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A Conversation with Adrian Pocobelli (in English)
125 Plays3 years ago
In this episode I sit with Berlin-based Canadian digital artist Adrian Pocobelli and discuss his Montreal days, the inspiration for his Artist Journal, the Tezos artistic movement and much much more.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of Scrapbook, the podcast dedicated to all things digital art.
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm your host Michele Colonna and today's guest is Canadian digital artist Adrian Pocobelli.
Adrian Pocobelli's Heritage and Residency
00:00:32
Speaker
Hi Adrian and welcome to Scrapbook.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey Michele and great to hear you.
00:00:38
Speaker
I love how you say my name.
00:00:39
Speaker
You say it better than I do.
00:00:42
Speaker
I should just go all the way and say Adriano, right?
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, really.
00:00:45
Speaker
Adriano Pocobelli.
00:00:46
Speaker
I think my Italian passport has Adriano, I think.
00:00:51
Speaker
So you have Italian and Canadian?
00:00:53
Speaker
Exactly.
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:00:55
Speaker
That makes it easy being out here in Germany.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:58
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.
00:01:09
Speaker
So I just go, I don't know if I would have come.
00:01:12
Speaker
Let's put it that way without the passport because then you're really jumping off the cliff.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, because I guess with your Italian passport, right, you could live and work there.
00:01:21
Speaker
It's the beauty of the EU.
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:23
Speaker
I mean, it's just I don't need to do anything other than register with the city.
00:01:28
Speaker
And that's what every German needs to do here.
00:01:30
Speaker
So, I mean, it really is magical.
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:33
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm very grateful for that situation.
Travel Experiences in Italy
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:37
Speaker
And we'll definitely we'll definitely touch on the on your Berlin experience.
00:01:41
Speaker
Right.
00:01:41
Speaker
Because I'm very interested in that.
00:01:43
Speaker
You know, I've always had a fondness for the city.
00:01:45
Speaker
So I'm curious to, you know, to hear your insight and your opinion.
00:01:49
Speaker
You know, what's it what's it been like for you?
00:01:52
Speaker
But you just got back from Italy, as you said.
00:01:53
Speaker
So I'm sure you brushed up on your on your accent.
00:01:56
Speaker
Right.
00:01:57
Speaker
You're Italian.
00:01:57
Speaker
You know, art history.
00:01:59
Speaker
But as I was saying, you just got back from it.
00:02:01
Speaker
I'm sure you got a chance to brush up when you're Italian.
00:02:03
Speaker
And what did you just do Tuscany or were you in many places?
00:02:09
Speaker
What did we do?
00:02:11
Speaker
There's a flight, Ryanair flight Berlin to Pisa.
00:02:15
Speaker
And then it's great.
00:02:17
Speaker
There's like a little shuttle train sort of thing that goes from Pisa airport just right down to this train station.
00:02:27
Speaker
And then we went to Livorno as we were discussing for the podcast, but it was a sleeper city.
00:02:33
Speaker
But that was the charm of it because, you know, we went over to Pisa during the day and of course everybody
00:02:39
Speaker
It feels like a stampede from the train station to the tower there.
00:02:44
Speaker
I mean, the tower is stunning.
00:02:46
Speaker
I will say that.
00:02:47
Speaker
Like I'd forgotten.
00:02:48
Speaker
I think I was six or 11 the first time I saw it and I hadn't seen it since.
00:02:52
Speaker
So, I mean, it is a stunning architecture, but it's just like my girlfriend described it as a rave.
00:02:58
Speaker
You know, there were so many people.
00:02:59
Speaker
You know, like it feels like, yeah, just too many people.
00:03:02
Speaker
And Florence was insane.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:04
Speaker
You know, and there we were in early April.
00:03:07
Speaker
Yeah, because it was just the streets were packed.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:10
Speaker
You know, you still have your contingent of foreign students.
00:03:13
Speaker
Right.
00:03:13
Speaker
They're still there.
00:03:13
Speaker
So you have that like that's totally like 50,000, 100,000 kids.
00:03:17
Speaker
Right.
00:03:18
Speaker
Then you have just your, you know, your your tourists.
00:03:21
Speaker
Right.
00:03:22
Speaker
And, you know, national and international.
00:03:24
Speaker
Right.
00:03:24
Speaker
So, yeah, it makes for quite a quite a crowded city.
00:03:27
Speaker
Right.
00:03:29
Speaker
It does.
00:03:29
Speaker
And there are, yeah, you hear a ton of American students there.
00:03:32
Speaker
I mean, yeah, the streets.
00:03:34
Speaker
So maybe it was a spring break thing.
00:03:36
Speaker
I just couldn't believe how many people were there.
00:03:37
Speaker
So Livorno was like a godsend because it was so chill, you know, and we spent a week there.
00:03:44
Speaker
So you could go to a little, you know, even the Indian restaurant was amazing.
00:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:50
Speaker
You were based out of Livorno.
00:03:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:51
Speaker
You were based there.
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, we spent a week.
00:03:52
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:03:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:53
Speaker
And then you just traveled around, right?
00:03:55
Speaker
Exactly.
00:03:56
Speaker
And
European vs. North American Urban Life
00:03:57
Speaker
we're close to the train station.
00:03:58
Speaker
It's a beautiful place.
00:03:59
Speaker
And Livorno is cheap because nobody goes to Livorno.
00:04:03
Speaker
And that was the charm.
00:04:03
Speaker
I mean, we were almost thinking earlier before we went, oh, maybe we should get a couple of days in Florence.
00:04:11
Speaker
But we decided not to.
00:04:12
Speaker
And I was totally glad.
00:04:12
Speaker
And were you doing day trips the whole week?
00:04:17
Speaker
Exactly.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:18
Speaker
So we were 20 minutes from the train station.
00:04:21
Speaker
And the trains are really good.
00:04:23
Speaker
They're cheap.
00:04:25
Speaker
It costs us 3 euros, not even, to go to Pisa.
00:04:28
Speaker
It's 20 or 30 minutes.
00:04:31
Speaker
It's maybe a couple of times an hour, and then you're over in Pisa.
00:04:36
Speaker
If you want to go to Florence, it's maybe an hour and 40 minutes, and maybe it costs you 6 euros.
00:04:43
Speaker
I love the trains there.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:04:44
Speaker
It's great.
00:04:45
Speaker
They are key to just the overall infrastructure of the country, right?
00:04:49
Speaker
Because of, you know, listen, traveling with cars, right?
00:04:53
Speaker
Because of the scale of cities, right?
00:04:55
Speaker
It's not as practical as it is, you know, North America is like we used to, right?
00:04:58
Speaker
So I think trains kind of like provide that alternative, you know, convenience, you know, to mobility,
Adrian's Artistic Journey Beginnings
00:05:06
Speaker
right?
00:05:06
Speaker
So...
00:05:07
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.
00:05:16
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.
00:05:24
Speaker
And this is in Livorno.
00:05:26
Speaker
And so and there's like a big traffic jam that happens in Livorno.
00:05:29
Speaker
It's like this isn't like some huge city here.
00:05:33
Speaker
So the train, I say rent a bike, not a car.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:37
Speaker
The cities in Europe were built, in my opinion, it's been documented to the scale of man, right?
00:05:43
Speaker
Not to the scale of the car, right?
00:05:44
Speaker
As opposed to North America.
00:05:47
Speaker
We built cities for the car, right?
00:05:50
Speaker
And that changes the proportion, changes the scales, right?
00:05:52
Speaker
So it's just not practical for the automobile, right?
00:05:56
Speaker
Well, yeah, especially in those small, little towns.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then it's like, yeah, yeah, totally.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:06
Speaker
So, Adrian, let's get into the art right away.
00:06:10
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.
00:06:22
Speaker
But I'm not too familiar with your background, with your artistic formation, your academic formation.
00:06:28
Speaker
So if you could just bring me up to speed and the audience to really what your background is.
00:06:33
Speaker
Sure.
00:06:34
Speaker
I grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is in Canada's Midwest.
00:06:40
Speaker
So pretty remote place.
00:06:41
Speaker
And actually, I grew up right outside of Saskatoon.
00:06:44
Speaker
So the ongoing joke is I grew up just outside the middle of nowhere.
00:06:48
Speaker
And it's like above California.
00:06:50
Speaker
just above North Dakota.
00:06:51
Speaker
Right.
00:06:52
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.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:02
Speaker
Saskatoon is above the Dakotas and I think Manitoba maybe is more about Minnesota.
00:07:09
Speaker
So I have a friend from Minnesota, but we're it's culturally, it's actually not that far.
00:07:14
Speaker
Like I get along quite well with my Minnesota friend here in Berlin.
00:07:19
Speaker
Uh,
00:07:20
Speaker
So anyway, so I grew up there and I always had this kind of art kind of ambition from a pretty young age.
00:07:28
Speaker
I took some painting early on.
00:07:31
Speaker
I did art classes like I knew it was something I wanted to be.
00:07:35
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.
00:07:46
Speaker
I never met him.
00:07:48
Speaker
And so stamps really started this kind of obsession, I guess, with images.
00:07:53
Speaker
And I would just stare at these things, you know.
00:07:56
Speaker
And I also went to the Vatican when I was six, when I visited Italy in that same trip.
00:08:01
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.
00:08:15
Speaker
You know, as a six-year-old, like I just kind of... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
It lit the fire, even though the fire was very small and I didn't quite understand.
00:08:23
Speaker
And even like, I mean, it was kind of a classic, like, you know, Italian kid situation where I, like it's classic.
00:08:30
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...
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, like, I mean, it's kind of straight out of a movie.
00:08:40
Speaker
It's almost a cliche, but yeah.
00:08:42
Speaker
A little bit of Cinema Paradiso there moment.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:08:45
Speaker
Like, I mean, I should be a better drawer if I was doing that at six.
00:08:49
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
00:08:50
Speaker
I mean, there is a sense of awe, right?
00:08:52
Speaker
As you walk into these places, right?
00:08:55
Speaker
Into these landmarks or these cultural, natural, national landmarks, right?
00:09:03
Speaker
So I could imagine, you know, doing that kind of impression on you, right, at that young age.
00:09:09
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.
00:09:18
Speaker
So quite a few times, actually, because I have relatives in Rome.
00:09:21
Speaker
I don't know if any Romans has been there that often.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, like now I know, okay, there's the Pina Cotec.
00:09:28
Speaker
Like I kind of know my way around, which is,
00:09:31
Speaker
But I remember the second last time I was there, I was like, this is a temple to the mind.
00:09:36
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.
00:09:47
Speaker
And it really is a celebration of the mind.
00:09:49
Speaker
So maybe that is my thing.
00:09:51
Speaker
And so, yeah.
00:09:54
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
00:10:01
Speaker
it's kind of a lame gallery, the contemporary gallery.
00:10:03
Speaker
Like if I can get in there, I can just check off like, okay, I did it.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:08
Speaker
And no, but you bring up a good point because it's, you know, aside from the religious, you know, aspect of it.
00:10:13
Speaker
Right.
00:10:13
Speaker
But, uh, but it really is about the humanities, right.
00:10:15
Speaker
It's about, it's about, it's just about human potential.
00:10:18
Speaker
It's about, uh, the manifestation of the human soul, right.
00:10:21
Speaker
Through these like larger than life, you know, uh, works.
00:10:25
Speaker
Right.
00:10:26
Speaker
And, um,
00:10:27
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?
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah, the tradition definitely does.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's, and we can go into that maybe later.
00:10:42
Speaker
It's a very important for me just in being relevant.
Influences and Intellectual Exploration
00:10:45
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.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:04
Speaker
Right.
00:11:04
Speaker
So that's kind of how I make the distinction there.
00:11:06
Speaker
But.
00:11:07
Speaker
Anyway, I took art classes, not a ton, but enough, pretty regularly.
00:11:12
Speaker
And then I went to university at the University of Saskatchewan.
00:11:15
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.
00:11:22
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.
00:11:31
Speaker
And so, yeah, I didn't really learn a ton.
00:11:35
Speaker
I didn't even, it was kind of weird.
00:11:36
Speaker
Like I was,
00:11:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:37
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.
00:11:43
Speaker
Right.
00:11:44
Speaker
Was it focused more on the history of art or was it art history?
00:11:48
Speaker
No, it was studio art.
00:11:49
Speaker
It was studio art.
00:11:50
Speaker
It was painting.
00:11:51
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.
00:12:00
Speaker
But what did work was I took a, I was taking English literature classes.
00:12:05
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.
00:12:15
Speaker
And I'm not even a big Faulkner person.
00:12:18
Speaker
You know, but it was the fact that they were discussing these very profound issues.
00:12:24
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.
00:12:38
Speaker
So anyways, I ended up doing a double honors.
00:12:42
Speaker
So five years as an undergrad.
00:12:44
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.
00:12:52
Speaker
So I met him there and then I moved on from that job.
00:12:55
Speaker
But then he was working in a different used bookstore, all in Saskatoon.
00:12:59
Speaker
And it's a whole culture, as you probably know, the used bookstore culture.
00:13:04
Speaker
Great culture.
00:13:05
Speaker
No, I collect modern first editions of post-colonial literature.
00:13:08
Speaker
So I'm very, very familiar with the used book crowd.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:13
Speaker
I love it.
00:13:13
Speaker
You know, like it's a real, uh, it's cool.
00:13:16
Speaker
It's kind of like comics, you know, or vintage, uh, right.
00:13:20
Speaker
Vintage albums.
00:13:20
Speaker
Right.
00:13:21
Speaker
Or yeah, exactly.
00:13:22
Speaker
Like that really is kind of like North American culture to a certain degree for kids growing up, you know?
00:13:29
Speaker
And so anyway, so.
00:13:31
Speaker
Brian introduced me to the counterculture.
00:13:34
Speaker
So, you know, Burroughs, William Burroughs, J.G.
00:13:37
Speaker
Ballard, and including Devo, Laurie Anderson, you know, and research publications that, you know, V. Vale there out of San Francisco.
00:13:49
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.
00:13:59
Speaker
And I basically read that all the time because I found it so fascinating.
00:14:03
Speaker
There was this guy who was kind of unknown at the time.
00:14:06
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
00:14:17
Speaker
reality out there.
00:14:19
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.
00:14:30
Speaker
And so I ended up doing my master's thesis then on the Atrocity exhibition by J.G.
00:14:34
Speaker
Ballard, which
00:14:36
Speaker
And I basically showed the connection between basically surrealism and Ballard's Atrocity Exhibition, which is a very difficult kind of cryptic text.
00:14:44
Speaker
And I made it my task to understand basically what was going on.
00:14:48
Speaker
And I think I actually did a pretty good job.
00:14:50
Speaker
So it gave me a deep understanding of surrealism.
00:14:53
Speaker
And this was a way I could kind of justify to myself what
00:14:56
Speaker
doing English literature.
00:14:58
Speaker
And then I did a master's in that as an artist, you know, like that was, there's also some justification.
00:15:03
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.
00:15:11
Speaker
Or at least vision or, or just the, the, the knowledge body, right.
00:15:16
Speaker
Of, of an artist.
00:15:17
Speaker
Right.
00:15:18
Speaker
And, um, so to the extent that, you know, that, that you're, um,
00:15:22
Speaker
maybe the studio part of the education did not contribute as much, but you've made that up with the English degree, right?
00:15:31
Speaker
Sort of like made up, you know, provide you with that intellectual heft, right?
00:15:35
Speaker
To be able to, you know, inform the rest of your artistic career, right?
00:15:39
Speaker
And
00:15:40
Speaker
And, you know, be able to develop maybe that creative vision or inform that.
00:15:43
Speaker
Totally.
00:15:44
Speaker
And I mean, interesting, important detail, I mean, is that at the end of the undergrad degree, I accidentally took a
00:15:56
Speaker
basically kind of randomly chose a classics, a pre-Socratic philosophers class.
00:16:02
Speaker
And I was doing a lot of psilocybin mushrooms at the time.
00:16:06
Speaker
I kind of wanted to be a part of the counterculture side of things.
00:16:09
Speaker
I kind of wanted to be a psychedelic guide.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:12
Speaker
It's sort of my, at age 16, I think.
00:16:16
Speaker
And and so studying and Terence McKenna, I mean, this is the 90s, right?
00:16:23
Speaker
So Terence McKenna was a big deal.
00:16:25
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.
00:16:35
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
00:17:04
Speaker
I think it's 300,000 people now.
00:17:06
Speaker
I mean, I went there in November.
00:17:08
Speaker
I mean, it was quite interesting to see it after COVID because it had been hollowed out the downtown.
00:17:15
Speaker
I was visiting my friend Brian, who is still there, and we went downtown on a Thursday in November.
00:17:22
Speaker
It used to be just kind of pretty hopping office culture people going for lunch.
00:17:27
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
00:17:56
Speaker
I'm coming to Berlin, let's go for a coffee.
00:17:58
Speaker
And she was like, have you seen Saskatoon?
00:18:02
Speaker
Wow.
00:18:04
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:18:05
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.
00:18:13
Speaker
But it sounds like a typical North American city skyline, right?
00:18:16
Speaker
You know, office buildings, very concentrated in one downtown.
00:18:19
Speaker
Totally.
00:18:19
Speaker
And then, you know, suburbs or little neighborhoods scattered here and there, right?
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:25
Speaker
And I guess the only thing I'd add is and a river, the Saskatchewan River.
00:18:29
Speaker
And that's kind of a it really gives the city its personality.
00:18:32
Speaker
And I'm assuming you have your various, you know, immigrant neighborhoods, immigrant communities scattered throughout.
00:18:38
Speaker
Right.
00:18:39
Speaker
The Italian, your Irish, your.
00:18:41
Speaker
I would say basically.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:42
Speaker
I mean, there weren't a ton of Italians.
00:18:45
Speaker
They're all in Toronto.
00:18:47
Speaker
A lot of my friends were Ukrainian.
00:18:49
Speaker
Interestingly, like they sent a lot of the Ukrainians over to Saskatchewan.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:53
Speaker
uh, most of the Italians went to Toronto.
00:18:57
Speaker
Uh, there were a few, but there weren't a ton.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:00
Speaker
Uh, and yeah, I'd say, yeah.
00:19:03
Speaker
And then a whole bunch of other stuff.
00:19:05
Speaker
English, Germans, right?
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:19:08
Speaker
So, but anyway, back to Scottish.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:10
Speaker
Scottish for sure.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:13
Speaker
So, so, and after the, after the college experience, after, um,
Life and Challenges in Montreal
00:19:18
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.
00:19:28
Speaker
And then I moved to Montreal for eight years.
00:19:32
Speaker
And there I was working on, what was I doing?
00:19:36
Speaker
I was teaching English.
00:19:37
Speaker
I was basically super poor.
00:19:40
Speaker
And we had a nice little apartment in old Montreal there.
00:19:45
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.
00:19:53
Speaker
So I was spreading myself a little thin.
00:19:55
Speaker
And I guess what really characterizes that decade for me, or that, sorry, that eight years in Montreal is
00:20:02
Speaker
trying to do too many things.
00:20:03
Speaker
I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be an artist, and I wanted to be a DJ.
00:20:06
Speaker
And this is kind of typical of a lot of young people in their 20s.
00:20:11
Speaker
They think they have all the time in the world, right?
00:20:13
Speaker
But at that point, Adrian, did it cross your mind that you could have been an artist, that you could have pursued art?
00:20:19
Speaker
It was always the long-term plan.
00:20:21
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.
00:20:28
Speaker
You know, like, you don't have all day here.
00:20:30
Speaker
Right.
00:20:31
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.
00:20:45
Speaker
So I've been doing digital for a long time.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:48
Speaker
And in Montreal, I did graphic design as a job, actually, after the English thing.
00:20:53
Speaker
Did that for four years.
00:20:54
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.
00:21:01
Speaker
I walked out and I saw my old boss from my Montreal job.
00:21:05
Speaker
I'm like, hey, how are you doing?
00:21:08
Speaker
He couldn't believe it.
00:21:09
Speaker
He's like, what are you doing here?
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
You know, in the middle, he didn't know I'd moved and everything.
00:21:14
Speaker
So he hadn't seen me in like 10 years.
00:21:16
Speaker
That's so funny.
00:21:17
Speaker
So is he living in Berlin or is he visiting?
00:21:19
Speaker
I asked, no, he was with his family and they were visiting for four days.
00:21:22
Speaker
Oh, visiting.
00:21:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:23
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:21:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:24
Speaker
So it was totally random.
00:21:25
Speaker
I think he left the hotel and basically ran into me.
00:21:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:28
Speaker
So that was hilarious.
00:21:30
Speaker
That was just this morning.
00:21:31
Speaker
And so anyways, but
00:21:34
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.
00:21:50
Speaker
They have to deliver.
00:21:52
Speaker
They have to deliver or people are not going to be happy because they're paying money.
00:21:57
Speaker
So that forced me to really get better technically.
00:22:00
Speaker
So it was a great decision.
00:22:03
Speaker
It forced me to, you know, you're using Photoshop eight hours a day.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:06
Speaker
And it was kind of at the heyday of the HTML website and everything.
00:22:10
Speaker
And that stuff really inspired me.
00:22:12
Speaker
It still does.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:14
Speaker
And then I started doing painting.
00:22:15
Speaker
What were the tools back then, Adrian?
00:22:17
Speaker
So it was Photoshop?
00:22:18
Speaker
There was no design back then.
00:22:20
Speaker
It was...
00:22:21
Speaker
There was some InDesign early version.
00:22:24
Speaker
We'd use CS2, Adobe Photoshop, CS2, InDesign.
00:22:28
Speaker
Macromedia Flash.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah, Flash.
00:22:30
Speaker
It was all Flash.
00:22:32
Speaker
And Dreamweaver.
00:22:33
Speaker
And Dreamweaver.
00:22:34
Speaker
That's right.
00:22:34
Speaker
That's right.
00:22:35
Speaker
That's right.
00:22:36
Speaker
And meanwhile, I spent too much of my 20s trying to build this ultimate, I was trying to do too many things.
00:22:42
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.
00:22:52
Speaker
So surrealist newspaper.
00:22:54
Speaker
So almost the roots of somewhat of this show that I
00:22:57
Speaker
ended up doing it.
00:22:58
Speaker
But it was like trying to do this surrealist newspaper.
00:23:01
Speaker
And I was like, my grand vision is I'd put my art on this tabloid kind of Drudge Report-esque aggregator website.
00:23:08
Speaker
So then I tried to make it all on my own.
00:23:12
Speaker
And so I was using Dreamweaver to create.
00:23:14
Speaker
I created a CMS using Dreamweaver.
00:23:16
Speaker
It took me like years.
00:23:19
Speaker
Huge waste of time.
00:23:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:22
Speaker
Like, and I wouldn't go out with friends.
00:23:24
Speaker
Sometimes I'd be like, I just got to get the comments working.
00:23:27
Speaker
I'd spend like two years trying to get comments.
00:23:30
Speaker
I love it.
00:23:32
Speaker
So I was a weird kid, you know, like I, like I made a lot of huge mistakes.
00:23:38
Speaker
I have learned the hard way very much on so many things.
00:23:42
Speaker
Right.
00:23:43
Speaker
But sometimes that's good.
00:23:44
Speaker
Right.
00:23:44
Speaker
So then I moved to Toronto because I realized after a while, I didn't feel like I was really in,
00:23:50
Speaker
it's kind of tricky being an Anglo in Montreal and the deck feels kind of stacked against you.
00:23:56
Speaker
And I didn't understand that, or I wasn't ready for that.
00:23:59
Speaker
I didn't, I thought everything would be kind of, why would that ever?
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:02
Speaker
It's, it's, it's such a vibe, you know, Montreal is, I don't know.
00:24:07
Speaker
It's, it's, it's just a vibe is what it is.
00:24:09
Speaker
And it is its own microcosm.
00:24:11
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,
00:24:18
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?
00:24:30
Speaker
But nonetheless, you know, it's just there, right?
00:24:34
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.
00:24:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:47
Speaker
So it took me eight years to basically figure out this is not the right place for me.
00:24:51
Speaker
For some people, I have friends that are still there and they love it.
00:24:53
Speaker
So, you know, it's for every person, they got to find their own thing.
00:24:56
Speaker
So then I was like, well, maybe I'll go to Toronto.
00:24:58
Speaker
It's a bigger city.
00:24:59
Speaker
I'm not going to have this, you know, language issue, even though I spoke French, but it wasn't great French.
00:25:07
Speaker
And so moved to Toronto and then, yeah.
00:25:10
Speaker
And then I ended up doing some trade newspaper sort of work and interesting kind of
00:25:15
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.
00:25:27
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.
00:25:38
Speaker
And he's like, you speak,
00:25:40
Speaker
you're very lyrical when you're drinking.
00:25:43
Speaker
Like, do you want to be the editor in chief?
00:25:46
Speaker
I was like, well, yeah.
00:25:47
Speaker
I was like, yeah, I have a master's in English.
00:25:48
Speaker
It was like, yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:49
Speaker
Why don't you do this?
00:25:50
Speaker
That qualified.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:53
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.
00:26:01
Speaker
And so anyway, so I did that for four years while doing my art and I picked up my paintbrushes again.
00:26:07
Speaker
And I also learned how to paint at the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto.
00:26:11
Speaker
They had these workshops that were two weeks and you'd go there and it was great.
00:26:16
Speaker
Like in the studio of the old masters.
00:26:18
Speaker
And I was like, surely they're not going to teach you how to paint like the old masters.
00:26:22
Speaker
My dad couldn't believe what I painted.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:25
Speaker
Like, I mean, it's, it's actually not rocket science, surprisingly.
00:26:29
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,
00:26:46
Speaker
But the color wheel is not rocket science, for example.
00:26:49
Speaker
You know, building the methodology they use to build a painting is quite solid.
00:26:54
Speaker
Like you build a painting through layering, you know, the sepia undertone.
00:26:59
Speaker
Right, right.
00:27:02
Speaker
So I learned how to paint proper there, kind of ironically, because there's only like four weeks of training.
00:27:09
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, so I did that there painted a lot.
00:27:13
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.
00:27:20
Speaker
So I was basically putting out a painting a year on average.
00:27:23
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.
00:27:37
Speaker
I mean, of the 21st century.
00:27:40
Speaker
technology and finance are the two big sort of themes in my artist statement that I had there.
00:27:47
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.
00:27:58
Speaker
And then you're not even sure if you'd like the painting.
00:28:01
Speaker
So one day I, as I call it, I had this Copernican revolution where I was like, okay, I'm going to,
00:28:06
Speaker
you know, make one painting in one night and see what happens.
00:28:10
Speaker
And of course I do that.
00:28:11
Speaker
And I like that painting just as much, if not better than the paintings I'm working.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:15
Speaker
So I mean, learning the hard way, you know, so, but, uh, important lesson.
00:28:20
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.
Settling and Thriving in Berlin
00:28:27
Speaker
And, uh, yes, that was great.
00:28:29
Speaker
And then, but then I kind of felt like, uh, Toronto wasn't working for me either in the sense that,
00:28:36
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.
00:28:42
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.
00:28:48
Speaker
And so, which is fine.
00:28:51
Speaker
I mean, no judgment there.
00:28:53
Speaker
You know, maybe Berlin's not that different, but I felt like the cultural side of things wasn't really like,
00:29:01
Speaker
appreciated that much.
00:29:02
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.
00:29:09
Speaker
And my Italian cousins visited me from Rome and they're like, yeah, you don't fit in here at all.
00:29:13
Speaker
Like you should be in it.
00:29:15
Speaker
You should be in Europe, Adrian.
00:29:16
Speaker
And I was like, okay, that's a great idea.
00:29:18
Speaker
So then I moved, then I went to Berlin.
00:29:21
Speaker
I was going to all these art fairs to just try and get out of
00:29:25
Speaker
Canada and just see what's going on out there.
00:29:27
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.
00:29:32
Speaker
I need to start just maybe something will happen if I go to the LA art fair, maybe I'll meet someone.
00:29:38
Speaker
And so one of the places I went was Berlin and you know, that one was awesome.
00:29:44
Speaker
I mean, I went, that was an amazing.
00:29:46
Speaker
What year was that Adrian?
00:29:48
Speaker
That was 2015.
00:29:50
Speaker
So September 2015, or was it?
00:29:51
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.
00:30:07
Speaker
And there I was at like the, you know, hippest club in the world and surgeon was playing.
00:30:12
Speaker
It was like eight in the morning.
00:30:14
Speaker
you know, and yeah, that was like my entry.
00:30:16
Speaker
I was like, I'm moving here.
00:30:17
Speaker
This place rocks.
00:30:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:19
Speaker
So that, that, so that was your sort of like, you know, your cue, right?
00:30:22
Speaker
That you were, that you would potentially entertain moving there.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
And I, and I still feel this way about Berlin and Europe in general.
00:30:30
Speaker
I feel like I can just totally be me and be appreciated and liked.
00:30:35
Speaker
And I didn't really have that sense.
00:30:37
Speaker
And again, it may have been my own issues in Canada, who knows, you know,
00:30:42
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.
00:30:56
Speaker
And so I, as someone, a person of culture, I was doing the Atrocity Exhibition, you know, and
00:31:03
Speaker
None of, nobody cared about anything.
00:31:04
Speaker
Right, right, right, right.
00:31:05
Speaker
So I had to go somewhere where people cared.
00:31:07
Speaker
You were already showing work then.
00:31:09
Speaker
Like you already had official exhibitions right before you went to Berlin, right?
00:31:12
Speaker
So you were already.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:14
Speaker
I had some group shows, very little.
00:31:16
Speaker
I mean, they didn't mean too much.
00:31:18
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.
00:31:22
Speaker
But you know, if you've never done it.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:24
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
00:31:54
Speaker
moved to Berlin a year after visiting almost to the day, September, 2016.
00:31:59
Speaker
And it was hilarious within three months that I had my first show.
00:32:03
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.
00:32:12
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.
00:32:19
Speaker
Like you're not necessarily like the, you might want to think about this and whatever.
00:32:25
Speaker
And then it was hilarious.
00:32:26
Speaker
And there I was like three months in, I guess it was January.
00:32:29
Speaker
I got there in September and I had like a solo show and she's like, well, Adrian, good job.
00:32:35
Speaker
Good job.
00:32:35
Speaker
So that was great.
00:32:36
Speaker
So yeah, Berlin embraced me for the most part.
00:32:41
Speaker
So it's been home since 2015 you said?
00:32:44
Speaker
Since 2016.
00:32:44
Speaker
2016, right?
00:32:45
Speaker
So you're going on almost seven years.
00:32:48
Speaker
So it's home for you.
00:32:50
Speaker
Exactly.
00:32:51
Speaker
It is.
00:32:52
Speaker
It is.
00:32:52
Speaker
Like if I moved anywhere, it'd be like to the south of Europe or something at this point, like maybe to Italy.
00:32:58
Speaker
You know, to get real estate, you know, that sort of thing.
00:33:01
Speaker
Find some small Italian city where it's cheap.
00:33:04
Speaker
Right.
00:33:04
Speaker
But you're staying put there for the future.
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah, for the time being.
00:33:07
Speaker
We'll see if the contract is renewed on the apartment.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:10
Speaker
I mean, it's renting in Berlin.
00:33:13
Speaker
So I remember, like, I would say I came to New York in 86 and I started seeing the first migration of...
00:33:23
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...
00:33:43
Speaker
I should I say a little bit too predictable, right?
00:33:45
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.
00:33:51
Speaker
Some went to LA.
00:33:53
Speaker
I feel like the migration to LA is still happening, even more so today because of the obvious reason that we just discussed.
00:33:59
Speaker
But a lot of them were coming to Berlin.
00:34:02
Speaker
So early 90s, there was a major, major migration of New York artists going to Berlin.
00:34:08
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?
00:34:16
Speaker
Which was not the case in New York anymore.
00:34:18
Speaker
Before you could have gone to the 4th Street on Avenue D and get a loft for 700.
00:34:22
Speaker
That was just not the case anymore.
00:34:24
Speaker
So a lot of them went to Berlin.
00:34:26
Speaker
But that kind of lived its course too, right?
00:34:28
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.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, that dream is dead.
00:34:40
Speaker
It is.
00:34:42
Speaker
It's totally dead.
00:34:43
Speaker
I mean, even just to, it's, I don't know if gentrified is the right word.
00:34:46
Speaker
It is definitely gentrifying.
00:34:48
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, the rents are...
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:52
Speaker
Like what, you know, even four years ago when I started living here, it was considered very expensive.
00:34:57
Speaker
What I paid and now it's considered very cheap.
00:35:00
Speaker
Wow.
00:35:00
Speaker
Interesting.
00:35:01
Speaker
You know, like, and that's four years and it's not like people in Berlin make a lot of money.
00:35:05
Speaker
So it's kind of a weird situation too, because generally speaking, people in Berlin do not make much money.
00:35:13
Speaker
So you have all these people coming
00:35:15
Speaker
you know, let's say from the U S or Canada or wherever else.
00:35:19
Speaker
And they go, Oh, this is so cheap.
00:35:20
Speaker
Even maybe, maybe not still, but you know, like, uh, and yeah.
00:35:26
Speaker
And then the locals can't afford it.
00:35:28
Speaker
I mean, your classic sort of, uh, scenario, I guess you'd call that gentrification.
00:35:32
Speaker
I don't know.
00:35:33
Speaker
But anyways, yeah, that dream's kind of dead.
00:35:35
Speaker
And so a lot of people have gone to Athens and now that's expensive.
00:35:41
Speaker
So the same phenomenon is happening.
00:35:42
Speaker
I mean, people are now leaving Berlin, right.
00:35:45
Speaker
And,
00:35:46
Speaker
Right.
00:35:46
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.
00:35:52
Speaker
It's got a great brand.
00:35:54
Speaker
I mean, kind of like the ongoing joke.
00:35:56
Speaker
I mean, my friend from, you know, like it's like, yeah, the rest of the world thinks it's awesome.
00:36:00
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.
00:36:09
Speaker
And it's just like the whole reason for coming to Berlin and kind of what built Berlin's name,
00:36:15
Speaker
arguably was exactly what you're saying.
00:36:18
Speaker
It was a scene.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:19
Speaker
It was the arts.
00:36:20
Speaker
Cause it, cause then there was the club scene that followed the art scene.
00:36:23
Speaker
Right.
00:36:23
Speaker
Cause the two will always, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship, right.
00:36:27
Speaker
Between, um, you know, just nightlife and, and the arts.
00:36:31
Speaker
Right.
00:36:31
Speaker
Um, you know, it was the case in New York for the longest of time.
00:36:34
Speaker
Right.
00:36:35
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.
00:36:41
Speaker
In New York city, because that, that dynamic existed, it's not there anymore.
00:36:45
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
00:37:09
Speaker
Was it near the, near the Olympic complex?
00:37:12
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.
00:37:18
Speaker
Did you hear the same thing?
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:20
Speaker
Like I have friends and actually have a friend who's in Athens.
00:37:23
Speaker
She's from Canada and yeah, it's interesting.
00:37:27
Speaker
She's saying actually, cause they introduced this golden visa now where like real estate is going up there.
00:37:33
Speaker
It's kind of like, it's all repeating itself over in Athens.
00:37:37
Speaker
So funny.
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
So it, yeah.
00:37:40
Speaker
Like, so, I mean, it's still a lot cheaper than Berlin.
00:37:43
Speaker
Like you can still rent an apartment in Athens for maybe 600 euros a month, sometimes less.
00:37:50
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?
00:37:59
Speaker
So yeah.
00:38:00
Speaker
So yeah.
00:38:01
Speaker
So where do you go now?
00:38:02
Speaker
I mean, a lot of people went to also Portugal as well.
00:38:05
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.
00:38:13
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.
00:38:21
Speaker
And then you have all these like crypto people from elsewhere who kind of.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker
So love how cheap it is.
00:38:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:29
Speaker
And back to Berlin.
00:38:30
Speaker
So Adrian, is there still a very alive cultural scene as far as, you know, gallery shows, museum opening?
00:38:38
Speaker
Yeah, very much so.
00:38:40
Speaker
Like, I'd still say it's still the main thing to do.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:43
Speaker
As far as like, you know, what's going on this weekend?
00:38:47
Speaker
It's like, oh, well, this kind of fancy gallery is
00:38:50
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.
00:38:58
Speaker
So that'll be fun.
00:39:00
Speaker
Um, it's still kind of the main, uh, thing to do, which is great.
00:39:03
Speaker
And it's, you know, affordable cause you don't really need to pay anything to go to a gallery.
00:39:07
Speaker
Uh, so that is really nice.
00:39:10
Speaker
I I'd say it's the main, and it's interesting.
00:39:13
Speaker
A lot of artists come here.
00:39:15
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:39:17
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.
Adrian's Introduction to Crypto Art
00:39:27
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.
00:39:38
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.
00:39:46
Speaker
and all this sort of thing.
00:39:48
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?
00:39:59
Speaker
And so the pandemic, when basically nobody went out, also it kind of snapped me out of this.
00:40:03
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.
00:40:10
Speaker
Like I need to try something different.
00:40:13
Speaker
And then,
00:40:13
Speaker
And that's when I discovered crypto, just from my financial interest.
00:40:18
Speaker
Interesting.
00:40:19
Speaker
Wow.
00:40:20
Speaker
So your entry point was the currency, right?
00:40:25
Speaker
It was the cryptocurrency.
00:40:29
Speaker
Interesting.
00:40:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:30
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.
00:40:38
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.
00:40:46
Speaker
He lived to like 91, 92, just died a couple of years ago.
00:40:49
Speaker
And he was like, you know, buy Bitcoin, buy Ethereum.
00:40:53
Speaker
And then I was like, oh, if James Dines is saying that, yeah.
00:40:57
Speaker
That's what I was like, I went straight to my computer and I was like, I got to figure this out.
00:41:02
Speaker
And it was great.
00:41:03
Speaker
I mean,
00:41:04
Speaker
I got rich for a year and that was great.
00:41:06
Speaker
Well, it lasted.
00:41:09
Speaker
And then it went down.
00:41:11
Speaker
And then you're like, well, wait a minute.
00:41:12
Speaker
There's also art to this.
00:41:14
Speaker
There's also an artistic element to this.
00:41:16
Speaker
Well, it's funny too, because I had been working on this Peloponnesian War series.
00:41:21
Speaker
I was working on my phone a ton.
00:41:23
Speaker
And this is actually something I started in Toronto when I got the iPhone 6S, which I consider the first art phone.
00:41:30
Speaker
Cause all of a sudden there was apps that were credible, you know, like that were usable.
00:41:35
Speaker
You could export between the apps.
00:41:37
Speaker
So I could use one app, export it.
00:41:39
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.
00:41:51
Speaker
So like when you posted something, so it would give you a copy of the photo.
00:41:54
Speaker
So I'd post it and then delete it right away.
00:41:56
Speaker
And then I'd have that copy in my photos.
00:41:58
Speaker
You know, and there's great, great apps that I still use actually to this day.
00:42:04
Speaker
And so I was working a lot on the phone and then I started this Peloponnesian War Series.
00:42:10
Speaker
Well, and so all to say I was familiar with Super Rare, but I didn't understand it.
00:42:16
Speaker
I saw, okay, there's this digital art platform.
00:42:18
Speaker
When I first moved to Berlin, this is 2016.
00:42:21
Speaker
which ironically was super early in a sense for NFTs.
00:42:25
Speaker
So I was on super rare looking at it, but I didn't understand it.
00:42:30
Speaker
Wow.
00:42:31
Speaker
Right.
00:42:31
Speaker
So I didn't know.
00:42:32
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, you have to apply.
00:42:33
Speaker
And I, you know, I was going to ask you that.
00:42:36
Speaker
So did they have the gatekeeping back then?
00:42:38
Speaker
Were they, were they asking for, okay.
00:42:41
Speaker
They did.
00:42:41
Speaker
Cause otherwise I was, yeah.
00:42:43
Speaker
When did they launch?
00:42:44
Speaker
2016?
00:42:44
Speaker
I think like 2018.
00:42:48
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.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:58
Speaker
But I, yeah, but who knows if I would have been accepted at that point onto the platform.
00:43:05
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.
00:43:12
Speaker
And so it was actually through finance that I actually started to figure out and through investing
00:43:17
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.
00:43:27
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,
00:43:39
Speaker
wanted to get on.
00:43:40
Speaker
But they hadn't yet at that point, right?
00:43:42
Speaker
They hadn't yet.
00:43:42
Speaker
Right.
00:43:42
Speaker
There was probably a few, uh, there was Arnome and Mattia Couttini and, and probably 10 other, 10 other people.
00:43:48
Speaker
Right.
00:43:49
Speaker
That was about it.
00:43:49
Speaker
Right.
00:43:51
Speaker
Exactly.
00:43:51
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.
00:43:57
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.
00:44:07
Speaker
And then I minted my first piece then, and then things are blowing up, of course, then, especially the Bored Apes and everything.
00:44:14
Speaker
And people were getting rich and all of a sudden every artist wanted to be involved in the NFT scene.
00:44:21
Speaker
And there I was on SuperRare and that was great.
00:44:23
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.
00:44:35
Speaker
you upload it to a website and it sells and you have all this money in your pocket.
00:44:41
Speaker
I mean, it doesn't get any better than that in any business.
00:44:44
Speaker
I mean, zero costs other than your time and your iPad or your phone.
00:44:49
Speaker
Right.
00:44:50
Speaker
Well, and your marketing, right?
00:44:53
Speaker
Because now all of a sudden you've removed yourself as with everything Web3, we removed ourselves from the traditional relationships where
00:45:00
Speaker
in the traditional art world, right?
00:45:01
Speaker
You have the gallery that does all the promotion, all the marketing, all the, you know, the logistic work for you, right?
00:45:07
Speaker
But now all of a sudden, right, there's the upside, right, of having direct control over the revenue stream.
00:45:13
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.
00:45:18
Speaker
And I guess that's a good, it's a fair price to pay, right?
00:45:21
Speaker
Because, you know, that it,
00:45:24
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
00:45:49
Speaker
artists that are just not comfortable doing that, perhaps have a tougher time, you know, doing that.
00:45:53
Speaker
Right.
00:45:54
Speaker
And Twitter is incredibly low-fi.
00:45:57
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.
00:46:11
Speaker
And that was total news to me.
00:46:13
Speaker
And then I was trying to be all smart on Twitter and that didn't fly.
00:46:18
Speaker
you know, like, cause everybody's sort of like, who's this guy who thinks he's so smart and everything.
00:46:23
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,
Adrian's Artistic Techniques and Themes
00:46:33
Speaker
blah.
00:46:33
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.
00:46:39
Speaker
But then finally I just was like, okay, I need to get some kind of traction.
00:46:44
Speaker
And I ended up making like,
00:46:46
Speaker
$5,000 sales, I'm pretty sure came, I mean, those are like the heyday for me.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:50
Speaker
And that came from posting on those dumb, like engagement.
00:46:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:58
Speaker
That's so funny.
00:47:00
Speaker
Learning the herd way on everything.
00:47:02
Speaker
My goodness.
00:47:03
Speaker
Well, it takes us to your art, right?
00:47:05
Speaker
And we talked about it.
00:47:07
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.
00:47:20
Speaker
and I wanted to understand a little bit more about it.
00:47:23
Speaker
But I think let's talk about the whole package, right?
00:47:26
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.
00:47:38
Speaker
And what are you trying to say through them, right?
00:47:43
Speaker
Or what are you trying to say about it through your work?
00:47:45
Speaker
Well, I guess for me at the end of the day,
00:47:49
Speaker
And again, it comes back to that Socratic kind of education.
00:47:54
Speaker
And then I was taking a lot of great courses, what used to be the teaching company.
00:47:57
Speaker
Now it's Wondrium.
00:47:58
Speaker
And I actually watched this lecture series on the Peloponnesian War twice before reading it.
00:48:05
Speaker
And that was interesting.
00:48:06
Speaker
And it's all about meaning at the end of the day and in the sense of
00:48:11
Speaker
can you do something that matters?
00:48:13
Speaker
Like at the end of the day, it's almost like so little matters.
00:48:18
Speaker
Like to me, almost the big challenge is, can you do something that actually matters?
00:48:23
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
00:48:34
Speaker
to be a part of the tradition, then you have to have a conversation with the tradition, you know?
00:48:39
Speaker
So that's in a sense where the idea of, hey,
00:48:45
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.
00:49:02
Speaker
But then I had this surrealist sort of, you know, approach to it where I actually have this beautiful picture.
00:49:09
Speaker
I'll have to dig that picture up and show it on the show.
00:49:12
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.
00:49:23
Speaker
And then I wasn't trying to... So in the series, I wasn't trying to illustrate the quotes of Thucydides' Palpinesian War.
00:49:32
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
00:49:58
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.
00:50:13
Speaker
What happens when we start to mingle these things?
00:50:16
Speaker
And I felt like a magician, like also I was just like, this feels, this is very powerful in terms of meaning.
00:50:22
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.
00:50:34
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.
00:50:41
Speaker
And so it was at the end of the day, my big summary of what that work is.
00:50:47
Speaker
is it's about the battle of all signification against all signification.
00:50:53
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.
00:51:10
Speaker
And so it became kind of like this magic act in a sense for me.
00:51:15
Speaker
With varying degrees of success.
00:51:18
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?
00:51:28
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.
00:51:43
Speaker
um, you know, I think you minted on super rare, right?
00:51:45
Speaker
I did.
00:51:46
Speaker
I mean, after it was all done, uh, yeah.
00:51:49
Speaker
And I got on super rare.
00:51:50
Speaker
The first thing I minted was actually the study I had done, which it's funny.
00:51:55
Speaker
I mean, today I'm still going back to, it's one of my favorite pieces I've made.
00:51:58
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,
00:52:10
Speaker
as part of the background, because that's a whole other thing.
00:52:12
Speaker
Like what do you do with the background, for instance?
00:52:14
Speaker
So I was using, in some cases, I'd sample paintings from say Basquiat and Rauschenberg, really zoomed in.
00:52:22
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.
00:52:30
Speaker
And then I'd almost like, I call it visual hip hop.
00:52:33
Speaker
I'd start to like combine those things in image editing apps.
00:52:36
Speaker
Then I'd purposefully, to your point about,
00:52:40
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.
00:52:48
Speaker
So I like that because it was kind of like,
00:52:51
Speaker
unambiguously digital.
00:52:53
Speaker
And so I would start to mix these things.
00:52:55
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.
00:53:02
Speaker
And so then, yeah.
00:53:04
Speaker
So it turned into this very interesting mix of everything.
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:09
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,
00:53:16
Speaker
work or aesthetics from thousands of years ago.
00:53:20
Speaker
It feels fresh.
00:53:22
Speaker
It feels like of the moment.
00:53:25
Speaker
It feels relevant.
00:53:27
Speaker
And I think it's a beautiful, beautiful project.
00:53:30
Speaker
I was looking at it again this morning just to remind myself of Fresh My Memory.
00:53:34
Speaker
And it's like it still feels crisp.
00:53:36
Speaker
It feels, I don't know, of the moment is probably the best word I can describe it.
00:53:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:41
Speaker
I really appreciate that.
00:53:42
Speaker
I mean, it's a half orphaned project.
00:53:44
Speaker
I mean, half the works are still on open scene.
00:53:46
Speaker
I know, I know.
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:48
Speaker
So you saw that.
00:53:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:53:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:53:50
Speaker
And you did well, you did fairly well with it though.
00:53:52
Speaker
I mean, there's, there's, there, yeah, there's quite a bit of, you know, we made some sales.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:56
Speaker
Like, I mean, it wasn't, it's funny.
00:53:58
Speaker
It was other series that got more of the big dollar figures, but I was happy just to sell any, frankly.
00:54:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:54:04
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.
00:54:13
Speaker
Cause I, you know, that work I put out and I got a half ETH offer.
00:54:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:17
Speaker
And then I waited and waited, you know, cause I'm like, Oh, it's going to get more.
00:54:21
Speaker
And then of course the guy takes back the offer.
00:54:23
Speaker
I didn't know the protocol that, you know, you go on Twitter and you say, thank you for the offer.
00:54:30
Speaker
And if nobody takes it in the next 48 hours, I'm going to give it to that person.
00:54:36
Speaker
I just said nothing.
00:54:36
Speaker
It was like, yeah, I'll get back to you.
00:54:38
Speaker
You know, like, and then it was taken back and I think I sold it for 0.1 either, you know?
Opportunities in the Crypto Art Market
00:54:43
Speaker
And now someone has like 10 ETH on that as the price tag.
00:54:45
Speaker
Right, right, right, right.
00:54:47
Speaker
So yeah, it's kind of hilarious actually.
00:54:49
Speaker
That's funny.
00:54:50
Speaker
That's funny.
00:54:52
Speaker
But it is, just to your point though, it is made to order for crypto.
00:54:55
Speaker
I agree.
00:54:56
Speaker
I saw that thing.
00:54:56
Speaker
I was like, oh, but I botched the, you know, the rollout.
00:55:03
Speaker
I botched the rollout.
00:55:05
Speaker
Let's call it the go-to-market.
00:55:07
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:55:08
Speaker
The go-to-market strategy, yeah.
00:55:10
Speaker
I needed help in that case.
00:55:12
Speaker
Now I think I can handle it better at the time.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:17
Speaker
And so at that point you were firmly planted in crypto, right?
00:55:21
Speaker
You're like, okay, this is a legitimate place, right?
00:55:24
Speaker
Because that's how I felt.
00:55:26
Speaker
I noticed that I picked up on the legitimacy of it very fast.
00:55:30
Speaker
I was like, this is serious.
00:55:31
Speaker
There's serious stuff.
00:55:32
Speaker
There's some serious talent.
00:55:34
Speaker
And there's definitely some significant work to be done here.
00:55:40
Speaker
And even today, look, 2023, three, four years past the beginning of the rush, it still feels very early, right?
00:55:48
Speaker
It still feels it's a conversation for a selected few, right?
00:55:51
Speaker
Wouldn't you agree with that?
00:55:54
Speaker
Because I feel like the institutions are still not...
00:55:57
Speaker
you know, into it, right?
00:56:00
Speaker
Or committed to it, right?
00:56:01
Speaker
Or not even like I've tried, right?
00:56:03
Speaker
So I feel, and it's bound to happen.
00:56:07
Speaker
There's no avoiding that, right?
00:56:09
Speaker
So I feel like it's early.
00:56:10
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...
00:56:22
Speaker
perception from those in institutions and outside, as well as even the NFTs like the Bored Apes.
00:56:29
Speaker
I mean, I was at a party not that long ago, like four or five months ago.
00:56:35
Speaker
And this, you know, very nice
00:56:38
Speaker
French from France woman was sort of asking me like, but you know, I was talking about NFT.
00:56:43
Speaker
She's like, but what about the, what would she, how did she put it?
00:56:47
Speaker
She put it like the challenging aesthetics or something like that.
00:56:52
Speaker
Like it was hilarious because, but she just wasn't aware and like, and neither, like I was there selling work.
00:56:59
Speaker
I didn't love a ton of what I saw.
00:57:01
Speaker
I didn't really buy an NFT of art until that October.
00:57:06
Speaker
uh, and of 2020, I think it was 2021, I think.
00:57:10
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.
00:57:25
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.
00:57:39
Speaker
I messaged him very early on, like, is this stuff for sale?
00:57:41
Speaker
And he sent me to OpenSea.
00:57:44
Speaker
Radha is actually one of the great commenters on the program now.
00:57:48
Speaker
It's hilarious because at the time he's just like, I have no idea.
00:57:51
Speaker
And it's ironic, isn't it?
00:57:53
Speaker
And so anyways, but then I saw Haiti Rocket.
00:57:57
Speaker
I saw JNK, which is now Kurt Hustle Collective.
00:58:01
Speaker
And I was like, this stuff is just really cool.
00:58:04
Speaker
It felt like techno punk.
00:58:07
Speaker
It felt there's classicness to it.
00:58:10
Speaker
So then I went down the rabbit hole and I really have never come out.
00:58:13
Speaker
I mean, it's stunning the amount of talent that's out there that really just...
00:58:23
Speaker
you know, would not be represented otherwise.
00:58:25
Speaker
Like it would just be in people's private homes without this kind of internet blockchain market.
00:58:32
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?
00:58:50
Speaker
Now, all of a sudden we have access to
00:58:52
Speaker
to talent from all over the world, right?
00:58:54
Speaker
It's not just your local market or your country.
00:58:57
Speaker
It's like we have like instantaneous access to the works of just about every artist in the world, right?
00:59:04
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?
The Artist's Journal and YouTube Presence
00:59:16
Speaker
It's an interesting, like it's several things.
00:59:19
Speaker
It was a confluence of several things.
00:59:21
Speaker
I mean, I had started, uh,
00:59:24
Speaker
an artist journal on, I always, I don't know if you know David Bowie's Outside.
00:59:28
Speaker
Oh gosh.
00:59:29
Speaker
Do you know that album?
00:59:30
Speaker
Oh yeah, very much so.
00:59:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:31
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.
00:59:41
Speaker
That was almost like a year earlier when I was, and I knew I couldn't be like,
00:59:47
Speaker
But I was like, that was kind of the inspiration.
00:59:49
Speaker
I was just like doing an artist journal, like just sharing thoughts, because I have all these thoughts on things.
00:59:54
Speaker
So why not use that?
00:59:56
Speaker
And Twitter also is so lo-fi that I just felt like, you know, I need to...
01:00:04
Speaker
And YouTube is kind of frowned upon in the contemporary art world somewhat.
01:00:08
Speaker
It's kind of seen as like not the most prestigious way of presenting yourself.
01:00:13
Speaker
But as far as this NFT thing, I just thought, you know what, Twitter
01:00:20
Speaker
people don't understand me on Twitter.
01:00:22
Speaker
Like they don't understand my personality.
01:00:24
Speaker
And so I just get in front of the camera.
01:00:29
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.
01:00:37
Speaker
And before I started any of this, I was like, do you think you're going to get somewhere?
01:00:41
Speaker
He's like, yeah, I think you're going to get somewhere.
01:00:43
Speaker
And so we'd been talking like that for a couple of years.
01:00:46
Speaker
And then finally I was seeing what was going on
01:00:50
Speaker
with on Tezos and it was getting more and more like excited.
01:00:56
Speaker
And I felt like the market was about to blow up actually.
01:01:00
Speaker
So I was like, I'm going to get ahead of this.
01:01:02
Speaker
I've been kind of planning this.
01:01:03
Speaker
Let's just put a few images together of what I'm collecting.
01:01:07
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.
01:01:16
Speaker
Recent acquisitions on Tezos, I think was the first video.
01:01:19
Speaker
Wow.
01:01:20
Speaker
And yeah, and it was just like, you know, let's just talk about stuff because why not?
01:01:25
Speaker
And so surprisingly, people liked, you know, even like or at least watched it.
01:01:32
Speaker
Like I'd actually get like 10 views.
01:01:35
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.
01:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:01:41
Speaker
Right.
01:01:42
Speaker
So there's no reason for people to like me other than, OK, maybe I like this guy's art.
01:01:47
Speaker
My communications were...
01:01:49
Speaker
I'm just basically can communicate way better and more efficiently with video and audio than I can with Twitter.
01:01:56
Speaker
And it's like, okay, how do I sound funny?
01:01:58
Speaker
And you know, it's just like, it's too much.
01:02:01
Speaker
It's too much for me to, I'm trying to make art here.
01:02:05
Speaker
So it became a very efficient way for people to, I mean, video is incredibly powerful.
01:02:11
Speaker
Right.
01:02:11
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.
01:02:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:28
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.
01:02:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:36
Speaker
Because it's about the, the, the written word, right.
01:02:39
Speaker
And, and trying to make it come alive, right.
01:02:41
Speaker
Through the, um, through the style, you know, the style of your writing.
01:02:44
Speaker
Right.
01:02:45
Speaker
And, uh, and some people have a much better, uh,
01:02:48
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
01:03:16
Speaker
I go, why are you talking about this?
01:03:18
Speaker
Who are you trying to impress?
01:03:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:19
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.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:31
Speaker
Exactly.
01:03:31
Speaker
People assume the worst.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:33
Speaker
Good point.
01:03:34
Speaker
Good point.
01:03:36
Speaker
So what episode are you up to now?
01:03:37
Speaker
166?165,
01:03:39
Speaker
I think it's 170.
01:03:41
Speaker
It's 170.
01:03:42
Speaker
And there were like 10 videos that I did on Spotify, actually, audio things that were just random.
01:03:50
Speaker
There's an interview with Brian Cotts way back there, that guy that inspired me early on.
01:03:55
Speaker
I'm still in Saskatoon.
01:03:57
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, so I've done about a hundred and let's say 55, 160 videos.
01:04:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:04
Speaker
Do you take it a day or every other day or once a week?
01:04:08
Speaker
The first 80 or 90 days, I did it every day.
01:04:11
Speaker
The first 80 or 90 days, like it was kind of wild and it was fun, but they were much shorter too.
01:04:16
Speaker
And I still want to get back to these shorter videos.
01:04:19
Speaker
I need to look at them, but I find it so hard to watch.
01:04:22
Speaker
Um, but you know, I'd love to get to like 30 minute videos, let's say.
01:04:26
Speaker
Right.
01:04:27
Speaker
They're in the 50, they're like around 50 minutes, right?
01:04:30
Speaker
On average, right?
01:04:32
Speaker
Let's say, yeah, recently.
01:04:33
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.
01:04:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:44
Speaker
Like, but somehow there's enough to talk about.
01:04:46
Speaker
And I don't mind.
01:04:48
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.
01:05:01
Speaker
That's kind of the whole point of this project for me is kind of like just to share a perspective.
01:05:06
Speaker
And isn't this cool?
01:05:07
Speaker
And why is this cool?
01:05:08
Speaker
And how does this help us as artists?
01:05:10
Speaker
This sort of thing.
01:05:12
Speaker
So if that's what I'm doing and it turns out long, then I go, meh, okay, I can live with that.
01:05:16
Speaker
But I'm still, I actually, last episode I think was like in the forties.
01:05:21
Speaker
So that was 45 minutes or something.
01:05:24
Speaker
And what's the frequency these days, Adrian?
01:05:27
Speaker
It's really interesting, at least for me, uh, so how it's evolved because it was, it was every day.
01:05:34
Speaker
And then I was doing weekdays, say Monday to Friday.
01:05:38
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.
01:05:54
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.
01:06:08
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.
01:06:13
Speaker
I figured, okay, I have some kind of relationship where they were thanking me on Twitter and whatever.
01:06:19
Speaker
So I thought, okay, I could probably bring in some artists.
01:06:23
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.
01:06:29
Speaker
I still think it's like the most exciting art basically going on by far in the world.
01:06:34
Speaker
It's just dynamic.
01:06:35
Speaker
It's like a youthful scene.
01:06:36
Speaker
All the things the art world has kind of stopped being in a lot of ways.
01:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, there's just nostalginess to it.
01:06:41
Speaker
It's just like so fresh and so vibrant and so raw.
01:06:45
Speaker
And so, yeah, like every other movement at early stages.
01:06:49
Speaker
I had proposed this show with Rug Radio and never heard back.
01:06:53
Speaker
And then their person, their talent person was sort of switching around.
01:06:57
Speaker
And then I ended up starting this show anyways.
01:06:58
Speaker
I was like, okay, I'm going to do this YouTube thing.
01:07:01
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.
01:07:07
Speaker
Cheemoscue Jackson and Mikal, can't remember his last name, artist.
01:07:12
Speaker
And they were like, hey, this is great.
01:07:14
Speaker
You should do more Pocabelli.
01:07:15
Speaker
And I was like, oh, yeah.
01:07:16
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.
01:07:23
Speaker
They're like, yeah, you should do YouTube.
01:07:25
Speaker
This is great.
01:07:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:27
Speaker
So that's how it happened.
01:07:28
Speaker
I don't think I would have done it without those guys saying, yeah, do video.
01:07:31
Speaker
Interesting.
01:07:31
Speaker
Because video is a bit of a leap.
01:07:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:33
Speaker
Right.
01:07:34
Speaker
If you haven't done it.
01:07:35
Speaker
No, but it lends itself because you're always sharing the art.
01:07:38
Speaker
So, gosh, I cannot imagine working out any other way, right?
01:07:41
Speaker
Because people, you know, get to see what you're talking about, right?
01:07:43
Speaker
At that specific moment.
01:07:45
Speaker
So I feel like it is the absolutely perfect medium for the show.
01:07:49
Speaker
And as far as preparation, like, what does it take?
01:07:51
Speaker
Are you... Because, like, do you have all the tabs already pre-opened?
01:07:56
Speaker
Like, already... Because, you know, you go through art pretty fast.
01:08:00
Speaker
So are you already...
01:08:02
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.
01:08:17
Speaker
that I wouldn't get everything or I felt like I was missing certain things.
01:08:21
Speaker
And actually it started with just object notifications.
01:08:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:25
Speaker
And I would just go on object notifications and, you know, and, and I was like, isn't this amazing?
01:08:31
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.
01:08:43
Speaker
Right, right, right.
01:08:44
Speaker
And isn't this incredible?
01:08:45
Speaker
Like, I think I called it, what did I call it?
01:08:47
Speaker
The something like the plenitude of Tezos or something.
01:08:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:52
Speaker
Something like that, right?
01:08:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:54
Speaker
And so, yeah, so the workflow turned into because the bookmarks.
01:08:59
Speaker
So then I went to Twitter because object had problems with notifications.
01:09:03
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.
01:09:09
Speaker
So then I started saving the links of tweets and also object notifications in a separate kind of file.
01:09:18
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.
01:09:28
Speaker
Then I'll organize and kind of basically pick and choose and put an order and coherence, turn it into a story.
01:09:34
Speaker
Right.
01:09:35
Speaker
And, uh,
01:09:36
Speaker
And then that's it.
01:09:37
Speaker
And then use that basically as a discussion piece.
01:09:40
Speaker
Right, right, right, right.
01:09:40
Speaker
Really for the show.
01:09:41
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.
01:09:50
Speaker
Then I started incorporating comments on Twitter, which was great.
01:09:53
Speaker
People love those kinds of shows.
01:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:09:55
Speaker
I love those, like there's financial shows, which just go through, you know,
01:10:00
Speaker
Twitter finance stuff.
01:10:01
Speaker
And I love that stuff.
01:10:02
Speaker
I'm like, so.
01:10:03
Speaker
That's a good point.
01:10:04
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.
01:10:13
Speaker
Okay, good, good.
01:10:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:14
Speaker
It's sort of like a prompt for you to get, right, to get the content, right?
01:10:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:19
Speaker
Exactly.
01:10:20
Speaker
Exactly.
01:10:20
Speaker
Because, yeah, exactly.
01:10:21
Speaker
Because you need something, right?
01:10:23
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
Engaging Podcast Content Strategies
01:10:34
Speaker
to go with?
01:10:34
Speaker
You know, as far as like, what can I open with?
01:10:37
Speaker
Right.
01:10:38
Speaker
You know, almost from this tabloid perspective, I call it a newspaper of the imagination sometimes.
01:10:43
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.
01:10:51
Speaker
I don't know if I have something that can hold.
01:10:53
Speaker
that kind of front page.
01:10:55
Speaker
But then I would find it literally like five minutes before on Twitter.
01:10:59
Speaker
Right, right, right.
01:11:01
Speaker
I can go with this.
01:11:03
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?
01:11:09
Speaker
So, and there is, you know, kind of a need and a drive to grab the audience's attention, right?
01:11:15
Speaker
So you do have to shock people into attentions, right?
01:11:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:20
Speaker
I love tabloid actually, like, especially like the weekly world news.
01:11:25
Speaker
I used to collect those.
01:11:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:27
Speaker
The aliens, right?
01:11:29
Speaker
Dick Cheney is a robot and he's like opening, like, I mean, just, I mean, just like, I mean, really, really brilliant.
01:11:36
Speaker
Unfortunately, like,
01:11:38
Speaker
It actually shut down and their last editor, like I could totally change, tell when they changed editors.
01:11:43
Speaker
I was like, Oh, this new editor is like nowhere near as good as the last editor.
01:11:47
Speaker
So it's kind of like a editor role.
01:11:50
Speaker
Another beautiful thing about doing something like this is you're your own boss.
01:11:54
Speaker
It was like for the first time in my life,
01:11:56
Speaker
I actually had this kind of thing that people were paying attention to.
01:12:00
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.
01:12:07
Speaker
But, but then here it was like, okay, you actually have a growing audience.
01:12:10
Speaker
There is a business in here.
01:12:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:13
Speaker
Which, you know, I'm sure you can, um, you can quantify right in with time.
01:12:19
Speaker
And are you seeing, and are you seeing a growth, a consistent growth?
01:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty regular.
01:12:25
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.
01:12:33
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.
01:12:40
Speaker
I mean, I'm only at like 800 and like, what is it?
01:12:44
Speaker
I don't even remember 800 and something, 838, I think it is.
01:12:46
Speaker
Right.
01:12:48
Speaker
But it is uptrending though.
01:12:50
Speaker
There's no... Yeah, and it's all real.
01:12:53
Speaker
That's also what I love about this is just growing it.
01:12:55
Speaker
There's no fake anything.
01:12:58
Speaker
And that's what I love about that.
01:13:01
Speaker
So you get a pretty high ratio of people watching to subscribers.
01:13:05
Speaker
So YouTube also rewards you for that.
01:13:09
Speaker
So it'll be interesting once you break a thousand, then they start to give you like a little bit of money.
01:13:16
Speaker
Oh, that's so cool.
01:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, then it gets, as you say, quantifier monetized, right?
01:13:21
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.
01:13:32
Speaker
They want people to see stuff that will see ads.
01:13:37
Speaker
so it'll be interesting.
01:13:39
Speaker
And I'll have, I have mixed feelings about how that all goes too, because are people seeing ads right now or not?
01:13:46
Speaker
I'm not sure.
01:13:48
Speaker
And so I have to do some tests on that.
01:13:49
Speaker
And does that mean all of a sudden they're going to start seeing ads if I monetize it?
01:13:53
Speaker
Because at the end of the day,
01:13:55
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.
01:14:04
Speaker
So they, okay, watch the show and it's like, oh, well there's his account and that's it.
01:14:08
Speaker
And then some people like the art and then a few of those people will buy it, you know?
01:14:14
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,
01:14:22
Speaker
In a sense, it already works.
01:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because you're already winning at it, right?
01:14:26
Speaker
Just from the exposure, right?
01:14:27
Speaker
And the accessibility, right, to your work from the audience, right?
01:14:32
Speaker
It's the great challenge as an artist, right?
01:14:34
Speaker
To get your name out, right?
01:14:36
Speaker
And it is a global audience, right?
01:14:38
Speaker
You have listeners from all over the world, right?
01:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, I still am trying to wrap my head around what that means.
01:14:45
Speaker
I mean, out of Twitter spaces today with Flora Marquez, she was in Argentina.
01:14:49
Speaker
I mean, yeah, like, I mean, it was amazing.
01:14:52
Speaker
I mean, Twitter spaces or, you know, Clubhouse too and LinkedIn audio.
01:14:57
Speaker
I mean, it's really stunning what that means.
01:15:00
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.
01:15:09
Speaker
It's
Artist Pricing Strategies on Tezos
01:15:10
Speaker
incredible.
01:15:11
Speaker
Adrian, I have a question for you.
01:15:13
Speaker
We talked a little bit about Tezos, right, and the whole Tezos ecosystem, an object, the marketplace.
01:15:18
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?
01:15:25
Speaker
Because there's an expectation, right, that the work should cost a certain amount of money, right?
01:15:30
Speaker
Like, is an artist allowed to make money on Tezos?
01:15:32
Speaker
Because most of the work, everything seems to be around, like, you know,
01:15:37
Speaker
It's edition based, right?
01:15:39
Speaker
Obviously, there's one-of-ones, but there's a lot of editions, right?
01:15:42
Speaker
And I'm assuming that's from the artist's perspective.
01:15:44
Speaker
So, well, I'll make it up in the quantities, right?
01:15:47
Speaker
By doing 10, 15,
01:15:49
Speaker
20 editions, right?
01:15:51
Speaker
But I get to charge very little, like $5, $10, right?
01:15:54
Speaker
Like, should an artist be allowed to charge, you know, $1,000, $2,000, $10,000?
01:15:56
Speaker
And there are those that do, like Goldcat and Zankan, there's a few of them, right?
01:16:04
Speaker
But for the most part, it's all very, very affordable, which is a great thing.
01:16:09
Speaker
I don't want to denigrate that, but at some point, can the artist make that sort of like pricing leap?
01:16:14
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:16:15
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.
01:16:24
Speaker
If you can walk me through that, because I want to better understand that.
01:16:27
Speaker
Yeah, let's see if we can kind of like, you know, itemize like how that story goes.
01:16:33
Speaker
Right.
01:16:33
Speaker
First, let's say you are an unknown artist, you show up on Tezo, so nobody knows who you are.
01:16:39
Speaker
So basically the first thing you do is you make, you mint your work and then you make it like 50 cents.
01:16:46
Speaker
Right.
01:16:46
Speaker
Right.
01:16:47
Speaker
And,
01:16:48
Speaker
basically, and then maybe you do an edition of not too large of an edition, but nobody cares too much at 50 cents.
01:16:54
Speaker
So if they like your work, it'll sell.
01:16:56
Speaker
Right.
01:16:57
Speaker
Which is also like- So at that point, you're getting a very guttural reaction, right?
01:17:00
Speaker
Meaning they're just reacting to the work, right?
01:17:02
Speaker
Without the hindrance of like being to expense, I can afford it.
01:17:06
Speaker
Like, right, they're just reacting to the work.
01:17:09
Speaker
Some people might buy it just because they think it'll be worth like $3 or something.
01:17:13
Speaker
You know, you get the flippers if it seems like cheap or-
01:17:16
Speaker
Uh, yeah.
01:17:17
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.
01:17:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:45
Speaker
You know, so that is, you know, so just to make sales, I mean, so it's so such a.
01:17:57
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.
01:18:07
Speaker
Right.
01:18:07
Speaker
You know, or maybe, you know, okay, I sold a print.
01:18:11
Speaker
Like, it's just like, maybe I have a friend who's a great painter, does stuff all the time.
01:18:15
Speaker
And I think he sells, he sells on Saatchi like a couple of times a year.
01:18:20
Speaker
And then he actually got a gallery in somewhere in England.
01:18:23
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.
01:18:31
Speaker
So back to just very quickly on the roadmap.
01:18:34
Speaker
So you start, you sell, people get to know who you are and people are always looking for new artists.
01:18:39
Speaker
Maybe your Twitter account grows if people like your art and then you slowly raise the prices is basically what people do.
01:18:47
Speaker
And I've seen people, you know, like there, there's, what's his name?
01:18:51
Speaker
Ellie Lowe, who does those crazy kind of videos.
01:18:54
Speaker
It looks like sometimes, you know, with the crazy figure and there's music.
01:18:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:00
Speaker
And sometimes he's a trash artist and he's like,
01:19:03
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.
01:19:10
Speaker
So like basically nothing, four or five months ago and now sells for 450 each editions of 25.
01:19:15
Speaker
Right.
01:19:17
Speaker
Right.
01:19:17
Speaker
So that's like, that's a hundred dollars.
01:19:20
Speaker
Right.
01:19:21
Speaker
Right.
01:19:21
Speaker
So that's, that's, what's so interesting.
01:19:24
Speaker
So, you know, when you look at like, what is like a middle-class salary, like if you break it down, you know,
01:19:29
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.
01:19:56
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.
01:20:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:07
Speaker
Brie's, you know, like, so, and then also as additions, right.
01:20:12
Speaker
Because one of ones he's selling for like in the thousands now, right?
01:20:14
Speaker
Exactly.
01:20:15
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.
01:20:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:24
Speaker
And now that I think someone paid 7,000 for that.
01:20:27
Speaker
I think he's got a 4,200 bid now on, um, on the Sotheby, uh, auction, the glitch auction right now.
01:20:32
Speaker
Right.
01:20:33
Speaker
I just saw that.
01:20:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:34
Speaker
So,
01:20:36
Speaker
And there he is at Sotheby's, right?
01:20:38
Speaker
So that is kind of like the roadmap.
01:20:40
Speaker
It's not complicated.
01:20:42
Speaker
So that is the promise, really, of the scene.
01:20:45
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?
01:21:01
Speaker
Or is there sort of like a resentment or...
01:21:04
Speaker
sort of a demand to continue to go back to the process.
01:21:07
Speaker
You understand my question?
01:21:08
Speaker
Yeah, like is there a resentment?
01:21:12
Speaker
I think it's a matter of how you roll it out, right?
01:21:17
Speaker
Like Uxene is very, for example, is very, I call it elegant.
01:21:24
Speaker
I think he's very elegant in the way that he makes, like he does it very, very well.
01:21:29
Speaker
Whereas sometimes another artist, you might feel like, oh, no.
01:21:32
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?
01:21:37
Speaker
But the thing is, if the market, it's like really bringing the free market to art again.
01:21:43
Speaker
And it's just like Twitter's just like an open scene.
01:21:46
Speaker
And then you have these blockchains, these global blockchains.
01:21:50
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.
01:21:59
Speaker
But if they sell out in, you know, a day or less, maybe an hour, it's the market.
01:22:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:22:05
Speaker
Right.
01:22:05
Speaker
So I guess I guess it is worth that.
01:22:07
Speaker
So I don't see a huge I don't like I think people will raise prices how they can.
01:22:14
Speaker
I think it's like anything, though, like if you start at a certain point.
01:22:20
Speaker
you really have to, it's a real art to raising your prices.
01:22:27
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.
01:22:36
Speaker
Well, I mean, the secondary market also helps you along with that, right?
01:22:39
Speaker
Kind of like helps you, you know, build a case for
01:22:42
Speaker
a high price point for sure.
01:22:44
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?
01:22:52
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...
01:23:03
Speaker
That's a great question.
01:23:04
Speaker
I would probably say yes, you know, and I'll probably say yes.
01:23:09
Speaker
But then again, you know, I've, I've, I've been on TASO.
01:23:12
Speaker
I mean, I was on TASO a while back, but I didn't really, I wasn't serious about it.
01:23:16
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.
01:23:28
Speaker
The community is like second to nothing.
01:23:31
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?
01:23:40
Speaker
And so I really, really respect and I really, really admire that.
01:23:45
Speaker
But I'm still not sure as to what the price or the economic dynamics are of that specific blockchain.
01:23:55
Speaker
Because I mean, I'm
Sotheby's and NFT Community Dynamics
01:23:56
Speaker
of the opinion that, and I'm the first one that I'm on order.
01:24:00
Speaker
Like I buy art for the sake of buying art.
01:24:02
Speaker
Like I joke that, you know, my collection is where secondary sales are going to die, right?
01:24:08
Speaker
Because I just don't sell anything.
01:24:09
Speaker
I keep everything.
01:24:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah, me too.
01:24:12
Speaker
I think I've sold two works.
01:24:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:14
Speaker
Like 2,000.
01:24:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:24:16
Speaker
But I think anybody would be disingenuous or lying to say, well, I don't expect it to go up in value, right?
01:24:23
Speaker
There's always that understanding or that feeling that you want it to go to a present value.
01:24:29
Speaker
So with Tesla's where a lot of the work is so affordable and you wonder, will it appreciate in value?
01:24:39
Speaker
But hey, I'm not going to complain.
01:24:40
Speaker
If I can get some amazing work, I'm the first one who's going to ape in on it, right?
01:24:45
Speaker
But I'm just not too familiar with the market dynamics of the platform.
01:24:51
Speaker
That's why I was asking your perspective from the artist.
01:24:55
Speaker
It is fascinating.
01:24:56
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of like anything else, but I think because it's so free market, it can happen really fast.
01:25:04
Speaker
Yes.
01:25:04
Speaker
Right?
01:25:04
Speaker
I mean, you see what's up seeing going from, again, that's like...
01:25:08
Speaker
he 15X'd what he was selling for.
01:25:10
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.
01:25:16
Speaker
I mean, Tezos was eight bucks a pop back then.
01:25:19
Speaker
So that was a different story.
01:25:20
Speaker
Wow.
01:25:21
Speaker
We already reached the 90 minute mark, nine and a half.
01:25:25
Speaker
It's that good of a conversation, huh?
01:25:27
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?
01:25:40
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?
01:25:51
Speaker
So that they could right the wrong and really, really
01:25:56
Speaker
recalibrate and really, really bring into the fold what was really a legitimate and a substantial part of the artist offering, right?
01:26:04
Speaker
Which was not represented the first time around, right?
01:26:07
Speaker
And it's not just female, it's the non-binary, right?
01:26:11
Speaker
which was completely ostracized the first time around.
01:26:13
Speaker
And you think this day and age, how people still make those, those omissions, right.
01:26:18
Speaker
But, but they happen, right.
01:26:19
Speaker
They, they still happen.
01:26:20
Speaker
And so I've really given credit for kind of re rethinking it and, you know, kind of rebooting it and relaunching it.
01:26:27
Speaker
Right.
01:26:28
Speaker
And look, you know, the, the female, the female artists are killing it.
01:26:32
Speaker
You know, they're doing incredibly well.
01:26:33
Speaker
I was looking at the bids this morning and,
01:26:36
Speaker
wow, everybody's, a lot of them have reached their, you know, their sort of estimate range.
01:26:41
Speaker
Right.
01:26:41
Speaker
So what's, what's your take?
01:26:43
Speaker
What's your opinion on just the movement in general?
01:26:45
Speaker
And if you have any thoughts about the, the current, you know, the Sotheby auction.
01:26:50
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.
01:26:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:00
Speaker
And, uh,
01:27:02
Speaker
And so I always kind of knew about it.
01:27:05
Speaker
I mean, way back in Saskatoon, I had two friends who were doing Glitch.
01:27:08
Speaker
I mean, they were talking about Glitch.
01:27:10
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.
01:27:16
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.
01:27:26
Speaker
But so
01:27:28
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.
01:27:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:44
Speaker
Right.
01:27:45
Speaker
I mean, like it's almost unthinkable.
01:27:47
Speaker
Like, like the first question one would say is like, you know,
01:27:54
Speaker
you may love all this art, but are you crazy?
01:27:56
Speaker
You know, like just from a purely pragmatic point of view, like, so I think Sotheby's recognized that because they understood
01:28:04
Speaker
This is just my speculation, of course.
01:28:07
Speaker
They understood that this could really blow up in their face in a major way.
01:28:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:28:12
Speaker
So let's do everything.
01:28:14
Speaker
Give them everything they want.
01:28:16
Speaker
They want, you know, let them run it.
01:28:18
Speaker
Just give them everything they want and be super responsive.
01:28:22
Speaker
And they I think they righted the wrong.
01:28:25
Speaker
I mean, they brought in different curators.
01:28:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:28:28
Speaker
They, you know, and people from the scene.
01:28:30
Speaker
And then, so it's like, you run it, you run it and you guys have a show here and everything.
01:28:35
Speaker
So I think they, you know, look, mistakes are going to happen.
01:28:39
Speaker
And I, again, I feel like this is probably the initiative, the Sotheby's metaverse stuff.
01:28:44
Speaker
I mean, in a sense, showing at Sotheby's is not what it used to be.
01:28:47
Speaker
I mean, I saw this meme on Twitter,
01:28:51
Speaker
That it was like the Oprah, you get a car and you get a car.
01:28:55
Speaker
You get a Southpies and you get a Southpies.
01:28:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:29:00
Speaker
And it's interesting because we go to the Louvre Claire Silver thing.
01:29:04
Speaker
Like you do by opening things up and then just saying, it does dilute the brand.
01:29:10
Speaker
And you saw how protective Louvre was on that whole situation.
01:29:16
Speaker
And they're like very protective.
01:29:18
Speaker
Sotheby's has taken more of an open sort of thing.
01:29:21
Speaker
And I mean, it probably makes sense financially for them as well, because, look, there's a lot of money in crypto.
01:29:26
Speaker
Let's not be snobs about it.
01:29:28
Speaker
Let's let these people have their fun.
01:29:30
Speaker
And I think what they do is they say, OK, we'll call it Sotheby's metaverse.
01:29:33
Speaker
It's not, you know, we'll have this separate wing.
01:29:36
Speaker
And we'll just let this kind of because this could be a real boon for us.
01:29:40
Speaker
And there's a ton of money in crypto.
01:29:43
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.
01:29:52
Speaker
Right, right, right.
01:29:52
Speaker
We're over and, you know, super rare takes it.
01:29:56
Speaker
This could disrupt us.
01:29:58
Speaker
Or provide the bridge to relevance, right?
01:30:03
Speaker
Because it's not a matter if it does take over, when it takes over, right?
01:30:08
Speaker
At least we'll be there as an institution in our second iteration of our existence, right?
01:30:15
Speaker
Exactly.
01:30:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:16
Speaker
So I think it's- They'll have the credibility.
01:30:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:19
Speaker
Right.
01:30:19
Speaker
Because they'll have been there.
01:30:20
Speaker
They'll have even with the Glitch show, they'll they'll have gone through this.
01:30:24
Speaker
So, you know, so everybody knows Sotheby's in the NFT scene.
01:30:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:27
Speaker
Right.
01:30:28
Speaker
And and, you know, OK, they do NFT stuff.
01:30:31
Speaker
So that's, you know, so they're quite smart, I think, in how they've handled it.
01:30:36
Speaker
I mean, there's so much money at stake in these kind of brands and everything.
01:30:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:40
Speaker
I guess we shouldn't be surprised, but yeah, I think they handled it quite well, all things considered.
01:30:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:46
Speaker
You know what I found fascinating, Adrian?
01:30:48
Speaker
And it is very ironic, right?
01:30:50
Speaker
The fact that it took a community of an art form, right?
01:30:55
Speaker
An art current, which is glitch, which is predicated on a mistake, right?
01:30:58
Speaker
It's a mistake, right?
01:31:01
Speaker
It's a glitch, right?
01:31:02
Speaker
Of software, of data, right?
01:31:05
Speaker
it took a platform or community of an art form that is steeped in a mistake to right a wrong.
01:31:13
Speaker
It was almost like one big glitch that Sophie's put on a huge, massive glitch.
01:31:19
Speaker
But there was a group of artists from an art form that is mired in, is predicated on error, on mistake, right?
01:31:29
Speaker
And they're the ones who've righted an historical wrong.
01:31:33
Speaker
So it's very fitting, very fascinating.
01:31:38
Speaker
So
Conclusion and Future Collaborations
01:31:39
Speaker
listen, I don't know what, I don't know what to say.
01:31:40
Speaker
Thank you so much for taking the time.
01:31:42
Speaker
It was, uh, uh, an amazing conversation.
01:31:44
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.
01:31:53
Speaker
And, um, and also, you know, sharing the, uh, the, the,
01:31:56
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.
01:32:11
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
01:32:37
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:32:37
Speaker
And thank you for inviting me on here.
01:32:40
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.
01:32:48
Speaker
So you're very early on this whole situation.
01:32:50
Speaker
I totally appreciate, again, you offering to interview me and I'm happy to come on any time.
01:32:57
Speaker
And yeah, I just really appreciate you.
01:33:00
Speaker
And thank you because the whole thing is totally a surprise to me that anybody...
01:33:06
Speaker
You know, the whole thing, I don't think he could have planned it.
01:33:09
Speaker
I think even the best marketing strategy, like it would have, it just kind of had to come out organically.
01:33:14
Speaker
So anyways, thank you.
01:33:15
Speaker
So, all right, Adrian, until next time.
01:33:18
Speaker
And for everybody, for our listeners, thank you for joining us.
01:33:20
Speaker
And we'll see you in the next episode of Scrapbook.
01:33:25
Speaker
Thank you.
01:33:25
Speaker
Bye-bye.