go look at my Tezos wallet, I've got several 100 NFTs in Ethereum, several 100 in in Tezos. I've been lucky and blessed to be able to collect a lot of good work. Yeah. And it's something that I constantly think about is is, you know, kinda what's my thesis in collecting these pieces, and what's my thesis in making art? And I think I think looking at it historically as well, you know, most artists end up with a particular style or medium they're famous for. Right? So and so is a famous photographer or, oil painter or, you know, I'm friends with a famous watercolor painter. Or like I said, my little brother's a very talented illustrator. He's put out over 3,000 illustrations.
And while the the medium may have changed slightly over the years in the subject, you can still say that's that artist's style. That's what they're known for. And so I think that's natural in a way. The question is, why are they known for that? Is that because that's all the artist has ever created, or is that what the the market likes the most? And so that's what they end up being known for. So I think changing style and medium are natural to some extent over time. But as a collector, I think I have to ask two questions. Why am I collecting? Is it for money, or is it for taste? You know? Am I buying these things because I wanna put them on my wall and I wanna have them, or am I buying them because I think the market's gonna value them differently over time?
And so I think artists do naturally find the medium that they're most adept at. You know? As as humans, we tend to play to our strengths, and we will you know? If I'm a really good pianist, why am I gonna start learning drums at, you know, 40 or 50? So I think they'll find the thing that they're most adept at. But I do think styles will change over time if you're, you know, if you're an artist that has a long enough, career. You know, great artists are gonna experiment some, and they're gonna iterate. The big question that I ask when an artist changes style is why are they changing style? You know? Is it is it is it for is it for money? Is it for and and if you look at, you know, music artists, this is often a a question over the course of someone's career, or they will have different periods and different styles and different albums.
And if somebody comes out with a second album that's exactly the same as their first album, they complain that they're stale, and it's just more of the same. So I think some variation is good. Too much variation, you gotta play to your strengths. You know? I don't wanna see somebody that's one of the world's greatest oil painters, do a really crappy, sculpture. You know? Nobody wants to buy that. But if they wanna change their oil painting style over time and draw and evolve and show me different things, that makes sense to me. So I think the question for me is why am I collecting it, and why are they changing
Speaker 4 it? That's that's that's very interesting. And I I when you also put into perspective from the music side, it's also very interesting to to to see all of all of the perspectives. Doxy, you wanna say something?
Speaker 11 Yeah. Yeah. Because you touch in a in a interesting topic from a collective perspective. When you you go to collect piece from a recent or a new artist, you look for the background. Like, you do you look for the background? Do you study a bit? Like, what does this artist do and so on before you collect an artist?
Ben I I think for me, I wanna know where they where they come from. Abs absolutely. If I'm if I'm collecting an artist you know, if and I think price, goes into that. If the piece is $1, I don't really care where they come from. If I like it, I'm gonna buy it. If the piece is $800, you know, or or and I and that's different for everyone. Right? But if the if the piece is expensive to me, yes. I wanna know more about Providence. I wanna know more about the artist, and I wanna know more about the story. For me, the more expensive it gets. The cheaper it is, the more trivial that is to to me as a collector. Interesting. Interesting.
Speaker 4 Nice. It makes it makes sense, you know, because it's also, an investment from your side. So it it makes totally sense. And it's a a common, let's say, behavior from collectors who analyze, the background of an artist. And what you just said, according to the price range of artworks, it makes totally sense to to me. Thank you for for showing, and and and to answer, our questions. If anyone wants to jump in, feel free to do it. I was thinking on
Speaker 11 We we have one request. Maybe Zed wants to to ask to the collectors.
Speaker 4 Zed, I'm you are muted, my friend. Just let us know if you're there. Just unmute, and and you're good to go. In the meantime, I was thinking on moving to Sunny. Sunny, are are are you there, my friend?
Speaker 12 How's it going? Can you guys hear me?
Speaker 4 All good. Finally, it's nice to finally meet you and hear you. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for for being here. Just a quick introduction about you. You are an art lover, a collector, and a changemaker. And, also, just by doing a quick research on Twitter, it was easy to understand the quality and the amount of NFT yards that you have been collecting, over the past. So it's great to have you here, and to to get your insights. Why don't we start by well, I would love to to have a small introduction about you if it's okay. And when have you started collecting in this space?
Speaker 12 Yeah. Well, first of all, the pleasure is mine. Thank you for having me here, and, happy Wednesday morning to everybody. Thank you. Well, my I'm probably the black sheep in the because I don't have an art background. There's some feedback coming from your mic or to act. Thank you. So I was saying, you know, I'm probably I'm probably the black sheep here. I don't have an art background. In fact, for the majority of my life, I thought that art and sports are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. I've been a sportsman all my life. I've played, you know, many sports, competitively throughout. And, you know, I don't know. It was just a preconceived notion that art and sports are just two opposites. And if you're good at one, you can't be good at the other. However, I have been a collector all my life.
You know? If I think back to my childhood, some of my fondest memories are around collecting stamps and coins. I remember I remember going to friends' place with my stamp books and and coin books and us swapping or bartering those stamps and coins, which I still have, by the way. I break them out every once in a while, and I flip through the pages, and it brings back, you know, very many memories from my childhood. I I I still collect outside of NFTs. I I enjoy that. But, you know, with NFTs, you know, what I've realized is that, you know, that the the the physicality of collection as a as a hobby is not there anymore. So you don't necessarily have, you know, something to to look at or physically touch or feel.
And to me, that was an exciting concept, especially because, you know, I've I've I've been involved in the crypto space since the the very beginning, the '16, the '15, the whatever. And, you know, but I never really but never really jived with any of the communities that were there in crypto. So when I discovered ART, you know, I I found my, I found my calling, in a way, which goes beyond collecting. And, you know, I've been I've been collecting for for more than a year now, and, you know, I have been have been fortunate enough to be in this space during the various cycles that, you know, we've seen in the past one year in this space and, you know, have participated and learned so much from others in the various spaces and, you know, other chats, you know, some some real life events.
I met Leslie earlier this year. I met Delek, who are both in the room earlier this year in Bangalore during one of the NFT events. And then, you know, I was recently in for in Miami for Art Basel. So, you know, it's, it's been a really interesting, last one year in the space, and, you know, I I couldn't be more excited for what the future entails.
Speaker 4 Lovely. Lovely. Thanks for sharing, such insights. And since you I will grab that what you just said about being early in the space because that's also important to put it into perspective and and to understand for you what has changed, in this space since you started. You know? And, of course, what are your thoughts about the future of CryptoArt? Can you can you share that with us?
Speaker 12 Well, a lot has changed. Or in other words, everything has changed. Or in other words, nothing has changed. Right? This space is moving at the speed of light. You know, concepts are evolving. Strategies are evolving. The space itself in terms of, you know, what it means is evolving, you know, almost on a weekly basis, if not daily. You know, I've seen, I've seen healthy progression, of the community, of how we collectively are addressing problems, issues, and, you know, in a way that is kinda shaping how the space is going to be for, you know, future generations of artists. I mean, you know, if we if we think about it, you know, NFT, you know, if we talk about, let's say, photography. Right? NFT photography, you know, 2022 was you know, when I started collecting, 2022 was supposedly, quote, the year of the photography, unquote.
And, you know, to be honest with you, it seems to have rung true. There's nothing there's no more genre that has seen more success than photography in NFT space. And, you know, if I think about it, this is the foundation on which, like, you know, everything is going to be built. Right? And not just photography, everything else too. Right? So, you know, in a way, this is this is ground zero. So whatever we do today, however we we decide to take this however we decide to shape this space is going to have major major impact down the road. You know, I I feel like everything that we do today, everything that happens today is gonna have such a big butterfly effect if, you know, when if you if you have a long term vision, if you try to think fifty years or a hundred years from now, you know, the conversation that we're having today, such conversations is what is going to to to really lead to, you know, what the space will look like in the future.
And, you know, to answer your question, I couldn't be more hopeful. I couldn't be more excited. And I'm definitely looking to be, you know, a part of part of this space and part of the conversation for as long as I can.
Speaker 4 Very interesting. I'm also, curious curious to see, from a collector perspective, what we have been asking, the other guests. Like, if an artist that you have been collecting in the past is changing his art style, what will what what do you think of this in general and and for the future too? Like, you have been collecting, investing in an artist, and, yes, suddenly changing his art style. What what do you think of this?
Speaker 12 I personally have no problem as long as there is intent and there is a purpose. You know, there are several artists, you know, that have that have that have been dabbling with other art forms. And, you know, the fact of the matter is if you're an artist, yeah, you have your, you know, go to style or the one that you're that you're well known for. But I do truly believe that, you know, this space so early on, should be should be forgiving enough for artists to really unfurl their feathers and experiment and try different things. Because I believe, you know, one of the best ways to get a get a feedback, on your your artistic pursuit is through this community. I mean, I can't tell you the the the artistic talent that is present in this room alone, let alone the entire NFT space.
I mean, you know, you wouldn't be able to, find that even if you were to go in a in a in a gallery one day. So, you know, the amount of, resources and and and and talent that we have in this space today is unparalleled. So that provides a a great resource for for for artists who want to experiment. And, so I personally have no problem. However, you know, there are two ways to or there there there are multiple perspectives. Now if you were to put your artist's hat on and, you know, if you think like a free spirit, it should be no holds barred, Whatever comes to your mind, you you you experiment with it, you mint it, and then you kind of, you know, go wherever that journey takes you.
But if you were to put your business hat on, you know, you have to you have to kind of think about, you know, what every step that you're taking, you know, could mean 10 steps down the road. Right? And for that, it is important that, you know, that that you maintain that trust from with your, you know, with your with your collectors or with the community that whatever you're doing is thoughtful, and there is a purpose behind that. In the end, you know, you know, if you you you know, if you look at if you look at any any artist, you know, past or present, you would feel you would see a a wide array of, you know, body of work. You know, whether it is out, you know, for whether it is commercially available or not, that's a separate story.
But every artist has experimented in some ways or the other with their style. And, you know, if there is, if there is an intent behind that experimentation, I'm all for it. At the same time, I believe it's in the best interest of the artist to kinda understand and and know the market forces, you know, that that impact the, the the value of the art and the brand, the artist's brand. So so, again, you know, like I said, if if it's an intentful decision to to to dabble in other other genres or other styles, you know, I I'm all for it. Beautiful.
Speaker 4 I I I agree, with you, to be honest. It makes totally sense, and it's inevitable to to to to experiment other other types of art and within the artistic community. It's it's part of them to explore, and and they are explorers in that sense. So thank you. Thank you so much, Sunny. It was a pleasure to hear from you. We have Rilo here. We they want to make a question, I guess. So anytime.
Ricardo Hi. Hello, guys. Hey. Really, thank you. Yeah. I really thank you for this. Quite good moves from the artist here. My name is Ricardo. I am the the marketing manager from. We are a storytelling platform, NFT platform, where we are, sorry, onboarding some others and NFT artists to the space to collaborate each other and create co collaborate and create stories or books or everything together. And my question here, since we are talking artworks and artists, how do you see those AI generation arts like with journey and so to be used or helpful Or not for these artists? Because, for example, we see that tons of projects are using those AI hearts, and just launched a new, new feature with more realistic image. What do you think this will will impact the artist's point of view? They are in danger.
Maybe they should, like try to get some inspiration about these kind of AI arts generations, and maybe how they can collaborate with those projects. Because I see that a lot of the projects are working with AI generations and and even writing AI generations. So that's kinda what we are trying to figure out because on web three, the authors have low knowledge about what they can do and which tools they can use. And maybe these tools are produced sale for the artists. No? Thank you again.
Speaker 11 Hi, sir. Can I just add from an artist point of view? Then the collectors can can refill my answer. But I have two opinions about AI tools. First of all, on the technical side, they they use images or artworks from artists without asking for permission. So they train the algorithm of the their bots without asking for permissions to use them. And since we are artists and and collectors, we are here on the NFT, and we are we started this big boom of NFT art because of the copyrights were saved. And the AI bots, they started against that using images without the rights to use them. On the other perspective, for example, I'm a tech artist. I like to my love is to look at the concept and try to figure out how to create it in Houdini and so on.
So I use a lot of those tools to create the concept and then create my art. When I see artists using AI bots without any changes, it's kinda like using stock images without asking for copyrights, without changing a lot. And I think Thiago might be helpful answering this because he's doing a lot of two d arts, and this talk images concept and problem or issue is a big matter on two d art. But that's my point of view. From the technical side, they didn't ask for permissions to use the images to train the bots. And for selling perspective as an artist, if you don't change it, it's not your art. That's my point of view. I don't know if anyone wants to Thank you.
Speaker 4 Now very, very interesting. Tiago, please feel free to jump in. You have raised yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 9 I I've actually been a very public supporter. And now that I'm learning a lot more about the ethics and how things were built, I'm changing my opinion a lot on using raw AI and what I felt about AI. My my main collection is actually, was actually started with Artbreather. That's a it was mainly used for portrait generation back in the beginning of twenty twenty one, and that's how I started my my portrait pieces. But the more I learned how the database, the I think it's called Lyon database, was built on basically scraping the entire Internet. And we had different artist platforms saying that this this was true. DeviantArt said it in the space recently. Art ArtStation also confirmed their platform was scraped.
You you have to even if it's not legally wrong, you still have to question yourself about, like, so how ethical is it for me as maybe a non artist person to jump in the space, use these bots, generate images, and call myself artists without, like, giving the proper credits to the artist that made those bots work without any compensation. I I
Speaker 9 I haven't, really went out after, like, single users because I don't think they are the reason this is unethical. I think it's it's way bigger than that. I think it's it's company and, the way they went around legal issues. But but to answer
Speaker 9 AI is very new. I I there's a lot of movement in the legal realm to try and sue some companies and get some restrictions and get some law in place to have rules for this. So in the next year, two years, we're gonna probably see a lot of AI bots maybe disappear or maybe be used as a 100% tools and not a final product generator type of thing.
Ricardo Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And, this is kinda
Ricardo for author perspective. And when I'm talking about author, I'm talking about writing author. Because, for example, if you go to riddle.co, our website, and you find plenty of short stories and books and poems minted as NFTs, and most of those authors doesn't know anything about cards. Okay? So, basically, we you will find a huge work a huge writing work if you mean those stories. We have some free stories if you can collect it. But in the art side, you'll see a lot of authors of those writers that use and other AI tools to try to in enhance a little bit or make it more beautiful their work on this space. Because I think there is sorry if I if I'm wrong. But I think that there is a lack of collaboration between artists and writers at this point where they can for example, one of them writes the poem and another one creates the heart itself.
So, basically, I see that some of the wav three writers, they they have no option to go to those mid journeys options options
Speaker 11 and whatever to create some mark. Because imagine they have a poem like
Speaker 11 They search by beautiful rain on mid journey, and they give some
Ricardo bunch of options for their covers and so on. And that work it's so easily for them to not use it. I don't know if I make any sense, but that's my experience onboarding hundreds of authors. And if you want to take a look, just
Ricardo look at riddle.co, and you will see what I'm talking about. And thank you again for this question.
Speaker 4 Thank you for for for your intervention. Great great questions. We have here Jeremy that wants to to say something. Go ahead, my friend.
Speaker 8 Hi, Artur. Hello. Is doctor. Pleasure to finally meet you guys.
Speaker 8 Les Leslie and Sunny, how are you as well? Sunny, I haven't seen you in such a long time. I hope you're well. I actually came up after Riedel made his comment about AIR and Subodh, who's actually here as well, myself and another host, we have conversations about AI quite often because it's it's it's just one of those hot topic discussions.
Speaker 8 we I've been I've been thinking about this for a while, and it my idea keeps evolving. Of course, none of us really know what effect AI art is gonna have on the future. But one thing that's for certain is that these programs are being designed to essentially push out the commercial end of the field. Like so in the future, they will be trained enough to where the commercial artists will be kinda pushed out because it'd be much easier for a company to go in and say, okay. We can use this technology in order to get much cheaper for very similar style of work. Like, you can take essentially anybody's style of work and prompt it into the machine, and you'd be able to get the same kind of result. I mean, of course, you're never gonna get something to, like, what the actual artist puts in with love and and the energy he puts behind it.
But these machines will do a pretty good job at kind of taking over the commercial field. So, of course, there will always be still a small percentage that will have still their jobs intact. But I do think the commercial field is gonna get very is gonna shrink. It's gonna have a much smaller base of people behind it. But other than that, you know, what what Tiago had mentioned about the whole stealing of the art part of the thing. That's also a problematic. Now I I will I will say this on, like, a devil's advocate. I actually think AI art is phenomenal. Like, I think it's interesting. I think it's great for looking at references. It's good for, like, looking at different perspectives. I think the future of AI is bright, and it's gonna be very interesting.
However, that being said, do I think that as an artist that it's good for collectors to be investing in AI art? Well, I mean, if you're just looking for a beautiful picture to put on your wall, sure. Why not? But the there's quite often a
Ben lot of this AI art isn't requiring any effort behind it.
Speaker 8 And so you're investing in people who aren't putting their time and energy and soul into things. Now that's just, of course, my own perspective on it, but I do feel that part of the whole journey of being an artist is the experience, the trials and the tribulations of being an artist. And
Speaker 8 have worries about just how AI is gonna change the way that people view art and how they think about art.
Speaker 4 Thank you so much, for your intervention. Lovely to to get your point of view here. Tiago, please feel free to to say yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Speaker 9 I just wanted to touch on on what Friedel, comment about how poets are like, we're finding it hard to maybe collaborate with artists. I've actually worked in a Web three project. It was a poetry book where, I think I I can't remember the right number, but, like, it it was x amount of, poets, matched with x amount of artists, and we all illustrated a poet poem, basically, for this book. And I get it that if you reach out to an artist and, oh, can you, like, illustrate this for me? Maybe the first reaction is not like, oh, yeah. For sure. Like, let's do it. But it's not supposed to be easy. It's like working and getting money for your work, it's hard. That doesn't justify going, like, behind someone and like, okay. I'm gonna just take your money. I I see your point.
I just don't don't see it as a valid one. Because if five people say no, one person may say yes next. And I'm proven like, I'm an artist that said yes to a project for free to illustrate a poem. So if it's hard, I mean, just work harder instead of working unethically, in my opinion. That's my opinion. But but yeah.
Speaker 4 Thank you so much, guys. This this has changed a little bit, this the subject, but I think it's it's being interesting. Sunny, please feel free.
Speaker 12 Yeah. I just wanted to chime in, and get free. 2¢ on on AI. You know, what we're seeing right now is the infancy of AI art. And, you know, I do believe that regardless of what the future holds, obviously, there's gonna be many twists and turns, artistic and legal, in this, in this saga over the next few years. I I I do collect, AI art, and, you know, I think it was Jar who was, who who who was, talking about, you know, whether it is going to have any value or not. You know, it is easy to produce, you know, my response to that would be that, you know, any kind of art, is easy to produce. You know, if if you think about photography, I could just point my camera right now and produce a photo, but that probably wouldn't have as much value as some of the other talented folks in this room.
And the same goes for AI as well. You know, I recently paid more than a more than a on one of the one of the AI pieces, and the artist there used 25 different strings of neural networks to create the final product, that was, that I collected. So, you know, in a way, it really depends on the the art, the the the the mastery of that art regardless of what genre, we talk about, and that is what, you know, probably defines, or dictates its value. The other reason, you know, I'm collecting AIR today is because, like I said, we are in the infancy, of it. Imagine, you know, a hundred, two hundred years from now having one of the first AI, you know, collectible, which was ever, you know, minted or or or or sold or collected. I think there's gonna be some historical, value from from that perspective as well.
But, you know, it is an evolving subject. You know, it is going to probably be a lot more talked about in the future, what it might entail for the artists, what what, you know, what it would mean for art. And, you know, if we look at it historically, any new art form that has emerged, has has has been met with resistance. You know, when photography first came along, traditional artists were up in arms that you could just, you know, point the the camera at something and just instantly have a picture, which they would have, you know, otherwise have taken hours or days or weeks to produce. But, you know, here we are today, and I feel like, you know, I I don't have a crystal ball, but, I I do feel that, you know, AI is is probably not going to be, it's not gonna die down.
It is going to evolve. Perhaps, you know, some of the questions that, a speaker earlier, raised, which were around, you know, crediting the, artists on whose works the AI model is being trained. Perhaps that'll be addressed going forward, but I don't think AI artists going anywhere.
Speaker 11 Great. Ahead. I just want to to add one thing, and Sandy was touching on this point. I I was in a space last week about this AI art and AI bots because I'm interested in the neural network and so on and and figure out how they did that. And they were talking about developing AI bots to to detect the main artist behind an artwork That will work for NFT art to see if it's copyright or if they are using stock images without changes and so on. And this will be used to AI art as well to see if they are for example, on mid journey, we we create a prompt, and to get a better result, we use, like, made by, and I can put, like, t r made by Tiago or made by Ricardo. And it gives me an artwork based on their on their artworks.
And that AI bot will be able to detect the main artist behind and then create royalties in the proper way. So maybe in the future, we'll the legal stuff and the protective copyrights for the artists will be saved by these bots. Yeah. AI AI is just the the beginning, I think.
Speaker 8 Can I throw in one idea? And this is actually a question for everybody. Is is really who's gonna protect the artist's voices? That's my real concern. It's like so, yeah, even, even though that they they are, like, these companies are clearly stealing copyrighted images and using in their algorithms, who can really speak for the voice of the artist? Like, how is it possible for that to be stopped? Who is the one that can kinda come in and say, okay. You guys can't be using other artists' art. Only the ones that are, the artists allow you to use. But who can stop the engine from continuing to move on?
Speaker 12 Well, the answer would be artists themselves. You know, I would say, you know, why not why not a class action? So Yeah.
Speaker 8 That's that's what we
Speaker 12 talked about. Yeah. So, I mean, you look, you know, why would anybody else stand up for the artist if not artists themselves? And, you know but in the same breath, what I would like to also say is that art forms, art, and artists are evolving. Right? When, Doxia mentioned, you know, somebody saying developing an an AI bot that can do this or that. Well, maybe for the twenty first century or twenty second century, the definition of who is an artist changes. Maybe it's, an artist who creates with code. Right? You know, it's Artblocks.
Ben Yeah. Artblocks is really good AI.
Speaker 12 Yeah. So, you know, it's, the definition of an artist changes. Right? So, you know, you may put, a traditional artist may put the time and energy into, you know, literally picking up a brush and painting it on a canvas or a board or or a photographer, you know, putting in the time and energy to go somewhere and shoot a a scene. But in a different plane, you could also imagine a coder that is working, you know, weeks and months into developing a code that could do something. So, again, lots of unanswered questions, but, you know, I would, I have my mind and my eyes and my ears open to the space. And, you know, although, you know, I'm a I'm I'm I'm a skeptic by by nature, but at the same time, I'm also an optimist by nature. So I'm I'm I'm very, very carefully You know, going going along in this, AI space.
Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. It makes sense what you guys just shared. And to be honest, I would love to have Ricardo Elvish also on the show because it will be very interesting to know how is
Speaker 4 AI art moving into the filming industry because he's he's there working there. I don't know if you know Ricardo Walsh, but he's this brilliant individual. He's a senior artist that just, been working with they just released Avatar movie. He's a very talented guy, and I would love to have him, on the show too just to understand also a little bit, more about your, territory until you reach NFTs too. And, also, please share with us how's been the filming industry for you as an artist I'm very curious about. And then we will address again the IE art, within the filming industry. Ricardo, are you there? Hey. How's it going? Can you hear me? Very well. Very well. It's a pleasure to have you here, my friend.
Speaker 2 Yeah. Thanks for inviting me, and and thanks, Loksi, for reaching out. Nice meeting you all. I'm loving I'm loving the chat so far. Actually, on Avatar two, we didn't use any AI, but in a similar way how AI is built training bots with stock images. We use something similar, which is a neural network that would use a lot of stock photos provided by Google, actually, to help us get better facial expressions. I don't know if you guys have watched the the film. I was involved as a facial modeler on the show, which is facial modeler. It's it's probably the the smallest team at Weta. In New Zealand, we were about eight to 10 people. It might sound a lot, but it's, like, the smallest depart department for of the of the whole film. And there's departments with fifty hundred members.
And our department was actually using a lot of neural networks to to create the most amazing facial expressions. Yeah. So if you guys haven't checked it out, go check it out because it's it's pretty it's pretty insane. Yeah. And
Speaker 4 Let me proper introduce you because I think there's a lot to to be shared from your side, and I and I have a few questions that I want to address. So you are a senior three d artist formerly working with Disney, Lucasfilm, Netflix, Weta, Framestore, MPC. We need to start, by addressing a general question since it's it's a it's a curiosity. What was your involvement as an artist? Of course, we just released Avatar movie. I want to understand exactly
Speaker 3 what was your involvement because this is very,
Speaker 4 curious about. And please share with us, how was the process? And also, in the filming industry, does an artist have a flexibility to change and improve his art style?
Speaker 2 Okay. So I've I've started I will I joined I joined Avatar or let's say I joined Weta, the the VFX to be responsible for for Avatar about four years ago. And and my my my major role was to to create three d models of of the main characters. So we had about fourteen fourteen main hero characters. And for two two years nearly two years, I was I was just building visual expressions for them, sculpting digital models at the highest detail that you can imagine, building not only the Navi version, but also the human actor and DG double, the so called DG double. So we're we're creating all those assets for the duration of of two years. Obviously, the the time of production was much longer, but my my time or my contribution for for the the movie was only two years, which is quite long already.
And then I moved back to London and then jumped on other other projects. And and more recently, moved to Lisbon three months ago, which was I'm back home, essentially. I was I was born in Portugal. I didn't knew that. I didn't even knew that. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah. I'm I'm very excited to be back. You know, thanks to studios opening up and everyone working remotely recently. I'm happy to be able to work from anywhere right now, and I chose to be close being close to the beach. So I moved to Lisbon three months ago with my girlfriend, and we're enjoying it very much. And there's a lot of crypto community and a lot of events in in in the city. So it is it's quite exciting to be being involved in in those meetings and and and meeting people and sort of We need to meet we need to meet too, my
Speaker 4 friend. We need to Yeah. Need to see each
Speaker 2 other. I'm I'm yeah. We're we're we're guiding you. We
Speaker 12 don't know we don't know much people, but we've,
Speaker 2 yeah, we're slowly, slowly growing our So network as to answer your second question It
Speaker 4 was, like, in the filming industry, does an artist have flexibility to change and improve his art style or is not recommended? You know? It's like
Speaker 2 me. Yeah. Well, I I think so. I mean, I've started from I've done so many range of films. Right? And each film, you would you'll explore and learn so much. So just just just for background, I started working on Star Wars, and then I moved on to Lion King. And I've done all these shows. Right? So from talking animals to lightsabers to blue people. Right? And they're all very different, and you get you get to learn different techniques and and design languages even from every every single film. So we we we obvious obviously, we're trying to follow the director's vision, right, or art style, which is kinda imposed on us. But you you do learn a lot along here along the way.
Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. You just covered my third question. So I think it's it's clear now because it's more a commissioned work. Right? It's it's normal that you need to follow, some guidelines, of course. But it's interest
Speaker 2 Yeah. If you think Yeah. So Exactly. You can think of it as as a as a commission work. And often, what happens is that artists get so so comfortable of of doing their day to day job. Right? So
Speaker 2 at a major VFX studio, they they they they forget they they forget to be creators, which which is the first thing that got him there Of course. Job initially. So, you know, as a as a as an artist, I try to also, on the sides or after hours, also work work on yourself and develop develop new art styles and learn new techniques, explore new tools, play with AI. Not selling AI art. I'm I'm not I'm not comfortable or That's I I wouldn't say I'm I'm not a supporter of of selling AI art. Yeah. Yeah. That leads me to the the other
Speaker 4 question, which is how's the filming industry worldwide adapting and analyzing this artificial intelligent move? What can you share with us?
Speaker 2 Yeah. We're we're a lot of a lot of the visual effects community is against using AI art, and I understand why because, you know, we're digital artists. We make digital art. So if if a tool can replace us, that's that's gonna be really bad for all of us. But we we have to learn how to use it creatively on our day to day. So AI AI art can be used as a as a initial concept stage, for example, right, where we can throw a lot of ideas quickly and and get to the client's desired solution much quicker or have much more options before developing something further. And I think that's very powerful. Even for we we use we use several computing computing techniques in our in our production daily daily productions, such as texturing texturing tools to to to speed our to speed our workflow, right, procedural tools.
And AI can can be used to to create those those sort of procedural textures and great workflows for to to speed us up on our on our data. Yeah.
Speaker 4 But that's that's that's interesting. Like, it's
Speaker 4 to complement or to help you kick start something. It's not going to 100 replace your work per se. It's more like what you just said is going to help you out with your work. It's like a tool. It's like your friend. But I totally understand that the filming industry can see this as there's a lot of As a trend. Yeah. And
Speaker 3 I think it makes sense
Speaker 4 too. You know? That's that's why it's important to discuss this too. Doxy is is here. I think he wants to make a question to you. Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 11 Yeah. Hi, Carlos. How are you? We we talked about this during the chat we had on our conversation, but I think it would be nice to share your opinion or your process right now. So I know you you released the NFT collection, and now you are thinking about selling one on one NFT art. Are you struggling since you you have so much knowledge and so I bet you you have so many art styles that you can develop? Are you struggling of picking one art style to start selling your art, or are you going more random and free free art style?
Speaker 2 It's it's a it's a good question, you know, because I see a lot of interest in a lot of digital arts three d arts in the space. But, you know, as as a professional visual effects artist, a lot of the art that I see, it's very elementary, very basic, very early stage experimental also in a way, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I don't think there's much understanding and education from from the general public on how this art is created, if that makes sense. So for me, I'm you know, because I'm I'm used to I'm used to create super realistic content and and and digital work that I spend months developing or years developing.
But when I look at the space, the interest relies on mostly collecting very basic arts released by I'm not I'm not gonna express names, but released by, like if if a famous artist or if this artist has a huge follow and he releases a rotating cube with a with a one when the when when the two lights rig, for example, it's something that you can make in two minutes. People get very excited for my for this. You know? And I'm I'm very I'm struggling whether if people like the these kind of arts or these people collected because this artist has a huge follow. Or so as as an a creator of of digital art and wanting to pursue selling one on one NFT art, I'm I'm kinda struggling to see where where my my art would fit within the space because I I don't want to to have to to, you know, be bumping the community twenty twenty four seven with, you know, low quality shitty art, meme arts, or, like does does that make sense?
Like, I'm I'm I'm I'm struggling a lot to to find to find what's the direction I should go with. Because the the so the so called trendy or famous collection or or works that I see people interested in are very disappointing disappointing in in a in a digital with what you can do digitally, if that makes sense. Right? I would love to see, like, some sort of more immersive experiences and people trying to collect those rather than some of the stuff that you you see out there.
Speaker 11 Cheers. That that totally makes sense. And I think that Daniel Neves is here on the audience, and I talked with him a lot about this because we we work as VFX and you too, Ricardo, and our work, like, takes time and so on. And then we see other artworks that are using it's it's like two d artists using stock images. We see a lot of three d artists using three d models that they just bought it and place it on the software to to white wigs and so on and just sell it. And it's kinda hard. Like, the the maybe the public should have more knowledge about that. Yeah. But how can you fix that? Right? I think it's, like, it's evolving. The even the collectors are getting more knowledge Educated for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Because when I start selling my my art last year, I talked to with one of my collectors, and I he was interested in learning how the process behind everything. And that made me, like, to under understand, like, they are trying to to be educated about this because maybe three d art is something new. Thanks to NFTs, it's more accessible now, and people are just, like, learning like we we did during all these years. The I think collectors are learning too and so on.
Speaker 8 It's a time you know, Doxy is a time thing. You know, Ricardo, I I was listening to you, and then I totally feel you on, like, where do you kinda fit into this field with all the NFTs that you're seeing. But you have to think about it in this kind of way. It's like, what Doxy was saying is is really true about it's like a evolution that's kinda happened and slowly happens. You know, most of the most of the collectors that you see here are not from the fine art fields. They're they're basically people who got early into cryptocurrency, and they're trying to diverse their portfolio. And doing it through NFTs is one of those ways in which they can do that. But I Ricardo, I work in the gaming industry, and I kind of understand very similar to how the gaming industry works is kinda how, like, the evolution of the NFT works.
So in the gaming industry within the assets fields, most of these game game companies, what they're doing is they're starting off the content looking kind of basic. Because the the people who that buy into these games, they really don't know what good art is. Like, the people who want, like, a shiny looking gun or a shiny looking outfit, they don't understand art. And so the gaming industries, what they slowly do is they they go after more of the basic art, and then they slowly creep up the quality of the art, and it gets better and better and better. And now a lot of the asset based companies, the the artwork is is is evolved and grown. It's because the audience is now understanding it. And I think it's the same thing for the NFT world. Is that most of these collectors that you see don't really understand things, but they are learning.
They're learning. Even, like, I've listened to Sunny in conversations. There's another big collector, alpha trilogy. Like, they they got into the game not really understanding, but as they're going, they're learning, and they're seeing art all the time. And as the collectors see more and more art, they're gonna redefine what they like. Like, it's just gonna be this constant thing. You know, as an artist, you're constantly looking at art. And as you look at art, you're evolving your strategies for making better and better art. And it's no different with the collectors. So I would say, Ricardo, you just put your heart into whatever it is that you're doing. Maybe people don't understand it right now, but what you could do is you could try to do some projects where it doesn't require as much of your time to put into it.
So you kind of start things off on a slow train, and then you kinda build up to more of your more elaborate, more sophisticated pieces. And then eventually, you'd be able to move those pieces as well. Because I'm totally with you. I'm the same when it comes to my art. It's like, I'm not even trying to sell my art right now. I'm kinda waiting for the whole artistic community to catch up.
Speaker 11 Interesting. We have here Neves. It's another big artist from the film industry. Neves, you there? Hello. Hey. How's everyone?
Speaker 4 All good, buddy. Good. Great to have you. Great to have you, my
Speaker 3 to chime in quickly about the a little bit Crossing AI and also what Ricardo was saying. I haven't met Ricardo, but we have a very similar background. I also work in the film industry for many years. I'm a bit more now on the manage management side of things, so supervising and recruiting. And I think that's an interesting topic as well when it comes to AI and also, Ricardo, what you found when you've joined this space of the Krito Art. I face the same things, which is also the use of three d models. And you as a modeler and an asset and build guy. You understand this more than anyone, the work that goes into building your own assets. And I think it crosses a little bit with the use of AI And having, you know, work that works as a base that came from someone else or somewhere else.
And I just wanted to chime in a bit when it comes to, say, recruiting. If I'm interviewing a potential artist and if I see a bunch of scenes done from him where what all he's done was download a few models, let's say, that already have textures, put some lights in, that person will not have interest to me. I'm talking about more on the professional side of things, and I would say it's the same with AI. You know, AI can replace a lot of people, but they will not replace all of them and not even most of them. They will replace the people that do mechanical tasks, say, rotoscoping or masking, you know, people frame by frame. We're already using tools like that, AI tools like that for mechanical tasks. Let's say I was in an interview and, you know, if there was one of the topics of the skills of the artist was I can do AI art and prompts.
I don't think that will ever be a relevant skill. Maybe if it's a concept artist that can, Ricardo say, put together a lot of references and mood boards based on AI generated imagery, but I don't think it will I I might be wrong. I'm not gonna say ever. I don't think it is, at least at the moment, a skill that is relevant the same way that, you know, being able to use other people's models and to make your own three d art is a relevant skill as well, which I think it's something that people like us that come from, you know, a long time making our own assets, working with very, very talented people that make their assets like Ricardo does. I I also feel the struggle of seeing, say, some of that artwork as NFT is getting a lot of the attention when we know that a lot of the work didn't come from the artist.
Then again, a lot of collectors do not care how the image or the in video was done. They don't care about the process, but just the final result and the emotion that comes out of it.
Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense what you just said, and and and thank you. Thank you for for for sharing your insights. Yes. Black Label, please feel free to share your insight. It's lovely to see you here too, my friend.
Speaker 0 Good to see you too. This is a fantastic conversation. I love, when I come into a space like this, and the conversation is just so rich in thought, and the culture is just, it's amazing. So I just wanted to say that. Thanks for giving the floor. You know, listening to the conversation so far, I've got two main thoughts that I just wanna share. I think one is about the future, and one is also just kind of shedding a little light on how some of these things operate. I think I'll start with the second one first. You know, off of the last comment that was just made, I think something that really stands out for me, was the idea that with AI, the artists aren't making anything, or they're making something that is made from other people. And the reality is that's just not accurate.
Even though that models have been scraped and data has been used from multiple places, and you're talking, like, 1% of all images that have ever been made in human existence have been utilized for these datasets. With with the exception of custom datasets that people are making to specifically target singular artists and much more with the larger companies who are using these much larger buckets of data and pulling images from places that are, like, scraping 1% of the Internet. The thing is is that it's not it's not being used in a way where, you know, it's stitching together other artists' work or there's no work involved when you create with AI or anything like that because your own work and the assets that you own during that process is your actual process, your thought, your intention, your expression with how you are creating what you're creating and why you're creating what you're creating.
The line for me in the sand is when people are making custom datasets to try and recreate the very specific artist works. I think that's not yeah. Obviously, you know, you're trying to make something that someone else has already made. Like, who cares about you as an artist in the first place? The whole point is to make something of your own. And so I think that the idea of, I think it's a bit of a myth, to be that, and obviously, there's some people that are that are doing this, but for the most part, at least with I'm looking through the faces here that are in this crowd right now, some of the best AI artists that are in the space are here right now. You know, everyone here is making something that's specifically for them, even though it's utilizing technology that has been built off of other things, just like all technology has, regardless if it's AI or not.
So I think that's just really important to clarify. The second thing is is that when we're talking about what's happening in the future and where we're going, I think it's important to really realize the massive amount of evolution that has occurred here in the last just twelve to eighteen months in the Web three world, in the NFT world, in the AI world. All of this stuff is brand new. Like, we're in the Wild West. This is uncharted territory. And so I think we're we're in a really interesting phase because people are trying to wrap their heads around what it is that we're all doing here. Or, you know, from a day to day, like, oh, I need to make sales, or, oh, I need to do this, or may oh, here's a new tool, or or whatever the case may be.
And the thing is is that we're all just beginning. Like, this is it's hard to see because we're in the trenches. We're we're we're in the forest. We're we're all of us are really deep in this, and so we see these micro changes day to day, and we see the evolution occur. But if you step back and you look at this from, like, a 30,000 foot view, we're in the very, very, very, very beginning. The first 1% beginning of all of this. This is going to change everything, Like, Web three, NFTs, AI together as a trifecta are gonna have a massive change on the human experience, whether that be through all creative tools. At some point in the next year or so, every single creative tool you pick up, whether it be three d modeling, photography, drawing, painting, anything that you're gonna do is gonna have AI interweaved into it.
So the conversation of whether or not AI should be used or anything else, I think, is just will soon be irrelevant because everything will be built off the back that. There's no way that it's not going to be. And just from a a standpoint of volume, scalability, and efficiency, it has to be in order to survive. Because if it doesn't if a tool doesn't adapt to those things, it will fail. It it's just it's the nature of the universe. And so that's that's how it will operate. So at some point, a conversation around whether or not to use AI or implement it or to to lean on it too much or not enough or whatever is gonna be completely irrelevant because you you may be using things you don't even realize has it built into it.
And I guess the last point, I guess, is is this is that as we all move forward, regardless of industry, film, painting, design, AI, art, whatever it may be, and all these tools begin to be implemented, and we go through as as humans, as creators, we go through this process of testing and then experiment and then development with those things. And I think all of us are still in this kind of testing experiment phase, even though as artists, if we're selling things, whatever the case may be, we're basically, like, putting our you know, the best of our tests up there because none of us really know where any of this is going.
And so I think it's just important to keep perspective and understand that as things evolve, to try to keep an open mind and to utilize the things that are coming out to to further what we're doing the best, and also to actually articulate our pure freedom of expression in the best way possible as creative people and utilize whatever tools that can help us do that. So just wanted to kinda add those thoughts, and this is a fantastic conversation. I I appreciate this space as well. But I I
Speaker 8 wanna give a rebuttal because I think you threw out a lot of information that's not factually true. Like, for starters, the image scraping that you're talking about, we have no idea what percentage that they're image scraping. There's actually a really great video. I could find the clip for you that and, there's an artist that talks about the companies that are involved in these, and we have no idea what image scraping is going on. And so to to make a claim about a percentage is just not realistic. And as far as the whole thing about everything is gonna be AI, that what? I I I'm not really understanding that. Like, there's always gonna be people who are gonna wanna see things handmade. There's always gonna be people who see things, like, that put people put their blood and sweat into because that is part of the whole experience.
So and there's nothing wrong with AI. Like, look, I love, I love seeing some of these images. It's really cool to see how these these these AI projects are evolving, how they're doing things that are done so incredibly quick. And you can start to see now the nuance, like, when you zoom in on these. Like, before, they're really super clunky, and they looked like you could tell one AI from the next AI. But now the projects are actually evolving, and you can see the nuances within the lines and the contrast and the color works are improving. I'm all for this technology. But to to to make us believe that somehow everything is gonna be, like like, it's AI or you die is, like, a very ridiculous statement. Like, look at vinyl records, for example. Vinyl records are not ever going anywhere. People love vinyl.
I love vinyl. The sound, the the texture you get from that vinyl. It don't get me wrong. DVDs and CDs, like like, it's amazing quality for the music, but there's always gonna be my aunt my sends every year for Christmas handmade holiday cards that are amazing. Like, the the love and the and the beauty that she puts into that, that can never be reproduced by any of these card companies. Like, this yes. AI is gonna be here. It's not going. There's no it's like trying to move a mountain. Trying to move AI is like trying to move a mountain. But to think that, everybody everybody has to get on board the AI train to me is just a ridiculous statement.
Speaker 4 Let's let's let's hear now, Tiago and then, like, label, please. So,
Speaker 11 because I was going to say that now it's a good bridge for Tiago because he's mixing his heart is mixing digital with traditional medium. That would be a great reach to you, Thiago.
Speaker 9 Yeah. I I I wanna touch on two statements. The statement of volume is the the way the universe works. It it isn't. It's it just isn't it's the way capitalism works. Then you have fine art that it's not on the make it volume. It's more of make it exclusive. And then you have the industry of like, movie industry, game industry, they're sure arguing that it's it's volume. I I really am not, knowledge enough. I think you're mixing the idea of people hate AI tech, and people hate AI as it currently stands and it's being currently used. Yes. There's people making incredible things with AI tech. I support a lot of people that make incredible things with the AI tech. I don't I currently don't support people that are selling things that I've proven in different Twitter trips. I replicate that in five minutes, and they are selling just plain AI.
That is is what people mostly are vocal against. It's the pure AI creation based on the datasets. They are very ethically and morally questionable. That's what people are hating. Not the tech. Most artists that I've talked about, this topic with love the tech, love the potential of brainstorming visually. Like, I I can't see, like, in my head, I have a thing, a condition that doesn't allow me to see images in my head. And being able to actually brainstorm with an AI system, it's incredible. It's an incredible experience. But from there to make that my final product and call myself an artist, it's it's it's completely a different discussion, and it it's completely, mixing everything. It's just wrong. It's just for the sake of debating, it's it's it's just wrong. And to to touch on something that I think it was Sunny before that said AI generative art is in its infancy.
If my mind isn't wrong, because it's been a long time since I've been studying art history. But digital art started in the fifties, and AI generated art, the first pattern image created with AI was also in the fifties, if I'm not wrong. So they both started at the same time. The evolution of AI was more, clear now because digital artists gave it the dataset that they needed to evolve faster.
Speaker 4 Let's move now to Black Label. Do you want to and and Leslie too next, please, guys.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And, I'll be really quick. So let me clarify a couple of things. I think it was it was I just wanna kinda jump down here. For for starters, the first thing is the datasets. Okay? So we we've spoken to a lot of the companies that have used these things, even in our show that we run, the New Renaissance. And so we've some conversations and some things around this. But there it it is known where they're coming from. I think that's also misinformation that they're out there that is not known. That's that's not accurate. However, that entire conversation is now and will be really soon irrelevant because of models like Layon. I'm I may be pronouncing that wrong. It's l a I o n, where they're utilizing completely open images and everything else.
And as the time progresses, even Ahmad at Stability AI have been has been speaking that utilizing artists or anything like that or the models that all built on will be soon come irrelevant. This has been like a testing phase of these things in this technology. So a lot of the stuff about the other artists that use or the copyright or whatever, all that is very, very soon, if not already, depending on what model you're using, gonna be completely irrelevant. Maybe in the next, like, three months even. So it's not like ten years or, like, literally, like, in a few months, that's that's just that topic is irrelevant. Secondarily, when it comes to, like, the your aunt making holiday cards, that's fantastic. I'm an abstract expressionist painter. I've been painting my entire life. I'm an illustrator. I'm a graphic designer. I do UI. I've done corporate brand identity.
All of those things make me an artist, not the tools that I utilize to create it. The paintbrush does not make me an artist. The Photoshop does not make me an artist. AI does not make me an artist. Me being an artist because I want to express something into the world and create something is what makes me an artist. I identify as an artist because I create, and I express, and I create valuable artistic expression in the process. That's what makes me an artist. The tools in which I choose to utilize or the medium in which I choose to vicariously express my path out into the world, does that that is irrelevant. It's it's the it's what it is I'm trying to achieve, the purpose behind what I do. If you're a a film person and you're creating film and you're shooting, it doesn't matter which camera you're using.
It may matter as far as what it looks like at the end. It may matter as far as the tools in which you what you utilize to achieve the goal in which you're attempting to express, but the expression is what makes you an artist. So saying like, oh, if you use AI and you're trying to sell something, you're not an artist. Like, that is that that it's just the same thing as, like, well, if you use a a pen and I use a pencil, then you're not an artist. Like, you can't say that. Nobody can say that because it it's your intention that it that is what identifies you as an artist. So I think that that's just really important. And just the one the last clarification, I I wasn't saying that volume is the nature of the universe.
I was saying survival to to adapt and survive is the nature of the universe. Chaos and order is the is the nature of the universe. Technology and new things and progress always brings disruption from a status quo and a traditionalized state of order. That's where we're at right now. And that's not just with AIs, with NFTs and Web three point and everything else as a part of the conversation. Every time something new new happens, that is a massive leap in some type of progress culturally, technologically, it creates a disruptive force. And so sometimes you have to adapt to that. AI is not gonna replace, you know, the aunt making holiday cards or me replace my it's not gonna replace my paintbrush on a canvas. I'm speaking in terms of it's gonna be infiltrated and implemented into a lot of the technological advancements that we're making, obviously, and it's not gonna replace, holiday cards.
Okay? So I just wanna clarify on a couple things. Really appreciate the feedback, and, thanks again for the space.
Speaker 4 No. Thank you for your intervention too. Now let's get back to to Leslie, please.
Speaker 5 Yeah. Well, I wanna prep with this by saying that, I don't know a lot about AI at all. My daughter is an AI artist. I have many friends that are AI artists. So I wanna just defend them because, you know, I mean, what you feel is art and what I feel is art are two different things. How they got to there, I don't care. They are producing amazing work, and they aren't just putting in a few words and just, you know, saying, here's my art. They're working hard on this art. It takes them so long to produce what they're producing. And, to me, it's it's brilliant. So, you know, it may not be up to maybe everyone's standards here, but that doesn't mean it's not great in other people's eyes. I mean, art is subjective.
So what I feel is great art may not be maybe they didn't use, you know, the best tools or maybe they don't have the most knowledge or whatever as some others, but that doesn't mean it's not great art in my in my perspective. You know? And so I just wanted to defend them because I feel like and I do agree with a lot of what Black said. I'm sorry. I can only say your first part. I don't wanna get rugged. But I agree with what you said. And, you know, so I just wanted to come up and and speak a little bit about that and defend some of my friends and even my daughter who started out doing basic, basic, she's growing and growing and growing weekly, daily actually in in what she's producing. And and words are a form of art, just like as poetry is a form of art.
So, you know, I just anyways, I wanted to come up and and give my 2¢ on that. And, you know, I do appreciate everything that's been said here, but I I do want to defend my friends that are doing some brilliant AI art.
Speaker 12 I think if, if I Sure. Go first. I think, you know, one of the one of the one of the arguments that I've heard a lot against AI is the amount of effort that goes into it. And I will reiterate what I said earlier. You know, you could take any art form, and you can find examples that were created with minimal effort and and and artworks works that took weeks and months to finesse and get to that final product. So You know, good AI art requires probably the same amount of effort that a traditional art or, you know, digital art would take to produce. And to me, that is what really differentiates, good AI art from the very basic AI art, where you could type a few sentences and get something versus, you know, where you're you spend time articulating your, your thought process, your command on the language, the choice of words, you know, and then fine tuning it to the extent that the final product is what you what you, what you imagined or what you are trying to express.
If we think about art as, art in terms of, you know, expression, then this is nothing but just evolution of that art.
Speaker 4 Yes. Go go ahead, Hello. Nice to see you here. Go do you can you you are muted, Crypto CryptoBay.
Speaker 1 Raul, go ahead. Yeah. Sorry, guys. It was such a heated discussion about AI. I'm really sorry I can't contribute to that, but I've been keeping the question for myself that I really would like to ask all of you. We've been discussing whether changing a style for an artist, may hurt him from any point of view, from the collector point of view, etcetera. But I think we haven't touched the blockchain point of view in this. I mean, when an artist launch launches an NFT collection, it may be really dependent on the community of a certain blockchain, and it can be gathered around a certain blockchain. And, you know, like, all blockchains have certain reputation. So I was just wondering, what do you think if, an artist decides to move from one blockchain to another or to expand his or her presence?
Does it well, can it be considered as a sort of a style change, and can it be detrimental at all?
Speaker 4 Great. Great question. Yes, Sunny. Please go ahead.
Speaker 12 Yeah. I'll take that question, because, you know, I I feel very strongly that, you know, to answer your question succinctly, no. I don't think it's, it it'll be detrimental. I see so many artists that are, that are present on multiple chains. And, you know, I mean, I've I've seen very many different approaches that artists have taken where, you know, on the subject of, you know, changing a style, you know, they've kept one style on one chain and the other style on the other chain. I've seen artists that are, you know, really experimenting with what they're doing on one chain versus the other. You know, it really depends on, you know, where you are in your journey, you know, who your, you know, does it make, quote, unquote, business sense, to do that? And also, depends on the chain itself.
You know, whether we like it or not, there are some chains that are gonna be more popular, with collectors than some others. So where you choose to mint what, is probably going to to determine what revenue you get out of those those artworks. So, I'm a big proponent of, diversification. I collect on, on ETH and Tezos both, and I enjoy them both, equally. And, you know, I applaud artists who are experimenting and, you know, diversifying their portfolio. Great. Great. Leslie, please.
Speaker 5 Yeah. And I wanna expand upon that as both a collector on multiple chains and an artist on multiple chains. I found great success on both. I found great artwork on both. I found found artists that have been experimenting with one that I've collected on on another blockchain, and now I'm collecting them on TES. I found artists that because they are also on a different blockchain, I and doing additions, and I've been able to collect a lot more from artists that I couldn't afford to collect from on ETH. And so it's they're making their work more accessible to all of us collectors. And I I you know, making the move to Tez from Ethereum. I'm still on Ethereum, and I still had, you know, great success even recently in Ethereum with my sales, but yet I've had huge success on Tez now.
So I I find it to be for my sake, I I'm loving it and happy to experiment for sure with both with multiple blockchains. I've also done Solana as well and had some success there as well. I haven't done a lot on Solana, but I've been involved in collectives with Solana and, you know, sold my artwork there as well. Lovely.
Speaker 11 I can I can add a Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. A point of view of an artist. I use different options and platforms to organize my artwork, my portfolio. So I have a the foundation with those Nebula artworks. Now I'm preparing a different art style for super hairs. And on Tezos, I'm keeping my art that is generative artwork that is more experimental. And I I felt using this last when I was selling art made me made it possible to organize my artworks. And so collectors met me from Tes. They knew, k. This guy is a a code code artist or tech artist. He does art experiment art with coding. If they met me on foundation, they see a type of meditation work, and now I'm preparing the superhero with a different type of art style.
You can think of different blockchains and different platforms for that to organize your portfolio and have different views of as an artist or different personas. Let's let's say like that.
Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense also. It's it's based on everyone's strategy, I I would say. Does anyone else wants to to address the question? Sunny, please.
Speaker 12 I think, you know, the the parting thought that I have here is that, you know, me personally, I envision a future, where there's gonna be platforms that are gonna be chain agnostic. There are gonna be aggregators where, you know, you would just go and, you know, try to discover art or, search for or or find art, which will be displayed, you know, know, which which would be aggregated from multiple chains. And probably the price that we're gonna see is gonna be some converted price. So if it's, you know, 1 ETH, it'll be displayed as, you know, $1,200 or whatever it is today. If it is a thousand TES, it will be $800. So, you know, I feel like, you know, these platforms that are chain specific are probably going to be a thing in the past when we look ahead maybe, you know, I don't know, a year, two years, five years down the road.
Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense too. Tiago, please. Also, Tiago, since I had here a question for you two according to our initial subject, please, answer, answer to CryptoBay two, and then I I would love to to chat a little bit about your pin tweet because it's specifically about what we just said here where you say that you have tried to limit yourself to a type of art, but then, you wanted to learn and to grow, and that needs to be, through experimentation. So please feel free to go ahead, Thiago. Yeah. You can go.
Speaker 9 Well, I just realized I actually never introduced myself. That's why I'm so sorry, everyone. But, let me just address, the the question right now, and then I can do all Yeah. Yeah. The way I I joined the NFT space in relation to, like, selling art as an NFT was very like, oh, this is its own thing. And with the passing, I've I've been here since, I don't wanna lie, but I think I joined Maker's Place in 2020, I think. I was one of the first on their platform, back when they paid for your minting. Back then, it was very whatever I do for this, it's an NFT. It's it's that, and it it doesn't go beyond it. And with time, I'm starting to see NFTs in web three and, the whole eco chamber that we currently live in as just a part of my business.
So I would turn the question into, would you, like, stop Coca Cola, for example, from selling, like, in USD and euro and different countries? You wouldn't. So it wouldn't make sense for an artist to stop themselves to explore different currencies. And I also agree with Sunny that I I see a world where eventually it's all gonna be converted to one type of thing, and then you pay in whatever currency you want.
Speaker 9 to introduce myself, I I've been a digital artist professionally for ten years. I've been a creative for for over my entire life because I've done literally everything since I I was a little kid. My art career, quote, unquote, career started as a six year old in TV shows trying to sing. So that was fun. And from there, I just explored literally anything and everything I could put my hands on. I've done musically, professionally. I've been on TV for a season of a show singing. I've done photography. I've been awarded for my photography. I've done sculpting, and I've done fashion. I've done so many things that probably I can't remember at all. But what I feel culminated in who I am today as an artist is the best way I have for an everyday expression, and that ended up being digital art.
And my digital art, like said before, I'm currently taking bits and pieces of everything I've experimented, basically, to my past. I I do acrylic paintings that I adapt into my digital portraits before I used AI portraits to jump start them. So, basically, I take little bits of everything, and my my team tweet is literally about how if I ever thought, oh, I I started digitally. I can't do anything else, and that's all I have to do. I wouldn't know lighting the way I do because I learned it from fashion photography. I wouldn't know textual the the not not textual. Textile. Textures and how they flow. I wouldn't know, like, so many bits and pieces of my history that came from other things that now made me able to do what I do. So I'm a veer a very big supporter of experiment everything, you freaking want.
Like, don't stop yourself from experimenting anything. But I do agree that at the end of the day, this is a business. I know we have a lot of infant artists starting directly here, and they are gonna making they're gonna make a lot of mistakes, and they are gonna try a lot of things, and they are gonna feel trapped because that's a big difference of starting in social media now.
Speaker 9 are known in your first year of being an artist for something, and then you feel like, oh, I can't do anything else because I got a following out of it. I'm I'm a good example of building a follow-up in fun photography and then changing for something else, and people just didn't care for it. But it is what it is. If your passion is being an artist, at the end of the day, it's gonna pay out. I I believe that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 4 That's that's what matters. You know? You just said it all. I think it's it's it needs to be from that's I think you just said, it's very funny and and interesting at the same same time because
Speaker 3 everyone, in the end of the day, will be doing what they
Speaker 4 they they like, and this needs somehow to be addressed with changes. You know, like, changes make us grow as as human beings since ever. You know, this is psychology. So, guys, this was a lovely space. I'm feeling very overwhelmed with such lovely insights that you all guys have provided. I think we end up, after two hours, more reach, in information. I think I can speak for everyone. This has been an amazing show. I just wanted to say that, today, we did a giveaway of the Genesis, and we have already a winner, which is from Twitter picker is Giovanni di Benedetto. I hope I said it well. Premature AKP. You are lucky winner of a Genesys, pass from act to act. I will send you later this. And, guys, this has been an amazing show. Great great great cohost as well. Doxya, thank you so much. Any last words?
Speaker 11 No. I I don't have. It's been amazing. It it two hours for a space that shows that everyone was intrigued and interested in the conversation. We I think we covered a lot of topics, things from AI to change art styles to do what you love. And, yeah, that was a great space, and hope we have many more to come. Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 4 So thanks again. I wish you all, merry Christmas. Of course, a great year for you all. We will be here always. If you need anything, just keep in touch with us. Also, Leslie, please, please.
Speaker 5 I just wanna say, same thing. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Thank you for having this space. It's been really, interesting conversation. Appreciate everybody's voice. So thank you so much.
Speaker 4 Our pleasure. Thank you for the lovely words and and and for being here with us too. And and, yeah, this is it, guys. Thank you. Thank you so
Speaker 11 Thank you for having me.
Speaker 9 Cheers, everyone. Happy holidays.