Speaker A: Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a very special interview episode. We're joined today by Harvey Rayner, and of course Trinity is here as always. Super excited to talk to Harvey leading into his Verse Solos exhibit, Quasi-Dragon Studies. This is perhaps the most ambitious project we've ever talked about on the show. We're really excited to dig into all the details there. Harvey, how's it going?

Speaker B: Very well, thank you, and thanks for having me on the show. Quite excited to be here.

Speaker A: We're very excited to have you. We've been learning a lot about you in prep for this interview, and Fontana is now very high at the top of my list of things that I want to acquire someday. I love the colors in that project in particular, and I think we'll have a good opportunity to talk about that throughout the interview. Before we jump into Quasi Dragons, your other work, your use of color, Let's start off with the usual intro question, which is to ask, what is your background in art and coding, and how did you first discover the blockchain and NFTs?

Speaker B: Well, you know, art is something I've always done. You know, my first memories were actually just scribbling on paper. And so it's never— there's only— there's one period in my life where I didn't make art for 6 months. But other than that, it's something I've done even pretty seriously as a kid, you know. And certainly when I was like 18 and stuff, this is all I was doing, you know, and I had quite a large body of work. So, it wasn't something I was introduced to, it was just something like, I don't know, it's just in my DNA. So, the type of work I was making, I was using geometry and like over like maybe in my mid-20s, it got so complex, I felt like I had to start using a computer and there was a lot of resistance around that. I really, I didn't like computers at all. My wife had one and She's always encouraging me to get an email address. I'm like, nah, I don't like that stuff. So, but, you know, I used it, I used it kind of in the wrong way initially, but then slowly I started building websites and I kind of like learned to code through that. I started making patterns, which were very popular on my site and people would ask for them in different colors. And then I figured, well, maybe I could just build a little utility so people can change the colors. So I built a site around that and that became like Quite successful, you know, produces a small income. And then like 12 years ago, I started, because I, you know, I was quite a proficient coder by then, I started building visualization tools for exploring certain geometric objects I found interesting. Not with the view of making art, actually, just to understand these structures, these quasi-crystal structures. And that kind of morphed into more into art, but I wasn't thinking, you know, I didn't know the term generative art back then.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then I was doing that for like 10 years, various math projects, art projects. Then one day I was in the— I walk my dog and I was listening to a podcast with Snowfro and he was talking about Art Blocks and, you know, the model they had there. And although I knew about NFTs because I've always, you know, I listened to a lot of technology podcasts and stuff, I just felt like, hmm, this doesn't really feel like a match. But when he was talking, I was like, wow, this is my home. This is where my work belongs. Because I'd never managed to sell anything up until that point. I never really—

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I had tried in my early 20s, but I gave up. I stopped and I built a demo and I submitted. And then several months later I got accepted, which was like, and I stopped everything at that point. For work at that point, I was renovating houses. Although I've, you know, I've always spent 2 or 3 hours every morning making art, whatever, before I start work. So I just dropped everything, you know, my tools are still laying where I left them, you know, on the floor downstairs in the house. You know, fortunately that project sold. That was Photon's Dream and then Fontana and, you know, the rest is kind of history. So I do this obviously full-time now, probably more hours than I should be to be healthy.

Speaker C: I feel like there's a lot that happened in that in-between space of liking art as a kid, you know, discovering, I guess, a love of geometry that is so complex that you can't do it by hand anymore. And not liking computers to then being a web developer. I would love to hear more about that jump. What made you fall in love with the use of geometric shapes within your art versus, I guess, more figurative work perhaps? I don't know if that's the best way to describe it and how that entire practice grew and evolved to where it is now.

Speaker B: So I did go to art school. I used to paint a lot. I stopped painting, I guess, when I went to art school, but I did Paint figuratively, abstractly, I was trying all sorts of things but, you know, I always tried many different kind of like approaches, many different mediums, many different sort of visual languages and for me, once I got to art school, I think I was like, wow, this is just boundless. The thing for me was like, how do I make an original mark even, let alone an original composition? So, sort of this direction I started to take was by limiting myself through geometry. So, the way I was thinking about it was like, okay—

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: In classical music, which I always listened to a lot at the time, it's like we have these formal structures, we have tempo, scale, you know, all these different kind of rudiments and stuff that sort of limit the infinite space of sound into structure so that composers can express themselves. So I thought, well, I'm working on a 2-dimensional surface, maybe geometry is the obvious thing to use to create an equivalent to that. I call it a metering system. That's what I started at art school, and I got so into it. It just didn't seem like the right place to do that. So I actually quit. I quit after, just before my first year had finished, although I liked being there. I had some good friends there, but I had a good relationship with a tutor I'd really admired, and I kept that going. But I just really wanted to kind of hunker down in my basement and just work on this kind of developing this new kind of like idea I had with this developing this new type of visual language, which also felt like I haven't seen this before.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It was like the thing I felt like, okay, this is fairly unique. And that was always of primary importance, that it was unique. So, I developed it over 15 years. And to come to the quasi-dragon studies, you know, I've been working on generative art for the last 10 years or so, but this is the first project where I've kind of like revisited that body of sort of like metered geometric work and applied what I've learned through generative approaches to this very sort of like Formally structured, highly geometrically constrained kind of approach to making work. But I think maybe some of that work I did in that period is still quite unique. I haven't seen anything else quite like it. I used to take it to galleries and they were like, well, hmm, what is this? Is this graphic design? You see what I mean? Which is good, right? Because if you want to make something that's really pushing the boundary of art, then certain people aren't going to even recognize it as art, right? So it was a good response in some respects, but in terms of trying to sell the stuff, it was bad.

Speaker C: And this is even before you've jumped into the computer realm. This is you hunkering down and doing things mostly by hand or maybe with calculators. I don't know.

Speaker B: Yeah, I had a compass and rule and a pencil sketchpad. And it was cheap and I didn't have any money. So when I was developing at work, I could do it without spending a lot of money on paints.

Speaker C: This is still in your realm of, I don't like computers. How do you see geometry then? Do you see it as a part of a mechanical world? Do you see it as part of the natural world through the creation of these interlocking shapes? And I think that that's something that is always very curious to me because it's like math is everything, but also math is kind of its own thing.

Speaker B: Why do I like it? It's interesting. I don't know. I was drawn to it as a kid. I would make things with a ruler and a protractor. I've got a little drawing I made when I was 5, which is just, You know, actually drawing with a straight edge and stuff. So, you know, Plato said like geometry is the purest philosophical language. And I think through working with it, what I would find is I would get, you know, there's certain sort of structures where you kind of, when you work with them, I think that helps to crystallize certain intuitions maybe that are very difficult to put into language. You know, this idea of all in one, one in all. You can use geometry to kind of like find a finite representation of some very sort of abstract ideas. And I think that's why it appeals to me, maybe. There's something quite transcendental about it. You know, we have, you know, this sacred geometry, right? And, you know, there's a reason why people feel like geometry is sacred. The symmetry, it points to something kind of beyond. Even, you know, like Fontana is still using some of the geometry I used to play with back then. I like to have both components, like the transcendental geometric symmetry and also this very sort of like earthy, textural element. So you've got kind of like both worlds in, in one.

Speaker A: I would say there's a lot of overlap between sacred geometry and the use of psychedelics as well. We don't necessarily have to ask what your experiences are there, but there is some, some trippy quality, especially to what I've seen of quasi-dragon studies so far.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I wanted to ask about your use of color and constraint too, because, you know, so you're telling us that you've used geometry as a way to apply a creative constraint to yourself in a way and force yourself to work within system. And in one of your blog posts about the approach to color in Fontana, you mentioned that you spent 15 years working in monochrome, avoiding color and focusing on form and composition. I wanted to ask you about your process now that you are releasing projects with color. Does all of your work start in monochrome, like just focused on just these foundations of composition, or do you work hand in hand now? Like, have you embraced color more? Because the whole process of creating generative color, it's It seems like a big challenge. I don't think a lot of artists do it. They tend to just have like these preset palettes and you see it in the features, right? But I imagine with a project like Fontana, it's hard to put palette as a feature if it's just kind of pulling from the same spectrum like you designed.

Speaker B: It's, yeah, it's pretty much impossible. I mean, you can say this, you know, within the color algorithm, there may be certain ranges you, and if a certain primary value falls within that range, you could say that's a kind of a palette maybe. But, you know, I don't start projects in monochrome. I think it's just because I've worked that way for so long. I think I've gotten quite good at just like looking at the tonal structure and seeing that sort of primary tonal structure, even though if there's color there or not. I find it fascinating that people often, you know, like babies, right? I've just had a grandson and all the baby toys are very colorful. But actually, if you look to see what babies are really drawn to, it's contrast. It's between dark and light often.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I think as humans, you know, like you can reduce a composition to black and white, but you can't go the other way. You can't take a black and white and, you know, it would just be arbitrarily adding color. So there's something very fundamental about what I call tonal contrast. My approach to the color algorithm actually started with looking at the color spectrum. And like when I used to work in black and white, the problem with introducing color is color is tonally kind of inconsistent. So, you know, for instance, if you make yellow monochrome, it's going to be quite light. If you make purple indigo monochrome, it's quite dark. So I came up with this system of kind of like this spectrum, basically, of tonally balanced colors. So if you make them monochrome, they're all sort of one mid-even gray. And there's actually a very simple way to do that. And then that forms the basis of the color algorithm. And interestingly, like, a lot of the things that then grow out of that sort of color space just naturally quite harmonious. Now, with Quasi-Dragon Studies, I actually do use that approach as well, but I kind of tweak it a little bit more. I sort of move it in and out of that space, so it's not— the color space is not so rigidly kind of constrained.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, maybe that's a good opportunity to talk a little bit about Quasi-Dragon Studies, because I think there's so much to dig into with this project. Let's start with just a high-level overview. What is Quasi-Dragon Studies? And then what does it mean to work on a project for 15 years, which is, uh, I believe— is that, is that the number, or is it even more than that?

Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, that's the— it's the fact that I've worked on this particular body of work for so long, developing this sort of like geometric media model. So if I hadn't done that for so long, Quasi-Dragon Studies wouldn't be the way it is at all. So It wasn't that I've actually worked on this project solidly for 15 years. I've worked for a long period of time on this sort of visual language. I then spent time sort of developing my generative kind of art practice. And then now with this project, brought the 2 things together.

Speaker A: So it's the culmination. It's the culmination of all this previous work that's now enabling you to create this project.

Speaker B: Right, exactly. So that's why I've said, okay, this project has taken a long time to derive. One of the main ideas of Quasi-Dragon Studies is that the kind of like the core visual language of Quasi-Dragon Studies, the central sort of motif, has this kind of quality that it lends itself to kind of like being joined together like puzzle pieces. It just geometrically kind of intermeshes with itself. So right from the start, I thought this project has to be like a puzzle in some way. These pieces have to connect. It was the obvious thing to do with it. So That was the starting point. And then we basically have these, we call them tiles, single outputs, and there's 6 different aspect ratios of tiles. And these tiles have joining properties on all 4 sides. And those joining properties are formed where the dragon bodies, these parts of the geometry that look like, kind of look like dragons, where they intersect with the edge. So that forms joining edges. So these tiles can be brought together where the joining edges match. And then once you have a collection of these together, you can form these things called composites, which we can mint as these composite pieces. So we can make new art from these tiles. The tiles themselves are gonna be $100, so it's like a low entry point. The project only works if there's, you know, a good number of tiles in the system so collectors can have a lot of creative freedom with the tiles. And then we have this thing called a composite builder, which is this like playground where people can interact with the tiles and it tries to make the whole process of building composites It's very intuitive, so it only shows you the tiles that'll join with the ones you have. And we also have these things called blanks, kind of like a blank tile, and that enables you to kind of, even if you just have one tile, to kind of like place this with different blanks and explore that tile, 'cause there's actually a lot of information that's kind of like cropped off at the edges of the tile. So you can kind of like explore the composition of a single tile, or you can use blank tiles to join 2 tiles that don't normally join together in a strict way. So the basic idea is there's 2 different ways to approach the project as a collector. A, you can just try to make the best art you can, just be guided by your own aesthetic sensibility, make something that you really find beautiful. Or you can actually go down the road of following these very strict joining rules and making these composites called Black Dragons. So there's 108 of these Black Dragons and there's 108 different configurations. how the tiles can join together. You can only join them in a very strict way. So every single edge has to be what's called an open edge, a true join. So because they're difficult to make, you have to get the certain tiles, it's gonna require some sort of like probably cooperation on behalf of the collectors, or at least somebody who's, you know, just does a lot of kind of digging around on secondary to find the right pieces. One of each of these 108 configurations can be turned into a Black Dragon, but only once. And once those 108 are made, the collection closes. So until that point, anybody can still continue to mint the tiles, and we have no idea how quickly this will happen. I wanted to design a project where there was a lot of unknowns, where it was very difficult to predict how things would unfold, so that it's a genuine experiment for the space. So even, you know, I kind of feel like whatever happens, we'll learn something, even if it kind of just like turns out that Collectors say, oh, this is just too complicated. You know, we'll learn something from that and I can build a better project next time. So it feels like a risk in some respects, but I'm fortunate I'm able to take that kind of risk right now because I've had success with other projects. You know, I can, I feel like for a few years I can just do some really wacky stuff and I don't need them to be necessarily successful financially, you know. So yeah, unfortunately I can innovate in this way, but it's just something I really want to do. You know, every project I do now, I can't just do another drop. I just need to innovate on some level.

Speaker C: Both Will and I have pretty strong backgrounds in the game design world and like creating things that people get excited about and people are social about and communicate about. And we already have so much of that, I think, within like the overall generative art space that this just seems kind of like a crazy cool event that brings those people together even more and more strongly. So I'm also really excited to see how this plays out from a conversation angle, looking to see how things might blow up in your Discord as people start to talk about their composites and trading pieces back and forth. It's very exciting. It's very exciting. I had a question around creating these 108 dragons, these black dragons. It sounds like the specific compositions have already been determined, right? From what the joiners need to be. Or they will be determined by the time this project comes out.

Speaker B: So the configurations, which are just like the arrangement of the different aspect ratio tiles, has been determined. The number 108 just comes out of 2 conditions, basically. It's just all the possible configurations of the different aspect ratio tiles within a 12 by 12 join unit grid. And also all the tiles have to actually be in contact with the perimeter, so With those 2 conditions, you end up naturally at 108. And when I was just crunching the numbers and 108 came out, I thought, wow, we have to use this because 108 is this kind of like special number in many Eastern sort of philosophical systems. And it just seemed to tie beautifully into the, you know, the whole kind of like Eastern references with the dragons and the aesthetic. But in terms of what tiles will fill those spaces, it's not Determine, because the tiles are all just generated on a hash, like a regular long-form project. There's an infinite number of different combinations that will fill those tiles, but it's going to need a good few thousand tiles in existence to complete this 108. But the final number will really determine on how cooperative people are going to be. If people start holding certain tiles which are really useful, then we're either going to— it's not going to get completed or— Collectors will have to keep minting. It's hard to know.

Speaker A: So when I first heard about this project, that's where like the gamer mint maximizer in me immediately went, which is like someone who has a, you know, a god tile that is open on all sides and just very matchable, potentially like hostage-ing that tile at a really high price or refusing to trade it. And so I think from that, a question I have for you is, To what level do you regard this a performance art piece versus just a long-form generative piece? Because you could have done this in a way, maybe it would not have been as personally satisfying to you or as experimental, but you could have just said, uh, it could have made it a variable within the outputs. Like you get a 1x1 piece 25% of the time, you get a 1x2 piece 10% of the time, you get a 2x2 piece in size.

Speaker B: Mm-hmm.

Speaker A: And you could have just made this a feature of rarity, right? And have these massive ones be very rare and then done 999 editions, right? Just whatever comes out comes out. But instead, we're doing this low price point, let people collaborate, cooperate, or antagonize each other, right? And so do you regard the performance as part of the piece here? Like, how are you thinking about it?

Speaker B: I do. Yeah. I mean, a new term just came into my mind as you were speaking, like maybe it's a community performance piece. I see the project as like an extension of pairing, or we could say a blurring between the boundary between artist and collector. Pairings, obviously, in our space is— I mean, curation is important in art in general, but collectors seem to spend a lot of time really spending time pairing pieces together, changing the background color, and they enjoy that process. So this is a way of kind of meeting in the middle where they can really spend a long time with the composite builder and choose tiles that really complement each other and make artwork themselves, essentially, from these component pieces, kind of like Legos. This is an interesting part of the project, which took a long time to work out, because something I learned years ago was, like, I built lots of pattern editing tools way back, and I built one which is very successful, where you could just change the color and the size of the— change the color of the different elements in the pattern and the size and add a texture. And it seemed like whatever you did on that utility, You got a good result, and that project was very successful. Now, I built a much more complicated one down the road, which I thought everybody would love more because it offered more creative power. But then with that creative power becomes the possibility of making bad results. So it never took off in the same way. So this project's the same. You've got to give people a sense of what they are creating.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You've got to give them enough creative freedom, but also this sort of like thing that seems to work more or less every time and produces at least something that's a certain quality level. Now, if you really hunt, you can find the real magic, you know, so that's getting that balance has been difficult, but I think we're there. I hope. I can't remember what the question was.

Speaker A: The performance art of it all.

Speaker B: Oh, the performance art. The community co-creation thing, I think, is a huge part of what makes Web3 this revolution in art. To begin with, I thought it was just the fact that we had a new medium, right? Generative art. And it's very exciting. Because new mediums don't come along very often, once every 50 years, if that. Maybe I think this is the biggest kind of leap in terms of a new medium for maybe hundreds of years. I don't know. But there's also this thing of, I can't see a parallel to the type of community interaction that we get in the gallery art world. I mean, there are tight communities, kind of, but they tend to be quite small and impenetrable. So I'm kind of coming up with this feeling of like this term decentralized art, where the artist becomes more and more embedded in the community where they go to the community more and more to get kind of ideas. And it's like a feedback loop. They share more of their life, they share their work in progress. And this is kind of like now, having worked 25 years in solitude, in obscurity, this is like, oh wow, this seems to work much better. And I want to embrace it as much as I can. So I set up a Discord thinking, well, nobody's going to join. When I first set up, there was some really great kind of conversation in there about the supply dynamics and some great ideas, you know. It was really valuable in developing the project. So, you know, many minds are more powerful than one. At what point do I just become a pawn for the community? I don't know. It's going to be an interesting kind of journey.

Speaker C: Yeah, it definitely represents a huge shift from, I think, how a lot of artists have been operating, I guess, for hundreds of years at this point, right? And, you know, we've talked to a lot of artists about how they kind of feel about this swap from like a gallery model to something that's much more Self-driven and like working with your own strengths and your own promotion. It sounds like you're embracing it more than anything. I know that this is kind of stepping aside from Quasi-Dragon Studies. Let's go back to it in a moment, but it feels like you're finding a real strength in kind of being, I guess, the master of your, your own fortune in some respects, rather than being reliant on others.

Speaker B: Yeah, actually, you know, I've always been very self-reliant. In the way I've lived, you know, I've always fixed my own car. You know, I've practically built my own house. To some degree, I'm now learning to do things with other people, delegate, you know, with Verse. You know, there's a lot. They've got 7 techies working integrating what I built into their system, which means some things have to be changed. And learning to trust people to do that is like quite a personal growth moment for me. Well, it's difficult. Let's be honest, right? It's difficult sometimes to let go of that control. It's definitely something that I feel is part of my overall growth journey. Learning to work with people, inspire people to do their best work, and trust people to be creative, or provide things that enable people to be creative, is maybe like my end goal here. I've always been able to just create a lot, you know, without having this sort of like hunt for inspiration. I've just— it's just like a faucet for me. So Maybe now I'm like 48, you know, it's time to actually start trying to build projects and work on projects where I can try to bring that more out and include other people in that process. So it's a weird balance. Some respects it means being super self-reliant and being determined to do something new. And in other respects, it's like finding people to work with. So yeah, so next year I am pretty determined to go totally solo, but that means building a team of people around me. To do something that's even more ambitious.

Speaker C: That's the hardest thing to do. That trust is definitely a big thing. And taking this back to Quasi-Dragon Studies, then you are creating the art, but you are also ultimately reliant on the community, not just the algorithm, to kind of determine what actually is minted and is out there in the universe.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: You know, it's the community, it's their interpretation of rarity, it's their interpretation of what looks good. And it's huge.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a little scary.

Speaker C: How does that come into mind with the release? Yeah, it's really scary, but it's also, maybe it's freeing in some respects because it's up to the people.

Speaker B: Just taking the step from, you know, just hand curating everything as a generative artist, which is what most generative artists have done for the last 10 years, to taking that step to trust in the mint process and designing an algorithm, a long-form algorithm where you give up that kind of fine control and you kind of get used to the idea, okay, it's the series as a whole that really is the artwork, right? So this is the next step, right? To trust and see what the community comes up with. Although obviously it's not totally out of my hands because I designed the visual language and the the building blocks. But still, like, I do feel like there's a certain skill level in using the Composite Builder. I think some people will be better at it than others and may find the real gems, the real magic, the pieces that really work well together. So it's a bit scary, but also it's exciting, you know. It seems like to make anything interesting in life, you know, anything that's new, you can't be risk-averse. You've got to have some sort of courage to, like, jump into Well, it's a bit of a cliché, but jump into the unknown, right?

Speaker A: For sure. So how did the project itself evolve? I mean, you've been pretty public about it on Twitter, making changes to like the compatibility of pieces, adding the blank, you know, you've been very open about the process of that. But going back to the beginning, start to end, what were some of the big key evolutions in the project? And like also if Verse had not come along and been open to building this whole composite builder, like module and stuff? And like, was your original vision going to be you were going to write your own contract and do it yourself? Like, how were you even going to get this thing out there?

Speaker B: I just didn't know. I mean, I was just waiting for the, you know, I was in no hurry to drop it, but it did have to be the right team who were willing to give me some development if I was going to do it with some— with a team, you know. Yeah, I probably would have eventually done it myself if I didn't have this conversation with Jamie NFT NYC, and I think it was April, whenever it was. But it just seemed like, well, okay, he had all the components, right, that I needed, and he got the vision of the project. So like, you totally got it from the word go. We met to talk about a different project. It might have been Cove Hive. I don't know, the one I've got at Hampton Art Fair at the moment. But I think we met for that, and then I showed him Kwasi Dragons. He'd never seen it. He was like, oh wow, can we do this one? And I'm like, I don't know.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: We'll see. So it's been a perfect marriage in that sense, you know, but eventually I would have just done it myself if I couldn't find somebody else to do it with. Before it got as complicated in my mind as it did, you know, I was thinking maybe I could do an Art Blocks, but then they're fairly constrained in what they can do on Art Blocks, right? So it would never have worked, you know, the way it grew into this. Yeah.

Speaker C: Well, NFT NYC was only 3 months ago. So this has been a huge amount of effort potentially in just a very short amount of time to get this out.

Speaker B: Oh my word. I've never worked so hard in my life. I mean, it's been like, I have worked hard in periods of my life. Like I've always been somebody who just goes full in on something. But yeah, I mean, it's been insane. We should have scheduled it for the winter. Should have been a 6-month project at least. But then there's also something to be said for having like a deadline. It's not going to drop unless it's compromised. It has to be 100%.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: We're getting there now. It's almost completely kind of integrated and it will be right. But like, there's something to be said also in like, I know I have a tendency to fuss because I can work on the same project for years, you know, but like I can tend to fuss and try to get things perfect. And sometimes it's good just to get the first concept out, test it, and then maybe build on that. It's a double-edged sword, the deadline, you know, it creates some stress, but sometimes it stops you from wasting time just overworking projects, you know, sort of fussing too much.

Speaker C: There's something about websites and products and most things that are made with code, they can be updated incrementally after you make them and release them. Art doesn't necessarily have as much luxury. It's kind of, you put it out there and Let out like a big sigh of relief because they're— it is done. In the last 3 months, how has the project changed or shifted, either compromising or finding ways to make it even better as you've had to work to get it fully integrated into the Verse ecosystem?

Speaker B: Yeah, the introduction, as Will mentioned, of the blanks was huge actually. It was, I think it might've been like a bug initially. I think I rendered a composite with a tile missing, just kind of like thinking, oh, I wonder what happened. And it was like, oh wow, this is nice. It kind of reveals these fan structures. I call them fans because they look like fans, but they would normally be cropped off. So it was kind of like a happy accident, which is just what happens when you make art, you know, whatever medium you're in. Sometimes you just get things that just go not according to plan, let's say, but they turn out wonderful. So I think that might have been something like that, but that was the biggest change in terms of the composite builder. The actual algorithm itself, the core algorithm was, I built that last year. I built the, you know, the geometry and everything years before, but actually, I think I built it in chunks. So I started working on it after Photon's Dream for like a couple of weeks, and then I started Fontana. So I put it down, and then after Fontana, I spent another like 2 months working on it, and then I picked it up again and done another couple of months. By April, it was actually— the algorithm, the art piece was pretty much finished. Everything since then has been Building the composite builder and just working out the whole dynamic, you know, working out the rules. Spent a lot of time just trying to articulate this project and put it into words and forming like a docs for the project, like a white paper. It takes time. And the only way to do that successfully is to talk about it a lot, I find. So that's where the community has also been indispensable. I keep, I'll just blurt stuff out. Okay, this is how it is now. People come back with questions or they come back often. And they reform what I've said and with using better language. And then I'll just steal, I just take what they said. And if it's a good, a good word, you know, I think somebody else started using the word tile. I was using basements and I thought, okay, that describes what we've got here better. So the community is like this indispensable tool. Well, that sounds terrible. Like I'm useful.

Speaker C: They're indispensable contributors into kind of the idea space.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: I mean, it really speaks to the value and benefit of community, right? Even though there is a lot of strength in working by yourself and enacting your own exacting opinion, I suppose.

Speaker B: Yeah. There was this series in England called Lost. I don't know if it was in America.

Speaker C: The one with the plane that crashed?

Speaker B: Yeah. But it seems like the narrative was just, they had a rough idea where they were gonna start and then they just let the kind of community that built around the series just determine where it went. And I love that idea. This project is kind of— some of the core features of it formed in that way, you know.

Speaker A: You're talking to some big Lost fans.

Speaker B: Oh, really? Good.

Speaker A: Here, for sure. Oh yeah, we loved it when it was on air here. You know, Haiver, you mentioned that it'll probably take a minimum of a couple thousand tiles minted to be able to even have enough pieces in existence to complete the 108 composite dragons. So you've clearly thought a lot about how this is going to play out, at least hypothetically. We've talked about some of the ideal scenarios, you know, people working together, creating these great things like swapping, cooperation. But what are some of your nightmare scenarios for this project? Like, as you're approaching the release of it, I mean, have you thought about at all, like, what might happen if people mint tens of thousands of these things and they're not able to put them together? Or what if only 1,000 come out and somehow— I mean, do you know, is there a mathematical number like that has to be hit? Like, I don't know, it's kind of an open-ended question, but like, what are some of your nightmare scenarios?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What is your dream scenario for this project and how it's going to play out? And like, what is your worst-case scenario?

Speaker B: So the scenario where there's tens of thousands minted, I didn't want to do something where people just ended up with tiles they couldn't use. So that's not a scenario. You will always be able to use what you have to make composites. You know, once the supply stops, you still can continue to use them, and there's no time limit on using them, so you can hold them. And so people might still potentially be putting these things together to make composites in a year's time. I don't know. I like the idea that you could have a project which is more of a slow burn where you'd have cycles of interest. I like that model a lot. So the worst case scenario is not one which includes selling too many. Let's say there's 10,000 tiles sold. The final number of composites in the series will be much smaller than that because obviously if the average composite size uses 3 tiles, it's going to be like 3,300. NFTs finally in the series because the tiles are burned to create the composites. As a side note, if you have a tile which you're really fond of and you don't want to change it, that's fine. You can just convert that to the composite collection just as it is, either with or without a blank. I didn't want to, you know, force anybody to do something to a piece of artwork which they already really like. So we won't know what the final series size is until all the composites are made, which is another kind of interesting thing. The worst case would be, I don't know, if it just didn't sell a single tile, I guess. I mean, like if we didn't get to kind of like find out, get some results, you know, it needs, you know, I would say maybe 1,000 to really do anything. So anything below 1,000, I guess, would be slightly disappointing. But then you would learn something from that, right? You would learn, okay, this totally got this wrong. This is too complex. Let's try something simpler.

Speaker A: I had totally missed that you'd be able to continue to make composites after the 108 are made. I kind of assumed that like people would mint these tiles and then, okay, I got these 4, they're going to go together. I'm going to go make a 2x2 piece. And then that like now is locked out. So what's the distinction going to be between those like 108 that solidify to end the minting process versus, is it going to be that color change, like that switch to purple?

Speaker B: So the Black Dragons are just a mechanism to shut the supply off, but they don't stop the minting so people can continue to convert. Tiles, they just can't buy any more new tiles, basically. So, right, it's just a supply mechanism. The Black Dragons, there's only ever going to be that 108 of them because you can only mint each Black Dragon configuration once. You can use that configuration again afterwards for a composite. You just— there just won't be a Black Dragon. And to show that it's a Black Dragon visually, yeah, they get converted into this dark color space, which is kind of— has these purples and It draws some of the colors from the original tiles. I mean, somebody might be quite attached to the colors of their tiles, but it's unlikely they're gonna be playing that Black Dragon game if they're that worried. If they're more led by their artistic kind of impulses, they're probably not gonna worry about making a Black Dragon, 'cause it's unlikely you're gonna make a Black Dragon by accident, 'cause it's just too tricky to make one, you know, it's statistically very unlikely. The Black Dragon color space can produce some really beautiful Outputs. So it's not like they're inferior anyway, but they're very distinctive in the set.

Speaker A: Yeah, I just totally missed that. I had kind of imagined this scenario where there might be like a lot of orphaned tiles at the end. You don't have to participate in the rush or the thrill of making a Black Dragon. Like you can sit back, mint a few base tiles on Verse or pick some up on the secondary and you can kind of take your time to actually build something thoughtfully without feeling like you're under the gun.

Speaker B: This is a good example of how the community helps, right? Just the fact that that piece you didn't realize shows that it hasn't been communicated well enough because you've looked at quite a lot of this stuff. So yeah, so that's something that we've got to— I've just made a note of that. So yeah, we've got to communicate that better.

Speaker C: One other question that comes to mind as we talk about, I think specifically the Black Dragons, because there will be this transformation into like this kind of final look and feel for each of them.

Speaker B: Mm-hmm.

Speaker C: For those, it almost seems that there's less value placed on the aesthetic rarity or the aesthetic value and more about the geometric value when it comes to being able to create these perfect joins. Is that something that came up while you were creating the actual algorithm? Because not only do you have to make sure everything looks good, which is, I think, one of the bigger issues that artists come across with long-form generative art, But also that you're having enough of these combinations that enable the dragons to be put together, maybe not too easily, but semi-easily.

Speaker B: Basically the way it works, every side of every tile you have in a Black Dragon has to be a joining side. And it just takes a lot of time to find the right pieces that fit exactly. And you can't have any spaces. You can't use any blanks in the Black Dragon. So, and the blanks are kind of nice because they provide this kind of like island of rest. In contrast to the complexity. So I did want there to be a slight aesthetic trade-off because, you know, the question posed by the project is like, what do we care most about? Do we just want to make the most beautiful art? Is that the thing that we finally value the most? Because it might be that it's not a black dragon that ends up being the most valuable piece, you know, like which trades for the highest. It might be that it might be some— a composition that somebody makes, whether it uses a lot of blanks, we don't know. So If you wanna play the game of rarity so that we're kind of like trusting rarity only as a metric to value the art, then there is a slight trade-off cuz they're gonna be very intense cuz there's gonna be no letter, there isn't gonna be no spaces in there. That's not to say there aren't some really nice black dragons. There are like the ones I've made, some of them have been really cool, but there has to be some costs, right? Otherwise it's not a good, otherwise it's not a, like a true experiment. And the other cost, of course, is that you lose colors and you end up with this black color space. So this is the balance. I still want it to be cool. I still want that black color space to be cool, but it's a slight, slight trade-off.

Speaker A: I think we've done a pretty good dive into Quasit Dragon Sites here. I've got one more question on it before we move on to maybe some other topics and wrap the episode. You know, Verse often does things with like physicals and prints and things like that. So will there be a physical component ever to this project at all, or will there be any like benefit to holding a Black Dragon? Will there be like something bestowed upon people who make them? Like, is there any— what are the longer-term plans for the project after the mint and release?

Speaker B: Right. Well, obviously there is a physical show, for instance. Uh, what we'll do with those prints yet we're not quite sure. They're going to be huge, so it's going to— sometimes it's difficult to ship these things at a reasonable cost. This is not the end. I see this as a multi-year project. There's a natural 3-dimensional extension of this geometry which I've already explored like 5 years ago. I spent half a year working on that. So next year, you know, I want to make a generative sculpture project, and that may well be this 3-dimensional extension of Quasi Dragons, which looks like way different, but it's still the fundamental kind of like it has this quality where it joins and so forth. So the holders, you know, if they get certain access to this project, I don't want to, I don't want to commit to anything just yet, but I would love this to become like this Because it's such an important project to me, like this kind of like token that gives people this kind of special access to things I do in the future. But I don't want to actually like make a firm commitment because I'd like that to be more general. I mean, it's impossible to know exactly how this project I want to do next year is going to unfold. So, you know, it's something I did with Vellum, the Fontana holders and Photon Stream holders, they got 10% off and so forth. So it might be something simpler like that, but It just seems like this could be this kind of core project I have where, okay, if you want to get access to such and such, or, or, you know, there may be prints going to— I, I don't want to say quite yet— to certain Black Dragon holders or whatever. There'll be surprises in this project for sure. I see it as a long-term thing for sure.

Speaker A: Exciting without promise, but still exciting.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a lot of kind of like roadmaps and promises in the space, and sometimes they don't I realize you've got to be careful what you promise, you know.

Speaker A: Oh, definitely.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So perhaps before we, you know, as we start to wrap up, there's maybe a few questions we have not related to quasi-dragon studies. One of them that I'm curious about, you know, our show has historically been very Tezos-focused and fxhash-focused. I don't think that you've released anything on Tezos. So I'm curious to ask, how do you think about things like blockchain that you're gonna release on platform and pricing. It was, it was very interesting to see your tweet in regards to QDS about wanting to make it accessible and low price point and not tying things like quality of work to price of work and quantity of work, right? So it seems like you're very mindful of this, but I'm curious, like, how does that extend to like ETH versus Tezos or Art Blocks versus Verse versus fx hash? Like, would you ever consider putting something on Tezos? Are you an ETH maxi? Like, how do you think about the entire ecosystem?

Speaker B: Right. I'm certainly not an ETH maxi. I'm guided by my collectors usually, but it's kind of unfortunate, you know, most of my collectors, of course, are ETH collectors. So I may well do a Tezos project one day. I mean, it would seem like it would be a great way to kind of like get exposed to a whole new collector base. The fxhash community seems like a great community. So no, I'm certainly not ruling anything out. I just see myself fundamentally as just an artist who uses, like, explores stuff in Web3, whatever technology enables us to do that. It's what it enables us to do is kind of the interesting part of it. But it's like, I'm not that interested in crypto, generally speaking, you know, in the same way I'm not really interested that much in dollars. I'm not really that interested in economics. But I mean, I also am interested in technology. I do like Ethereum a lot. I'd like the fact that so much technology has been built on it. And I think that gives some of the collectors I have who do collect Ethereums a lot of confidence, but I'm sure that's a typical argument for it. I'm open to a lot of different approaches, you know. I was thinking about doing a Tezos project this year, but it just didn't pan out. Because of course, those collectors don't have to, if they have a problem with Tezos or whatever, if they're not confident, they don't have to. Nobody's forced to buy anything, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I'm not opposed to it at all. No.

Speaker A: All right. We'll keep it open-ended from there. I like that.

Speaker C: So I have a lot of big questions. Maybe the one that we can do as we segue off of quasi-dragon studies as well, and this is not meant to be antagonistic at all, but it is a curious question, which is in the past, like looking through some of your old interviews and maybe these things are no longer relevant because we as people are in a constant state of change. We are not set in stone. You've been skeptical of contemporary art because it can be seen as overly conceptual and less innovative. A, what do you find irritating about that or irksome about that perhaps? It would be great to kind of understand your thought process around that a little bit more. And part B of that question is, how do you avoid falling into some of that concept over innovation? And do you feel that Quasi-Dragon studies, is it conceptual and/or is it innovative?

Speaker B: Okay. That's a great question. Right. So I don't have a problem with conceptual art in general. I personally feel like I've explained this in, I wrote an essay, I think it was something like, why is generative art here to stay? I started off by looking at the kind of like, I call it the space of conceivable art, right? I think we had this huge explosion at the beginning of the last century where we went from 1907, we had Picasso painting the first Cubist painting, and then in 1917, we had Duchamp putting the urinal on the wall. So in that 10 years, we had this rapid expansion. It's like the Big Bang of what art could conceivably be. And then slowly it continued to expand, but not at the same rate. And then I would say prior to the last year, prior to Web3, maybe. It's been fairly slow and it's been a little bit tired since like the 1950s. It's been quite slow, you know, so the art world always has to continue to, you know, if you're going to have a Sotheby's and Christie's auction house kind of model, you're going to have to always have something that grabs attention, grabs shocks, and has a reason for why this art, any art is worth X million dollars, right? And it seems like the conceptual side of art which is just one part of art, has just become dominant. And I see it as large as a substitute for a lack of innovation. And that's nothing to do with the arts, right? It's just because the time hasn't been here. The right conditions haven't arisen for the new things to come about. So, and you couldn't have made generative art the way we're making it, for instance, you know, 20 years ago, because the technology wasn't there. The Web3 wasn't there. So we're just fortunate as artists to be at this really sort of interesting point where we've got all these new ways of making and selling and interacting with art, where of course we have this kind of like a new expansion in the space of conceivable art. So it's not like conceptual art's bad. I think all art should, like, maybe be beautiful firstly for me, visual. Conceptual, sure, it needs to tell an interesting story and be relevant to its age, right? That's a part of it. It should be something that hasn't hopefully been made before, something that both looks and seems and evokes something new. So to be honest, I used to really dislike, say, Damien Hirst, Koons, and these artists, but now I actually kind of respect how they— they're artists who really understand the art world and their audience.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: The real creative forces in the sense they employ a lot of people who do interesting things, and they do tend to make things that haven't been made before because they understand the market so well. To me, they're more like impressive CEOs than maybe great visual artists, but I don't think they really call themselves visual artists. They are conceptual artists. So it's not that they're dumb, they're not at all, very savvy.

Speaker C: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: So yeah, that's my take on conceptual art. And I think every time we get a new innovation in medium, we get a return to visual Like, the conceptual stuff doesn't need to be there. There's so much new visual language being made that that's enough to satisfy us and keep our interests. So it's not so important that we have these big overarching conceptual narratives. But I mean, Quasi-Dragon does in a way. I like to think that it's just something that actually is fairly concrete and it's not just some out-there idea that doesn't connect to the work at all, you know.

Speaker C: I think there's space for it to be both.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because there is this huge, as Will was saying earlier, like the huge performance part of it in a way where you are so reliant on the external community. It's not just something that is up to you. And that in and of itself is like, you're innovating brand new ways for people to think about and interact with art on the blockchain or just even art at all. So, I mean, that is super rad. And also, as you've also said, a huge risk. from your endeavors as somebody who's very much self-sustaining. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Will can or cannot edit this out depending.

Speaker A: I'll figure it out.

Speaker B: Incidentally, actually, I do have another project which I'm planning for next year, which I'm gonna have to build a team for. There's 2 projects I wanna execute. One of them you could say is quite conceptual, or it's more a piece of research. I don't wanna reveal anything about it, but it's certainly not like the visual element of it is quite small. It's more of a kind of like a piece of research to try and help us find what we value as humans. So I'll leave it at that. But it's something, an idea I've been working on for many— well, like thinking about for many, many years. I can't believe nobody's done it already. It just seems obvious to me, but there may be a good reason why nobody's done it. I don't know until you try.

Speaker A: You can tell us off the record when we're done.

Speaker B: I'll tell you off the record.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we just didn't want to reveal on I have one follow-up to that before we move into some rapid fires, I think, to close out the episode. You know, you mentioned early in the episode and in giving us your history that you used to try to go to galleries and show people your work. And, you know, now here you are, you have had a lot of success in the last 2 years in the NFT space. Do you endeavor to get back into the traditional or legacy art world in a way and kind of like take the momentum you have here and try to push into those spaces again, or are you content to just be a part of this Web3 community?

Speaker B: I definitely have a, like, a 2-pronged approach to this. I have a project at the Hansons Art Fair at the moment, Cove Hive, which is a print-first, physical-first series. The NFT component is very much in the background because, yeah, I'm trying to expand my collector base into the gallery art world. I do think the artists we're going to be talking about in 10 years' time will— I mean, it's kind of almost become a cliché, but they'll have bridged that gap. And I personally feel the way to do that, my strategy anyway, is to make art that just makes sense to that audience without trying to convince them of anything to do with Web3. Sure, they're going to have an NFT, which is like a, you know, it's a chip which comes with the print. Then maybe through that, they'll get interested in the other stuff I'm doing on the other side of the fence. But I hope the work just stands up as art in that world. People find it engaging on a visual level, even if they don't even know how it's made, right? I know, like, Steven, the guy from Virtue Gallery who's representing me in that world, he sent me a message yesterday and said there's been people come past the work. The common comment is like, oh wow, wow, that must took ages to paint.

Speaker C: Awesome.

Speaker B: You just want to make art that people like for different reasons, right? So first and foremost, they just see my— and yeah, I'm not wed to Web3 at all. That's how I've actually started to make some money from this game and had some real success. But I do definitely want to make inroads into that world. And I think it's the artists who will bridge the gap. It's not necessarily some platform or something. It'll be artists who just make art that works. Maybe you can make one project, right? This has an expression in both worlds.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: This is the idea with the sculpture. I just think that sculpture really works well in gallery spaces. And maybe this has a long-form Web3 component, but sculpture component maybe goes on tour, you know, to many different galleries. That would be kind of my vision for that project I want to do next year.

Speaker A: Right on. What do you think, Trinity? Should we do some rapid fires?

Speaker C: Yeah, I have one big rapid fire that is, you know, maybe not of interest to anybody who listens to this podcast, is interest to me and perhaps interest to Will. And that is, you say that you are an avid climber. What type of climbing do you do? Where do you go? And can I take a guess of your preferred style of climbing?

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: Trad. Are you a trad climber?

Speaker B: I should be coming from England. I've done a little trad. I haven't done much trad. No. Okay.

Speaker C: Oh damn, that was my guess.

Speaker B: I was talking to Will before this just because I always manage to seem to like live in places where there's no rock within like 3 or 4 miles. So When I was younger, I used to travel quite a bit to the Peak District in England, Gritstone, where there's a lot of trad, and that's the only trad climbing I've done since I've been in America. Have I done any trad in America? I don't think so. I did, so I've done a little solo, which is stupid. But no, I've always been a bit of a gym monkey just because of my location. I like lead, I like bouldering, I just love climbing. I love the movement, absolutely love it, you know. I'm thinking about after this, after September, which this is another project, but like I'm gonna build a climbing wall here. I've got a grandson now, so I want to get him into it. So I've planned it, I've got the materials. I'm going to take a couple weeks off and build a really nice little climbing gym for us both because I'm like an hour away from the local gym, so it's difficult to get there with my— I know I've got a dog and— but I love climbing. I used to teach it. Well, that's not saying much, actually, if you know anything about climbing.

Speaker A: The sacred geometries of flagging.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yes.

Speaker A: In our pre-parent days, we were pretty consistent climbers. I know you're still climbing, Trinity, but not me.

Speaker C: Yeah, maybe 2 to 3 days a week, depending on the week. I've been at the same plateau for about 6 years now, so not getting any better.

Speaker B: Where are you climbing? What grade are you climbing?

Speaker C: Just at gyms and, um, I like to think that my new gym, the grading is a lot harder. I'm stuck at the V4 level for the most part. So not great.

Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's something. It's fine. I mean, if you enjoy it, right?

Speaker A: Yes. That's always part of it.

Speaker B: However good you get, right? There's always people who are way better. That's the thing with climbing, right? I've always been near gyms where, because I haven't lived in areas where there's climbing, you know, I may get to a fairly good standard in Rochester. But then if I go down to the Gunks or something, like, it's like, wow, these guys are good. Yeah.

Speaker A: Here's another rapid fire for you, Harvey, which is, what do you like to listen to while you code, if you listen to anything? And do you have any music recommendations for us?

Speaker B: Oh, wow. I listen to so much. And it depends on the time of day. I tend to listen to more kind of like mellow stuff. First thing in the morning, I don't listen to anything. I get up, I may meditate, and then I may start work and I may do a couple hours work. And I usually don't listen to anything early in the morning, just because, and I walk my dog and then I come back and I'll put something on. I listen to all sorts of genres as well. Spotify is really great. Like, I listen to my weekly list it puts together for me. So there's always something and I'll favorite it and give it as much feedback. So anything classical jazz and electronica, anything weird, like I just listen to so many different types. Doing Quasi Dragon, I discovered— I think it's just a solo guy called Hidden Orchestra. I find his work really beautiful. He's kind of like an electronic composer, but he uses a lot of kind of natural sampling and animal sounds and stuff. And some of these tracks have like poetry readings over the top, and I really enjoyed that. So I listen to some pretty dark stuff if I'm like in the— not dark, but like— In the afternoon, I'm a little lagging, a little tired. I'll listen to some pretty hardcore electronica and stuff just to keep my energy up. I've always been a big Venetian Snares fan. Igor. It's good for coding, I find, like if I'm just tired. Another guy I really liked just recently, Aaron. I don't know, I'm terrible with names. I just look at the icons of the artists.

Speaker A: I picked up Hidden Orchestra here on my Spotify because I'm always looking for like More relaxing piano-based stuff to play with the baby. Like, just more— I find that they tend to like that more minimal stuff.

Speaker B: Murkoff, I really like. He's a South American kind of electronic composer. He's quite well respected. And Arvo Pärt is my favorite composer, hands down. He's an Estonian composer, makes these beautiful kind of choral, very spiritual kind of works. And sometimes I'll just put that on loop for a whole day, you know.

Speaker A: Thank you for those. It's a good way to get to know someone is to hear their music recommendations.

Speaker B: I mean, you listen to Igor and then Arvo Pärt, that's— you couldn't get 2 different genres further apart. Hell yeah.

Speaker A: All right, should we do one more, Trinity?

Speaker C: Go for it.

Speaker A: Here's another one we like to do, which is to ask, who would you like to hear us interview in the future? Any artists, gallerists, creative people in general, who would you like to hear us interview?

Speaker B: One guy who's a really good communicator is James Merrill, he's a friend of mine. There's a guy actually, a good friend of mine, Ryan Green, who's done a couple of Art Blocks drops, but not so many people know about him. He's done some really interesting work this last year. He hasn't really put it in the public, but he's got some— he's a games designer, so he'd get along well with you guys. And he's sort of like indie game designer, so he's got a lot of interesting things like perspective on the space and sort of things he wants to build. So he would be a good one. James, yeah, but James is a good communicator. William Mapan's kind of a character. If you ever get him, of course you'd want him. He's quite charismatic and funny.

Speaker A: We're working on it. Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker B: I'm also— I like to listen to collectors because I'm always trying to understand their world because it's quite different to mine. So collectors are always good ones. Simon— I had Simon Says come over and stay with— stay at my house the other week with his family, which He was very interesting and had some unique perspectives on the ecosystem. If we ever get Snowfro, of course, get him. Everybody wants to listen to him.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, some good targets there. Simon, we've talked to—

Speaker B: Bob Lupus, he might come on. He's an interesting guy. He may come on just to promote his thing he's doing with Station 3.

Speaker A: I'm not familiar with it.

Speaker B: So he's a big collector and then he's got some office space in downtown Manhattan. on Wall Street where he's, he's letting Web3 startups use his space. Artists for free, Web3 at a discount, and he's trying to incubate— Yeah, yeah, he's got a lot of office space there. He's already kind of created a bit of a hub. He might be an interesting guy to have on.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm familiar with most of those names. The game designer would be an interesting one too. We should definitely—

Speaker B: Yeah, Ryan Green, he'll definitely come on. I'm sure he will. He's a good communicator.

Speaker A: All right, one more, Trinity, and then we'll wrap it.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean Given that you said that it's interesting for you to hear the perspective of collectors, do you have any questions for us as part of the collecting community?

Speaker B: Okay. Do you only collect NFTs or do you collect art from the gallery art world? That's what I call it now, rather than the trad art world, because it's stupid. I wish it had a name, the wider art world.

Speaker C: The legacy art world is, I think, my favorite term.

Speaker B: I like that. Yeah.

Speaker A: We got that from Valerie at Trillitech when we had her on the show. Well, Trinity, you have one—

Speaker C: I have one giant—

Speaker A: Notorious piece now.

Speaker C: It's 9 feet tall. It's like 9 by 5, which really impacts where I can live for the most part. But that's a good problem to have. But I think mostly we've all been in on the NFT space or, you know, given that you can store those things for basically free, 99.9% of all visual art I have is, uh, an NFT. And I think the same goes for Will, but he's definitely been indexing higher on getting physicals of his pieces.

Speaker A: Yeah. The closest I guess would be some like Marcel Schwittlick pieces that I have where he makes the physical first and then the NFT comes after it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I like his work.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I have a couple pieces of his and then one that I still need to get ordered up through Artfora. And delivered. And then I have a plotted piece by Zancan that's not an NFT. It's like just a small little piece that he sent as a bonus that— so it's a purely physical piece that has no digital side to it.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: That's it.

Speaker B: Right. Another question might be, as collectors, do you find it a little scary that QuasiDragon is just this kind of open? How does it feel like if it sold 15,000, let's say, would that be A bummer if you bought, say— No, no.

Speaker C: I think that if, if we were crypto people, you know, where it is all about maintaining your, pumping your bags or making sure that you have things that are, you're investing in and scarcity matters, then I think it could be scary. But I think that as people who are much more on the side of appreciating the art, appreciating the concept, appreciating everything that comes out of it, I think it's more exciting than anything else, regardless of what its ultimate valuation is, because you're crafting an experience and a shared experience that can be shared by many. And that's something that is, I think, conceptually stronger than just about anything else that could be done.

Speaker A: I'm not super worried about like the 10,000+ tile scenario. So I think it'll be pretty self-policing. It's like kind of an open edition, but kind of not. You've shown like a lot of strong variety in the pieces. And I think that people will, my guess would be that faster than maybe you imagine, the 108 will be hit. Someone will be able to build a tool that will help them like find exactly the right piece, make an offer. There's a lot of different ways to get, to get it done.

Speaker B: Hmm.

Speaker A: The only concern I have as someone who's not involved in the project would be like, what happens if it launches? And then there's like some technical issue with the module that allows you to make the larger pieces, right? And we have like a multi-day span where people are minting tiles, but then they're not actually able to make the Black Dragons because there's some technical glitch. That to me would be like, that's the only thing that concerns me. But I trust that it would not go live until all of that stuff was fully ironed out. But you know, it's web, it's Web3, everyone moves fast. And then—

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker A: It's like, oops, we had a glitch. It's going down for 24 hours. And I could see that, that to me would be the nightmare scenario is like a technical glitch.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That then kills the momentum of the project.

Speaker B: Yeah, that would be pretty stressful.

Speaker A: So call up Jamie and tell him to work twice as hard on it.

Speaker B: Their tech team is first class. If they can't pull it off, then I totally trust them. Yeah, I mean, it will be stress. I'll be stressed if we do get a technical glitch, but the actual mechanics behind the scene and all that, the selling mechanics and stuff is kind of going to be their nightmare if it goes wrong. The algorithm's been tested so many times, you know, so many tens of thousands of outputs have been produced, so it seems pretty robust.

Speaker A: I'm excited. I know I'll get a couple for sure.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: Especially now that I know that I'll be able to like make a composite piece without it being a black dragon, that I'll definitely get a couple and see what I can make.

Speaker B: Okay, cool.

Speaker A: Well, that feels like a good enough place to end it. Harvey, how do you feel?

Speaker B: Great. I mean, I could sit here and talk with you guys all day.

Speaker A: Perfect. That's what we're going for. That's the vibe. So we nailed it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Let's wrap it up. We've been going for quite a bit here. Thank you so much, Harvey, for taking the time to record with us. We really appreciate it. It was awesome learning more about the project.

Speaker B: Thank you guys for having me. It's been a real pleasure. Great questions.

Speaker A: Glad to hear it. All right. Well, that was Harvey Rayner, everyone. Hope you enjoyed that interview. Be sure to check out his project, Quasi-Dragon Studies. Uh, Verso's exhibit. Try your luck at matching some tiles. And I guess be on the lookout for cool sculptures and other things next year. Maybe even an fxhash piece if we're lucky. That's it for this one. We'll see you all soon. We'll be back with another episode later. Bye. Bye.