FTT+ Expert Charley Ma's Convo With SHL0MS

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​Hi everyone, Charley here.

First, quick reminder that if you sign up for FTT+, you get my posts earlier and access to our exclusive FTT+ Community on Slack.

Today’s post is a little out there, so bear with me. I recently came across a conceptual NFT project inspired by Duchamp’s Fountain and decided to purchase a shard of my own. The TLDR of FNTN is that the artist literally physically demolished a sculpture (that looks very much like a urinal) in an underground ritual, judiciously filmed every shard produced, and created an NFT out of each shard.

There’s also metagames on top of the shards, with derivative shards being created (and minted), free shards for the best memes, etc. I also think SHL0MS runs one of the most fascinating accounts on Twitter. Or at the very least is most likely to break your phone somehow.

In order to dive into more of the art side of NFTs, I shot over a DM to see if they would be down to chat and below was our convo :)

Charley: Tell me a bit more about your background (as much as you want to share!) How you grew up, what you typically work on, etc

SHL0MS: {REDACTED}

These days I’m working on weird art as well as cool NFT/DAO stuff with a new R&D lab called Windranger Labs.

Charley: How did you come up with your Twitter?

SHL0MS: If you mean the aesthetic, it sort of slowly happened over time and wasn’t something I conceptualized at any one point. I did have this idea about a year and a half ago for a prank in which I repeated the longest Unicode character (﷽) in my twitter name which made peoples’ notifications go crazy. Pretty soon I switched it to 𒐪 at the request of some Arabic-speaking followers. I never intended for it to become a sticky part of my brand, but at the time it was a bit of a growth hack as people kept tweeting about the crazy notifications they were getting. Now I think it probably confuses new people and makes my profile seem cryptic, which might limit new followers but also makes existing fans feel like they’re in on the joke. Plus it looks badass!

Charley: How would you personally describe yourself and what you do?

SHL0MS: I’m someone who recently found out they were an artist; I make weird digital conceptual art.

Charley: What does SHL0MS mean?

SHL0MS: {REDACTED}

Charley: How / why did you decide to go anonymous?

SHL0MS: Some practical career and personal reasons, but also it’s just always been my default/preferred mode of interfacing with the internet. Especially as an artist, pseudonymity allows you to filter through specific, concentrated parts of your personality without an audience viewing everything you say or do through the lens of whatever their preconceptions of your real life identity are. It’s like building a character, except they really exist and consist of the most interesting parts of yourself.

Charley: How did you first learn about NFTs?

SHL0MS: Early this year some of my twitter mutuals (@jongold, @hyumankind, @jstn) started making some really cool NFTs and got me really excited about the creative potential of the technology. It also was the first time it clicked that I could just make art and put it out there, simply choosing to be an artist instead of letting someone else make that choice.

Charley: What are your thoughts around NFTs?

SHL0MS: I like ‘em!

Charley: What was the process like creating FNTN physically?

SHL0MS: Surprisingly logistically complicated for such a small urinal.

Charley: What was the experience like creating and minting the FNTN NFT?

SHL0MS: There were a lot of moving parts, it was pretty stressful and totally uncharted territory for me delegating work and working with a broader team.

After the fractionalization ritual we had to organize the shards and take the videos of each one on a 360 degree camera rig, color grade and trim each one and then of course mint. We didn’t want to pass ETH gas costs onto the buyers so we spent between $20-30,000 upfront just on gas fees.

Charley: Any recommendations for anyone that also wants to try to do their own conceptual NFT - aka is there infrastructure that should be built based on what you learned?

SHL0MS: The bottleneck for conceptual art is more in the concept than the infrastructure TBH. I would like to see exchanges support more complex auction logic and setups so those don't all have to be white labelled by a solidity expert. I think I make the sort of art that only really makes sense as an NFT, but I’d like to start incorporating auction mechanics into the art for even deeper immersion into the technology.

Charley: How and when did you come up with FNTN?

SHL0MS: It was an amalgamation of a few strains of thought - the two basic concepts being a) to create a version of “Fountain” that engages with modern themes of artistic merit, pseudonymity, gatekeeping, and absurdity, and b) to create analogue analogs of NFT cliches (fractionalization and generative art).

Charley: In addition to the Duchamp inspiration, are there other artists, people, places, (etc) that you find inspiration from?

SHL0MS: All over the place, famous and obscure. I wouldn’t know where to start without feeling like I’m leaving something else out, it’s pretty much nonstop.

Charley: Other favorite creators (whether its NFTs, twitters, etc) that are underrated, sufficiently rated, overrated?

SHL0MS: I keep a list here, it’s mainly intended to create a purely visual twitter feed but it mostly consists of NFT artists making cool visual art I like. There isn’t as much going on in the purely conceptual/Dadaist corner as I’d like to see, but definitely check out: Nahiko (thoughtful approach to ’hacking as art’), Jonathan Tchomko (digitally native performance art), and Loafgren (just the right amount of lo-fi Dadaist absurdity).

Charley: What’s been the most surprising for you around creating FNTNs?

SHL0MS: That people actually enjoyed them, it’s still all very surreal.

Charley: How has the experience been over all?

SHL0MS: Rewarding and exhausting. The art itself is deceptively simple and I’m not particularly prolific but it’s a massive amount of work.

Charley: What’s next?

SHL0MS: I’m going to blow up a Lamborghini.

Charley: What other questions should we all be asking you? :)

SHL0MS: No one ever asks me why I’ve made all this art using blank files as my canvas, which is interesting because that’s what I’m originally known for.

Charley Ma is currently GM of Fintech at Alloy, where he focuses on the go-to-market strategy for the fintech vertical. Prior to Alloy, he was head of growth at Ramp. Previously, he was the first growth hire at Plaid, where he started its fintech sales team and opened the NYC office prior to the announced exit to Visa for $5.3B. Charley is also an active angel investor in fintech + developer infrastructure and enjoys a good tweet.