Dear Bankless Nation,

Can cryptoart be successful in real life events? Given the growing crowds at more and more events and exhibitions, the answer can only be positive. The public, both those already informed and those who are discovering cryptoart, is progressively more and more enraptured by this new form of expression. We were able to see this for ourselves during the IBIZA NXT event, as we listened to the many questions asked by the audience, and the answers given by the speakers of the conference.

The path of cryptoart and NFTs is only in its infancy and the future looks very promising.

Welcome to Decentralized Arts.

Authors: BanklessDAO Writers Guild (Grendel, Kouros, nonsensetwice)

This is the official newsletter of the BanklessDAO. You are subscribed to this newsletter because you were a Premium Member of the Bankless Newsletter as of May 1, 2021. To unsubscribe, edit your settings here.

Artist of the Week

🧑‍🎨 Artist: David Bollt

🏦 Auction Type: Open Edition

💰 Price:  0.029 ETH

BANKLESSDAO ON RARIBLE

David Bollt was the first artist to be featured by Decentralized Arts. After 12 editions, we can draw lines connecting what has happened in the world of cryptoart in recent months and how BanklessDAO has been able to support the growth of the artist in the world of NFTs.

bDAO: You were the first artist to be featured in Decentralized Arts. Can you tell us if and how this has changed your art or perspective?

DB: BanklessDAO has had a huge impact on my understanding of crypto. I’d been investing, listening to podcasts and watching videos, but BanklessDAO is my first immersion into the culture. Before this look behind the curtain I thought crypto was just a hedge. But now (wow) I see it as part of an evolutionary wave that’s going to transform how humanity functions.

As an artist I’ve worked with large and small companies around the world. The way BanklessDAO self-organizes talent and contribution has been inspiring. I’ve never seen any organization collaborate with such efficiency and collective enthusiasm. This is about more than the evolution of money. Crypto is facilitating all new social and business structures.

I don’t see much that gives me hope for the future. I used to think social media was going to help make a better world, but now I just feel betrayed. So it's kind of a big deal that crypto is sparking a glimmer of optimism in my heart. So I’m really grateful for my backstage pass at BanklessDAO and to everyone who’s a part of this.

bDAO: What’s it like being an established artist who’s new to the world of NFTs? Do you have any plans for all your existing art?

DB: When I first started out as an unknown artist I’d set up all my art at shows and tattoo conventions. No one knew who I was, but they liked the art and collected prints. Over time I earned a loyal audience of collectors and fans. Most of my established audience has not yet experienced the world of NFTs yet. So in some ways minting NFTs is like a fresh start. It feels a lot like going to an art show as a new and unknown artist again. It’s kind of liberating to not have any expectations. If there’s an audience for my art in the world of NFTs I trust it’ll find me. So for now I just plan on steadily minting new images along with existing fan favorites. Over the next year or so I’d like to incarnate my entire body of work as NFTs.

bDAO: Besides the Conscious Money NFTs you created for our weekly drop, what projects are you working on?

DB: I’m producing custom poker and tarot decks with some of my favorite tattoo artists and illustrators. We launched our first deck last year on Kickstarter and it was an amazing experience. Even through crazy supply chain problems our growing community of collectors supported the project and got stronger along the way.

I’ve since realized that NFT collectors are just as passionate as the most enthusiastic card deck collectors. So all of our future campaigns will drop NFTs for all the individual cards with variations at various levels of rarity just like the printed card decks. I think it’s going to be fun to create NFTs of all the original card art.

Curated NFT News

Two music projects launching around the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs

Universal forms a metaverse band based on Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)  NFTs. The group is named Kinship and it is formed with BAYC NFTs owned by collector Jimmy “j1mmy” McNelis, who recently sold another of his BAYC NFTs for $3.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction.

The band will release music and perform in the metaverse as well as releasing its own NFT collections. Universal will whitelist BAYC owners to get early access to sales.

Universal Music Group @UMG

NEWSFLASH: UMG’s next-gen label 10:22PM forms 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏, the First-Ever Group Consisting of NFT Characters from Bored Ape Yacht Club.🐒

November 11th 2021

387 Retweets1,352 Likes

One day after this announcement, music producer Timbaland also announced that he has launched a production company for BAYC owners.

The company, called Ape-In Productions, will create music and animation using the user-owned avatars from this popular NFT project.

The first development is the creation of hip-hop group called TheZoo, who is releasing their first single “ApeSh!t” on November 17th.

Ape-in is also planning to use NFTs to enable exclusive or premium access for the holders. Furthermore, production studio BRON Digital will create animated series and visual concepts for Ape-In.

In the following video you can hear a snippet of the first single as well as comments from Timbaland himself about this project.

United Nations shows off NFT art highlighting climate crisis

The international institution showed off the winners of its NFT climate initiative called DigitalArt4 Climate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland.

The initiative was intended to empower individuals to create digital art that will inspire people to take action against the climate crisis, while introducing blockchain technology to them.

The digital artist Bricx Martillo Dumas, from the Philippines, has won the DigitalArt4Climate art competition, with his piece Nexus. The artwork depicts a hand holding a blue-colored drink in a plastic bag with a straw, and a cigarette whose smoke evaporates into tiny leaves.

There were more than 200 submissions from 58 countries and Dumas will be awarded 1500 euros ($1,721) for winning the competition.

IBIZA NXT 2021 - When Cryptoart Opens Up to Local Communities

by Grendel

On Thursday 12 November, the IBIZA NXT 2021 congress took place in the suggestive location of the Atzarò hotel in Ibizia, in which BanklessDAO participated both as media partner and as speaker, with a succession of interviews carried out by Eagle, Kouros, and Grendel.

The congress aimed to broaden the discourse on crypto and cryptoart to the economic, cultural, and social community of the island, and at the same time show the technological reality of Ibiza to the whole world.

Participation went far beyond expectations and led the organizers to broadcast the congress to all those who were left without a ticket.

Among other things, the participation was international. Many of those present were exponents of different crypto and NFT world realities.

The organizer of the event and its protagonist was the Ibiza Token project, which wants to present the island of Ibiza not only as a tourist paradise for lovers of the sea and nightlife, of which it is one of the main world capitals, but also as a pole for both culture and art.

Ibiza Token is Ibiza's first decentralized platform that aims to connect local businesses and artists with a global audience, and the project consists of an NFT Marketplace and the IbizaPay application.

The marketplace is dedicated to collections of local artists and brands together with the collections curated by the creative team of Ibiza Token that in August 2021 presented Podenks, a series of 5000 unique NFTs dedicated to the native Ibizan dog.

The IbizaPay application, in this first version recently released on iOS and Android, will allow the creation or import of a wallet on the Polygon network and the possibility of sending and receiving IBZ, the utility token connected to the project and recognized by the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), the governing body in charge of controlling the Spanish stock markets and the activity of those who are part of them.

In a next phase, the same application, always connected to IBZ, will give the opportunity to buy artists' NFTs on the marketplace and get discounts and promotions in tourist establishments and retail outlets on the island that collaborate with Ibiza Token.

We spoke with Remo Frisina of Ibiza Token to learn more about the project.

bDAO: What is the purpose of the project?

IT: Ibiza is mainly known for elite tourism and its nightlife, but there are excellences at an artistic and entrepreneurial level that are still unknown to most.

The main objective of Ibiza Token is to create a more sustainable and dynamic economic system in which local companies and artists can effectively develop their potential to globally raise awareness of another type of unique lifestyle that makes the island one of the most popular locations internationally. In this sense, Ibiza Token wants to use all the potential of the blockchain to ensure that the economy of creativity and the local business fabric can have unthinkable outlets.

If, until now, Ibiza has made headlines for its memorable summer seasons, from today it will be recognized as one of the first examples of a tourist destination that bets on the blockchain, thanks to the Ibiza Token project.

bDAO: How is the project seen by the local authorities?

IT: The project can count on the collaboration of the Consell de Ibiza, the local government, which recently declared to the press its intention to support the project in an increasingly relevant way. The local government, as one of its representatives stated, believes that Ibiza Token offers a great opportunity to the creatives of the island and to local companies who will be able to get closer and closer to blockchain technology. In the next few days we will explore new synergies with those responsible for innovation and culture to obtain more and more use cases, but our main goal in the coming months will be to focus heavily on education to make this technology more accessible to all.

bDAO: The conference organized in Ibiza was a success. Will you describe your impressions, what feedback you received, and the future of the conference?

IT: Both I and the whole team are extremely happy with the welcome that this first blockchain conference has received. More than 200 people attended and, despite the adverse weather conditions, they showed great interest and participation.

We received a lot of positive feedback both for the excellence of the speakers and for the issues addressed. Crypto Willy deserves a special mention, the moderator we chose, who was able to create a magnificent atmosphere.

For the future we are already thinking about a next edition for 2022 and some monthly mini conferences dedicated to the community and local companies.

bDAO: Could you tell us about the artists who have been exhibited?

IT: The artists who participated in the event and whose NFTs we exhibited, will be the first to launch their collections on our marketplace. All the artists represent an excellence made in Ibiza and are characterized by the great personality and very recognizable style of their works.

Jesús De Miguel has exhibited both nationally and internationally; Rom Ero has attended prestigious locations, such as the Ibiza contemporary art museum; Marcos Torres is highly regarded for his use of pop icons from the world of music and cinema; Pedro María Asensio is a multidisciplinary artist who, in his long career, has experimented with many ways of communicating; and Jordi Gómez and Jordi Cervera are two photographers who have traveled all over the world and transmitted their experiences in their works.

Anamorphosis-9 Unnatural Selection

by G. Contro

Among the huge work that the Byzantine patriarch Photius compiled in the ninth century, on the pages of his Library, to 1665–when the French Journal des Savants joins the Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society—the art of book review had the time to consume a long gestation, and has therefore ventured towards an ephemeral apogee between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, finally slipping towards the deserved twilight in our years. Not that today we no longer comment on the efforts of that overwhelming mass of writers who flood the shelves of bookstores and online stores. On the contrary. The activity itself has become so proliferating and inflationary, so sloppily carried out—in accordance, moreover, with everything that smacks of "culture"—that it is now a specter of itself.

A fact, in truth, which is a consolation to us, because in our hearts we know we can only say about certain books how they should be read.

This is the case of Nostalgia dell'antico e fascino della macchina—Nostalgia for the Old and the Fascination of the Machine—by the art historian Horst Bredekamp (1993), a thin and very dense volume that enters our playing field with virulent and enlightening opportunities.

From the beginning, we have denounced that the purpose of the Anamorphoses is to pursue the "disordered dialogue" between Art and Technology, but what escapes us is the language, the code, the undoubtedly hieratic cryptography. Bederkamp perhaps found his root in that space of the dynamic imaginary that from the 16th to the 18th century was commonly known as wunderkammer, or kunstkammer. Collections of objects with a disordered appearance, with heterogeneous overlapping, but essentially organized according to conceptual principles, sometimes explained in specialized manuals.

Here, in these micro-macrocosms, a progression is expressed that links the aesthetics of the mineral, the genius naturae that we grasp in our pareidolias, to ancient sculpture; from this to human art-techné and, further on, to the animated machine; achain underlying a movement of thought that tears nature away from its millennial static nature, to make it the object-subject of an evolutionary transformation. Scientific thought, up to its Darwinian actualization, takes shape in the gaze of the art appraiser. The history of art is the history of science.

What to say? What can be said about certain books: only that they should be read.

Bankless DAO NFT Updates

Last week’s weekly showcase numbers

Artist Alfred Swahn made a total of 0.74 ETH in sales with the pieces Worthle$$ and Bankless Monroe.

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