Speaker A: All right, hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode, a very, very special interview episode. We got Shandy here this morning, and we are joined by Jacek Markuszewicz. Pretty close.

Speaker B: Pretty close, I think.

Speaker A: We've had a string of tough names recently, but I feel like it makes us better people.

Speaker B: It's Markuszewicz. Markuszewicz.

Speaker A: We're super excited to have Jacek on to talk about Barbarians, his upcoming Verse solos release, but also we're going to be talking about all of your work because we've been collecting and talking about you for 2 years since your earliest fxhash stuff. It's exciting. I know Trinity in particular is excited.

Speaker C: I was talking to Will on Thursday and, you know, you're definitely in my top 3, top 5, somewhere in there. So this is really exciting. Not to spoil it, but the only generative art thing that I've printed is a Holo. The next thing that I'm thinking about getting printed would be Unbuilt and/or Barbarians, depending. So like, I don't know, I feel like we have a lot of alignment in terms of taste and interest. I am so excited to have you on.

Speaker B: It's an honor. It's an absolute honor.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: So we're gonna get into all of that. Before we do, Jacek, you know, the first question we always ask our guests so that they can get introduced to our audience is to tell us a bit about your background in art and coding.

Speaker B: So, um, Hi, I'm an architect. I studied architecture in Warsaw. That was already quite some time ago. I started studying like 20 years ago, more or less. I graduated from the Warsaw University of Technology, and then I moved on in my education. I did a master's in Barcelona after that, which helped me merge a little bit of my architectural background with my coding background. I was introduced to something that's called generative design or Sometimes called parametric architecture, although the latter concept has some strong aesthetic connotations that makes me prefer talking about it as generative design, which is basically using programming and scripting to make design decisions in architectural processes, either formal decisions or functional decisions, optimizations, et cetera. After that, it's when I basically started considering myself and calling myself a creative coder. I started working at the architectural studio in Barcelona where my role was to apply coding to their design, to generate facades, to test certain architectural massings, more, let's say, wider, bigger scale analysis in urban design as well. So I also had a, I was going to say an episode, but it was 5 years teaching at the university, at my old university in Warsaw. I was teaching programming to students of architecture, also giving design studios. And at the same time, I also pursued my non-academic professional career. I collaborated with other architectural offices and furniture designers, also as a creative coder. I started also working with, within the world of art, at the beginning as an external consultant and programmer for different artistic installations, interactive installations for expositions for Polish artists. And slowly I also started designing mainly interactive installations myself. When I moved to San Sebastian around 5 years ago, I did participate in designing public interactive installations in public space here. And this is how I slowly shifted from architecture through creative coder to more of artistic practice.

Speaker C: So what about generative art then? Like, how did you get into like code-based art? It seems like it's been mostly for practical application in your previous lives.

Speaker B: So for most of that time, I did not, I didn't know about the existence of generative art as in the sense of Web3 and NFTs. Until around three years ago, when a friend of mine and former teacher of mine, Luis Fraguada, is also a fellow artist in the space. I think you know each other with Luis. He asked me what I thought about art in the blockchain and NFTs, etc. And I, I had no idea. I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he explained me the existence of the of this world. He introduced me to. Back then it was Hic Et Nunc, today it's called Theia, and to the world of Tezos. He gave me half Tez to be able to start minting some of my works. And I did that and I got involved with the community, which, in which I fell in love straight away. And this is how, this is how it started.

Speaker C: So all of this started from you borrowing the equivalent of like $2 from somebody.

Speaker B: I think it was a little bit more than that. It was like, Tez was like a $6 But yeah, I didn't borrow. I paid with my art. I transferred my first mints to Luis.

Speaker A: I imagine your earliest work on HEN, on Hic Et Nunc, was probably curated editions, things like that, right? Because they didn't have like long-form generative art set up on that contract. So when fxhash came out, did you kind of see that? Like, were you kind of aware of the idea of doing a long-form release from Art Blocks? Like, once you got into NFTs, were you looking at some other stuff?

Speaker B: It started with the emergence of fxhash.

Speaker A: I'm just curious because, you know, You started on Tez as a lot of people did, and just kind of thematically thinking about a lot of your work, did you avoid ETH for a while because of environmental reasons? Like, I feel like a lot of your work has environmental themes or conservation themes, and I know that some artists were really like adamant, only Tezos until Ethereum was proof of stake and the carbon footprint of that chain was smaller.

Speaker B: I was aware of the ecological implications of minting on ETH, but that was not the reason I stalled and stayed on Tez. I think it was just my comfort I started there. I felt there was a positive community and it was really, really hard to abandon it. I really liked it there. I did not have negative connotations related to any NFT world because I did not have any, had not had any connotations at all. I was very new to the space. My first ETH mint was with Bright Moments one year ago. Before that, I was only minting on Tezos.

Speaker C: How has it been jumping over? Do you think you'll come back more to Tezos again in the future, or is it?

Speaker B: I am, as they say, chain agnostic. I don't care that much about the technology, about the blockchain. It's gonna sound cliché, but I care about the art that I create and that I publish. Hopefully one day it's not gonna matter that much on which blockchain a piece is minted.

Speaker C: I think that what we've been seeing, especially more recently, is the consolidation of like the Tezos generative art scene and the Ethereum generative art scene. just becoming a broader generative art scene, even external to like the NFT side of it. You really see that with some communities like that are coalescing around Verse, coalescing around Tender and everything, which is really cool to see. But anyway, so your first forays into the NFT space was with HEN. I'm looking at them right now. It's a very fun series.

Speaker B: It's based on the Game of Life by Conway, either the multiplication or the death in Cellular Automata.

Speaker A: Popular theme.

Speaker C: It is a popular theme.

Speaker A: It is.

Speaker C: But you did not release that long form onto fx hash.

Speaker B: It was generated as if it was long form. I was generating a bunch of outputs and then I just curate them. And I think I've always 8 editions of each.

Speaker C: So then how did you discover fx hash and really get into like official long form? Like fEmerald is your first really significant drop there. And it's so unlike anything you've done.

Speaker B: I have to say. I know that. I know that. I think there was a certain coincidence. The moment that fx hash appeared in the scene coincided with the discontinuation of Hic Et Nunc. There was a crisis on Hic Et Nunc and Hic Et Nunc closed. It took some time for the Theia community to emerge. And it was a moment of, I felt orphaned by Hic Et Nunc and I passed for some grieving that I would alleviate with trying out this new long-form platform that appeared. It felt natural for me because the way I had been working mainly before in architecture was very similar to long form when I would create a computer program that would allow me to generate multiple results through which I would browse and choose the best parameters. In this one, the idea of this program being online and validated against the blockchain technology seemed like a very natural space for this type of generative art. So I I definitely wanted to try, and my first trial was, was Ephemeral. Yes.

Speaker A: You know, with your background making generative things for the real world, right, creating algorithms that will produce physical objects or participate in making them, and also, right, given now for the last 2 years you've been making a lot of generative art, have you thought a lot about the future of generative design? You know, like recently, I don't know if you saw, but with Tonic, they released this generative chair with the artist Luke Shannon, and we've seen things like generative clothing. There's actually in the queue on fxhash right now, there's like a generative scarf. that you're going to be able to go get. So how do you think about generativeness as it applies to the real world moving forward? Like, do you feel like this is going to become a bigger part of day-to-day life for people and the things that they own?

Speaker B: I'm not sure. Predicting is hard, especially when it comes to the future. I grew up along with the evolution of internet, of the popularization of personal computers, and then the popularization of internet. To me, the digital presence was always something that would be Maybe a part of my real presence, but it was always like, it wouldn't fully overlap with my personality. So I have a feeling that today what really is gaining a lot of importance is the online presence of someone. So for me, the way I treat my online presence is always I publish things that I honestly want people to see me through. However, I have a feeling that in the contemporary world and in generations that are that are younger than me. This online presence has become so important that it's actually, it became real. It's as real as the physical presence for me. And I think in this context, what we can define today as digital property, owning something that's digital, gains more and more importance. In this context, I see more potential of generative art and owning a piece of generative art, which is— Very interesting thing to express about oneself. I don't know if I'm going to go too deep into difficult concept, but there was a philosopher, a postmodern philosopher, Jean Baudrillard.

Speaker A: Simulacra simulacrum, right?

Speaker B: Exactly. He would say one thing about consumerism, the way we consume things, it's way more than consumption itself. We consume things in order to project certain idea about ourselves. into the external world. So we, by consuming, we're building certain image of ourselves. I think in the contemporary world and in the context of online presence and social media, owning or consuming digital content such as artistic content is a very logical way of expressing ourselves. And that's where I see the biggest potential. Bridging it towards the physical world, it's definitely interesting to me. I still like printing my digitally owned works of art and having it in a physical space. However, I wonder towards which direction this tendency will shift.

Speaker C: You know, I think that there's something that you were talking about earlier when it comes to when you're using generative design, it's like you're optimizing things from a functional sense and really understanding what is the best thing to do. Whereas what you're really looking to do in more of the generative art is explore the full range of possibility. And it seems to be more about what is unique, what is charismatic, what can somebody kind of take on and like project? Leading off of Will's question, how do you feel that that sort of quirkiness, not quirkiness is not really the best word here, but what are these intangibles that you could bring from art into design?

Speaker B: So the way my background contributed certain way of work to my art, you're asking whether my artistic practice will contribute to my, for instance, architectural work.

Speaker C: Or could, you know, if we're looking into moving into a place where not only are we looking to project parts of ourselves into the digital space, but, you know, obviously cost can always be a factor. You know, we're always moving towards things being consolidated and consistent from a cost savings perspective. But if we're looking to have more of the art, the whimsical side of things being projected into physical spaces or into physical objects, do you think that there's space there?

Speaker B: Yes. Well, my, in fact, part of my background when I was collaborating with a furniture designer, Joris Laarman. He's a Dutch furniture designer. What I was optimizing back then was not, definitely not the cost nor the efficiency of his design. His fascination was in the complexity of form and absolute abundance of almost like Baroque abundance of forms. It was beyond practical. And it was definitely in the sense that you are, that you're explaining more artistic rather than utilitarian.

Speaker C: You put that way better than I could. It's almost like you've thought about this extensively in your life.

Speaker B: I'm not sure. I'm not. Yeah, I have I haven't really, really thought about the fact that there might be like a reciprocal benefit between my former design practice and artistic practice. Well, in fact, for the last few months, for the last few years, I haven't been involved professionally in anything else than my art. So I'm not thinking about, okay, getting as much as I can from the artistic world and then applying it back into where I come from. I think and I hope that this is going to be my practice and what I do.

Speaker C: Well, I mean, maybe this is actually a really great segue into talking about some of your other early works on fx hash, specifically on Built and Reborn. Because it is leveraging a lot of that parametric space that you could, I guess, used in architecture, but you are bringing that into like the art form. So I would love to hear more about this story and like what inspired those particular pieces and, you know, what made you feel confident and comfortable to put those in a long-form form on the blockchain. I love those so much, by the way. I think they're fantastic.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: I had a lot of fun working on those and I'm not sure it was like a conscious decision for these pieces to be my first very strongly architecturally inspired long-form projects. But I think it's the fact that they are is very consistent with my background in architecture. It's also very consistent with my approach to making sense of things that surround me, that I think of, that I know, in this case, architectural objects of different scales, in this case, Gothic churches and ideal Renaissance cities. The way I always understand not only architectural objects, but anything I'm trying to understand is I'm making certain mental models of how elements work together that build up a system that I'm studying. And somehow consistent with my sensitivity and artistic biases that were, I think they were always representational and figurative. So bringing back archetypical architectural elements, breaking them down into algorithmic logic. I was always fascinated by the concept of that algorithmic approach to understanding historical architecture in works, for instance, by Bill Mitchell. It was this famous book, The Logic of Architecture. I was always fascinated by that. And the idea was to start with Gothic architecture. And I took that, what I knew about that, translated it to algorithmic form and gave it some aesthetic way of manifestation. That was how Unbuilt started and Reborn was, um, to me, logical continuation of that exploration.

Speaker C: Looking at Unbuilt, I can see like the aesthetics that you're talking about. It's more in the, you know, what is filling in the spaces between the columns and kind of filling in that blank space. It's like diamonds, it's other shapes. It's quite nice. You know, I think that there's a lot that doesn't necessarily get captured in like that top-down reference point for what the other internal beauty that can be in a cathedral, you know, looking at different types of like vaulted ceilings? Is it a like barrel vault? Is it like a double barrel vault?

Speaker B: We would have to expand those into 3D. We would have to see what these lines really are. Are they— do they overlap with the intersection between the pointed barrels? And that would make them like ribs. And or would they be something that connects the ribs between them? And it would be like make them like diernes, I think it's called in English. But I'll be honest, it's— they might be geometrically Very consistent, but historically the ceilings, the types of vaults are quite frivolous in this piece.

Speaker C: And so then Reborn, like what's the level of artistic interpretation for these Italian or these European cities? Because even though it's like similar thematically, at least in terms of point of time, you know, a lot of these things would've coexisted, but you're taking it from the perspective of a whole city and not just one important building inside of it.

Speaker B: I had the need to move from architectural scale to urban scale, and I paired it with the need of moving from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. My biggest fascination with ideal Renaissance cities is that it's how spectacularly they failed historically. They were based in all these ideal mathematical relation and concept of an ideal citizen and how they would inhabit those ideal cities. And virtually none of them exist today in the real world. Palma Nova, which was in North Italy, that was not a successful implementation or some elements that remain from that approach, such as Zamość in Eastern Poland, but that worked mainly because it was not implemented in a strict way. So I think certain moral superiority of the Renaissance thinkers that would look down on the preceding epochs of the Middle Ages, calling them the Dark Ages, proved not to be as ideal as they would expect to. And I think that was a fascinating element for me.

Speaker A: I would like to jump over to Hollow because I feel like there's a natural extension. You started with like fmorld, which was just this kind of little exploration of almost A rock or a gem in some way. And then we have these, right, cathedral into a city. And then you've even done like space-themed things, right? Planets. Like, so I feel like the scope of your work continued to grow over the course, but a really great intermediary point was Holo, a project that made our top 10 list. Not that that matters, but we both loved it so much the year that it came out. Trinity, as she mentioned, has a print of it. I know the story of this has been pretty well told in your writing and also in your recent appearance on Kaloh. So we gotta shout out Kaloh, our brother in podcasting and art content. But if you can kind of give us again, really briefly, just the background of like how you kind of got interested in mountains, got interested in making this kind of like tribute project. And also like, I'm really personally interested in hearing how did it feel watching this one? You know, you had always been an artist that people liked and talked about in FX Hash, but this was the project that broke through. The primary went crazy. The secondary went crazy. People were going nuts. They wanted only lights. They wanted birds. What was that moment like for you, right? Like watching the success of that project over the course of a week or so after it came out?

Speaker B: So you asked me what, where my fascinations with natural formations come from, with mountains, right? I think if there's anything that I am especially interested in that can be traced back to my architectural background is especially how we as human beings inhabit our space and our territory and how we treat it. So more than architectural scale, I was always more driven by the social aspects of urban design and territorial planning. And what always fascinated me is exactly that, how we relate to our environment, not only natural environment, but also the environment that are built by us. The story behind my fascination with the project of Eduardo Chillida, a Basque sculptor, Famous for his very geometrical explorations and work with materiality. That particular vision, and it was not only a vision, it was a serious proposal really considered by the authorities of the Canary Islands, was to excavate an enormous void inside of the mountain of Tindaya in Fuerteventura. It's a sacred mountain of autonomous peoples.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: From Fuerteventura. It's a natural formation that's been there for, I'm not gonna be precise, but like 20 million years. And there comes an important, famous sculptor and says that he's gonna use that formation as matter in which he would create his artistic and implement his artistic vision. It was seriously considered by the authorities, but it was Criticized widely from very different environments. So from an ecological point of view, because of the impact of such an intervention in natural terrain, from a social and economic point of view, because of the fact that everybody, it was clear for everybody that it would need to be converted into a massive touristic attraction in order to be able to sustain itself. And that would also affect the artistic interpretation of it because how can you really, as Chinedu said, Yeah. How could you reflect on the tininess of humankind inside of such a space if it would be packed by tourists taking selfies and buying souvenirs? Also from this artistic point of view, that what justifies your vision of intervening in something that by many is considered a natural formation comparable to work of art itself to impose your vision? I found the story and the fact that it never came into existence. Absolutely fascinating because I do agree with the critique. And but, but the beauty of the vision is, is absolutely undeniable. That's why I thought that giving it another life, a new shot at being somehow realized, but not by excavating a real culturally important sacred mountain, but By sculpting a digital matter that would be randomly generated so that it would not bear any reminiscence of, of the real world. How would that idea and that, and that logic by Edoardo Citta be seen and be, and be received in today's world using contemporary technologies?

Speaker C: And it seems like, you know, you really do convey that very well, but you also do an excellent job of conveying that critique through the use of tourists as one of the predominant features in this space. And I noticed that at least in my holo, when it first renders, one of the tourists is somebody who is holding up a camera, taking a selfie, which feels very apropos based off of what you were just saying.

Speaker B: That was the idea behind the visitors. However, I also, there is another side to that critique because I always think that I understand and I agree with the criticism about that vision, but I kind of also have a feeling that it's much easier to criticize an idea like that, a vision like that, when it's purely artistic. However, it's what we do all the time, at least in the Basque Country where I live in. Removing half of a mountain to create a highway, it may be criticized, but not as widely and not as ferociously as aesthetic, artistic vision, which also tells a lot about how we approach and how we relate to the environment that we live in.

Speaker C: Is there a meaning or a purpose behind the birds and then the only light version?

Speaker B: The birds was an addition that I felt it would give it a stronger sense of scale. I didn't want it to appear in all the elements, in all the outputs. Not that I decided to force a certain uniqueness to any pieces, but I felt that the fact that this feature would be special would even more strongly emphasize on the feeling of the vastness of the void of the composition. And then the completely empty spaces, it's something that I imagine would be the closest to how Cheadle would envision his, his work.

Speaker A: And now what about your own personal reaction? What did it mean for you?

Speaker B: I have to admit I was not aware of what was happening. It was gonna sound innocent, but I did not I was not aware of how it was going to play out, and I did not fully grasp what was happening at the moment. In fact, to such an extent that I didn't even— when I published Holo, I hadn't reserved one piece for myself, nor had I minted the first edition for myself before opening the algorithm for public sale. Even more, I think I bought one edition from secondary the next day, like 60-something or 70-something Tez at the time. I didn't, I was not aware what was gonna happen the next day was gonna be so overwhelming because it was, it was overwhelming for me. I was not expecting it at all.

Speaker C: This is no offense here, but I think Holo might also have a place in history as one of the most mispriced projects of all time. I'm going back and looking at the stats and 32 tez was the top tier of the Dutch auction. It minted out in 2 or 3 blocks and nobody successfully minted with less than like 6 tez worth of gas, with some people going up into the 40 range.

Speaker B: It's probably somehow on me, the fact that I maybe justified by my lack of experience and also the way I price, I put price on my work. I was never very familiar nor comfortable with speculation of supply and demand and things like that. I just counted the hours that I spent working on the piece, multiplied it by what I think an hour of my work is worth. And that's how I established the price that I, you know, that I wanted to finance my work that I had put in, in the development of Holo. The speculative element just completely, completely overwhelmed me. And it did not, it was not within my calculation at all.

Speaker C: You're being very pragmatic about it. And I think I appreciate the practicality. Behind the, uh, the mathematics.

Speaker A: Whom amongst us is good at calculating their own hourly rate of worth? It's not easy, not an easy practice.

Speaker B: Of course.

Speaker A: But, you know, thematically, kind of some of the themes that you were speaking to with Hollow, I mean, they really carry over into the first drop that's coming up, Barbarians, which we should say is coming for sale on March 6th, but it's already been exhibited right in London. You, I think you were just there last week in the space, and there's insane, amazing images of the prints. I mean, It looks fantastic. It looks even more fantastic at scale. Can you speak to a little bit about the tie-in here with Holo? And then I think also like we see some thematic similarities to your project Cantera, the one that you referenced earlier with Bright Moments, the interplay of just humans and ecology, the spaces that we inhabit, the things that we do, the aforementioned paving over the top of a mountain, right, to create a road. Can you just give us the backstory here on the piece? What you're going for with it and how did it end up on Verse?

Speaker B: The project started as a certain mental image, like most of my projects start like that. And within this mental image, there was this idea or vision of archetypical architectural elements. My architectural background, it's always, it's always there influencing, influencing my thinking. The architectural elements such as massive columns and walls and arches and vaults, But in this vision, they wouldn't bear the weight of a building. They wouldn't be made of concrete nor brick. They would be made of stone and soil and dirt and shouldering the weight of the landscape, natural landscape. In the mental image, I started going into the detail of how I wanted to envision it. I thought that maybe on this landscape, there would be inhabitants. Resting on these, on these columns and on these arches to begin with, to give it a certain sense of scale formally. But then I started thinking about those inhabitants and how they would live with their roads and their fields and their houses. And I had this thought at one point, and I think it was, it was the moment where the project really, really started. I thought of them as if they were dwelling on some ruins of a Bygone civilization, advanced civilization, like almost like parasites, like barbarians. And when I thought of it, I got scared. I was like, what, what happened? What did these imaginary inhabitants in my head do to deserve such a derogatory term and to such a treatment from myself? Because from where I'm standing and still thinking about the mental image, like What they seem to be doing is they are trying to make their living in a seemingly respectful relation to the environment, both to the natural environment and to the environment that they created by these, say, megastructures. Aren't they really the barbarians, or isn't the someone or something that introduced this massive intervention in the terrain more barbaric? It went further because I then I realized that in both of these scenarios of the sides of the story, I fell into a certain dichotomy. In both cases, I took a side and I thought about the other counterpart of the side. So either looking from the perspective of the humble settlers or from the perspective of the fallen great civilization, I would always consider barbarians the other, never the position from which I am. And I thought that It defines really well certain preset ideas and preset ways of understanding and dividing the world between us and them and what's right and what's wrong, or what's matter, what's form, what is human and what's natural. And these false dichotomies is what I hope this piece tries to explore. Because when you look at the pieces that we have already published with Verse and the ones that we printed, there is nothing in this scenario that says explicitly that we are talking about 2 opposing forces like good and evil, or there are one settlers that are barbarians that are invading some advanced civilization. These could be perfectly well the same civilization, but One technology being a natural evolution of certain lifestyle of the same people. And that's where I thought, okay, Barbarians is a good name for the piece because it's a little bit ambiguous. It can suggest that we are looking at some barbaric tribes dwelling on the ruins of Rome. It can also suggest certain strength and ferocity.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: with which somebody intervened in natural landscape. It's a little bit of a trap because I do want people to reflect on the fact that, that we split the world in false dichotomy. But at the same time, through such description and the title itself, I kind of push them slightly towards dichotomical, dichotomical thinking. And this is what the piece is about. Okay, I'll be honest, it was probably the, the most difficult work to date for me.

Speaker C: In what sense?

Speaker B: So the work on it basically started around 1 year ago. I had 2 important events in my life. I defended my PhD and I published Cantera, which was my, which was my first solo exhibition with Bright Moments in Berlin. And I remember it caused a certain amount of pressure. Well, it did not cause any pressure. I put this pressure on myself back then. And I felt really, I felt tired after these 2 events. And I falsely thought that, okay, so there were these 2 things that I love doing, like such as, you know, learning and investigating on one hand and creating art on the other hand, that coincided with my feeling of certain anxiety and pressure. So the logical thing in my head was to take some time off. And I tried to do that and I was not, I realized that I'm not very good at it. I did not take these, the few months that I decided to take off, I did not take them very well. It's mainly because I didn't calculate the fact that what really often alleviates the pressure and the anxiety in me is, for instance, creating art. And I found myself there during a few long months forcing myself not to. Do what I really love. So after these few months, the pressure and anxiety caused by the fact that I was actively fighting against involving myself in art led to a situation that I decided, okay, I need to start creating. But by the time my head became this bottleneck of multiple needs and ideas that I wanted to try out and to get to work, which was not easy, which turned out to be very overwhelming. And I spent next few months making different trials, discarding an amount of work that I had never discarded in my entire life before that. And at the same time, building a certain image of what I want to do and pouring my not easy at the moment experiences into the work that started resulting in certain formal explorations. That were complex, eclectic, very, I think, ones that you can hopefully see that there is a lot of work that has been put inside in this work. But before that, it was a, it was a pretty difficult time. But when, when I finally felt that I came to peace with all those months and when I started accepting the results that I have been working on, And I already knew that this line of exploration would lead to something that I would consider, you know, not only worth, but like something I really want to show to people and just to get it out there. I contacted Verse. To be fair, Verse had contacted me on a few occasions before for multiple reasons. There was always something I had. I had a project that was going, or I had a PhD to deliver, or then a PhD to defend. And I never Got the chance to do anything with the team, and then with that, when my work on Barbarians was close to able to be validated, I felt comfortable with showing it to someone. I decided to reach out to them and to show them what I've been working on, to see whether they would be still interested in collaborating with me and publishing my work. And it turned out they absolutely loved Barbarians. After a few a few weeks of talks, one day Lonley Lonley wrote to me and asked me whether I would be comfortable if. It would be a solo show because they thought it would, it deserves this special treatment that they offer for certain artists. And I was absolutely, it was amazing news that they proposed it to me. And of course I said yes. And here we are. Here I came back from London 2 days ago. It's a fantastic experience. The effort the team put into organizing this exhibition was, was really something. I'm not used to these type of places. It's in— it was in Cromwell Place, like central London, next to all the Natural History Museum and all the super important museums in South Kensington. And I was there in my flannel shirt presenting my work. It was an emotional, an emotional experience.

Speaker C: And well deserved. You know, obviously neither of us made it out to London to see it, or else we would have done this interview there in person. But looking at all the videos and all the photos that were captured, it really just seems like Barbarians is— it presents so well in those large prints. And it's just, especially with like in the clean space, it shows so well with all of the little details, that agricultural elements, the lines and the shadows as that goes through like the trees and the bushes. It just feels so alive. Like I would never be able to point this out, that this was made by code, by the way. And seeing it huge, I'm sure it translated equally as well.

Speaker B: I was actually a little bit afraid whether this piece would— how the piece would behave in such a scale. All the outputs that I'm publishing and we are publishing with Verse are actual outputs of the algorithm. We just haven't opened the algorithm yet for the public. It's going to be long form. It's fully made of code. It's not a token that renders super fast. You can, you can tell that there's so much detail and so much geometry and complexity in it that, you know, I needed to think about optimizing it. And I thought that piece would probably work well in like maybe best in 4K, but also in like 3,000 by 3,000 pixels. But like the biggest print, I needed to generate it at 20,000 pixels in the larger direction by like 10,000 pixels. In the other direction. And I was afraid how it's going to behave. But when I saw it there live, I actually thought it was a great choice because it felt like zooming in on the piece. Because when I was testing, there's like one layer of how you perceive the output, which is like the first sight when you see the landscape and the geometric intervention at first. And then when you zoom in, you see Those little houses and churches and fields. And when I saw it in the gallery, it was, the experience was very, very similar. Like at first sight, okay, I see like this strong composition. And then I, when I approached it, it was as if I was zooming in on my computer, which translated into real-world gallery experience. It felt like it was a good decision.

Speaker A: You kind of mentioned it's gonna be long form, but is it gonna be like long form, long form random output, or is it going to be long form but curated. You know, there's kind of this distinction now, and Verse is a pretty big fan of doing either artist curated or collector curated drops at this point.

Speaker B: This piece is going to be collector curated. We want to give collectors the possibility to interact with the piece and see multiple outputs. And I'm just curious what type of output people are going to be leaning towards. The fact that I wanted collector curated was certain need of opening the possibilities of the algorithm as much as possible. So if it will be completely random, if it's completely random, then you always have to somehow restrain the algorithm so that to make sure that the probability of the outputs that you are comfortable with is as high as possible. I realized that constraining certain ranges of randomness while ensuring certain consistency between the pieces would also cut off very peculiar and characteristic outputs that I wanted to preserve. And I wanted the variety to range from something that would look like a picture, like a photography of a scenario in the landscape with the intervention and the settlers towards very geometrical compositions that were where certain elements align with the framing of the image. And in order to leave that range, I wanted to leave the parameters as open as possible. And I'm really curious. It's going to be a very interesting feedback for me to see what people look for, whether they're going to look for very strong compositions or they're going to be zooming in into what is happening in the landscape between those vaults and columns, looking, maybe searching for like those, sometimes there is like a little church appearing next to the road, surrounded by little houses. Maybe they're gonna be looking for that.

Speaker A: I look forward to playing with the generator then and starting to save some seeds. That's always a fun part of this.

Speaker C: I just got so stressed out as well, because now it's like, there's always stress from a collector's perspective. I love the Collector's Curated so much, you know, being able to spin through the seeds, find the one that you want, but there's more pressure to find the perfect one. You know what I mean?

Speaker A: For sure.

Speaker B: So one thing that I really, that I really wanted to ensure would be to limit the abundance of the outputs that a collector is faced with. I know how stressful it is because when I am testing, when I'm working on a piece, I'm testing like crazy. I generate thousands of outputs almost every day and I go through them to see whether there are no errors happening and whether everything is working correctly in the algorithm. And I know how hard it is and how overwhelming it is to choose one output out of hundreds. So the idea is to limit the number of outputs a user can browse per day to 25, because that's another thing that I really want. I want people to be able to dedicate just a little bit of time to each output they are reviewing. So I believe that if there's going to be like 25 outputs, then you can look thoroughly through all the 25 outputs and you can, you can save the ones that you really, really love out of them and form a certain opinion after a few days of interacting with the piece to what type of compositions connect to you and which are the ones that you wouldn't want as your final minted piece. So that's the idea. So limit the number of days for people to interact with to be able to save the seeds and also the maximum number of seeds to browse through. I think there's a certain strength to this scarcity and maybe paradoxically it would be, it would give people more opportunity to relate to the piece rather than browsing through hundreds of outputs.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's very thoughtful actually.

Speaker B: I hope it's going to alleviate your stress, Trinity.

Speaker C: Oh, definitely. But also you should have been upfront about that. That's a really important nuance to the minting.

Speaker B: We are gonna announce that soon for sure.

Speaker A: Let me ask, and I know we have to start working towards wrapping the episode, but let me ask here one kind of market-related question real quick. Being a full-time artist, I'm sure you kind of have to track a little bit more, like who are all the players in the game? Who are the platforms out there? You know, what blockchains are collectors gravitating towards? So I hope, or I'm sure you've observed that there's been a push into like Solana and artists trying to move over there. And even more recently into Bitcoin with Ordinals. Sometimes there's like a multiplier in what you can charge by going to some other chains. Like in particular with Bitcoin, it's kind of like crazy what the standard mint on Bitcoin goes for these days. So do you have an opinion on all of that? Like this now being a professional thing for you, your primary source of money, like do you have to take that into account? Have you considered looking at these other chains? Or are you more focused on going to partners like Verse and listening to what they have to say and working with them?

Speaker B: I'm aware of all those, of all those changes in the space recently. The first thing I think of is like, I'm very surprised how deep and how strong the frontiers are between certain communities. There are certain projects that are published on other blockchains that they don't arrive to me through my social media circles. I always said that people say they are chain agnostic. I'm okay, I'm chain agnostic, I guess. I am surprised how important that is for so many people where a piece is minted. It's, again, a cliché. I am focusing on art. Doing that, creating art already comes with so much weight and responsibility that you have. And you have to face, first of all, confronting yourself with with your work, and then and then getting your work out there and showing part of yourself to people, which is like super stressful. Out of all the things an artist can be and should be, the part that I struggle the most with are exactly all those market-related decisions. I really appreciate. Working with Verse and feeling that there's someone that takes care of certain aspects of what I'm doing, because I don't know if it's a good way of putting it, but when you are— creative work makes you really alone and vulnerable. And then you always wish that there was somebody that would just step in and take care of something. And that's why one of the big reasons I appreciate working with Verse is that. Have I thought about minting on other blockchains? Not yet, because it all happened when I was working on a project. I was working on a project. This is something that I do like full time. Like there's no space in my brain for almost anything else. There's no space in my brain to think about any other potential future projects and the plans for the future. I'm just I dedicate myself completely to to what I'm doing until a point where I'm too tired or or I'm in a in a moment that I feel that is so different from the moment that I started working on the project that it's time to wrap it up and either throwing it to the trash or getting it out there. Hopefully the latter. And yeah, so now I'm in this moment where it's like pre-release. I haven't thought about other ventures yet.

Speaker C: Everything that you're talking about with Barbarians, it's just such the culmination of such a long period of time. coming out of such a difficult time. And I know that we're really looking forward to seeing what's going to happen next month. For listeners, we are recording this in the middle of February, so again, things might be changing, but whatever chain you release on in the future and however you choose to do it and whatever partners you do it with, you know, we'll be very much looking forward to that.

Speaker A: We'll be watching.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: But, you know, we've also We have been recording for a while, so I think that maybe we can do some rapid-fire questions. First question, and I think I know the answer to this. Do you have any alt accounts?

Speaker B: Nope. I have a secondary wallet somewhere on Tezos, but it's nothing related to my creation board.

Speaker A: Another one here then. What do you like to listen to while you code? And do you have any recommendations for us music-wise?

Speaker B: While coding, absolutely nothing. As I said, when I'm working on a piece, not even when coding, but even when I'm just in the process of working on a project, there is so little space in my head for anything. And especially when coding, my focus has to be at 100%. I just cannot do it any other way. But generally music I like, I don't know why, but for instance, once Lonli, Ivan from Verse, We were talking about it and he guessed what music I like. And he said, you must like Pink Floyd. I was like, yeah, that's like my favorite group of all time. So I don't know, maybe he saw some relation between that and what I do as an artist. But I definitely, I like progressive rock from like the '70s, like Pink Floyd and Yes and King Crimson. What I appreciate in music is On one hand, that you can value a composition in its totality and it's like musical lines, but also I really appreciate certain musical virtuosity and attention to details and complexity of composition. So, so this is the type of music I usually listen to.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker C: But also I think the emotional intensity and like the performance side of it, it's not just the playing notes or even being talented. It's also about the emotive response to, you know, what are you putting into it? How are you feeling today? How does that get expressed?

Speaker B: And the work behind the music.

Speaker C: Exactly. Moving on, also with similar to art that you like, music is art. What artists do you like to collect? Who are some of your favorites out there?

Speaker B: I was gonna say, metaphorically, I grew up on Tezos, so I have There are quite a few artists that are especially important for me. I always say it, it's never a mystery. Andreas Rau, I think it's, he's my favorite generative artist, I think. And it's also because I think one of the first pieces I've minted was Loom. I have it on my wall there, printed and signed by Andreas. Should they be also only generative artists or?

Speaker A: It's your interview, your answers.

Speaker B: Oh, okay. I already talked about it in my interview with Calo, but because I'm so much interested in land art, I always have to mention at least one land artist out there. And I would go with Maya Lin. She's an architect that also moved towards art, and she's very much inspired by interventions in territory, by intervening in territory in an artistic way, but also reproducing landscape element in a controlled gallery environment. There's one artist from Ghana that I absolutely adore, which is El Anatsui. He uses bottle tops from alcohol bottles to generate structures that are reminiscent of ocean waves, but also monumental textile-like structure, maybe sails. There is a story behind the use of materials, which historically the alcohol was used as a part of an exchange for slave traders, between slave traders and the history behind that. And his critique of postcolonialism is reflected in the use of material.

Speaker C: I saw his work at the Brooklyn Museum a couple of years ago. Really? It was really cool. I didn't remember who the artist was, but the second that you mentioned it, it's just, it's so memorable. Yeah.

Speaker B: First time I saw him live was in the Guggenheim in Bilbao, near to where I live. And a few days ago, I went to Tate Modern to see his new installation in the Turbine Gallery. Enormous, like 3 enormous pieces. Very impressive. Coming back to the world of generative art, maybe not generative per se, but Web3-related art. There is a very interesting artist, a poet, Ana María Caballero. I wanted to mention her. We have a secret society as well on Twitter for architects that are in the coding. I think it would be fun to maybe make an interview together.

Speaker A: There's a lot of them.

Speaker B: There are so many, but way too many architects in the generative art. When we stick together, there's people like Erik Swahn, that I'm also a big fan of. Olga Fradina, who had a drop, curated drop on Art Blocks a few weeks or months ago already. I lost track of time. Luis Fraguada, many, many others. I don't want it to turn into a super long response.

Speaker A: And I feel like that doubles for the other question that we asked, like, who do you want us to interview? I feel like we could pick any number of those names and you'd probably love to hear an episode with them. So lots for us to work with there.

Speaker B: Yeah, that would be, that would be interesting. I think it would be fun to do an architect's interview, like, you know.

Speaker A: I mean, we're talking to some of them already. I mean, Erik, we're talking to you to do an interview this year. We've been talking to Alejandro off and on for a while. Alejandro Campos, yeah, that was the other person.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I'm sure some of them, I'm trying to remember who else we've had. I can't even remember everyone that we've had on at this point.

Speaker C: I think it's becoming a little bit of a, of a meme that the best generative artists are Dutch and/or architects.

Speaker A: Yes. Well, I feel like this is a good place to stop. It's been awesome, Jacek, to get to chat with you, learn more about you, learn more about Barbarians. Hope you had a good time. Hope you enjoyed being on the show.

Speaker B: I did. I did a lot. Okay, good, good.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well then let's wrap it up and remind everyone to check out Barbarians on Verse. It will be for sale on March Probably the generator will be up sometime before then for everyone to go start collecting their seeds. That's it for this one. Thank you all for listening. Hope you enjoyed. We'll be back again soon with another episode. Big thanks to Jacek. Bye-bye.

Speaker B: Bye. Always. We're waiting to be signed.