Speaker A: Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode. I'm here with Trinity, of course, and And we have our guest, Leander Lenny Herzog, in the studio, the virtual studio. Lenny, how's it going?

Speaker B: Hey. Hi there. Thank you for having me. It's a huge honor to be here and be on the show. Longtime listener, first-time caller. Love it.

Speaker C: So what song requests do you have for us today? That's our first question.

Speaker A: Can we get an audio, like, cut of A Very Large Array that we can just drop in here at some point? The tones and drones.

Speaker B: That would be nice. Always with a disclaimer, some people don't like it, some do. I always love to hear it. Sometimes it just goes horribly wrong. Sometimes it works out.

Speaker C: Did you read Will's editorial on Very Large Array? I did, yes. I think it's one of his favorite pieces of all time.

Speaker A: We had to get the site updated to accommodate the YouTube links that I insisted be in there to like contrast against the sound and the vague point I was trying to make.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a difficult piece. It can be quite noisy. It has surprised a lot of people. This might be a good place to apologize to everyone for ruining their speakers or waking up their kids or irritating their dogs or whatever. I'm very sorry about that.

Speaker A: I think we definitely are going to talk about that piece among some of the other work you've put out on fxhash. But before we do, maybe you can give us a quick intro about yourself, what your history is in art and coding, what brought you to the greater crypto world, NFTs, blockchain, Tezos, fxhash. Like, what's your journey in general to get here?

Speaker C: Starting from childhood, preferably.

Speaker B: Oh my God.

Speaker A: It doesn't have to be that deep.

Speaker C: You can truncate it. It's okay.

Speaker B: Well, I spent my youth, I would say, being a graffiti writer. So hip-hop culture and graffiti is super important. I was born in '84, so that was when graffiti was in full swing in the States. Then it always like takes a long time for culture to sort of like come over to Europe, especially before times of the internet. So I spent my youth and teenage years with graffiti completely without computers, I would say, running around outside and painting. That was sort of my thing and pretty much the only thing I cared about. Then at some point, all the cool friends decided that, okay, graffiti is maybe not a career, so we have to become designers, like graphic designers, something like that. So that's what I tried to become. At some point, I also made it to design school, and there I had like a first contact with coding and computers. Obviously really got into computers and got lost in coding because I didn't have like any previous experience. I'm not someone who grew up with computers, if you will. So I had a lot to learn, but I was really, really into it. And I quickly realized that we are destined for a future with lots of screens and lots of digital platforms and outlets. So it would really make sense to not focus on becoming someone who designs books, but becoming someone who is really good with code and sort of can design and create in the digital space. Primarily, I had the luck to basically have a workshop for processing with Mario Swartz back then in 2006 or 7 or something like that. And he was like, "Okay, look, this is generative art. This is how it works. This is how you use processing. Here you go." And it was just like a week-long workshop or something like very short, obviously. But I completely fell in love with generative art and. I also fell in love with the idea that, okay, like generative art is something you can do. Like that's a thing that's potentially even a career, like very vaguely at this time, but obviously an interesting thing that some people do. And I got really, really deeply into this and basically neglected everything else and just focused on coding stuff with Processing. I had a bunch of cool clients, basically companies, agencies on a pretty international, like cool scale, I would say, for that time. Sadly, I graduated in 2008, which is also when the crisis hit. So all my clients disappeared very quickly and I had to reorient myself and basically became a web designer, web developer in Switzerland, working mostly for local clients for quite a while. And I continued to freelance for a couple of years and had various jobs at bigger and smaller agencies. Until at some point the whole NFT thing happened, as you know. I was also quite frustrated with my quote-unquote career in digital design, making digital products and stuff and doing online marketing and designing websites. Like, sometimes it was cool, but mostly it wasn't. So it was an easy decision when I figured out, okay, the NFT thing really makes sense. Generative art is really something that people understand now. It makes sense to quit this job and focus on generative art full time.

Speaker C: Thanks for giving that background. I'm sorry about 2008. I know that you're not the only one affected.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think everyone on— I think we're all around the same age here. So.

Speaker B: I think really it was a good lesson to experience 2008 because it really helped me to sort of like keep a realistic perspective last year when everything was just going up. Everyone was like extremely enthusiastic and hyped about everything. And you just know, okay, like the market is going to tank sooner or later. It's a real thing. A lot of people are going to get wrecked, as they say. And it really helps to like sort of like not be 18 and just hyped about everything and not consider that things will also go down sooner or later.

Speaker C: That is the one thing about aging. I do feel like I'm getting smarter all the freaking time and just being like, oh, I know these things now. Wisdom is, it's real.

Speaker A: Definitely. As a follow-up from the intro, so you got into NFTs. Did you start on the ETH side? Were you making a play for Art Blocks or publishing just your own stuff? Or did you come immediately to Tezos? And was like fxhash the thing?

Speaker B: I started with Tezos actually, because I was really into this discussion about the eco-friendliness of NFTs. Initially, I was completely against it and sort of ignored it. I was also absolutely not into crypto before that. I looked at Bitcoin a couple of years back and decided like, no, that doesn't make sense. That's stupid. Let's not do that. I don't like it. Basically, what it took for me to get into NFTs is my complete timeline started talking about NFTs until at some point you just couldn't ignore it, right? Everyone from the generative art scene and from the creative coding scene and so on, all these people really started talking about NFTs. So you just had to sort of at least look into it. And then people like Mario Klingemann and Joanie Lemercier and all these guys who are really vocal about Tezos basically got me to try that. And I just took a bunch of old interactive work that I had minted it on Hic Et Nunc and sort of like joined this short magical time in art history when we were all on Hic Et Nunc and made cool stuff on Tezos for the first time. And it really worked well. And it was quite magic to sort of like see stuff sell and get money for it. And also to have people understand what it is about in the first place and why it makes sense. Because before NFTs, it was not only almost impossible to get paid for this, the main problem was that people didn't understand what it was about, like why generative art even makes sense in the first place, and why you would pay for the JPEGs or for the interactive JavaScript or whatever. So for me, like, as someone who waited for this for almost a decade or so, it was a very magical moment to see that, like, okay, basically the education has happened. And for some weird, strange reason, we have all collectively chosen to, like, embrace the JPEGs and sort of, like, believe in this market and thing now. And based on that, a lot of new things became possible.

Speaker A: It's kind of like the invention of the printing press in a way, but like a digital printing press.

Speaker C: And money. Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's a money printing press, but also like a way to physically, like not physically, but a way to memorialize code in an exchangeable way. And like that didn't exist before, at least not for art. I guess people were like buying and selling code through software, but that came with all like DRM and all of those things. So did you encounter any resistance from other people though? Like some of artists in the past have told us that it's really uncomfortable for them socially when they moved into NFTs.

Speaker B: I heard that people have gotten death threats, have gotten really negative feedback all around. Luckily, I didn't get any of that. I only had positive experiences all around. Everyone I know was completely hyped about it. Occasionally, like, there were like 1 or 2 people who were like just grumpy in general and don't like new things, but that's always the case. But other than that, I didn't have any resistance, to be honest. It was super smooth. Everyone was extremely helpful and welcoming. And just the vibe in general from this scene at the moment was extremely good.

Speaker C: Why the death threats? Is it because of the whole constant confusion between proof of work, proof of stake, environmental concerns?

Speaker B: People were super angry about ETH and Bitcoin and proof of work and the waste of energy. There was like a very dramatic narrative around it. That was also like a big thing for me, honestly, because we were all discussing that, okay, look, Maybe if you mint an NFT right now, maybe it's not going to kill the world instantly. But if this is actually a bad thing, and we all start doing this, and it will escalate from there very quickly, we will really start something that we won't be able to stop it. And it can go really, really badly. And obviously, like most artists care about the world and the environment and don't want to like do something that is inherently evil or nasty. So it was a big discussion and we were all honestly quite worried about like how much of the fear and the hype is actually real and how much isn't. And to this day, I would say that most people aren't exactly 100% sure how bad the proof-of-work thing was and how big their contribution was in particular. So I'm super, super happy that we now have like something that's more sustainable and has like a very low impact and also has a good brand because of that. I mean, Tezos is awesome. And I think most other chains are also proof of stake by now, or at least moving there. So that's really nice. But before that, like, there was a dramatic moment where people were extremely angry and agitated about everything. And as you know, like with everything else, it's just the internet. People love to fight. People love to make threats. Some people are also grumpy. Some people are very sensitive, so that can escalate really easily.

Speaker C: I think that begs like an interesting follow-up because now that Ethereum is proof of stake as well, do you think that you or some of your other environmentally conscious friends and peers would be interested in exploring ETH again? Or is Tezos your ride and die?

Speaker B: No, no, absolutely. I have done some, some stuff on ETH to test the waters. It actually also worked. It was great because a lot of collectors are only on other chains. I'm very open to that. And now even more than before, obviously. I think most other people are too. It's undeniable that sort of the heart of culture is right now with Tezos. So Tezos is where it's at. Tezos is where FXHash is, which is obviously, I think, just hugely important in general for culture and for art history and everything. But we are open to ETH. I think most people I talk to are very open to, let's say, minting on Manifold. Foundation, Super Rare, whatever, it's all still there. People are also exploring it. It makes sense to diversify where you are and where you sell your stuff. So I think I love Tezos, but only doing all my stuff on Tezos is certainly not a good idea long term. Feels kind of risky. So my plan is definitely to also explore other chains, but people are still very opinionated about this.

Speaker C: Can we get a joke about Solana in here?

Speaker B: Yes, I was like, okay, let me try Solana. And I asked someone for like some money to mint and very friendly people showed up on Twitter instantly, gave me some coins so I can mint. I didn't do it so far. I asked 2 very good collectors of mine like, hey, should I try Solana? What do you think? And they were both like, without thinking for a second, they were both like, no. And they looked at me straight like, no, don't do it. And I was like, okay.

Speaker C: Interesting.

Speaker B: Obviously, I'm more open than you. Then again, like if 2 very important collectors who really know their shit tell me like to absolutely not even try it. I will also listen to them. So it's still sort of controversial, if you will.

Speaker A: Yeah, there was like a brief moment, I feel maybe it was like February, March of this year when things were kind of in a slump on FXHash. And we saw some people who are used to having their art mint out, all of a sudden it wasn't minting out. And then on their Twitter, you would see like they were now posting stuff to Solana. And I don't think it sold on Solana either. I think they, they thought there must be something wrong with the chain. But it was just a general just I think across all chains, like it wasn't a Tezos-specific thing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I think this is a good moment to transition into talking about some of your work because you have released a lot of great work on fx hash, which we're very thankful for. And it makes—

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Even if you're going to go do stuff in ETH, like we're really happy to have the stuff that we have from you here. Also tying this into the conversation about NFTs in general, like for your work in particular, since so much of it is about movement and like shifting and resetting and interactivity, it seems even compared to a typical piece of generative art, like a still image, it's more suited for NFTs as like the only really means to distribute it, right? Because you don't get the full experience by printing it. I guess the question here would be, what is the underlying philosophy behind your work that puts those elements into it? Because it's very distinct. You know, a lot of FX hash drops don't incorporate those types of interactive elements. And to be honest, like sometimes, like we've observed in the market, like it's maybe not the best thing to do for your work.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because people tend to shop on thumbnails, right? We say that a lot on the show. So by presenting work that's like, sit with this, watch, it's going to slowly change and or then it might all of a sudden change really quickly, but then it'll be still for a minute. So what is at the core of your work that lends towards this like underlying metamorphosis to it like that?

Speaker B: Hmm. That's a very interesting question. I don't know if I can put that into words. I'll try. Initially, like for me, the fxhash story started when Ciphrd wrote me about it and told me about his new platform before it was even released. In a DM basically. And I was like, okay, sounds cool. I would love to try it sometime. And I looked at it and it was interesting, but I didn't make a release initially because I was busy minting other stuff still on Hic Et Nunc. And also I was struggling with the idea of having collectors mint something and not knowing what you get out of it. Because traditionally what I always did was make a generative piece and then hand curate the output. Really, I would render lots of, lots of, lots of frames and then pick out the best ones and upload those somewhere or try to sell them or whatever. And I also had, in general, I would say a bit of a crisis with generative art because it was unclear how it makes sense, right? People were always like, okay, you can create this image and then you have another variation. And when you click, you get another variation. And you can do this 10 times or 100 times. Okay, I get it technically, but why does that make sense? Like, what's the point? Can't you make a decision? So you're basically deferring the decision of what artwork you get to the viewer, which can be a fun interactive experience, but mostly it was kind of pointless. And most of the context for generative design, not only art, was like, okay, We make a poster and we print 10,000 and they're all different, or we make business cards and they're all different. And then at some point you realize, okay, well, people still only see one or two. They don't get to see the whole variation. So in a sense, it was like this design strategy that was sort of half-assed and didn't really make sense for most applications, if you're really honest. If you're really honest, you have to admit that, okay, like from a nerd perspective for yourself, it's really Fascinating that the computer generates this and that you can do this hundreds of times and it's different every time. But to apply this somewhere in the world, it's basically useless, right? Well, I wouldn't say useless, but it was sort of difficult to find the right place for it and to also explain it to people. And then that's combined with the fact that, okay, on fxhash, you have something that is interactive and it has infinite potential, but then you're limited to single JPEGs basically that you sell off and you combine it with the lottery aspect of you mint something and you get something out and you don't know what is coming out. That is obviously like risky and nerve-wracking for collectors. I saw this like as a problem mostly, not as the fun that it is today, right? There's always 2 perspectives on it. To me, I had a sort of like a breakthrough with this generative art problem when I realized, okay, all these variations, those are not individual prints or things that I want to sell, but those are actually frames of an animation.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: or states of a system. And the challenge for me as a designer and artist is to find transitions between those states and make a cool interactive experience that basically gets you from one state to another state in some sort of fun way. It can be interactive. It should be animated because like the medium allows that. Why ignore it? It feels really strange if you have something that is generative and can basically evolve forever and move.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And even make sound or whatever. It feels really weird to limit this to different JPEGs that you then sell off individually. It feels like extremely capitalistic and it feels like extremely limiting towards the medium. That was the reason that it was very strange and very difficult for me to enter the fxhash thing because initially it didn't really make sense. I was like, okay, I don't want to have the risk that someone mints something that they don't like. That feels weird. And I don't want to like regress to having static JPEGs.

Speaker C: So the idea is that eventually it will animate to something that somebody will like at some point. Just have some patience.

Speaker B: Exactly. My breakthrough, basically, or like the way I got over this problem or internal conflict was I figured out, okay, I can basically do a drop where every piece is different and sort of like deterministic, can be reproduced. But it can also be endless on a timescale, and it can be endlessly interactive and evolving. So I can sort of like find a compromise, and I can make 200 or 500 tokens or whatever, which are basically different, but basically every token can contain the infinite potential of the whole system so that when you as a collector get one, it's not only about the first image that you basically mint, but you basically buy an experience, which is infinite, and has endless potential. It is certainly like not the same as the other tokens. But then again, it contains the whole potential of the system.

Speaker A: They're endlessly different, but they are also then endlessly the same, right? So like, if they all contain, in theory, on a long enough timeline, they will all cycle through the same images, not that anyone would experience that necessarily, but—

Speaker B: No, that will actually never happen.

Speaker A: So for example, in Returns, which was your first release, is there something within the code that restricts colors or restricts shapes that does make every single— I'm just trying to parse through what you're saying here. Like, is there something that actually does make every single thing unique through some parameter? Because you don't surface parameters on any of your stuff, which is another decision.

Speaker B: Yes. It's just a combination of enough parameters and sort of like randomized things that it is, I would say, quote unquote, cryptographically guaranteed that you will never see the same returns twice. Even if you buy different returns, like from the one I have, and you stare at it for a million years, it is mathematically impossible for it to regenerate the same returns that someone else has seen in their token. Just because there are enough colors and enough resolution in the shapes and like things that can happen. Even if it is like a very minimalistic, simplistic thing, it will never repeat. It's impossible. And also, I'm trying to explore working on different temporal, I would say, layers. So the first layer is the thumbnail, obviously. It is extremely important what thumbnail comes out after minting, right? That is just how the game works. You can't ignore that thumbnails are important. Then the next stage is like what the token does when you run it interactively, when you open it, like what sound does it make? What does it look like? It look like within the attention span of like what normal people have on the internet, which is usually between a couple of seconds and at most a minute. And then there is another layer, basically when people buy this and run this in their homes on a screen for a longer time, let's say minutes or hours or days, what does it do on that timescale, which is actually what I'm interested in the most by far. But it's also very difficult because not a lot of people have that kind of time and attention. So this is a very long, difficult game to play, but still there's these different layers of timing or temporal scales, if you will, that I'm trying to explore with all my tokens in combination with this endless potential that's contained in them. I don't know if that makes sense. It's very, very hard to understand. And usually as a collector, you only have one perspective.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And not all of them at the same time.

Speaker A: I think it makes sense. I think it's interesting. I mean, I'm trying to avoid talking too much about the market because it's, you know, in these, especially in an artist interview, I think we prefer to talk about the art, but I think it is interesting because, right, you're acknowledging the importance of thumbnails and stuff and animated work. We theorize often that like animated work tends to not perform as well immediately on the market because People, like you said, don't have the patience to click through and check it out and really see the depth.

Speaker B: That's exactly right.

Speaker A: I'm also curious then, like, since the tokens generally just go infinitely and stuff, right? And you're not surfacing the parameters, and how do you end up then deciding like how many editions of a piece are going to go on fxhash? Like, where do those numbers come from for like returns or very large array?

Speaker B: Honestly, I just make random guesses based on what I see. I have no idea what I'm doing, honestly, with most things, like when it comes to editions, pricing, everything. I'm completely lost. I look at what other people do. I talk to people. I ask collectors and curators, like, what do you think? What should I do? And sort of like try to find a way, but it's very random in the end.

Speaker A: That's fair.

Speaker B: I have been very lucky in that all my drops have minted out. So that basically means, okay, I could have gone higher with the editions, I think, because flippers make a lot of that money, right? And a lot of people didn't really get a piece, like sort of on primary. So I think it could have gone higher, but like, who knows? I'm not really sure. In the end, it's really honestly just random guesses on my side.

Speaker C: And I think it's something that it's impossible to predict. That's something that we talk about a lot on the more market side of the show, right? We don't begrudge your job figuring this out, because it literally changes over the course of 24 hours, 48 hours, long after you've already determined the mechanisms for the price points for a drop, especially with some of the collaborations that you might do. Ultimately, you just kind of have to go with your gut as to what feels right. And that's about it.

Speaker B: I'm trying to understand the consequences of it, right? Like, also mostly by listening to your podcast helps me understand, like, what does it mean to have so many sales on secondary? What does it mean if everyone holds it? What does it mean if the floor goes up or down? Sort of like, is this normal? Is this extreme? Is it good or is it bad? Obviously quite subjective. But if you look at all the collections And you sort of like look at this every day. You obviously learn like how people behave and what makes sense, what is maybe good or an indicator of quality or like some sort of problem either with the art or the market. Because for artists, it's extremely hard to tell this apart, right? And to understand why something works well, why it doesn't, how a collection like develops over time. And it's just also like just even monitoring all this stuff and keeping tabs on all the numbers is incredible. And I really respect how much you know about this. And how you keep track of it all. Because honestly, as an artist, I can't, like, even for my own stuff, let alone everyone else's. It's impossible for me to have this crazy overview and this like sort of like situational awareness of all the, of all the numeric things going on. It's crazy.

Speaker C: That's a great reason to listen to the show, quite honestly.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: Thank you for plugging the show while on our show. It's hugely appreciated.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's big appreciation.

Speaker C: You know, just One question kind of in line with that, because obviously the quantity is one part of it, the price is another, the mechanics behind the drop, whether you're doing a Dutch auction or not, those are all really critical. One thing that we have seen in relation to some artists in particular is the idea of dilution of your brand, for example. Is that anything that comes into mind when you think about how frequently you might release or at the price points that you might release? Casey Reas, he's a really great example of somebody who, at least on fx hash, has only done very large quantity, very low price projects as a way of kind of dispersing things to a wider audience while also really not diluting the other components of his work. Is that something that's at all of consideration?

Speaker B: Yes, it is actually. And it has become even more important as the market went down a bit. Personally, I think it's very important to experiment also with pricing and edition sizes. I have more and more feedback though, from curators, gallerists, and mostly people from, let's say, the traditional art world, who tell me not to flood the market, not to mint too much, not to mint too frequently. So these people are obviously much more aware of how art markets work in general, and what you need to do to basically have a healthy, sustainable development in terms of your editions and pricing. And I would say just managing your own brand in general. And I can see how this can absolutely backfire if you mint too much in a very short amount of time, or if you have like prices that are too crazy, or like too low or too high or whatever, just off. It's important. It also makes me sort of like nervous because I'm very experimental and sort of like, okay, I'm just out here making random guesses. And a lot of people tell me, oh no, you need to be like very careful and you need to have like a strategy and a good plan and don't do this and don't do that. And it's very risky. And I'm like, oh my God, hopefully I'm not too expensive, or hopefully my edition is not too big or too small. Or so like, that's a lot of anxiety and uncertainty in a field that is already impossible to really understand. But it's definitely a thing that I need to deal with and where I need a short-term and maybe also long-term strategy, thinking about, okay, what do I offer to my collectors? What is sort of like the interval of mints? How much Can I actually do? How much should I do? Should I sort of like be extra careful with releasing new stuff and only like do something every 3 months? Or should I drop something every week? My time is also limited, so I can't do a good drop every week. That's just not realistic. Then again, I definitely could do less, and I also definitely could do more. So it's really hard to find the right rhythm, basically, I think.

Speaker C: And I think there's also that seeking of How do you maintain relevancy? The Web3 world is exponentially faster, even more than exponentially faster. I don't know what's bigger than exponential than the traditional art market. So how do you stay remembered? How do you make sure that every single drop is hard hitting and people look forward to the next one?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Sometimes we see people drop too infrequently. You know, it's like, oh, Lenny, who's that guy? That guy. Okay.

Speaker B: I mean, honestly, I could have done a lot more when the market was in much better shape. I'm not sure if I have done like the right thing in general. Maybe I missed some good opportunities. Actually, pretty sure I did. Then again, let's see in the long run how it turns out, right? Personally, I think that gallerists and curators and collectors and flippers look at this from a much more analytical, numerical standpoint. Like, how much have you released? Like, what is your floor on this and that collection? What is your total volume, etc. What is everyone else doing? It's basically like a sports game, right? Like Moneyball. But as an artist, I still believe that what really matters most is the quality and the originality of your art. And if you are able to produce a lot of really good art in a shorter amount of time than the others, then just go for it. If the art is good, just drop it whenever it's ready and people will do the rest, right?

Speaker A: Well, speaking of good art, let's talk about Very Large Array, which is my favorite piece of yours. And as we said before, the piece I wrote a little editorial on for Tender. Your description is pretty brief here. You simply state that the code creates one very large array to generate both visuals and audio made with JavaScript and WebGL. I guess the question is, can you expand a little bit more about what's going on with this piece and what the objective is here? And also, the polarizing choice to add the audio to it? Because just to also go back to what you were saying before, like, you're making these tokens that move and shift and evolve so that people can find the moments they like, but then the audio maybe makes that impossible for some people. I personally like the noisiness of it and the abrasiveness, but let's hear a little bit from you about what's going on with this piece because it's so cool.

Speaker B: Well, the piece is based on a work I have done that you can find on my website from 2017. 2017 or so. It's called Microwave, and it's basically the same principle. It's the same thing as a very large array, but it's very minimalistic, just black and white. And it is very simple. It is basically the most simple thing you can do with WebGL without any libraries. And it is also the most simple thing to create any sound with the Web Audio API without any libraries. So it's very close to the metal, very brutalistic, very simple. Because I created this on my phone while walking around in the woods. I had a really cool smartphone a couple of years ago, and I was like, okay, let's figure out if I can actually do some creative coding stuff while walking around, just because sitting at home all the time is not a good idea. And that sort of like forced me to keep it very simple because typing on a phone is extremely hard. It's very hard to code on a phone while walking, and that just forces you. very brutally to keep things simple and to not have a lot of complexity, both like in the tech stack and also just in general on every level. And then from my first fxhash drop, I looked at all the work and decided to sort of like remaster, remix this in a more colorful, louder way. And that's how I made Very Large Array, basically with the same colors that I used for Returns and with a more extreme, more dramatic visual component and also more dramatic sound. It's still the same method that it is just one very large array, basically some kind of data with a bit of random that is first sent to the graphics card to render these lines. I don't know if you know the Web Audio API, you can generate sound in the browser directly. It's quite difficult. When I discovered it back then, I was extremely excited about it because making music is amazing, especially generative music. Then again, my problem is I'm not a musician. I don't really know a lot of a lot about like music or composition in general. I'm also not like a good musical person, I would say. So the knowledge that you need to actually create music in a browser technically and theoretically is extremely hardcore, right? So I'm just an idiot engineer, and I just have an array of data. And the most simple thing you can do is get a buffer basically and stuff it full of data. And then you can play that and it creates, let's not say music, let's just say an audio signal. And then I just explored it from there that, okay, if I tweak my arrays in this and that way, I can actually create an audible signal. And if I have an interesting rhythm in this array, in this pattern, I can actually also hear this. And sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. So it's really like working with a synthesizer or something where you have a cable and you plug it in somewhere else and see what happens, connecting data streams and signals in a way that may or may not end up with something interesting. And that's how I went about this. It's very chaotic and it's very emergent because I'm really— I didn't like compose the music or like have a bigger plan. I really just generated some more or less random data and stuffed it into this array and output it as audio, basically. A very fun approach. Sometimes it doesn't work and it's just really noisy and annoying. And sometimes it generates surprisingly interesting rhythms and patterns, right? I've had some people tell me that they have been running it for hours, that they have been running it on parties even as a sort of like sound experience, which is really like personally like my holy grail is like the ultimate compliment as an artist. If people buy your work and show it to other people or even run it as sort of like an entertainment. Thing at a social gathering. That's really cool. Obviously, it's also difficult because people are just not used to audio in the browser. So some people are completely surprised and annoyed. The sound is very— it's not like a mastered pop song. It's like really, it's audio data. So there's like crazy high tones. There is like very low bass stuff. If you run into this without a warning and you have like your subwoofer turned up, It's very disruptive and very disturbing. So again, like, very sorry about that to anyone who was irritated, but it's art, so whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: I think we've just found like a new method of torture. Just put headphones on somebody's head, crank the volume and just play this and don't let them take it off. Not that, not in a bad way, but just in an unexpected surprise.

Speaker A: Or maybe transcendence, you know, someone could have that.

Speaker C: You know what? You just roll the die.

Speaker B: Yeah, and it also changes over time, like the visual. And really, like I said, I think sometimes it creates surprisingly interesting rhythms and patterns that emerge, which is what I love about generative art, that I still can engage with it and be surprised by quote unquote my own work. It's still fun to click on it, to experience it, to spend some time with it, which is usually like different if you just paint or do something more With a different artistic strategy. With like these complex code-based systems, it's just fun to explore it. And you still, as an artist, you have a distance to it. There is still the chance that it, that you open it and it's basically, meh, not as good as I remember it. Or maybe you look at it like years later and you think, okay, this is really good shit. This goes super hard. I absolutely love it. I'm again, continue to be surprised by what comes out of it. So that's sort of like a piece that really shows the fun of generative art for me personally.

Speaker A: You know, I missed Microwave when I was looking through your past work, but the only other piece of the ones that I was clicking through that I found that had a sound component was iGel.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And I guess my, my follow-up was like, so how do you decide which pieces to incorporate noise into or sound into? And also looking at your collection on fxhash, I don't see a lot of other projects that feature generative sound. Like, is that something that you seek out or have explored much on?

Speaker B: Well, when I discovered the Web Audio API, I was like, okay, this shit is the coolest ever. From now on, all of my work will have sound. But obviously that's very hard to do because I'm not a musician. It takes time. It's just very complicated. If it would be possible, I think I would make music for every piece, like some audio components. But it's just too hard. Like the strategy that I used for a very large array of just pumping some array in a buffer. And playing it back is obviously not something that you can do every time, right? That gets boring. And if you really want to compose interesting music, it's very difficult. Right now I'm working with a composer actually on a new piece that has generative audio, and he's really like creating musical rhythms, patterns, and he's really like composing music. He has clicks and beats and kicks and snares and different patterns of different lengths that change over time and mutate, and he is like mastering it all. And there's like drone sounds that change like slowly over time. It's all like, it's very complex. First of all, like just composing music in general and then doing it in the browser with the Web Audio API, which is quite challenging. It's extremely hard. I set him on this path to do this with JavaScript and I hear from him almost every day and he's been busy for weeks getting his shit together. It's really hard and extremely challenging. And the only thing that I can do is like fun little noises, like in Eagle, the other piece. And I definitely want to continue and make more stuff that combines especially interactivity with music because it's just, it's very much an extremely fun thing to engage in. But still, I'm still not a musician and really making music is extremely hard.

Speaker C: I think especially in a generative sense, right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Curating is one thing, but making something that sounds consistently Good. Objectively good, I would say, not even subjectively.

Speaker B: Yes. There are some things that are easy to do, like you have some drone sounds, like for example, like to create some ambient-ish type of music is sort of doable. Then again, that's a lot of things, a lot of strategies that we've seen over the last 10, 20 years that I just don't find exciting, or I don't think that adds something to an artwork if it's like too basic.

Speaker C: It's been solved to an extent.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker C: It's been something that people have been doing for 50, 60 years even going back to some of the work from the '60s and '70s.

Speaker B: So if I can like produce a really good beat or a really good piece of generative music together with someone else, I will do that. But I'm also trying to avoid stuff that is like too obvious and too basic just for the sake of having audio every time, because it's still very challenging to get people to listen to audio and to even experience it, right? I think for a very large array, most people that hold one still don't know that it makes music.

Speaker C: I didn't know until Will wrote his editorial. Right.

Speaker B: And that's just something I learned from being a web developer for a long time. It's extremely hard to get people to engage with audio in the browser, to even experience it. Obviously, you can say that in the description, you can promote your piece as an audio project, but it's extremely hard. And if you make a piece that depends on the music for it to be a good experience, you're going to struggle. And in a financial sense, right now, for example, working on a piece that is focused only on the generative audio, Probably doesn't pay off right now in the current market if you need too much time to make it happen. Just from a financial standpoint, it's sort of like a risky thing to put too much time into that. The composer I'm working with right now has been working on garbage collection and other technical issues for like weeks. And he's like, man, I'm really struggling and it's really cool, but I have put so much time into this. We'll need to make a drop that will send for like a ton of money for me to make this work out? And I'm like, dude, yeah, it's, it's going to be difficult. We need to make a couple of drops and maybe wait for the market to be in a better position. But if you have audio and you depend on a lot of people experiencing the level of quality of your audio, good luck with that. That's just naturally on the web, a very difficult thing to achieve.

Speaker A: Is that one that's destined for Ethereum then maybe?

Speaker B: We haven't decided yet. Honestly, I tend to go for fx hash, but we'll see. I think on fx hash, the audience is more open to stuff like that, to more experimental stuff in general. I think I see more people like, for example, you who have the interest and passion to also engage with experimental stuff on Tezos and on fx hash as compared to maybe Art Blocks or any other platform. And I think in the long term, that matters more for us artists to have like the right collectors who are curious about like new or very different stuff and not just thumbnails or big prints.

Speaker A: Personally, I have to credit a friend of mine. I guess you would call him a retired artist at this point. He's not really making art anymore. I showed him a bunch of tokens that I had put into a Deca Gallery. I was like, what do you think of these? And the only one he thought was interesting was my Kim Asendorf. I think this is before I'd even collected any of your work. And I was like, what's wrong with all of the others. And he was like, I just don't think that they're leveraging the potential of the technology like very well. Like, I don't know why you would make a code-based flat image like this when you can do so much more. If you listen to all the episodes, like very early on, there was like some dismissiveness from me of like anything animated. And it was mostly from a market standpoint. It was like, why would we even look at this? Because clearly the market doesn't care about it. And hearing that from him made me take more of a long view of like Yeah, just because the market is ignoring this stuff now doesn't mean that in 5, 10, 20 years there won't be a reckoning that's like, well, there were some people who were out there like really pushing and trying to do as much as they could with the tools they had at the time. And this is not to diminish, like obviously I still collect work from, you know, all these artists. And, but it, it did kind of like make me think more inclusively about some of the work that I had not been paying attention to. And I don't know where, where I'm going with that, but it's like, I think that's why we talk about it on the show sometimes. It's like, Trying to help more people come to that stuff and not just look at the pretty abstracts or the pretty landscapes.

Speaker C: And there's nothing wrong with pretty abstracts or landscapes. No, we love them.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: I mean, I think that part of the reason, or at least one of, one of my theses around why we see different types of work do better on fxhash is because we've been so well trained just through the amount of volume that comes through. And we're over 20,000 projects at this point. We're coming up on 21,000.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Really?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's insane.

Speaker B: Incredible.

Speaker C: And so just through that alone, you know, we've had so much variety in the types of work that is possible to experience in just such a short and fast period of time. You know, I think since Decada, for example, people have been paying way more attention to things that might have sound-based elements because it's like, oh, this is something that can be extremely cool and also like extremely worthy. And same thing with animated pieces as well. So I think that we're maturing as a market. We're getting better. We're seeing more. We're able to talk about the art in better and more like tangible ways. And I think especially as we're going through more of this bear market dynamic, it is more about like, what is the art that you love and that speaks to you rather than pure speculation.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm very big on animated pieces, on audio, obviously. In general, the most important thing I think I think is also to have stuff that is responsive and that runs in real time at 60 frames per second or more or whatever we can do. I think dropping JPEGs is in general like not interesting. That sounds a bit dismissive and a bit extreme, but like my position is really to make interactive real-time art. I've been doing this since 2006, right? So I spent years just rendering out static JPEGs.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: For me, this is just, this is the past. This is, we don't need to do this anymore. I think it's not so interesting. Obviously, I still see like a lot of cool stuff that is in the end just static and it's still very good. But that's not what excites me about interactive digital art. And that's not where I think we're going. Whenever I see a drop and I click on a JPEG and it just doesn't do anything other than be a bit different than the next JPEG. I feel ripped off as a collector and as an artist. I don't like that. And there's exceptions to this, obviously, when the art is really, really good. But in general, I think the future is interactive and real-time and responsive and the combination of all these extra added values that we get from the technology that is available to us. Because otherwise, honestly, we could just paint.

Speaker C: I think that at this point, Conversation, I think we can go in a couple of different directions. We could either like stick around and talk about some of your other pieces that also have like these really big interactive elements specifically. I mean, we've talked about 2 of the 5 drops on fxhash, so we could talk about the other 3. But, you know, what you just said right there also brought to mind something that I wanted to ask about a little bit earlier on when you were talking about like that intersection between your generative artwork, your experience with Processing, as well as your experience, like Doing web design and web development, because I think it's really much a lot of the same thing. I work in the web space as well. And like, there's this concept of, well, ADA compliance is huge. Usability is really huge. But at the end of the day, most websites are just boring pieces of crap that enable people to sell a product.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Obviously, and we see this in your website, which is super awesome. I love it, even though it's so simple. What do you see the space in, in actually creating non-financialized products that are interactive websites, for example, as ways for people to experience the web in wholly different ways?

Speaker B: Are you referring to generative art or just web design in general?

Speaker C: Maybe the intersection of generative art and web design as we think about the web as an interactive playground versus an arena for utility.

Speaker B: I have a lot to say about that, actually. I would say it's difficult. First of all, I think good contemporary digital art is in general a website, in many cases, in most cases. And because of my background as a web designer, web developer, I strongly believe that most of this should be responsive. It should be interactive. And it should be on a high technical standard that you would expect from a contemporary current website, right? That's just how it is. I think if you know just enough JavaScript to create a JPEG and drop that, fine, good for you. If the art is cool, even better. But in the end, all the good experiences are basically websites. Then again, on the other hand, I worked in various agencies. I worked as a freelancer. I worked with quite creative people. And so like, I would say design industry, digital products, definitely a bit of creative coding. I have tried to sort of like find the intersection of generative art and web design for a long time. And I have tried to sell a lot of generative art and design to regular clients. And it's extremely hard. It's almost impossible because like before NFTs, people, like I said, didn't really understand generative art, right? It was extremely hard to sell to both clients, but also to their clients basically and customers. So it's very difficult on the communication level and on a technical level. And people really also don't care about websites anymore because social media sort of kills that. So if you are in the industry, you can still sell design that works, that is established, like Basically, you deliver your Figma file and then you get someone else to basically eat it up, if you will. But really doing creative stuff on the web, I'm not sure where it will go. There was a time a couple of years back where you would see a lot of really creative websites. I think all those websites were mostly made by people like me who basically quit their jobs to now do real quote unquote art and go for NFTs. So that has definitely died down quite a bit. And these days, I don't see a lot of websites in the first place, mostly on social media. And I don't see a lot of cool branding or design work that somehow like includes generative art or design or does anything that feels progressive or really interesting. I don't see a lot of potential there, not because of the technology, just because I've been there and tried to make it work and it completely didn't work. At all, which is kind of sad. And also, like, honestly, one of the reasons I sort of like thought, okay, fuck this job, I'm gonna quit. And I will just make NFTs and make art because obviously there is an audience now. And this audience gets it, right? I don't need to explain why this is fun or why you should buy this NFT. And if you go and work in a large design agency where you have clients with good budgets, who are constantly asking you about making the most creative, coolest stuff, but then they're afraid to do anything actually interesting. It's mostly just frustrating and you're wasting your time, I guess, as a developer or aspiring designer or whatever. So I see most of these people leaving the industry, if you will, and doing art because it just makes more sense right now, especially with that there is a market for digital art and creative stuff that happens on the web. That's maybe a very personal perspective from my side. I don't know if everyone else shares that experience, but I would say that most designers that I know are sort of frustrated if they're still in the industry. And that certainly seems to be a sort of common experience. And I don't know how you see the internet, but I think like the, the fun open internet with lots of small creative websites that used to exist at some point in the past.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: Uh, really isn't doing too well, I would say.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I think a lot of that comes down to concerns around usability and accessibility, as I said, which are both like really important depending on what you're trying to do. I think if it's like a smaller, cooler brand, then perhaps it's, you have the ability to be more experimental. And also the people who are just making decisions are probably less risk-averse perhaps than others. It's just an interesting conjunction between the design space. And you also have all these brands that were like, oh, NFTs, let's do this, let's do that. When, you know, I think that perhaps the next level would be to have these generative experiences that enable people to really have that one of one of X. You know, there's something there. I just don't know if we're there yet. Give it maybe a couple of years or, you know, 6 months depending on how fast things move. But thanks for your perspective on that. I know it was kind of a departure from talking about the art.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But, you know, art is culture and, you know, we spend so much time online. So I just think that when it comes to creating like beautiful and fun and engaging experiences, like that whimsy of interactivity is something that I feel this is missing like horrendously.

Speaker B: Yeah. And also just as a last comment on this, you have to admit that creating a cool artsy interactive experience on a website of a big company is extremely hard from an engineering perspective, right? If you want to make a cool, let's say 60 frames per second WebGL stuff, something, and have it on a big website where people with all sorts of devices come to see that with all sorts of form factors, with all sorts of disabilities and limitations, to get this right and to actually make it work for everyone and not to have it be like a complete usability disaster. It's just technically, it's extremely challenging. And you need like 10 or more years of experience to actually make that happen. So it's not easy. It's not easy.

Speaker C: That's you. You have the 10+ years of experience. All right.

Speaker B: Yeah, but still, like, I couldn't make it happen, right? Because it doesn't only take like design or art skills and that engineering experience. It still needs like more than that, right? It's also like a very difficult exercise in selling this to a client on multiple levels, doing this for bigger organizations. It's just very hard. If you want to explore it, go for it. But actually seeing it through and making it, making it land and getting it out there and making it a good experience that works for millions of people over like more than a couple of weeks for just a campaign, it's very, very hard and super challenging. So. I completely understand every project that fails because it is hard.

Speaker A: We're off book on this interview right now. I wonder if you've explored or ever thought about gaming, not like mobile gaming, but games as an art form, which is in itself a very kind of cottage industry. But you were remarking like that a lot of people are leaving websites and stuff because they, they can't find or execute the creativity there in a way that works. And I think we're seeing some of that. We're seeing both, right? We're seeing the homogenization of games. In the form of mobile and what works and user acquisition models through advertising and how samey everything feels on that side. But we're also seeing a bit of a resurgence or maybe a renewed examination of games that emphasize experimentation, you know, meta-analysis and critique and storytelling. There's a lot of weird, cool stuff out there. And even like some artists like Mitchell F. Chan right now is working on a game, apparently, as like his next project that I think is going to intersect with NFTs, but hopefully not in a land ownership feudalism way, but something more interesting. But I don't know, is that ever anything that's occurred to you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I have always like had an eye on this, very into small, independent, cool game gaming experiences. I think overall, it's safe to say like that the mainstream game development industry is like a shitshow and a complete nightmare for like most people who work there. You only ever hear like very bad stuff about these big studios and sort of like how they have to crunch and what the actual like work-life balance there is. That doesn't seem like too attractive. Then again, being completely independent as a game developer is also extremely challenging, I think. But it's a very beautiful medium and the possibilities are endless. I think it's really, really cool. It's just that distribution is very hard. And just making a business model that works out for you is also very hard, I think.

Speaker A: I can point you to a publisher who's very up for taking risks and funding people and stuff if you ever do want to go down that route.

Speaker B: I think I won't because my medium is really the web and web browsers. That's already too hard, but still cool. Like I can make a drop and people all over the world can see it instantly on their phones on the laptops, whatever. That's so beautiful. It's amazing. Still, there's plenty of challenges around this. And then if you go to a game where you need to like log into Steam or download something and run an .exe, there is an audience for that too, for sure. But that audience is much smaller. And there's also like the market expectations of how little you want to pay for a game is very much like a struggle, I will say. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go there. But I have massive respect for people who dare to try.

Speaker A: Charging like 1 ETH for a game would be pretty sick, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah, I could see myself buying a game for 1 ETH if I have like a long, interesting interactive experience. For sure. Absolutely. But I think most people are not ready to do that. And you better have some really, really good funding if you're going to go there or you're just going to ruin yourself. And end up with a lot of debt and no customers.

Speaker C: That could also be the intersection of art and gaming, like from a collection standpoint as well. So you're purchasing art that also happens to have this intensely immersive and interactive experience.

Speaker B: I have to say, I spent quite a bit of time with virtual reality VR stuff. I bought an HTC Vive, like when this first giant hype happened, 2017, I think, and spent quite a bit of time there also developing experiences with WebVR and stuff. Also gaming a lot, having a lot of fun there. But this completely went nowhere. Nobody cares. No clients want to pay for it. There is not really a good distribution mechanism. Nobody has the hardware. So personally, I think just like anything that goes beyond the websites that you can buy on FXHash is just way too hard. If you do that, you limit your audience to like a fraction of what it could be otherwise, which is just way too risky, I think. Unless you're maybe someone who has like unlimited funds, and you basically don't care about money. And you just decide, okay, I want to just go for this medium, then I think that's very cool. But like, from a financial standpoint, I think I wouldn't be able to justify to like go into such a niche again, because the audience just isn't there.

Speaker C: I agree with you that when it comes to the emerging technology space, I think that large companies, they're kind of focusing too much on the AR/VR world. When I think that they're not necessarily seeing the applications and the reach of Web3 specifically. And that as we move forward, Web3 is probably more the place to be both across almost every single dynamic other than perhaps gaming. Nobody wants to have an interactive whiskey experience.

Speaker B: The other problem is that nowadays, like VR experiences, for example, just have a branding problem. Right. Every day you see some completely ridiculous, absolute shit news from Zuckerberg and like his team. They don't even get the basics right. They have zero creative ideas. It's basically a big trash fire. So that won't actually help us for now to reach an audience. In the short term, that just makes it harder for everyone else to also do something in this space because people will just hate it. And this will probably like persist for a couple of years before it gets better. Long term, 10, 20 years, there will be a bright future of like cool interactive artsy gaming experiences in VR with NFTs and everything. But that's just like way too far away now at the moment.

Speaker A: Kind of hard to segue off of that conversation. But let's go back to the art. You know, since you're working with one collaborator now on music, you've— and you've worked with one other collaborator that we know of on your work. Gerhardt, which was tagged image comp. I don't know how you feel about that. If you, if you have an opinion on, on image comp controversy that we've— I guess it's not controversial, right? But maybe you can tell us a little bit about how that collaboration came about. And in particular, from the description, it kind of sounded like you both worked very independently, like up until the last moment. So yeah, what was the idea behind the structure of that collaboration as well?

Speaker B: Well, first off, the image composition label, I don't really care about it. Someone explained it to me from the team. It's a piece that loads different JPEGs with textures. So it definitely has a component of image composition in it. I don't think it is traditionally what is understood as image composition. But then again, I mean, people liked it. So it doesn't really matter. I don't think it didn't— it had like a negative impact in some sense on the work or on the market. I'm not sure about that. But personally, I don't really care about the label. I think it's fine. I see like the struggle of having 2 sales feeds, one for generative art and one for like PFP stuff and other stuff. So I understand where they're coming from. People label you anyway, so I guess it's cool. I was on Twitter one day and saw a tweet by Richard Nadler and he said like, hey, I'm looking for someone who is able to animate my work. And that just seemed like a very low-hanging fruit. I looked at some of his work, which was like mostly pixel sorting, I guess. I thought, okay, like, you just give me a bunch of your images and I will try to make something with it. And then we'll see if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't make sense. Maybe it makes sense. I actually tried it and worked on it for a long time, surprisingly, just because I was distracted by other stuff. And in the end, we produced something that we both think is really cool and we like. Background for this is that actually working with someone together on the code level is very hard. If you have 2 developers and you do something complex, like usually graphics programming, especially shader coding is pretty complex, right? So if you work on a complex shader, it's a very personal and usually very deep and complex thing, especially if you work on it for quite a bit and it's not the most simple thing. And you are maybe not even the very best developer in the world. It will be a messy hard to understand piece of code. And if you share that with someone and they're also trying to be as clever as you or whatever, you can easily get lost and it's very hard to keep things together and to sort of like coordinate on this level. For some people it's maybe easy. I just find it very intimidating and very challenging. So I've tried that with a couple of people before and it didn't really work out, mostly because I was overwhelmed with complexity that someone else is bringing. So I thought, hey, like doing a collab and working with some other input or data is really cool, but I don't want to get like too cozy and basically sit with someone and write code together. That's like too much for me at the moment. But I can take the images of Richard and just try to make something based on that. And that kind of worked out for me as this one-time collaboration experience, I think. So it's very contained. Basically, he delivers the images, the textures, and I wrote the shader code for it. So we both have a component that the other person did that we don't really understand. Richard isn't able to read my GLSL code and understand what's going on. And I haven't been in the room when he created his art and his textures, and I have no idea how he made this. It looks like there is some pixel sorting involved. Maybe there is some AI work. I don't know.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So in a way, I think it's cool to have this cut and interface between who contributes what. In that case, it really worked out for us, I think.

Speaker A: That was a pretty big hit when it came out. It was like instant mint out, got some good secondary action. That was kind of right before things really slowed down in a big way too. I feel like you got— when did that one drop? Like in June? I'm trying to remember now.

Speaker B: I think so. Yes, around that time.

Speaker A: That was a project that came out also right when like Tender was forming. And there was a We were talking about that one a lot in that particular Discord. It was really—

Speaker B: I was also trying to make something that is very different from Returns, which is like extremely minimalistic geometric. And it's an SVG-based project. And this one is a shader and it very much operates on the level of the pixel. So it's very animated, it's colorful, it has like a ton of gradients of different colors and stuff. Visually, it is maybe almost like the opposite of something like Aglow or Returns. Which I think is cool just as a surprise and to keep things interesting. I'm trying not to get stuck in one specific visual style and to also remind collectors that they can expect very different drops over time.

Speaker C: I think that all of the work that you have, it does feel cohesive. Like everything is different, but even drawing on some of like the overlaps, they're not really similarities like between Imi and Returns or Aglow and Imi, for example, and Very Large Array and Returns. Like they feel so much in that same family. So you You definitely are creating, like, I would say, like, that signature style of sorts when it comes to the animations and everything.

Speaker B: That's very nice to hear that there are still some threads that you can recognize, basically, because I think, like, last year, um, some artists really bet on one specific visual brand and style, and you would instantly recognize all of their drops and images on fxhash or on Twitter or wherever. And I think a lot of people had a good amount of success that is directly owed to this, like having this consistent visual look and really just focusing only on that. So financially, I think I would have done much better if I would do like exactly one thing and really go for that. But in the long run, I think it makes more sense to not depend on one style and do very different things.

Speaker C: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: But it's more sort of like a mid or long-term strategy. I think that also has confused some people because things look different.

Speaker C: Is this where we ask, what do you have coming up?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it is. Like, other than the music. So other than this music project, I mean, we've talked so much about your work in the interactive element, but also about being deliberate and not trying to flood the market, but also the struggle to want to be experimental and put cool stuff out there. So where's the alpha? Give us some alpha, Lenny. What's coming up? Like, what should we be saving our Tez for?

Speaker B: I'm definitely planning to do more of the same in the sense of like responsive, interactive, real-time work that is very generative, that has audio, that is visually super interesting. And that happens on fx hash, I guess, because it's still like the most exciting platform regardless of the market. Other than that, I'm working on physical stuff, some print stuff. Physical sculptures is right now what I'm working on, what I'm very excited about. I'm not sure where and how I will sell those. Talking to various people and opportunities right now. It's a hard step to leave the browser and get physical again. But that's what I'm most excited about right now, to have some sort of generative process that is based in the browser for sure, and also creates NFTs, but then manifests in physical sculptures that you can buy and have at home and live with as something that is not screen-based, unlike most other things these days.

Speaker C: How are we supposed to collect that though?

Speaker B: That's a really good question. Honestly, I have no idea what sort of like edition size is practical. I'm not sure. I'm looking into production right now and distribution. So maybe it's something that you can actually order somewhere. Maybe it's something more traditional that you need to buy at an art fair or at the gallery. Ideally, I hope I can do something that is very affordable and that a lot of people from the FXHash audience can actually buy and easily get shipped to their home and can assemble, maybe even But that's all like very experimental for now. I'm still trying to find my way there and sort of like figure out what's practical in terms of how I finance production, and how the whole thing works from writing the code to actually delivering a product to your home, which is obviously more difficult than just doing the regular old FX hash drop, right?

Speaker A: Have you heard of these things called PFPs? I hear you can sell them to finance roadmapped projects like that. That could be your foray, a big foray into ETH is the PFP project to fund the sculptures.

Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. I hear like the market is difficult everywhere now.

Speaker A: I was joking.

Speaker B: I think it's important to only do stuff that you still like in the future. And that really has like the level of quality that people expect. So I definitely try to avoid anything that looks like a cash grab or just showing up on another chain for the money. But still, obviously, I need to pay rent. And if I want to produce physical stuff that costs money and is a logistical nightmare too. So I need to just find a way to make this happen, which is what keeps me busy right now. A couple of people are helping me. So it's not just a solo thing. But I can't promise like any dates or prices or editions. I hope you like physical stuff.

Speaker A: We've seen some people on fxhash experimenting with it, like either promising a print if you mint at the highest price tier, or You know, you can, you know, get physical outputs.

Speaker C: The Sean Kemp woodcuts. Yeah.

Speaker A: Or just this week, like a laser engraved metal card that, uh, he did as a collaboration. So there, there's people out there doing stuff like that on a, you know, I don't know what, what your sculptures look like or how big they are, but you know, I guess it depends.

Speaker B: I don't know either.

Speaker A: We'll see.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay. I think to wrap it up, since we, we have gone a little long and we've had this really amazing discussion, one thing I wanted to ask you about was, uh, a tweet that you put out recently in discussion about our show. And, you know, obviously you're a self-professed fan, but we're not immune to critique. So in the tweet, you said that when you first heard us, you were like, who are these people? They're kind of crazy.

Speaker C: Like, what is wrong with them?

Speaker A: Yeah, what is wrong with them? So yeah, if you have any constructive feedback on behalf of the artist community or kind of things that we could be doing differently with the show, or just in general, right, for collectors, like Like, since we are obviously more collectors than artists, like, yeah, what is wrong with us?

Speaker B: To be very clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. It's more about the audience and artists and people in general adjusting to this very specific type of content, to this platform and to this market. You're doing absolutely great. It is, of course, a challenge to talk about the market and the art, but I think it's the right thing to do. And I can hear like how you're getting better with each episode, I would say, even though discussing and critiquing art is obviously like super challenging. I would want to do it. The first time I heard your podcast was quite extreme for me because it's just not a common thing to talk about the money and the art together at this level. And it's also like a very specific fxhash content, right? So it becomes clear, okay, like these people, fxhash is basically a lifestyle for you. That's really your thing. You're really like deeply into this. Then again, honestly, so am I. I have a lot of questions. I need to learn a lot of things. I don't have a lot of peers where I can discuss the FXHash market, right? I don't know, like, why are people buying more than one of my edition? Why are people flipping it? What does it mean if my secondary market is like this or like that? What does it mean if my floor is good or is it bad or does it hold? What does everything mean, basically? How does it work? It's extremely complicated. I can spend all my day on FXHash. I'm not looking at every drop. I'm not on Discord all day. So it's hard for me to see what's going on and to understand what it even means. On the other hand, like, I'm a full-time artist now. FXHash is for me by far the most important in terms of art and collectors and also in terms of money. So it's important for me to understand what's going on. I want to know. I need to know. And it's very hard to figure out just looking at it from the outside. So what you are doing is extremely valuable for me and I think for most artists who are listening to the show just to understand like, where did people go? What's up with the market this week? Why did everyone buy the other drop and not mine or whatever it is?

Speaker A: I wish we always knew the why. You know, we only speculate and kind of try to like connect the dots week to week.

Speaker B: And art people or like fellow artists, we sometimes discuss like How is the market doing in general? Or what's the hottest drop that you just bought? But it's not like we have like hours-long deep discussions about how exactly the market is behaving or whose floor prices are rising or falling. This depth of the discussion is very interesting. And that's not something that you can get elsewhere, I guess. So I hope you keep doing this. And I hope you get even better at talking about the art and sort of like explaining us what's happening with the market and where the flippers went and where the money is coming from or where it's going to, because it's super hard to understand if you just look at it from the outside.

Speaker A: Well, thank you. I wasn't necessarily trying to fish for a compliment there, but I guess there's—

Speaker C: We'll take it.

Speaker A: Yeah, but yeah, hearing that we could learn, learn more talking about the art and that we're improving on that is good. I think we've just kind of learned by doing on the art side, wouldn't you say, Trinity? Like, it's not like we sit down every week and spend 10 hours with art books and try to get—

Speaker C: I tried at one point, but it was just too much time.

Speaker A: Yeah. And we also work and have families, baby stuff, and it's like, it's really just through osmosis, right? And also from our artist interviews and talking to people in the community and stuff and just getting better at understanding sometimes where things come from.

Speaker B: It would be very cool, honestly, if you would cover more of the regular art market, if you will, maybe make some connections to that. And also like these discussions around like how often should you drop, how do you saturate the market, what's a good strategy for an artist in terms of how frequently you drop and what is your pricing and your edition size. These are all topics that are not new and that didn't appear with fx hash. They have been around before and people have opinions on that. There is a lot to explore and a lot of other people that you could speak to basically outside of this fxhash bubble that will basically make it a lot more interesting, I guess. Then again, I mean, you're collectors and fans of fxhash, so it's not like you need to advise or consult artists on their career. At least in part, it's old topics that are also happening elsewhere and that you could connect to.

Speaker A: I definitely think it would be interesting to have some more traditional art world people on the show just to have like an open discussion about the difference between the markets, right? If you go back to our first interview with Ken, you know, and his work in the traditional art world and being a gallerist now and like his stories and like how different it is with NFTs and like the accessibility, but then that accessibility comes with this whole other side of management. I think we, when we speak about the market, we try to be general and not prescriptive because I think we would hate to like specifically tell someone, do this amount, do this price, because we wouldn't have any basis for it other than a holistic evaluation and gut.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: of like, what it looks like. And then if it didn't work out, or it didn't work out the way they wanted, if it got really, really flipped because the price was a little, you know, do you know what I mean? It's like, we don't have the authority to prescribe that, even though we might have a gut instinct. And sometimes we nail our predictions pretty well. Like the MJLindow piece that dropped this week, like nailed exactly where it was gonna go in the Dutch auction at $250,000. Like those little wins don't really mean that we can be gurus necessarily.

Speaker B: But true, true.

Speaker C: A couple of weeks ago, you know, we were saying when things were really bad and There was a week where nothing was selling. We're like, folks, hold your drops. It's gonna be rough.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then everything turned around and exploded less than a week later. That's just the volatility.

Speaker B: Yeah, these are very vague feelings that we sense somehow. And then it's really nice to have you articulate what is happening and why maybe. It's not the final truth, of course. And you're not like advising anyone or like give definite advice of course, but you still have more insight in the end than most others. And that's extremely, extremely valuable. Because for me as an artist, it's still like the most stressful thing about this whole game in the end is still when I have a new work, I need to decide like, what is my edition size and what is the price? What makes sense right now? And that is extremely stressful. And I'm still out here making random guesses. I'm okay with making random guesses as a generative artist, obviously. But still, it's maybe not like the ideal approach to sort of like designing your markets or creating your career, just being out here making random guesses and not knowing what's going on is obviously not the smartest approach, right?

Speaker A: Well, you've got our DMs now. So, you know, for the next one, I feel like that is maybe a good place to wrap it. What do you think, Trinity? We've gone for quite a while. Lenny's been very generous with his time.

Speaker C: I need to make one more cup of coffee before my standup.

Speaker A: I need to check and make sure I haven't missed a meeting also.

Speaker C: But it's all worth it. This is the most important meeting of the day.

Speaker A: Yeah, easily.

Speaker C: For sure.

Speaker B: Cool. Likewise.

Speaker A: Well, thank you so much. That's, uh, Leander Herzog, generative artist, fxhash pillar for making cool, interesting stuff.

Speaker B: Oh, very kind. Thank you.

Speaker C: If you had to pass the baton to an artist we should interview next, now's your chance to tell us who.

Speaker A: That's not how it works, but okay.

Speaker B: I think, uh, some people I've been really impressed with recently, uh, I would say Kim Asendorf. That would be great. I would say, uh, Andreas Gysi.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: And William Mapan.

Speaker C: We would love to have all 3 of those people on the show.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: If you can give us some connections, we will try to make it happen.

Speaker B: For sure. For sure.

Speaker A: Confirm that they even know who we are. That would be helpful.

Speaker B: Oh, I think everyone knows who you are. Don't worry.

Speaker A: I don't know about that. Well, all right. Thank you, Lenny. It's been really a pleasure having you on the show. We appreciate the time that you've given us to come on.

Speaker B: Thank you. Likewise.

Speaker A: Hope everyone enjoyed. I think that's it for this one. We'll be back again soon with another interview, regular episode, all that. Later, everyone.

Speaker B: Thanks.

Speaker A: Bye-bye.