A Conversation with Adrian Pocobelli (in English)

Transcript

Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of Scrapbook, the podcast dedicated to all things digital art.

Speaker: I'm your host Michele Colonna and today's guest is Canadian digital artist Adrian Pocobelli.

Speaker: Hi Adrian and welcome to Scrapbook.

Speaker: Hey Michele and great to hear you.

Speaker: I love how you say my name.

Speaker: You say it better than I do.

Speaker: I should just go all the way and say Adriano, right?

Speaker: Yeah, really.

Speaker: Adriano Pocobelli.

Speaker: I think my Italian passport has Adriano, I think.

Speaker: So you have Italian and Canadian?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: That makes it easy being out here in Germany.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because I look with admiration at all the people who, you know, these 25 and older, you know, coming here with visas to Berlin and all that sort of thing.

Speaker: So I just go, I don't know if I would have come.

Speaker: Let's put it that way without the passport because then you're really jumping off the cliff.

Speaker: Yeah, because I guess with your Italian passport, right, you could live and work there.

Speaker: It's the beauty of the EU.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, it's just I don't need to do anything other than register with the city.

Speaker: And that's what every German needs to do here.

Speaker: So, I mean, it really is magical.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah, I'm very grateful for that situation.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And we'll definitely we'll definitely touch on the on your Berlin experience.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Because I'm very interested in that.

Speaker: You know, I've always had a fondness for the city.

Speaker: So I'm curious to, you know, to hear your insight and your opinion.

Speaker: You know, what's it what's it been like for you?

Speaker: But you just got back from Italy, as you said.

Speaker: So I'm sure you brushed up on your on your accent.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: You're Italian.

Speaker: You know, art history.

Speaker: But as I was saying, you just got back from it.

Speaker: I'm sure you got a chance to brush up when you're Italian.

Speaker: And what did you just do Tuscany or were you in many places?

Speaker: What did we do?

Speaker: There's a flight, Ryanair flight Berlin to Pisa.

Speaker: And then it's great.

Speaker: There's like a little shuttle train sort of thing that goes from Pisa airport just right down to this train station.

Speaker: And then we went to Livorno as we were discussing for the podcast, but it w as a sleeper city.

Speaker: But that was the charm of it because, you know, we went over to Pisa during the day and of course everybody

Speaker: It feels like a stampede from the train station to the tower there.

Speaker: I mean, the tower is stunning.

Speaker: I will say that.

Speaker: Like I'd forgotten.

Speaker: I think I was six or 11 the first time I saw it and I hadn't seen it since.

Speaker: So, I mean, it is a stunning architecture, but it's just like my girlfriend described it as a rave.

Speaker: You know, there were so many people.

Speaker: You know, like it feels like, yeah, just too many people.

Speaker: And Florence was insane.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, and there we were in early April.

Speaker: Yeah, because it was just the streets were packed.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, you still have your contingent of foreign students.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: They're still there.

Speaker: So you have that like that's totally like 50,000, 100,000 kids.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Then you have just your, you know, your your tourists.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, you know, national and international.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So, yeah, it makes for quite a quite a crowded city.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It does.

Speaker: And there are, yeah, you hear a ton of American students there.

Speaker: I mean, yeah, the streets.

Speaker: So maybe it was a spring break thing.

Speaker: I just couldn't believe how many people were there.

Speaker: So Livorno was like a godsend because it was so chill, you know, and we spent a week there.

Speaker: So you could go to a little, you know, even the Indian restaurant was amazing.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: You were based out of Livorno.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: You were based there.

Speaker: Yeah, we spent a week.

Speaker: Gotcha.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And then you just traveled around, right?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And we're close to the train station.

Speaker: It's a beautiful place.

Speaker: And Livorno is cheap because nobody goes to Livorno.

Speaker: And that was the charm.

Speaker: I mean, we were almost thinking earlier before we went, oh, maybe we should get a couple of days in Florence.

Speaker: But we decided not to.

Speaker: And I was totally glad.

Speaker: And were you doing day trips the whole week?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So we were 20 minutes from the train station.

Speaker: And the trains are really good.

Speaker: They're cheap.

Speaker: It costs us 3 euros, not even, to go to Pisa.

Speaker: It's 20 or 30 minutes.

Speaker: It's maybe a couple of times an hour, and then you're over in Pisa.

Speaker: If you want to go to Florence, it's maybe an hour and 40 minutes, and maybe it costs you 6 euros.

Speaker: I love the trains there.

Speaker: Yeah, I know.

Speaker: It's great.

Speaker: They are key to just the overall infrastructure of the country, right?

Speaker: Because of, you know, listen, traveling with cars, right?

Speaker: Because of the scale of cities, right?

Speaker: It's not as practical as it is, you know, North America is like we used to, right?

Speaker: So I think trains kind of like provide that alternative, you know, convenience, you know, to mobility, right?

Speaker: So...

Speaker: Well, it's an important point you make, though, before we move on, because, I mean, there are so many cars on the road now that there's nowhere to park.

Speaker: I mean, even in Livorno, the Airbnb guy was saying, like, oh, yeah, you're really smart to not rent a car because you can spend an hour looking for a parking space.

Speaker: And this is in Livorno.

Speaker: And so and there's like a big traffic jam that happens in Livorno.

Speaker: It's like this isn't like some huge city here.

Speaker: So the train, I say rent a bike, not a car.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The cities in Europe were built, in my opinion, it's been documented to the scale of man, right?

Speaker: Not to the scale of the car, right?

Speaker: As opposed to North America.

Speaker: We built cities for the car, right?

Speaker: And that changes the proportion, changes the scales, right?

Speaker: So it's just not practical for the automobile, right?

Speaker: Well, yeah, especially in those small, little towns.

Speaker: And then it's like, yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, Adrian, let's get into the art right away.

Speaker: So I know you, I know you for the last couple of years in the space, been in some spaces with you, followed your art, listened to the artist journal, which we'll talk about in the end.

Speaker: But I'm not too familiar with your background, with your artistic formation, your academic formation.

Speaker: So if you could just bring me up to speed and the audience to really what your background is.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: I grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is in Canada's Midwest.

Speaker: So pretty remote place.

Speaker: And actually, I grew up right outside of Saskatoon.

Speaker: So the ongoing joke is I grew up just outside the middle of nowhere.

Speaker: And it's like above California.

Speaker: just above North Dakota.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So I was going to ask you, so in, in, in reference to the U S map and which state, so I thought it was Minnesota, but so it's actually the Dakotas sort of North of the Dakotas.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Saskatoon is above the Dakotas and I think Manitoba maybe is more about Minnesota.

Speaker: So I have a friend from Minnesota, but we're it's culturally, it's actually not that far.

Speaker: Like I get along quite well with my Minnesota friend here in Berlin.

Speaker: Uh,

Speaker: So anyway, so I grew up there and I always had this kind of art kind of ambition from a pretty young age.

Speaker: I took some painting early on.

Speaker: I did art classes like I knew it was something I wanted to be.

Speaker: And interestingly, simultaneously, I mean, when I was very young, when I first visited Italy, when I was six, I was given the stamp collection of my Italian grandfather who had already passed.

Speaker: I never met him.

Speaker: And so stamps really started this kind of obsession, I guess, with images.

Speaker: And I would just stare at these things, you know.

Speaker: And I also went to the Vatican when I was six, when I visited Italy in that same trip.

Speaker: So I think that was probably the seed as far as the formative, you know, experience where, you know, I'd go through that mysterious museum, which was fairly boring, but I knew there was something there.

Speaker: You know, as a six-year-old, like I just kind of... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: It lit the fire, even though the fire was very small and I didn't quite understand.

Speaker: And even like, I mean, it was kind of a classic, like, you know, Italian kid situation where I, like it's classic.

Speaker: I mean, I almost forgot this memory, but I'd have Leonardo books, a Leonardo book, and I'd copy the Leonardo drawing, you know, like...

Speaker: Yeah, like, I mean, it's kind of straight out of a movie.

Speaker: It's almost a cliche, but yeah.

Speaker: A little bit of Cinema Paradiso there moment.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Like, I mean, I should be a better drawer if I was doing that at six.

Speaker: Let's put it that way.

Speaker: I mean, there is a sense of awe, right?

Speaker: As you walk into these places, right?

Speaker: Into these landmarks or these cultural, natural, national landmarks, right?

Speaker: So I could imagine, you know, doing that kind of impression on you, right, at that young age.

Speaker: Yeah, and it's funny because maybe the last or the second last time I was there, I've been there maybe 10 times, I'm assuming, since.

Speaker: So quite a few times, actually, because I have relatives in Rome.

Speaker: I don't know if any Romans has been there that often.

Speaker: Yeah, like now I know, okay, there's the Pina Cotec.

Speaker: Like I kind of know my way around, which is,

Speaker: But I remember the second last time I was there, I was like, this is a temple to the mind.

Speaker: You know, like this is kind of a celebration of the mind, you know, like you don't need to believe in the, you know, Christian religion to, you know, and people from all over the world come there.

Speaker: And it really is a celebration of the mind.

Speaker: So maybe that is my thing.

Speaker: And so, yeah.

Speaker: And ultimately I think my ambition, which I realized only a couple of years ago is I kind of want to work up in the Vatican because they have that

Speaker: it's kind of a lame gallery, the contemporary gallery.

Speaker: Like if I can get in there, I can just check off like, okay, I did it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And no, but you bring up a good point because it's, you know, aside from the religious, you know, aspect of it.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But, uh, but it really is about the humanities, right.

Speaker: It's about, it's about, it's just about human potential.

Speaker: It's about, uh, the manifestation of the human soul, right.

Speaker: Through these like larger than life, you know, uh, works.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, um,

Speaker: And we'll talk about it later on, which I, from my perspective, from where I stand, I see some of that making its way through your, through your work, you know, the element of classicism, right?

Speaker: Yeah, the tradition definitely does.

Speaker: Yeah, it's, and we can go into that maybe later.

Speaker: It's a very important for me just in being relevant.

Speaker: You know, in my own mind, you know, for me, the difference between like folk art and what you might call art in the tradition is the art in the tradition is dialoguing with the tradition and folk art, maybe like Henri Rousseau, which has been incorporated into the tradition, which is just kind of its own thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So that's kind of how I make the distinction there.

Speaker: But.

Speaker: Anyway, I took art classes, not a ton, but enough, pretty regularly.

Speaker: And then I went to university at the University of Saskatchewan.

Speaker: I took a fine arts degree and then I ended up doing a double degree in English because I didn't really learn that much.

Speaker: And they didn't have oil painting and it was kind of conceptual and it was just kind of, you could kind of get away with doing nothing.

Speaker: And so, yeah, I didn't really learn a ton.

Speaker: I didn't even, it was kind of weird.

Speaker: Like I was,

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like I didn't even really have a show at the end, even though there was kind of like, it was kind of weird.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Was it focused more on the history of art or was it art history?

Speaker: No, it was studio art.

Speaker: It was studio art.

Speaker: It was painting.

Speaker: And so I made some cool collages, but, and you know, it could have totally been me, uh, rather than the teachers, but anyways, it just didn't really work.

Speaker: But what did work was I took a, I was taking English literature classes.

Speaker: And that was giving me the brain food that I was kind of craving, you know, as you know, these lectures on, you know, William Faulkner and time, and it's just these big themes.

Speaker: And I'm not even a big Faulkner person.

Speaker: You know, but it was the fact that they were discussing these very profound issues.

Speaker: That's what was exciting me and these having insights, you know, on it and but they weren't and commenting on science and bringing insights that science can't really explain, kind of bringing the psychological phenomenon.

Speaker: So anyways, I ended up doing a double honors.

Speaker: So five years as an undergrad.

Speaker: And meanwhile, I had a friend, and this is a crucial part of the story, Brian Kotz, who worked in a, I worked in a used bookstore for a few years.

Speaker: So I met him there and then I moved on from that job.

Speaker: But then he was working in a different used bookstore, all in Saskatoon.

Speaker: And it's a whole culture, as you probably know, the used bookstore culture.

Speaker: Great culture.

Speaker: No, I collect modern first editions of post-colonial literature.

Speaker: So I'm very, very familiar with the used book crowd.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: You know, like it's a real, uh, it's cool.

Speaker: It's kind of like comics, you know, or vintage, uh, right.

Speaker: Vintage albums.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Or yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Like that really is kind of like North American culture to a certain degree for kids growing up, you know?

Speaker: And so anyway, so.

Speaker: Brian introduced me to the counterculture.

Speaker: So, you know, Burroughs, William Burroughs, J.G.

Speaker: Ballard, and including Devo, Laurie Anderson, you know, and research publications that, you know, V. Vale there out of San Francisco.

Speaker: And so it kind of, and so I had research eight and nine, which is one book, but it was called research eight, nine, which is a feature on Ballard with many interviews.

Speaker: And I basically read that all the time because I found it so fascinating.

Speaker: There was this guy who was kind of unknown at the time.

Speaker: I mean, known in certain circles, but as far as larger society, especially back then, pretty unknown and having some of what I considered like the most interesting insights about

Speaker: reality out there.

Speaker: And what was so interesting about Ballard was he was mostly influenced by the surrealists, visual artists as a novelist rather than other novelists.

Speaker: And so I ended up doing my master's thesis then on the Atrocity exhibition by J.G.

Speaker: Ballard, which

Speaker: And I basically showed the connection between basically surrealism and Ballard's Atrocity Exhibition, which is a very difficult kind of cryptic text.

Speaker: And I made it my task to understand basically what was going on.

Speaker: And I think I actually did a pretty good job.

Speaker: So it gave me a deep understanding of surrealism.

Speaker: And this was a way I could kind of justify to myself what

Speaker: doing English literature.

Speaker: And then I did a master's in that as an artist, you know, like that was, there's also some justification.

Speaker: I mean, I've, listen, I'm of the opinion that technique is not as important as, um, I would say maybe intellectual rigor, right.

Speaker: Or at least vision or, or just the, the, the knowledge body, right.

Speaker: Of, of an artist.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, um, so to the extent that, you know, that, that you're, um,

Speaker: maybe the studio part of the education did not contribute as much, but you've made that up with the English degree, right?

Speaker: Sort of like made up, you know, provide you with that intellectual heft, right?

Speaker: To be able to, you know, inform the rest of your artistic career, right?

Speaker: And

Speaker: And, you know, be able to develop maybe that creative vision or inform that.

Speaker: Totally.

Speaker: And I mean, interesting, important detail, I mean, is that at the end of the undergrad degree, I accidentally took a

Speaker: basically kind of randomly chose a classics, a pre-Socratic philosophers class.

Speaker: And I was doing a lot of psilocybin mushrooms at the time.

Speaker: I kind of wanted to be a part of the counterculture side of things.

Speaker: I kind of wanted to be a psychedelic guide.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's sort of my, at age 16, I think.

Speaker: And and so studying and Terence McKenna, I mean, this is the 90s, right?

Speaker: So Terence McKenna was a big deal.

Speaker: So and he always saw the Neoplatonists as the psychedelic philosophers and then being taking quite a few classes on Neoplatonism in the end.

Speaker: you know on platinus and all i actually agree and i was like you know and i would be doing on the weekends you know three or four grams of mushrooms right at these like little is rave type parties be crashed in the corner you know contemplating you know neoplatonic metaphysics basically i mean it was that was those literally in saskatoon saskatchewan i mean it's hilarious i love that so anyways yeah so yeah how big is that place how big is saskatoon is it

Speaker: I think it's 300,000 people now.

Speaker: I mean, I went there in November.

Speaker: I mean, it was quite interesting to see it after COVID because it had been hollowed out the downtown.

Speaker: I was visiting my friend Brian, who is still there, and we went downtown on a Thursday in November.

Speaker: It used to be just kind of pretty hopping office culture people going for lunch.

Speaker: the streets were like abandoned and downtown and there was zero office culture and it almost you almost got the sense of a kind of unsecure danger loomed around the corner even though it was noon yeah and it was right downtown like it was a it was quite something and it's funny i met a friend here in berlin who i hadn't seen for 20 years she uh just messaged me on facebook and said

Speaker: I'm coming to Berlin, let's go for a coffee.

Speaker: And she was like, have you seen Saskatoon?

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: So anyways, I mean, I have a lot of good friends there and nothing against it, but it was like the downtown COVID has hit the downtown and I think people who live there would agree with that.

Speaker: But it sounds like a typical North American city skyline, right?

Speaker: You know, office buildings, very concentrated in one downtown.

Speaker: Totally.

Speaker: And then, you know, suburbs or little neighborhoods scattered here and there, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I guess the only thing I'd add is and a river, the Saskatchewan River.

Speaker: And that's kind of a it really gives the city its personality.

Speaker: And I'm assuming you have your various, you know, immigrant neighborhoods, immigrant communities scattered throughout.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: The Italian, your Irish, your.

Speaker: I would say basically.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, there weren't a ton of Italians.

Speaker: They're all in Toronto.

Speaker: A lot of my friends were Ukrainian.

Speaker: Interestingly, like they sent a lot of the Ukrainians over to Saskatchewan.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: uh, most of the Italians went to Toronto.

Speaker: Uh, there were a few, but there weren't a ton.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Uh, and yeah, I'd say, yeah.

Speaker: And then a whole bunch of other stuff.

Speaker: English, Germans, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: So, but anyway, back to Scottish.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Scottish for sure.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, so, and after the, after the college experience, after, um,

Speaker: So after that, then I moved out with my girlfriend when I was 25, having finished the master's, handed in my thesis, took three years to do it.

Speaker: And then I moved to Montreal for eight years.

Speaker: And there I was working on, what was I doing?

Speaker: I was teaching English.

Speaker: I was basically super poor.

Speaker: And we had a nice little apartment in old Montreal there.

Speaker: And yeah, so I was there with my girlfriend, broke up and I would do my art thing, but I was really actually interested in DJing at the time.

Speaker: So I was spreading myself a little thin.

Speaker: And I guess what really characterizes that decade for me, or that, sorry, that eight years in Montreal is

Speaker: trying to do too many things.

Speaker: I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be an artist, and I wanted to be a DJ.

Speaker: And this is kind of typical of a lot of young people in their 20s.

Speaker: They think they have all the time in the world, right?

Speaker: But at that point, Adrian, did it cross your mind that you could have been an artist, that you could have pursued art?

Speaker: It was always the long-term plan.

Speaker: It was always kind of, but I was just kind of like, I would shake myself if I saw myself at age 20, like, get to it.

Speaker: You know, like, you don't have all day here.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But I thought I had all day and I thought, you know, so so I was doing my art and I, you know, and I was making digital art like I took a digital art class in 2000 at the University of Saskatchewan before I even did my master's.

Speaker: So I've been doing digital for a long time.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And in Montreal, I did graphic design as a job, actually, after the English thing.

Speaker: Did that for four years.

Speaker: And hilariously, you won't believe it, but today I was coming out of the gym and I went to Starbucks for a quick coffee.

Speaker: I walked out and I saw my old boss from my Montreal job.

Speaker: I'm like, hey, how are you doing?

Speaker: He couldn't believe it.

Speaker: He's like, what are you doing here?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, in the middle, he didn't know I'd moved and everything.

Speaker: So he hadn't seen me in like 10 years.

Speaker: That's so funny.

Speaker: So is he living in Berlin or is he visiting?

Speaker: I asked, no, he was with his family and they were visiting for four days.

Speaker: Oh, visiting.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Gotcha.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So it was totally random.

Speaker: I think he left the hotel and basically ran into me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that was hilarious.

Speaker: That was just this morning.

Speaker: And so anyways, but

Speaker: I did graphic design and again, I did that as a way of forcing myself to kind of focus somewhat on visual and discipline myself because you can't, as an artist, especially in art school, you can kind of fake your way through it as far as your technical ability, but graphic designers can't.

Speaker: They have to deliver.

Speaker: They have to deliver or people are not going to be happy because they're paying money.

Speaker: So that forced me to really get better technically.

Speaker: So it was a great decision.

Speaker: It forced me to, you know, you're using Photoshop eight hours a day.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it was kind of at the heyday of the HTML website and everything.

Speaker: And that stuff really inspired me.

Speaker: It still does.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then I started doing painting.

Speaker: What were the tools back then, Adrian?

Speaker: So it was Photoshop?

Speaker: There was no design back then.

Speaker: It was...

Speaker: There was some InDesign early version.

Speaker: We'd use CS2, Adobe Photoshop, CS2, InDesign.

Speaker: Macromedia Flash.

Speaker: Yeah, Flash.

Speaker: It was all Flash.

Speaker: And Dreamweaver.

Speaker: And Dreamweaver.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: And meanwhile, I spent too much of my 20s trying to build this ultimate, I was trying to do too many things.

Speaker: And so I was like, okay, I want to have the ultimate tabloid website, which is going to be like this kind of this, but this kind of speculative newspaper.

Speaker: So surrealist newspaper.

Speaker: So almost the roots of somewhat of this show that I

Speaker: ended up doing it.

Speaker: But it was like trying to do this surrealist newspaper.

Speaker: And I was like, my grand vision is I'd put my art on this tabloid kind of Drudge Report-esque aggregator website.

Speaker: So then I tried to make it all on my own.

Speaker: And so I was using Dreamweaver to create.

Speaker: I created a CMS using Dreamweaver.

Speaker: It took me like years.

Speaker: Huge waste of time.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Like, and I wouldn't go out with friends.

Speaker: Sometimes I'd be like, I just got to get the comments working.

Speaker: I'd spend like two years trying to get comments.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: So I was a weird kid, you know, like I, like I made a lot of huge mistakes.

Speaker: I have learned the hard way very much on so many things.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But sometimes that's good.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So then I moved to Toronto because I realized after a while, I didn't feel like I was really in,

Speaker: it's kind of tricky being an Anglo in Montreal and the deck feels kind of stacked against you.

Speaker: And I didn't understand that, or I wasn't ready for that.

Speaker: I didn't, I thought everything would be kind of, why would that ever?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's, it's, it's such a vibe, you know, Montreal is, I don't know.

Speaker: It's, it's, it's just a vibe is what it is.

Speaker: And it is its own microcosm.

Speaker: It's, uh, um, you know, it's just a region within the country, but it's got, it's, it's, it's a floating Island, you know, within, uh,

Speaker: You know, with its own biases, right, which in my opinion are a little bit misinformed because they probably experience the same level of bias when they go to Paris and when they go to France, right?

Speaker: But nonetheless, you know, it's just there, right?

Speaker: Yeah, it took a while and the government is not the most efficient and your taxes are super high, like things you don't understand as a kid coming from Saskatoon who's moving out from his parents' place at age 25.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So it took me eight years to basically figure out this is not the right place for me.

Speaker: For some people, I have friends that are still there and they love it.

Speaker: So, you know, it's for every person, they got to find their own thing.

Speaker: So then I was like, well, maybe I'll go to Toronto.

Speaker: It's a bigger city.

Speaker: I'm not going to have this, you know, language issue, even though I spoke French, but it wasn't great French.

Speaker: And so moved to Toronto and then, yeah.

Speaker: And then I ended up doing some trade newspaper sort of work and interesting kind of

Speaker: you know, and I won't tell this story because it's too long, but basically became an editor in chief of this financial newsletter through a very bunch of random situations.

Speaker: And basically the guy was like, after drinking wine with this guy who I met randomly through a friend, through a tweet, I mean, it's the most random, which is probably why we're having this conversation.

Speaker: And he's like, you speak,

Speaker: you're very lyrical when you're drinking.

Speaker: Like, do you want to be the editor in chief?

Speaker: I was like, well, yeah.

Speaker: I was like, yeah, I have a master's in English.

Speaker: It was like, yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Why don't you do this?

Speaker: That qualified.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So then I got into like that whole financial and Canadian mining sort of scene there as a way of kind of making money.

Speaker: And so anyway, so I did that for four years while doing my art and I picked up my paintbrushes again.

Speaker: And I also learned how to paint at the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto.

Speaker: They had these workshops that were two weeks and you'd go there and it was great.

Speaker: Like in the studio of the old masters.

Speaker: And I was like, surely they're not going to teach you how to paint like the old masters.

Speaker: My dad couldn't believe what I painted.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, I mean, it's, it's actually not rocket science, surprisingly.

Speaker: Like, I mean, and I'm sure you can, there's a whole bunch of ways that you can make it better and better, but learning, I mean, the very basic techniques can frankly be explained in like one day and then it's about like, okay, implementing them and, you know,

Speaker: But the color wheel is not rocket science, for example.

Speaker: You know, building the methodology they use to build a painting is quite solid.

Speaker: Like you build a painting through layering, you know, the sepia undertone.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: So I learned how to paint proper there, kind of ironically, because there's only like four weeks of training.

Speaker: And, uh, yeah, so I did that there painted a lot.

Speaker: And then basically I was doing these large oil paintings and I basically work on two at a time and they'd take me two years.

Speaker: So I was basically putting out a painting a year on average.

Speaker: And I did that for three years, made six paintings for the series called futures and options kind of riffing off of the financial thing and finance finance to me is still kind of one of the big themes of our century here.

Speaker: I mean, of the 21st century.

Speaker: technology and finance are the two big sort of themes in my artist statement that I had there.

Speaker: So anyways, so, but then one day to kind of tie the bow on this, I, I was sick of working on these paintings because it was total torture and I'd spend all my time on it.

Speaker: And then you're not even sure if you'd like the painting.

Speaker: So one day I, as I call it, I had this Copernican revolution where I was like, okay, I'm going to,

Speaker: you know, make one painting in one night and see what happens.

Speaker: And of course I do that.

Speaker: And I like that painting just as much, if not better than the paintings I'm working.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I mean, learning the hard way, you know, so, but, uh, important lesson.

Speaker: So then I started painting a ton, uh, making all these paintings that are in my brother's, uh, you know, basement in Toronto.

Speaker: And, uh, yes, that was great.

Speaker: And then, but then I kind of felt like, uh, Toronto wasn't working for me either in the sense that,

Speaker: I'd kind of like, you know, I was in my 30s and I'd just go over and basically all I had to do was drink.

Speaker: I mean, it felt like all that anybody did was drink and smoke weed, like to a certain degree when you're just kind of working there.

Speaker: And so, which is fine.

Speaker: I mean, no judgment there.

Speaker: You know, maybe Berlin's not that different, but I felt like the cultural side of things wasn't really like,

Speaker: appreciated that much.

Speaker: And maybe that was probably personality problems that I had, who knows, but I just didn't feel like it was a great fit.

Speaker: And my Italian cousins visited me from Rome and they're like, yeah, you don't fit in here at all.

Speaker: Like you should be in it.

Speaker: You should be in Europe, Adrian.

Speaker: And I was like, okay, that's a great idea.

Speaker: So then I moved, then I went to Berlin.

Speaker: I was going to all these art fairs to just try and get out of

Speaker: Canada and just see what's going on out there.

Speaker: I mean, I was in my thirties at this point and I was like, okay, I'm getting kind of older as an artist.

Speaker: I need to start just maybe something will happen if I go to the LA art fair, maybe I'll meet someone.

Speaker: And so one of the places I went was Berlin and you know, that one was awesome.

Speaker: I mean, I went, that was an amazing.

Speaker: What year was that Adrian?

Speaker: That was 2015.

Speaker: So September 2015, or was it?

Speaker: Yeah, it was September 2015 was the first time I went to Berlin and yeah, it was like the hilarious classic kind of first Berlin trip where within 48 hours there I was in Berghain, Berghain, you know, and I didn't even know what Berghain was.

Speaker: And there I was at like the, you know, hippest club in the world and surgeon was playing.

Speaker: It was like eight in the morning.

Speaker: you know, and yeah, that was like my entry.

Speaker: I was like, I'm moving here.

Speaker: This place rocks.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So that, that, so that was your sort of like, you know, your cue, right?

Speaker: That you were, that you would potentially entertain moving there.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I, and I still feel this way about Berlin and Europe in general.

Speaker: I feel like I can just totally be me and be appreciated and liked.

Speaker: And I didn't really have that sense.

Speaker: And again, it may have been my own issues in Canada, who knows, you know,

Speaker: But I just, I mean, I do feel on a certain very general level, and maybe it's not totally fair, but Canada, I do say, to me, it's a little bit provincial, I would argue, in some respects.

Speaker: And so I, as someone, a person of culture, I was doing the Atrocity Exhibition, you know, and

Speaker: None of, nobody cared about anything.

Speaker: Right, right, right, right.

Speaker: So I had to go somewhere where people cared.

Speaker: You were already showing work then.

Speaker: Like you already had official exhibitions right before you went to Berlin, right?

Speaker: So you were already.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I had some group shows, very little.

Speaker: I mean, they didn't mean too much.

Speaker: Like the first thing I ever did, I paid to put it on the wall and I don't tell anybody to do that.

Speaker: But you know, if you've never done it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: maybe it's not that you know i'd paid this guy right super wonder super wonder gallery he was called maybe people in toronto maybe he's still there yeah yeah i wish i could remember his name yeah christian i think is his name uh he would put on these shows and it was kind of like a business for him where he'd bring in a bunch of kind of cool like artists that he liked but you know who were willing to pay and they were actually super cool shows and that's how i started i think i was in a couple of other like small things but i didn't really have that much yeah and then i

Speaker: moved to Berlin a year after visiting almost to the day, September, 2016.

Speaker: And it was hilarious within three months that I had my first show.

Speaker: And, uh, I remember this girl that I had met the first, uh, she was actually, maybe I shouldn't say she was with the Berlin Biennale, let's just put it that way.

Speaker: And I was like, Oh, here's a great, you know, and she was kind of like, we kind of hooked up and those, and she was like, Oh, you know, Berlin's really hard.

Speaker: Like you're not necessarily like the, you might want to think about this and whatever.

Speaker: And then it was hilarious.

Speaker: And there I was like three months in, I guess it was January.

Speaker: I got there in September and I had like a solo show and she's like, well, Adrian, good job.

Speaker: Good job.

Speaker: So that was great.

Speaker: So yeah, Berlin embraced me for the most part.

Speaker: So it's been home since 2015 you said?

Speaker: Since 2016.

Speaker: 2016, right?

Speaker: So you're going on almost seven years.

Speaker: So it's home for you.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: Like if I moved anywhere, it'd be like to the south of Europe or something at this point, like maybe to Italy.

Speaker: You know, to get real estate, you know, that sort of thing.

Speaker: Find some small Italian city where it's cheap.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But you're staying put there for the future.

Speaker: Yeah, for the time being.

Speaker: We'll see if the contract is renewed on the apartment.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, it's renting in Berlin.

Speaker: So I remember, like, I would say I came to New York in 86 and I started seeing the first migration of...

Speaker: of New York-based artists going, you know, starting to leave the city, right, as the city became, you know, especially the downtown started to become gentrified, right, you know, with all the Chase city banks opening up on every corner, right, Starbucks, you know, coming in, the scene was getting a little bit safe, a little bit too...

Speaker: I should I say a little bit too predictable, right?

Speaker: So a lot of the artists that I knew from the East Village, because at the time I had a cafe in the East Village, they started leaving.

Speaker: Some went to LA.

Speaker: I feel like the migration to LA is still happening, even more so today because of the obvious reason that we just discussed.

Speaker: But a lot of them were coming to Berlin.

Speaker: So early 90s, there was a major, major migration of New York artists going to Berlin.

Speaker: And that had to do with the fact that you could get a warehouse, you could get a studio for next to nothing and just do art, right?

Speaker: Which was not the case in New York anymore.

Speaker: Before you could have gone to the 4th Street on Avenue D and get a loft for 700.

Speaker: That was just not the case anymore.

Speaker: So a lot of them went to Berlin.

Speaker: But that kind of lived its course too, right?

Speaker: Didn't Berlin go through the same thing where now all of a sudden, you know, you can't afford, I don't want to say you can't afford to live in it anymore, but it's not the same that it was in the early 90s as far as the... Affordability.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, that dream is dead.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It's totally dead.

Speaker: I mean, even just to, it's, I don't know if gentrified is the right word.

Speaker: It is definitely gentrifying.

Speaker: And yeah, I mean, the rents are...

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like what, you know, even four years ago when I started living here, it was considered very expensive.

Speaker: What I paid and now it's considered very cheap.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: You know, like, and that's four years and it's not like people in Berlin make a lot of money.

Speaker: So it's kind of a weird situation too, because generally speaking, people in Berlin do not make much money.

Speaker: So you have all these people coming

Speaker: you know, let's say from the U S or Canada or wherever else.

Speaker: And they go, Oh, this is so cheap.

Speaker: Even maybe, maybe not still, but you know, like, uh, and yeah.

Speaker: And then the locals can't afford it.

Speaker: I mean, your classic sort of, uh, scenario, I guess you'd call that gentrification.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: But anyways, yeah, that dream's kind of dead.

Speaker: And so a lot of people have gone to Athens and now that's expensive.

Speaker: So the same phenomenon is happening.

Speaker: I mean, people are now leaving Berlin, right.

Speaker: And,

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, or like, I mean, actually Berlin, it's still like, I mean, if you can find an apartment in a sense, people are still coming here.

Speaker: It's got a great brand.

Speaker: I mean, kind of like the ongoing joke.

Speaker: I mean, my friend from, you know, like it's like, yeah, the rest of the world thinks it's awesome.

Speaker: You know, like, but really Berliners are sort of like the weather sucks, you know, like, and it doesn't always suck, but it's like the winters are pretty brutal.

Speaker: And it's just like the whole reason for coming to Berlin and kind of what built Berlin's name,

Speaker: arguably was exactly what you're saying.

Speaker: It was a scene.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It was the arts.

Speaker: Cause it, cause then there was the club scene that followed the art scene.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Cause the two will always, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship, right.

Speaker: Between, um, you know, just nightlife and, and the arts.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Um, you know, it was the case in New York for the longest of time.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's the reason why the Warhols, the Basquiat, the Herring were able to come to, you know, come to a come of age, right.

Speaker: In New York city, because that, that dynamic existed, it's not there anymore.

Speaker: um that's why we you know it's much harder now you know to produce that kind of um talent in in in new york or for that matter so i'm sure the same thing is happening in berlin now right because uh it's just you know just that just changes everything um but i did hear about the athens uh connection now people kind of i heard near the airport or something like there's um

Speaker: Was it near the, near the Olympic complex?

Speaker: There's like this whole neighborhood that's springing up with all, with all these like studios and artists that have moved there recently.

Speaker: Did you hear the same thing?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like I have friends and actually have a friend who's in Athens.

Speaker: She's from Canada and yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker: She's saying actually, cause they introduced this golden visa now where like real estate is going up there.

Speaker: It's kind of like, it's all repeating itself over in Athens.

Speaker: So funny.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So it, yeah.

Speaker: Like, so, I mean, it's still a lot cheaper than Berlin.

Speaker: Like you can still rent an apartment in Athens for maybe 600 euros a month, sometimes less.

Speaker: When I was there a couple of years ago, I was offered, you know, 450 for like a balcony and nice place, you know?

Speaker: So yeah.

Speaker: So yeah.

Speaker: So where do you go now?

Speaker: I mean, a lot of people went to also Portugal as well.

Speaker: And then you get all the crypto people, but crypto people came because there's no income tax on or there's no capital gains on crypto in Portugal.

Speaker: So now it's the same story where Portuguese people, you know, in Lisboa can't can't afford to go to buy anything.

Speaker: And then you have all these like crypto people from elsewhere who kind of.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So love how cheap it is.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And back to Berlin.

Speaker: So Adrian, is there still a very alive cultural scene as far as, you know, gallery shows, museum opening?

Speaker: Yeah, very much so.

Speaker: Like, I'd still say it's still the main thing to do.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: As far as like, you know, what's going on this weekend?

Speaker: It's like, oh, well, this kind of fancy gallery is

Speaker: is going to have something and, you know, Perez projects is going to have something and, you know, it's actually gallery weekend this weekend.

Speaker: So that'll be fun.

Speaker: Um, it's still kind of the main, uh, thing to do, which is great.

Speaker: And it's, you know, affordable cause you don't really need to pay anything to go to a gallery.

Speaker: Uh, so that is really nice.

Speaker: I I'd say it's the main, and it's interesting.

Speaker: A lot of artists come here.

Speaker: I'm not sure.

Speaker: like, and I can only speak from my own perspective and what I've seen and I could be wrong, but I'm not sure how many people are actually quote unquote making it.

Speaker: Like, I mean, there's this whole circuit of people, me, you know, before the pandemic was on this circuit where you go to the galleries and you're kind of hoping something happens.

Speaker: Maybe you meet, like it's fun, but it's also kind of like a business, you know, where you're hoping you're going to meet someone to show your work.

Speaker: and all this sort of thing.

Speaker: And it just never, like, I'm sure it materializes for some people at some point, but for the great majority of people, it's really just an exercise in futility, you know?

Speaker: And so the pandemic, when basically nobody went out, also it kind of snapped me out of this.

Speaker: I was like, it was kind of like painting, you know, two paintings a year for two years, you know, all of a sudden you just go, this is a failed business model.

Speaker: Like I need to try something different.

Speaker: And then,

Speaker: And that's when I discovered crypto, just from my financial interest.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: So your entry point was the currency, right?

Speaker: It was the cryptocurrency.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I was watching real vision videos on YouTube and there's Raoul Pal telling everybody to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum before it had kind of gone crazy.

Speaker: And then I finally read this, one of the, or listened to one of the last interviews by James Dines, who's kind of like the original newsletter writer.

Speaker: He lived to like 91, 92, just died a couple of years ago.

Speaker: And he was like, you know, buy Bitcoin, buy Ethereum.

Speaker: And then I was like, oh, if James Dines is saying that, yeah.

Speaker: That's what I was like, I went straight to my computer and I was like, I got to figure this out.

Speaker: And it was great.

Speaker: I mean,

Speaker: I got rich for a year and that was great.

Speaker: Well, it lasted.

Speaker: And then it went down.

Speaker: And then you're like, well, wait a minute.

Speaker: There's also art to this.

Speaker: There's also an artistic element to this.

Speaker: Well, it's funny too, because I had been working on this Peloponnesian War series.

Speaker: I was working on my phone a ton.

Speaker: And this is actually something I started in Toronto when I got the iPhone 6S, which I consider the first art phone.

Speaker: Cause all of a sudden there was apps that were credible, you know, like that were usable.

Speaker: You could export between the apps.

Speaker: So I could use one app, export it.

Speaker: And I'd even bring it into Instagram, use the filter there and sometimes take a screenshot or just if you posted it and deleted the photo, you would save it to your photos back then.

Speaker: So like when you posted something, so it would give you a copy of the photo.

Speaker: So I'd post it and then delete it right away.

Speaker: And then I'd have that copy in my photos.

Speaker: You know, and there's great, great apps that I still use actually to this day.

Speaker: And so I was working a lot on the phone and then I started this Peloponnesian War Series.

Speaker: Well, and so all to say I was familiar with Super Rare, but I didn't understand it.

Speaker: I saw, okay, there's this digital art platform.

Speaker: When I first moved to Berlin, this is 2016.

Speaker: which ironically was super early in a sense for NFTs.

Speaker: So I was on super rare looking at it, but I didn't understand it.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So I didn't know.

Speaker: And I was like, Oh, you have to apply.

Speaker: And I, you know, I was going to ask you that.

Speaker: So did they have the gatekeeping back then?

Speaker: Were they, were they asking for, okay.

Speaker: They did.

Speaker: Cause otherwise I was, yeah.

Speaker: When did they launch?

Speaker: 2016?

Speaker: I think like 2018.

Speaker: Like, so like I saw them around 20, like I was like, had I joined then I'd probably be some, you know, famous crypto artist because it was just by virtue of the time.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I, yeah, but who knows if I would have been accepted at that point onto the platform.

Speaker: But yeah, I mean, it's kind of wild when you piece together what that would have meant and all that, but I didn't know what it meant.

Speaker: And so it was actually through finance that I actually started to figure out and through investing

Speaker: the interest in finance that came from Toronto and all these newsletter writers, uh, that that's how I, and then all of a sudden I was like, Oh, this is what super rare is doing.

Speaker: And then, so I applied because I was like, Oh man, the world is about to come on to, you know, it's going to want to get on super rare, which actually happened where every artist, you know, in 2021 at the,

Speaker: wanted to get on.

Speaker: But they hadn't yet at that point, right?

Speaker: They hadn't yet.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: There was probably a few, uh, there was Arnome and Mattia Couttini and, and probably 10 other, 10 other people.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: That was about it.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Like, well, I mean, it's, I mean, maybe that was slightly earlier, like, cause I was, I wasn't early to the party at all.

Speaker: Like I, I was earlier than the mainstream by like three months, you know, like I applied, I think in November, December and got on in like February.

Speaker: And then I minted my first piece then, and then things are blowing up, of course, then, especially the Bored Apes and everything.

Speaker: And people were getting rich and all of a sudden every artist wanted to be involved in the NFT scene.

Speaker: And there I was on SuperRare and that was great.

Speaker: And yeah, that was fabulous in terms of because all of a sudden, I mean, it's the dream, right, where you make your work for free digitally.

Speaker: you upload it to a website and it sells and you have all this money in your pocket.

Speaker: I mean, it doesn't get any better than that in any business.

Speaker: I mean, zero costs other than your time and your iPad or your phone.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Well, and your marketing, right?

Speaker: Because now all of a sudden you've removed yourself as with everything Web3, we removed ourselves from the traditional relationships where

Speaker: in the traditional art world, right?

Speaker: You have the gallery that does all the promotion, all the marketing, all the, you know, the logistic work for you, right?

Speaker: But now all of a sudden, right, there's the upside, right, of having direct control over the revenue stream.

Speaker: But at the same time, you have to do your own, you know, your own weightlifting as far as, you know, promotion, marketing, and all that.

Speaker: And I guess that's a good, it's a fair price to pay, right?

Speaker: Because, you know, that it,

Speaker: not only you have a much bigger margin right on the sale but there's also the perpetuity of it right the royalty that kicks in so uh hey you know if i have to do social media or marketing in general right then so be it right i guess at that point it's the personality that kind of gets in you know makes a difference right because some people are much more prone and much more comfortable doing that than others right some you know some introverted or some some

Speaker: artists that are just not comfortable doing that, perhaps have a tougher time, you know, doing that.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And Twitter is incredibly low-fi.

Speaker: Like, I mean, I like when I started, first of all, I was quite shocked when I like, they had this kind of onboarding session at super rare and they're like, by the way, you know, most of the collectors are on Twitter, so you should have a Twitter and all this sort of thing.

Speaker: And that was total news to me.

Speaker: And then I was trying to be all smart on Twitter and that didn't fly.

Speaker: you know, like, cause everybody's sort of like, who's this guy who thinks he's so smart and everything.

Speaker: So yeah, like I didn't do like, and it was even those, remember those posts where, I mean, you still see them where it's like post your NFT and blah, blah.

Speaker: Like, and I generally kind of, I don't know if I'd say I looked down on those kind of posts, but I was like, I'm not going to post there.

Speaker: But then finally I just was like, okay, I need to get some kind of traction.

Speaker: And I ended up making like,

Speaker: $5,000 sales, I'm pretty sure came, I mean, those are like the heyday for me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And that came from posting on those dumb, like engagement.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's so funny.

Speaker: Learning the herd way on everything.

Speaker: My goodness.

Speaker: Well, it takes us to your art, right?

Speaker: And we talked about it.

Speaker: You mentioned the Peloponnesian War Project, which I wanted to talk about because it's one of the projects that I sort of wrote down because it's really aesthetically, I think, conceptually, it kind of really, really struck a chord with me.

Speaker: and I wanted to understand a little bit more about it.

Speaker: But I think let's talk about the whole package, right?

Speaker: Meaning let's tie all those loose ends, like the role that the classics and humanities have played in your upbringing, right, in your academic upbringing, and how they make their way into your work.

Speaker: And what are you trying to say through them, right?

Speaker: Or what are you trying to say about it through your work?

Speaker: Well, I guess for me at the end of the day,

Speaker: And again, it comes back to that Socratic kind of education.

Speaker: And then I was taking a lot of great courses, what used to be the teaching company.

Speaker: Now it's Wondrium.

Speaker: And I actually watched this lecture series on the Peloponnesian War twice before reading it.

Speaker: And that was interesting.

Speaker: And it's all about meaning at the end of the day and in the sense of

Speaker: can you do something that matters?

Speaker: Like at the end of the day, it's almost like so little matters.

Speaker: Like to me, almost the big challenge is, can you do something that actually matters?

Speaker: You know, so as a source of, you know, taking an extremely skeptical kind of, so, so then I was like, that's where I kind of came to this idea that

Speaker: to be a part of the tradition, then you have to have a conversation with the tradition, you know?

Speaker: So that's in a sense where the idea of, hey,

Speaker: what if I did a quote unquote art book of the Peloponnesian war, which was kind of like everything that I love trading cards and it's almost like 200 trading cards kind of in ratio, at least they look like trading cards and then where I put quotes.

Speaker: But then I had this surrealist sort of, you know, approach to it where I actually have this beautiful picture.

Speaker: I'll have to dig that picture up and show it on the show.

Speaker: where I'd cut out all these 200 quotes that I had, and then I had all these vase paintings, Greek vase paintings, and I started to put them just kind of randomly.

Speaker: And then I wasn't trying to... So in the series, I wasn't trying to illustrate the quotes of Thucydides' Palpinesian War.

Speaker: like with the action that was going on in the vase painting which i'd use as a source as well i wasn't trying to necessarily make like the vase painting narrative coincide in a direct way with the quote i was kind of going for more of a let's use some randomness kind of more of a surrealist project of let's see what happens when we mingle

Speaker: this text, this rich, meaningful text, the first history text in the Western tradition with this vase painting from the West or from ancient Greece, at the start of the Western tradition.

Speaker: What happens when we start to mingle these things?

Speaker: And I felt like a magician, like also I was just like, this feels, this is very powerful in terms of meaning.

Speaker: And then I just added other layers on there of just, you know, from intellectual history, very loosely from from McDonald's to, you know, who knows what to letter.

Speaker: And then I'd have letters turn into image, you know, and all this sort of thing that you almost see in asymmetric writing.

Speaker: And so it was at the end of the day, my big summary of what that work is.

Speaker: is it's about the battle of all signification against all signification.

Speaker: Basically everything was allowed to come in, whether it was math, logic formulas, I'd look up information theory type diagrams, I'd just incorporate everything with this kind of ancient Greek backdrop of text and image.

Speaker: And so it became kind of like this magic act in a sense for me.

Speaker: With varying degrees of success.

Speaker: And Adrian, what I found fascinating is even though with this sort of like historical, and we're going back, you know, two, three thousand years, right?

Speaker: Of, you know, of influence into the work, there's still a very, very, very obvious, almost like crypto framework, meaning the aesthetic of the work really, really felt at home within a crypto context.

Speaker: um, you know, I think you minted on super rare, right?

Speaker: I did.

Speaker: I mean, after it was all done, uh, yeah.

Speaker: And I got on super rare.

Speaker: The first thing I minted was actually the study I had done, which it's funny.

Speaker: I mean, today I'm still going back to, it's one of my favorite pieces I've made.

Speaker: And I'm, I was actually kind of, it's kind of my main inspiration actually right now, that piece it's like, I need to kind of develop some of the ideas that were in that piece where I was taking basically in that case,

Speaker: as part of the background, because that's a whole other thing.

Speaker: Like what do you do with the background, for instance?

Speaker: So I was using, in some cases, I'd sample paintings from say Basquiat and Rauschenberg, really zoomed in.

Speaker: So you wouldn't even know what painting it's from, but just like a brush stroke, you know, and this sort of thing and that stuff.

Speaker: And then I'd almost like, I call it visual hip hop.

Speaker: I'd start to like combine those things in image editing apps.

Speaker: Then I'd purposefully, to your point about,

Speaker: I would use that very hard edged brush, you know, hard contour brush that's very digital that you'd never make with a regular.

Speaker: So I like that because it was kind of like,

Speaker: unambiguously digital.

Speaker: And so I would start to mix these things.

Speaker: And then I, because of course, sometimes you would get paintings where you had to erase some parts of the painting that I'd use as a sample, let's say.

Speaker: And so then, yeah.

Speaker: So it turned into this very interesting mix of everything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And to me, it feels very much at home in a crypto setting, although, you know, it's, it's inspired by, you know,

Speaker: work or aesthetics from thousands of years ago.

Speaker: It feels fresh.

Speaker: It feels like of the moment.

Speaker: It feels relevant.

Speaker: And I think it's a beautiful, beautiful project.

Speaker: I was looking at it again this morning just to remind myself of Fresh My Memory.

Speaker: And it's like it still feels crisp.

Speaker: It feels, I don't know, of the moment is probably the best word I can describe it.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I really appreciate that.

Speaker: I mean, it's a half orphaned project.

Speaker: I mean, half the works are still on open scene.

Speaker: I know, I know.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So you saw that.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: And you did well, you did fairly well with it though.

Speaker: I mean, there's, there's, there, yeah, there's quite a bit of, you know, we made some sales.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, I mean, it wasn't, it's funny.

Speaker: It was other series that got more of the big dollar figures, but I was happy just to sell any, frankly.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: You know, and I learned is kind of funny, like early on, I learned again, the hard way on like how to deal with, uh, with collectors.

Speaker: Cause I, you know, that work I put out and I got a half ETH offer.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then I waited and waited, you know, cause I'm like, Oh, it's going to get more.

Speaker: And then of course the guy takes back the offer.

Speaker: I didn't know the protocol that, you know, you go on Twitter and you say, thank you for the offer.

Speaker: And if nobody takes it in the next 48 hours, I'm going to give it to that person.

Speaker: I just said nothing.

Speaker: It was like, yeah, I'll get back to you.

Speaker: You know, like, and then it was taken back and I think I sold it for 0.1 either, you know?

Speaker: And now someone has like 10 ETH on that as the price tag.

Speaker: Right, right, right, right.

Speaker: So yeah, it's kind of hilarious actually.

Speaker: That's funny.

Speaker: That's funny.

Speaker: But it is, just to your point though, it is made to order for crypto.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: I saw that thing.

Speaker: I was like, oh, but I botched the, you know, the rollout.

Speaker: I botched the rollout.

Speaker: Let's call it the go-to-market.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: The go-to-market strategy, yeah.

Speaker: I needed help in that case.

Speaker: Now I think I can handle it better at the time.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so at that point you were firmly planted in crypto, right?

Speaker: You're like, okay, this is a legitimate place, right?

Speaker: Because that's how I felt.

Speaker: I noticed that I picked up on the legitimacy of it very fast.

Speaker: I was like, this is serious.

Speaker: There's serious stuff.

Speaker: There's some serious talent.

Speaker: And there's definitely some significant work to be done here.

Speaker: And even today, look, 2023, three, four years past the beginning of the rush, it still feels very early, right?

Speaker: It still feels it's a conversation for a selected few, right?

Speaker: Wouldn't you agree with that?

Speaker: Because I feel like the institutions are still not...

Speaker: you know, into it, right?

Speaker: Or committed to it, right?

Speaker: Or not even like I've tried, right?

Speaker: So I feel, and it's bound to happen.

Speaker: There's no avoiding that, right?

Speaker: So I feel like it's early.

Speaker: Yeah, like, I mean, it's quite interesting too, because the artists and the works that kind of got really famous, like Beeple and XCopy, really create a...

Speaker: perception from those in institutions and outside, as well as even the NFTs like the Bored Apes.

Speaker: I mean, I was at a party not that long ago, like four or five months ago.

Speaker: And this, you know, very nice

Speaker: French from France woman was sort of asking me like, but you know, I was talking about NFT.

Speaker: She's like, but what about the, what would she, how did she put it?

Speaker: She put it like the challenging aesthetics or something like that.

Speaker: Like it was hilarious because, but she just wasn't aware and like, and neither, like I was there selling work.

Speaker: I didn't love a ton of what I saw.

Speaker: I didn't really buy an NFT of art until that October.

Speaker: uh, and of 2020, I think it was 2021, I think.

Speaker: And yeah, and then I didn't even really get it till about a year ago because then I was on object and on Tezos and I saw Haiti Rockette and Rada, the pixel artist.

Speaker: And those were the guys that, especially Haiti Rockette, like Rada got me on object as far as like, I saw his work and I saw, Oh, there's affordable work on object or Tezos from Rada that I can buy.

Speaker: I messaged him very early on, like, is this stuff for sale?

Speaker: And he sent me to OpenSea.

Speaker: Radha is actually one of the great commenters on the program now.

Speaker: It's hilarious because at the time he's just like, I have no idea.

Speaker: And it's ironic, isn't it?

Speaker: And so anyways, but then I saw Haiti Rocket.

Speaker: I saw JNK, which is now Kurt Hustle Collective.

Speaker: And I was like, this stuff is just really cool.

Speaker: It felt like techno punk.

Speaker: It felt there's classicness to it.

Speaker: So then I went down the rabbit hole and I really have never come out.

Speaker: I mean, it's stunning the amount of talent that's out there that really just...

Speaker: you know, would not be represented otherwise.

Speaker: Like it would just be in people's private homes without this kind of internet blockchain market.

Speaker: And so is the artist's journal kind of like a consequence of that, you know, just a need to partake in it and share and just like, because it is an overwhelming experience from just the, because, you know, first of all, we're dealing with, you know, we're dealing with a global phenomenon, right?

Speaker: Now, all of a sudden we have access to

Speaker: to talent from all over the world, right?

Speaker: It's not just your local market or your country.

Speaker: It's like we have like instantaneous access to the works of just about every artist in the world, right?

Speaker: So is it just this sense of overwhelming, I don't know, input of work and the impetus of wanting to share with people that kind of led you to Artist Journal?

Speaker: It's an interesting, like it's several things.

Speaker: It was a confluence of several things.

Speaker: I mean, I had started, uh,

Speaker: an artist journal on, I always, I don't know if you know David Bowie's Outside.

Speaker: Oh gosh.

Speaker: Do you know that album?

Speaker: Oh yeah, very much so.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I was almost envisioning like, and I had, you know, it was like, there's kind of like this narration, this guy almost talking into his tape recorder, this private detective between tracks.

Speaker: That was almost like a year earlier when I was, and I knew I couldn't be like,

Speaker: But I was like, that was kind of the inspiration.

Speaker: I was just like doing an artist journal, like just sharing thoughts, because I have all these thoughts on things.

Speaker: So why not use that?

Speaker: And Twitter also is so lo-fi that I just felt like, you know, I need to...

Speaker: And YouTube is kind of frowned upon in the contemporary art world somewhat.

Speaker: It's kind of seen as like not the most prestigious way of presenting yourself.

Speaker: But as far as this NFT thing, I just thought, you know what, Twitter

Speaker: people don't understand me on Twitter.

Speaker: Like they don't understand my personality.

Speaker: And so I just get in front of the camera.

Speaker: As I told a friend, I was like, you know, if you're in front of, if you do YouTube every day for a year, do you think you're, he's a musician.

Speaker: And before I started any of this, I was like, do you think you're going to get somewhere?

Speaker: He's like, yeah, I think you're going to get somewhere.

Speaker: And so we'd been talking like that for a couple of years.

Speaker: And then finally I was seeing what was going on

Speaker: with on Tezos and it was getting more and more like excited.

Speaker: And I felt like the market was about to blow up actually.

Speaker: So I was like, I'm going to get ahead of this.

Speaker: I've been kind of planning this.

Speaker: Let's just put a few images together of what I'm collecting.

Speaker: You know, in worst case scenario, I have some video up on a YouTube where you search Tezos and there I show up in three or four down, that sort of thing.

Speaker: Recent acquisitions on Tezos, I think was the first video.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: And yeah, and it was just like, you know, let's just talk about stuff because why not?

Speaker: And so surprisingly, people liked, you know, even like or at least watched it.

Speaker: Like I'd actually get like 10 views.

Speaker: And I was someone that would post on Twitter and basically get one like, sometimes not, you know, like there's a lot of people like that.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So there's no reason for people to like me other than, OK, maybe I like this guy's art.

Speaker: My communications were...

Speaker: I'm just basically can communicate way better and more efficiently with video and audio than I can with Twitter.

Speaker: And it's like, okay, how do I sound funny?

Speaker: And you know, it's just like, it's too much.

Speaker: It's too much for me to, I'm trying to make art here.

Speaker: So it became a very efficient way for people to, I mean, video is incredibly powerful.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Because people relate to you on so many more levels, the visual, even the vocal versus Twitter, where you're just like some PFP, like you have a little image for your profile picture and it's so low fi.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: that, I mean, it takes, I mean, credit to people that can make it kind of doing that because it's a really challenging medium.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because it's about the, the, the written word, right.

Speaker: And, and trying to make it come alive, right.

Speaker: Through the, um, through the style, you know, the style of your writing.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, uh, and some people have a much better, uh,

Speaker: you know uh much more equipped to be able to do so in a very very effective and very entertaining and very very uh you know captive way right and uh but it's not for everybody for sure so but you're right you know with video it's like you know the you know the you can come across much more um with much more less efforts right then it would be with the written word for sure so exactly and you can elaborate so much more like if you if you elaborate like that on twitter people might

Speaker: I go, why are you talking about this?

Speaker: Who are you trying to impress?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's sort of like the difference between, you know, your significant other, you know, how many arguments have been started through just texting versus, you know, that wouldn't have been an argument if you're talking in person.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: People assume the worst.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Good point.

Speaker: Good point.

Speaker: So what episode are you up to now?

Speaker: 165, 166?

Speaker: I think it's 170.

Speaker: It's 170.

Speaker: And there were like 10 videos that I did on Spotify, actually, audio things that were just random.

Speaker: There's an interview with Brian Cotts way back there, that guy that inspired me early on.

Speaker: I'm still in Saskatoon.

Speaker: And, uh, yeah, so I've done about a hundred and let's say 55, 160 videos.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Do you take it a day or every other day or once a week?

Speaker: The first 80 or 90 days, I did it every day.

Speaker: The first 80 or 90 days, like it was kind of wild and it was fun, but they were much shorter too.

Speaker: And I still want to get back to these shorter videos.

Speaker: I need to look at them, but I find it so hard to watch.

Speaker: Um, but you know, I'd love to get to like 30 minute videos, let's say.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: They're in the 50, they're like around 50 minutes, right?

Speaker: On average, right?

Speaker: Let's say, yeah, recently.

Speaker: And I say it almost embarrassingly, you know, like, I'd love it to be like, let's say 30 is kind of like a nice middle ground, you know, so, and it's less work.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, but somehow there's enough to talk about.

Speaker: And I don't mind.

Speaker: Basically, the reason I justify it to myself the way it currently is, is if I'm talking about interesting things or what I perceive as interesting things at the start of the program where we're going through news and just random.

Speaker: That's kind of the whole point of this project for me is kind of like just to share a perspective.

Speaker: And isn't this cool?

Speaker: And why is this cool?

Speaker: And how does this help us as artists?

Speaker: This sort of thing.

Speaker: So if that's what I'm doing and it turns out long, then I go, meh, okay, I can live with that.

Speaker: But I'm still, I actually, last episode I think was like in the forties.

Speaker: So that was 45 minutes or something.

Speaker: And what's the frequency these days, Adrian?

Speaker: It's really interesting, at least for me, uh, so how it's evolved because it was, it was every day.

Speaker: And then I was doing weekdays, say Monday to Friday.

Speaker: And then what I did was I turned the Wednesday show into a Twitter spaces because it was just me, me talking to people and never kind of getting the feedback and rug radio, which is this like web three kind of media thing.

Speaker: I had proposed a show to them like in that around that August, July, actually before I started the show, I proposed doing a show on Tezos art just cause I thought an audio show like where I'd, you know, cause I was a big collector actually.

Speaker: So I kind of knew enough of the artists that I thought I could get cause I basically spent enough money on their work.

Speaker: I figured, okay, I have some kind of relationship where they were thanking me on Twitter and whatever.

Speaker: So I thought, okay, I could probably bring in some artists.

Speaker: And do some kind of show with Tezos artists because I was very excited, as I still am, about the art that happens there.

Speaker: I still think it's like the most exciting art basically going on by far in the world.

Speaker: It's just dynamic.

Speaker: It's like a youthful scene.

Speaker: All the things the art world has kind of stopped being in a lot of ways.

Speaker: Yeah, there's just nostalginess to it.

Speaker: It's just like so fresh and so vibrant and so raw.

Speaker: And so, yeah, like every other movement at early stages.

Speaker: I had proposed this show with Rug Radio and never heard back.

Speaker: And then their person, their talent person was sort of switching around.

Speaker: And then I ended up starting this show anyways.

Speaker: I was like, okay, I'm going to do this YouTube thing.

Speaker: Or at least it kind of happened randomly where a couple of people on Twitter heard a Spotify thing that I had done in July.

Speaker: Cheemoscue Jackson and Mikal, can't remember his last name, artist.

Speaker: And they were like, hey, this is great.

Speaker: You should do more Pocabelli.

Speaker: And I was like, oh, yeah.

Speaker: And then in the second episode, I was like, maybe I should do, I was saying, thinking out loud, maybe I should do this on YouTube because I'm talking about art.

Speaker: They're like, yeah, you should do YouTube.

Speaker: This is great.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that's how it happened.

Speaker: I don't think I would have done it without those guys saying, yeah, do video.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: Because video is a bit of a leap.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: If you haven't done it.

Speaker: No, but it lends itself because you're always sharing the art.

Speaker: So, gosh, I cannot imagine working out any other way, right?

Speaker: Because people, you know, get to see what you're talking about, right?

Speaker: At that specific moment.

Speaker: So I feel like it is the absolutely perfect medium for the show.

Speaker: And as far as preparation, like, what does it take?

Speaker: Are you... Because, like, do you have all the tabs already pre-opened?

Speaker: Like, already... Because, you know, you go through art pretty fast.

Speaker: So are you already...

Speaker: Yeah, like there's in a sense, there's no secret to it other than like, I'll tell you the workstation that, or sort of the workflow that basically I used to do bookmarking on Twitter, but I found that unreliable.

Speaker: that I wouldn't get everything or I felt like I was missing certain things.

Speaker: And actually it started with just object notifications.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I would just go on object notifications and, you know, and, and I was like, isn't this amazing?

Speaker: I'd comment on those early shows, even still, isn't this amazing that every day we have works we can look at here that, you know, that we can kind of credibly look at here and kind of not feel like we're wasting our time.

Speaker: Right, right, right.

Speaker: And isn't this incredible?

Speaker: Like, I think I called it, what did I call it?

Speaker: The something like the plenitude of Tezos or something.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Something like that, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so, yeah, so the workflow turned into because the bookmarks.

Speaker: So then I went to Twitter because object had problems with notifications.

Speaker: And then so then I was doing bookmarking and it didn't work that great or I felt kind of like I wasn't getting everything.

Speaker: So then I started saving the links of tweets and also object notifications in a separate kind of file.

Speaker: And with that, then I'd have everything gathered and then say the morning of, then I open all those tabs and then I organize in a separate window.

Speaker: Then I'll organize and kind of basically pick and choose and put an order and coherence, turn it into a story.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, uh,

Speaker: And then that's it.

Speaker: And then use that basically as a discussion piece.

Speaker: Right, right, right, right.

Speaker: Really for the show.

Speaker: And that's kind of, so the artists really provide me with the discussion, you know, by they provoke the discussion and so do people's comments.

Speaker: Then I started incorporating comments on Twitter, which was great.

Speaker: People love those kinds of shows.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: I love those, like there's financial shows, which just go through, you know,

Speaker: Twitter finance stuff.

Speaker: And I love that stuff.

Speaker: I'm like, so.

Speaker: That's a good point.

Speaker: You can build shows off Twitter, you know, and that's kind of, so that's more the meat now is Twitter, but I still use object notifications, which have kind of got fixed again.

Speaker: Okay, good, good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's sort of like a prompt for you to get, right, to get the content, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Because, yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Because you need something, right?

Speaker: And amazingly, I've never really felt like, okay, maybe once or twice, you know, doing it as often as I do, did I ever feel like, okay, what am I going to go with?

Speaker: You know, as far as like, what can I open with?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: You know, almost from this tabloid perspective, I call it a newspaper of the imagination sometimes.

Speaker: And it's like, what can I, and I mean, a couple of shows, like maybe three or maybe four or five months ago, early on when I was like, I don't know what to go with.

Speaker: I don't know if I have something that can hold.

Speaker: that kind of front page.

Speaker: But then I would find it literally like five minutes before on Twitter.

Speaker: Right, right, right.

Speaker: I can go with this.

Speaker: I think that is the right way to go about it because, you know, in a way, there is an entertainment element to it, right?

Speaker: So, and there is, you know, kind of a need and a drive to grab the audience's attention, right?

Speaker: So you do have to shock people into attentions, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I love tabloid actually, like, especially like the weekly world news.

Speaker: I used to collect those.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The aliens, right?

Speaker: Dick Cheney is a robot and he's like opening, like, I mean, just, I mean, just like, I mean, really, really brilliant.

Speaker: Unfortunately, like,

Speaker: It actually shut down and their last editor, like I could totally change, tell when they changed editors.

Speaker: I was like, Oh, this new editor is like nowhere near as good as the last editor.

Speaker: So it's kind of like a editor role.

Speaker: Another beautiful thing about doing something like this is you're your own boss.

Speaker: It was like for the first time in my life,

Speaker: I actually had this kind of thing that people were paying attention to.

Speaker: Unlike my art, you know, I got a little bit of attention, but I couldn't, it was a business, but it wasn't going anywhere.

Speaker: But, but then here it was like, okay, you actually have a growing audience.

Speaker: There is a business in here.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Which, you know, I'm sure you can, um, you can quantify right in with time.

Speaker: And are you seeing, and are you seeing a growth, a consistent growth?

Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty regular.

Speaker: I mean, it comes, there is a fits and starts quality to it, but it's pretty steady if you kind of zoom out on a month to month.

Speaker: I mean, some days, you know, you'll get like, say a podcast like this will come out and then all of a sudden I'll get like six or seven subscribers.

Speaker: I mean, I'm only at like 800 and like, what is it?

Speaker: I don't even remember 800 and something, 838, I think it is.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But it is uptrending though.

Speaker: There's no... Yeah, and it's all real.

Speaker: That's also what I love about this is just growing it.

Speaker: There's no fake anything.

Speaker: And that's what I love about that.

Speaker: So you get a pretty high ratio of people watching to subscribers.

Speaker: So YouTube also rewards you for that.

Speaker: So it'll be interesting once you break a thousand, then they start to give you like a little bit of money.

Speaker: Oh, that's so cool.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, then it gets, as you say, quantifier monetized, right?

Speaker: That'll be an interesting moment because then, as far as I understand, and I'm not sure, because right now I don't think they share it to anybody who's not subscribed because there's no incentive for them.

Speaker: They want people to see stuff that will see ads.

Speaker: so it'll be interesting.

Speaker: And I'll have, I have mixed feelings about how that all goes too, because are people seeing ads right now or not?

Speaker: I'm not sure.

Speaker: And so I have to do some tests on that.

Speaker: And does that mean all of a sudden they're going to start seeing ads if I monetize it?

Speaker: Because at the end of the day,

Speaker: the real monetization is already here where I sell my work a lot more simply by virtue of the fact that people know who I am.

Speaker: So they, okay, watch the show and it's like, oh, well there's his account and that's it.

Speaker: And then some people like the art and then a few of those people will buy it, you know?

Speaker: So in a weird, so I'm kind of have mixed feelings on that thousand number, but I'm not worrying about that right now because it's,

Speaker: In a sense, it already works.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, because you're already winning at it, right?

Speaker: Just from the exposure, right?

Speaker: And the accessibility, right, to your work from the audience, right?

Speaker: It's the great challenge as an artist, right?

Speaker: To get your name out, right?

Speaker: And it is a global audience, right?

Speaker: You have listeners from all over the world, right?

Speaker: Yeah, I still am trying to wrap my head around what that means.

Speaker: I mean, out of Twitter spaces today with Flora Marquez, she was in Argentina.

Speaker: I mean, yeah, like, I mean, it was amazing.

Speaker: I mean, Twitter spaces or, you know, Clubhouse too and LinkedIn audio.

Speaker: I mean, it's really stunning what that means.

Speaker: I mean, when you visualize, okay, that person's on a different part of the earth and all these people are coming together in one room.

Speaker: It's incredible.

Speaker: Adrian, I have a question for you.

Speaker: We talked a little bit about Tezos, right, and the whole Tezos ecosystem, an object, the marketplace.

Speaker: I'm curious to hear the artist's perspective because I'm trying to determine, right, how do I best ask this question here, right?

Speaker: Because there's an expectation, right, that the work should cost a certain amount of money, right?

Speaker: Like, is an artist allowed to make money on Tezos?

Speaker: Because most of the work, everything seems to be around, like, you know,

Speaker: It's edition based, right?

Speaker: Obviously, there's one-of-ones, but there's a lot of editions, right?

Speaker: And I'm assuming that's from the artist's perspective.

Speaker: So, well, I'll make it up in the quantities, right?

Speaker: By doing 10, 15,

Speaker: 20 editions, right?

Speaker: But I get to charge very little, like $5, $10, right?

Speaker: Like, should an artist be allowed to charge, you know, $1,000, $2,000, $10,000?

Speaker: And there are those that do, like Goldcat and Zankan, there's a few of them, right?

Speaker: But for the most part, it's all very, very affordable, which is a great thing.

Speaker: I don't want to denigrate that, but at some point, can the artist make that sort of like pricing leap?

Speaker: You know what I mean?

Speaker: Yeah, well, I mean, there is a steady kind of, there is almost like a roadmap that happens where, I mean, that's what's kind of so cool about it.

Speaker: If you can walk me through that, because I want to better understand that.

Speaker: Yeah, let's see if we can kind of like, you know, itemize like how that story goes.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: First, let's say you are an unknown artist, you show up on Tezo, so nobody knows who you are.

Speaker: So basically the first thing you do is you make, you mint your work and then you make it like 50 cents.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And,

Speaker: basically, and then maybe you do an edition of not too large of an edition, but nobody cares too much at 50 cents.

Speaker: So if they like your work, it'll sell.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Which is also like- So at that point, you're getting a very guttural reaction, right?

Speaker: Meaning they're just reacting to the work, right?

Speaker: Without the hindrance of like being to expense, I can afford it.

Speaker: Like, right, they're just reacting to the work.

Speaker: Some people might buy it just because they think it'll be worth like $3 or something.

Speaker: You know, you get the flippers if it seems like cheap or-

Speaker: Uh, yeah.

Speaker: Like, so, and as an artist, this is so powerful because even if you're selling for a Tezos each, like a dollar, uh, and you make $10, I mean, I, you know, being, you know, in the Berlin art scene, I, you know, like I've gone years, I've gone two years at times without making a single sale, without making a dollar, you know, where I can't put in my taxes, art funding and write off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, so that is, you know, so just to make sales, I mean, so it's so such a.

Speaker: privileged situation compared to what we're dealing with in the contemporary art world, I would argue for 98% of artists, which is nothing.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: You know, or maybe, you know, okay, I sold a print.

Speaker: Like, it's just like, maybe I have a friend who's a great painter, does stuff all the time.

Speaker: And I think he sells, he sells on Saatchi like a couple of times a year.

Speaker: And then he actually got a gallery in somewhere in England.

Speaker: And I think he's made a couple of sales, but it's just like, like we're really spoiled out here, even if you're selling.

Speaker: So back to just very quickly on the roadmap.

Speaker: So you start, you sell, people get to know who you are and people are always looking for new artists.

Speaker: Maybe your Twitter account grows if people like your art and then you slowly raise the prices is basically what people do.

Speaker: And I've seen people, you know, like there, there's, what's his name?

Speaker: Ellie Lowe, who does those crazy kind of videos.

Speaker: It looks like sometimes, you know, with the crazy figure and there's music.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And sometimes he's a trash artist and he's like,

Speaker: or she, I'm not sure if it's a he or she, but, you know, sold selling works at 0.2 Tezos to start.

Speaker: So like basically nothing, four or five months ago and now sells for 450 each editions of 25.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So that's like, that's a hundred dollars.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So that's, that's, what's so interesting.

Speaker: So, you know, when you look at like, what is like a middle-class salary, like if you break it down, you know,

Speaker: you know, like say a McDonald's worker a little higher than a McDonald's worker, maybe a Starbucks worker, you know, at the end of the day, usually it's about a hundred bucks a day, let's say for like your $40,000 a year job or 35,000, you know, uh, if you're selling an addition, you know, five times a week or three times, like all of a sudden you're starting to make like 15 or $20,000 a year, which this is on these tiny little addition things.

Speaker: So actually like some people make like, you know, you look at uxine who was selling for seven Tezos and now sells for 111 and it sells out like before he even.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Brie's, you know, like, so, and then also as additions, right.

Speaker: Because one of ones he's selling for like in the thousands now, right?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Like, so here's a guy and I remember I could have bought a, a one of one and I decided not to for like a hundred bucks that like early, you know, a few months ago.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And now that I think someone paid 7,000 for that.

Speaker: I think he's got a 4,200 bid now on, um, on the Sotheby, uh, auction, the glitch auction right now.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I just saw that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: And there he is at Sotheby's, right?

Speaker: So that is kind of like the roadmap.

Speaker: It's not complicated.

Speaker: So that is the promise, really, of the scene.

Speaker: So does the community or the platform, does it allow you then at that point to still operate within the Tezos ecosystem at that price point?

Speaker: Or is there sort of like a resentment or...

Speaker: sort of a demand to continue to go back to the process.

Speaker: You understand my question?

Speaker: Yeah, like is there a resentment?

Speaker: I think it's a matter of how you roll it out, right?

Speaker: Like Uxene is very, for example, is very, I call it elegant.

Speaker: I think he's very elegant in the way that he makes, like he does it very, very well.

Speaker: Whereas sometimes another artist, you might feel like, oh, no.

Speaker: Because, yeah, I mean, as an artist, sometimes I think, oh, it's like, oh, now you think it's worth that much, do you?

Speaker: But the thing is, if the market, it's like really bringing the free market to art again.

Speaker: And it's just like Twitter's just like an open scene.

Speaker: And then you have these blockchains, these global blockchains.

Speaker: And it's like, oh, you know, I might first think, oh, I guess this person thinks he's pretty special or she, you know, putting out their 10 Tezos, what was once five.

Speaker: But if they sell out in, you know, a day or less, maybe an hour, it's the market.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So I guess I guess it is worth that.

Speaker: So I don't see a huge I don't like I think people will raise prices how they can.

Speaker: I think it's like anything, though, like if you start at a certain point.

Speaker: you really have to, it's a real art to raising your prices.

Speaker: But, you know, as you get more well known, and the more you're around, and the more sales you make, the more credibility you build, then yeah, I mean, you'd be a fool not.

Speaker: Well, I mean, the secondary market also helps you along with that, right?

Speaker: Kind of like helps you, you know, build a case for

Speaker: a high price point for sure.

Speaker: So, but no, I was just curious about what the artist's perspective was on that, you know, because it's interesting to watch it from the collector's point of view, right?

Speaker: So do you think that in a sense, though, in Tezos, there is a sense that almost the works are being sold for too cheap and that, or...

Speaker: That's a great question.

Speaker: I would probably say yes, you know, and I'll probably say yes.

Speaker: But then again, you know, I've, I've, I've been on TASO.

Speaker: I mean, I was on TASO a while back, but I didn't really, I wasn't serious about it.

Speaker: It's just been the last three, four months that I've been much more looking at it much more seriously and really gain, you know, building the respect for the, for the, for the art, the, the, the talent.

Speaker: The community is like second to nothing.

Speaker: I've never experienced anything like that where there's just a rallying of, there's a camaraderie and there's just like a want for everybody to do well, right?

Speaker: And so I really, really respect and I really, really admire that.

Speaker: But I'm still not sure as to what the price or the economic dynamics are of that specific blockchain.

Speaker: Because I mean, I'm of the opinion that, and I'm the first one that I'm on order.

Speaker: Like I buy art for the sake of buying art.

Speaker: Like I joke that, you know, my collection is where secondary sales are going to die, right?

Speaker: Because I just don't sell anything.

Speaker: I keep everything.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, me too.

Speaker: I think I've sold two works.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like 2,000.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: But I think anybody would be disingenuous or lying to say, well, I don't expect it to go up in value, right?

Speaker: There's always that understanding or that feeling that you want it to go to a present value.

Speaker: So with Tesla's where a lot of the work is so affordable and you wonder, will it appreciate in value?

Speaker: But hey, I'm not going to complain.

Speaker: If I can get some amazing work, I'm the first one who's going to ape in on it, right?

Speaker: But I'm just not too familiar with the market dynamics of the platform.

Speaker: That's why I was asking your perspective from the artist.

Speaker: It is fascinating.

Speaker: I mean, it's kind of like anything else, but I think because it's so free market, it can happen really fast.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Right?

Speaker: I mean, you see what's up seeing going from, again, that's like...

Speaker: he 15X'd what he was selling for.

Speaker: And probably, you know, he probably, I haven't looked at his work from 2021, but it was probably selling for like two or three Tezos.

Speaker: I mean, Tezos was eight bucks a pop back then.

Speaker: So that was a different story.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: We already reached the 90 minute mark, nine and a half.

Speaker: It's that good of a conversation, huh?

Speaker: All right, well, so we'll wrap it up soon, but I wanted to get your take on Glitchart and I don't know if you've been following the Sotheby's auction, the do-over, the reboot, right?

Speaker: Which I give Sotheby's a lot of credit for not only responding to the community, but for taking the initiative to actually pull the auction, to suspend it, right?

Speaker: So that they could right the wrong and really, really

Speaker: recalibrate and really, really bring into the fold what was really a legitimate and a substantial part of the artist offering, right?

Speaker: Which was not represented the first time around, right?

Speaker: And it's not just female, it's the non-binary, right?

Speaker: which was completely ostracized the first time around.

Speaker: And you think this day and age, how people still make those, those omissions, right.

Speaker: But, but they happen, right.

Speaker: They, they still happen.

Speaker: And so I've really given credit for kind of re rethinking it and, you know, kind of rebooting it and relaunching it.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And look, you know, the, the female, the female artists are killing it.

Speaker: You know, they're doing incredibly well.

Speaker: I was looking at the bids this morning and,

Speaker: wow, everybody's, a lot of them have reached their, you know, their sort of estimate range.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So what's, what's your take?

Speaker: What's your opinion on just the movement in general?

Speaker: And if you have any thoughts about the, the current, you know, the Sotheby auction.

Speaker: Well, Glitch is super interesting and I've learned a ton about Glitch, mostly from Sabato who came on a spaces that I did back in early February, I think.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And, uh,

Speaker: And so I always kind of knew about it.

Speaker: I mean, way back in Saskatoon, I had two friends who were doing Glitch.

Speaker: I mean, they were talking about Glitch.

Speaker: I mean, I sure hope they kept doing it because I don't see their names there, but it's like people say 2010 was so early.

Speaker: But I remember back in 2004, I thought people, I thought, you know, maybe I'm misremembering or maybe I visited and that's when people were talking about it.

Speaker: But so

Speaker: I mean, yeah, I mean, so long story short on that, I think it was an inexperienced curator, clearly in one way or another inexperienced, because in today's art world, I mean, it's almost unthinkable to make an all male show.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I mean, like it's almost unthinkable.

Speaker: Like, like the first question one would say is like, you know,

Speaker: you may love all this art, but are you crazy?

Speaker: You know, like just from a purely pragmatic point of view, like, so I think Sotheby's recognized that because they understood

Speaker: This is just my speculation, of course.

Speaker: They understood that this could really blow up in their face in a major way.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So let's do everything.

Speaker: Give them everything they want.

Speaker: They want, you know, let them run it.

Speaker: Just give them everything they want and be super responsive.

Speaker: And they I think they righted the wrong.

Speaker: I mean, they brought in different curators.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They, you know, and people from the scene.

Speaker: And then, so it's like, you run it, you run it and you guys have a show here and everything.

Speaker: So I think they, you know, look, mistakes are going to happen.

Speaker: And I, again, I feel like this is probably the initiative, the Sotheby's metaverse stuff.

Speaker: I mean, in a sense, showing at Sotheby's is not what it used to be.

Speaker: I mean, I saw this meme on Twitter,

Speaker: That it was like the Oprah, you get a car and you get a car.

Speaker: You get a Southpies and you get a Southpies.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: And it's interesting because we go to the Louvre Claire Silver thing.

Speaker: Like you do by opening things up and then just saying, it does dilute the brand.

Speaker: And you saw how protective Louvre was on that whole situation.

Speaker: And they're like very protective.

Speaker: Sotheby's has taken more of an open sort of thing.

Speaker: And I mean, it probably makes sense financially for them as well, because, look, there's a lot of money in crypto.

Speaker: Let's not be snobs about it.

Speaker: Let's let these people have their fun.

Speaker: And I think what they do is they say, OK, we'll call it Sotheby's metaverse.

Speaker: It's not, you know, we'll have this separate wing.

Speaker: And we'll just let this kind of because this could be a real boon for us.

Speaker: And there's a ton of money in crypto.

Speaker: Let's just, you know, be ahead of the trend on this because this could make us this could, you know, put us into the history, like the history books in a bad way.

Speaker: Right, right, right.

Speaker: We're over and, you know, super rare takes it.

Speaker: This could disrupt us.

Speaker: Or provide the bridge to relevance, right?

Speaker: Because it's not a matter if it does take over, when it takes over, right?

Speaker: At least we'll be there as an institution in our second iteration of our existence, right?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I think it's- They'll have the credibility.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Because they'll have been there.

Speaker: They'll have even with the Glitch show, they'll they'll have gone through this.

Speaker: So, you know, so everybody knows Sotheby's in the NFT scene.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And and, you know, OK, they do NFT stuff.

Speaker: So that's, you know, so they're quite smart, I think, in how they've handled it.

Speaker: I mean, there's so much money at stake in these kind of brands and everything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I guess we shouldn't be surprised, but yeah, I think they handled it quite well, all things considered.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know what I found fascinating, Adrian?

Speaker: And it is very ironic, right?

Speaker: The fact that it took a community of an art form, right?

Speaker: An art current, which is glitch, which is predicated on a mistake, right?

Speaker: It's a mistake, right?

Speaker: It's a glitch, right?

Speaker: Of software, of data, right?

Speaker: it took a platform or community of an art form that is steeped in a mistake to right a wrong.

Speaker: It was almost like one big glitch that Sophie's put on a huge, massive glitch.

Speaker: But there was a group of artists from an art form that is mired in, is predicated on error, on mistake, right?

Speaker: And they're the ones who've righted an historical wrong.

Speaker: So it's very fitting, very fascinating.

Speaker: So listen, I don't know what, I don't know what to say.

Speaker: Thank you so much for taking the time.

Speaker: It was, uh, uh, an amazing conversation.

Speaker: I really, really, uh, appreciate, you know, uh, having you share, you know, your background, your story and your most important, your formative part of your career.

Speaker: And, um, and also, you know, sharing the, uh, the, the,

Speaker: the vision and the behind the scenes of artist journal, because to me, it's one of the, I hold it very dear to my heart because it's one of the biggest source of information of the ecosystem, of the Web3 ecosystem.

Speaker: from the artistic perspective so uh and i know i'm not the only one that you know thinks along those lines a lot of people that uh you know i see on twitter i see them within my my network a lot of people kind of praise it uh so i wanted to congratulate on the success of that show and uh i'm on the sideline kind of rooting for you and hoping that it um it gets as big as it needs to be it needs to get so so thank you again and uh well i'll see you around twitter right

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: And thank you for inviting me on here.

Speaker: And I mean, you're one of the first kind of people who kind of when we're working on that other project that you're inviting me in as an advisor.

Speaker: So you're very early on this whole situation.

Speaker: I totally appreciate, again, you offering to interview me and I'm happy to come on any time.

Speaker: And yeah, I just really appreciate you.

Speaker: And thank you because the whole thing is totally a surprise to me that anybody...

Speaker: You know, the whole thing, I don't think he could have planned it.

Speaker: I think even the best marketing strategy, like it would have, it just kind of had to come out organically.

Speaker: So anyways, thank you.

Speaker: So, all right, Adrian, until next time.

Speaker: And for everybody, for our listeners, thank you for joining us.

Speaker: And we'll see you in the next episode of Scrapbook.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Bye-bye.