Speaker A: All right, hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode. I'm joined today by Simon Says, who you probably know from Discord or from Twitter. Simon, we wanted to have you on because you recently-ish, at least as far as I understand, became a business manager slash agent for artists, a couple that we know and probably a lot of people have collected from who listen to the show. So I thought it'd be cool to have you on, get your perspective on the market and learn more about what you do. So here you are. How's it going?

Speaker B: Awesome. Well, thanks for having me and happy to be here. Doing pretty well. We're sort of at the tail end of the summer, which as a parent with young kids has its own kind of special valence in terms of the end of this, this period you think of in a certain way, and also the end of formal childcare type things that can, that you can place your kids in during the day. Right.

Speaker A: Is it that kind of like bittersweet as they get ready to go back to school, but then also you're going to get all that time back? Yeah.

Speaker B: A friend referred to it as though like these next 2 weeks are all It's like perpetually 5 o'clock on Sunday. Feels about right.

Speaker A: Mine is only 18 months, so we're not quite at the school age yet, but already I can see what the future will be like when she's like 4 or 5 and going off to school and just not having the noise and the demands and the mess in the house, at least for that.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're at 3 and 7, and then we also have my 8-year-old nephew visiting. Oh wow.

Speaker A: Full house.

Speaker B: So full house indeed. Cool.

Speaker A: Well, Simon, I think for people who might not really know of you or know who you are, maybe you can give us all a bit of your background in art and NFTs and collecting, you know, how you got into crypto and NFTs in the first place, and then what crossed you over into collecting generative art.

Speaker B: You know, I'm one of these folks who like came around a smidge in '17, and then didn't really tune back in until 2021, right? I, I bought a bit of ETH Kind of on a lark in 2017. It never left Coinbase. You know, I saw a number go up, saw a number go down, then just kind of ignored it for 3 or 4 years. Didn't really even know what I was buying. Someone said I should buy some ETH. So I was like, all right, sure, I'll trust this person's opinion. So bought some ETH and then just went by the wayside. And then in '21, I started paying quite a bit more attention. There were sort of a confluence of things. One is I was winding down business venture that I'd been working on for a while. And so was sort of primed to be looking for a diversion and something new, also had a little bit of investment capital from something else that had happened. And so I'd sort of, as I tuned in more, it was like, oh, this seems really starting to get into it, and then decided to go in a bit more. Spent a while in DeFi bullshit land. I don't say DeFi bullshit land because I think all DeFi is bullshit, quite the opposite, but rather Where I was spending my time was DeFi bullshit land. It was like liquidity farming on Polygon and like this crap that's just like it's all you know wizzy wuzzy fugazi fugazi where's the money from? You know I was spending a lot of time on like ETH Trader and ETH Finance subreddits and that sort of thing, and at some point Art Blocks stuff pierced my bubble, and I looked into it a bit more and. It was like the penny dropped, right? Like everything I had heard about NFTs prior to that point, nothing grabbed me. Nothing made me think it wasn't a scam, basically. And obviously I existed in the kind of mainstream information flows and where everything is a scam. And so it took a little while to pierce through. And then I was like, oh, art made with code. This is really interesting. There's actually a lot of stuff here that's freaking gorgeous. And like, on top of that, it like makes intuitive sense of why it's got this great home on the blockchain and why it's tokenized and all that sort of stuff. And then it was really a rapid process of me fall, you know, absolutely the like Alice in Wonderland falling through the looking glass GIF of just like down, down, down the rabbit hole. I know I'm mixing my metaphors there, but like. That summer was this rapid-fire process of me just kind of systematically liquidating all of my DeFi positions to buy more JPEGs as I got more and more into it. You know, I think there was definitely a little bit of like, I came in when everything was hot and was also making kind of some crazy money with it. That all totally vanished and just left me with a big tax bill. But like, I really just fell in love with some of the art that was being produced. With the community that was building up. Graalr sprang up a few months into that whole journey for myself, and I was involved pretty early on, and it just really felt like I kind of found my people and really enjoyed spending time in it, really enjoyed having such a close personal connection with the art that I was collecting. You know, art has been involved in my life and my life involved in art in various ways. Over time. My wife is an art historian with a PhD and she works at a major museum. And so there's always been a kind of engagement with the art world and art criticism and theory a little bit just via her, reading her papers through grad school and all that sort of stuff. And I was certainly brought up to appreciate art. We'd always go to art museums when we were traveling. And my family always had a fair bit of art on the walls that was of some note because my grandfather ran an art supply company in Philadelphia his whole life. And so like, a lot of these folks paid in art at various points, you know, when they were short on cash. And so my family punches above its weight in terms of the art on its wall, and kind of has throughout my memory. And so there's a, you know, a little bit of like resonating with all of that. And then just this totally new to me, obviously, space, which really resonated and really, I just fell in love with.

Speaker A: That's awesome. I think very similar to our stories of finding generative art through NFTs, and then having that kind of be the catalyst for like a renewed enjoyment and love of art and collecting and learning. Seems to be a common story in this space. For those of us who are lucky enough to cross over into the art side, a lot of people kind of get stuck on the PFP side and never move beyond it, unfortunately.

Speaker B: Yes, I will say, you know, mea culpa, the first NFT mint that I really did was Stoner Cats. That was the first thing that pierced my bubble.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it It was like, there was a little bit of like, that was fun to try and do the mint and figure it all out. But ultimately, it just all seemed stupid. And then finding the Art Blocks stuff was like, oh, aha, it doesn't have to be dumb.

Speaker A: You know, exactly.

Speaker B: There's actually some substance to this and some reason why I would actually want to hold this.

Speaker A: So you joined Graylers, and you're also a Tender member as well. Was it that involvement in Graylers early on that got you introduced to different artists and people and get you talking and get you kind of like thinking about Hey, there is an opportunity here to work with these artists, like in a professional capacity?

Speaker B: A little bit. So my professional background is sort of varying forms of strategic and organizational consulting, mostly focused on lefty advocacy and campaigning groups. So I was like a global consultant inside of Greenpeace for several years and worked with a bunch of other analogous groups via a kind of nonprofit consulting entity after. So groups like, you know, Amnesty International and UNICEF and That sort of thing. That work was strategic planning. It was thinking about what are the goals that we have and how are we trying to achieve them. It was organizational development. So like ways of working and leadership development and executive coaching and things like that. You know, I've done a lot of work that is of the type, like talk with folks about what they're trying to achieve and then help them think through how they can best achieve it and then support them in that endeavor. And then building the NFT expertise and in particular, the generative art expertise, I think are like the 2 different paths that led me to where I am right now in terms of working closely with artists. I have 3 clients that I'm working with as kind of business manager, coach, advisor type of role. One is Zach Lieberman, one is Marcel Schwittlick, and one is Erik Friedenson, who his artist name is Fdot. Zach and Marcel I began working with in January and Fdot in April, all of those dates this year. And the way that Zach and Marcel came about is somewhat by happenstance, like putting it out in the world, right? So I was working last year for a platform called Crypto for Charity, which does what it says on the tin, trying to help people donate crypto assets to charity.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It still exists as a product, but the budget to do outreach around it sort of no longer made sense following the twin happenings of Terra and Luna in the spring last year, and then FTX in the fall. I had been noodling for a while on the idea of supporting artists directly. The closeness and proximity to artists is one of the things that I really enjoy about the space. And as previously mentioned, I think that Working directly with people to help them achieve their goals is something I'm quite good at. I had been seeing artists make what seemed to me like mistakes at times in how they were releasing and where they were releasing in various things that as a collector you can look at and say like, hmm, I wouldn't have done it that way. And so I've been noodling on that kind of thing for a while, but also knowing like, who knows what their goal is in doing that. I'm looking at it at the time from a collector lens, but artists have lots of goals that aren't necessarily about revenue maximization or even about what collectors might think is best. And so with some humility, still looking at it and thinking, it'd be great to work with folks who I really respect on that. And so after the Crypto for Charity role wrapped up, I put out a tweet thread, which I think is still pinned. It was basically like, hey, I'm no longer with Crypto for Charity, because I'd done a lot of outreach in that role. So I felt it important to let folks know. Been sort of noodling on a few different ideas. One of the ideas is if there might be a way that I can usefully support artists in thinking through release strategies and how they're being in the space. This is some of my previous experience. Hit me up if you're interested. And a few people hit me up. Some of them are great artists who I like, but ultimately What they needed was much more like the kind of someone with the magic pixie dust to sprinkle on their careers to help them succeed, which is not what I think I have to offer particularly. And so I had to kind of respectfully and regretfully decline some of those as engagements. But 2 of the folks that reached out to me were Zach and Marcel, both of whom are folks I had collected works from in the past, both of whom are folks whose artistic output I respect tremendously. And both of whom are folks I had corresponded with either in person or remotely. So Zach, I'd actually met at the Bright Moments Mexico event, which I'd gone to with my daughter. So we both attended a workshop he ran and had met him a bit there. And Marcel, I had chatted with a bit on DMs at some point, both as a collector, and there was a small thing that I had just sort of reached out to him about to try and be helpful. They were like, this sounds interesting, let's chat. And so we chatted and here we are. And Erik came about due to an introduction from a mutual friend who is also himself a creative coder. fDot's career and sort of output so far has primarily been in the digital painting, digital illustration, one-of-ones and editions type of work. But he's also working on— there's a series of that that he's working on systematizing into a generative collection with the help of our mutual friend, the creative coder. Yeah. And so we were put in touch in April and have been working together since. And I didn't have a lot of Erik's work prior to us working together. I had one edition piece that was sort of my primary exposure to him, but I think it's a really nice style to his work and I think very identifiable as well, which is, I think, a real asset. And I've been excited to work with him as well and sort of continue to think about how to cross over into a generative space.

Speaker A: Very cool. I mean, I think we're in huge agreement on the WTBS side, just throughout all of last year and even this year into 2023, watching the way that artists have sometimes overcommitted themselves to a bunch of new platforms with who knows who behind it. And all of a sudden they have 5 drops in 5 weeks on 5 different chains, you know, kind of just scattershot everywhere. But when I think of Marcel and Zach, I don't think of them as having that problem. You know, like Zach is very deliberate. You know, Marcel's process is very driven by his ability to create physicals and using his machines. And it doesn't sound like at least those two, I don't, I'm not that familiar with Fdot, but they don't seem to have that issue of like overly producing work and not knowing what to do with it or making mistakes with where they land it. So what are the types of things that you do for these folks in this business manager role? And like, You said before that artists sometimes have goals that might differ from what collectors expect or even differ from what collectors want from them, right? So what are some of the things that you're doing that help these artists achieve those goals? And what are they?

Speaker B: Starting from first principles is really a conversation around what are your goals, right? Which is not necessarily a conversation or a concrete thought exercise that every artist has gone through, right? I think a lot of folks have sort of gotten caught up in the momentum of things. And it's like, well, my goal is to like release more cool shit. It's like, okay, yes. And let's talk about slightly more concretely, what does that actually mean? And like, what are you hoping to accomplish? And it may be like, what I'm hoping to accomplish is like figure out a way to make a living from this, right? Like that's a, it's a reasonable goal. The goal might not be like, I want to be in the MoMA. And even if that is the goal, I'm not sure I'm necessarily the, not sure I'm the person to like get you all the way there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But it starts with just a question of like, what are the goals? And also in many cases it's like, why are we having this conversation? There's an event model that I really enjoy, which is a kind of participant-led, like small group. You know, everyone comes to a conference to talk about some broad topic, but then you have like 15 different things going on at once. And people can vote with their feet. And whenever I'm facilitating a conversation like that, I always start with, why are you here? What brought you to this particular session? In the case of like someone reaching out to me about a potential business relationship, that's always where I'd begin as well. What's going on in your career in the current moment that led you to want to have this conversation? And we're in such a different moment than we were in, in January.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: In so many ways. And like some of them point to much less overwhelm because the market's so much slower. But what you're alluding to about all the new platforms and stuff, in many ways that there's even more of it. It's like there's times it feels like there's like a bunch more entities fighting over an ever smaller pie. And so for artists who are in demand, there's just quite a lot of like, there's this thing and there's this thing and there's this thing and there's this thing. And I could do any of them or none of them. And like, how the hell am I supposed to vet them? And—

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: This stuff, or it's like, I really want to Carve out some mental space to hunker down and work on this bigger, bigger deal thing. But I've got all this inbound stuff, and I've got these little commissions I agreed to do, and like got these other people asking me for things. And like, who's it okay to say no to? Or who's it okay to say yes but in seven months to? I think all that stuff is if you're if you're naturally a pretty agreeable person, which I think is the case for. a lot of artists in the space, especially when it's, there's so much flattery involved, right? It's like, I love your work and we would be so honored to do something with you and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, having someone who's a thought partner with you, having someone who actually has your interest at heart and fully, who is able to just kind of take first crack and first pass at a bunch of the stuff to do kind of initial vet and ask around and all that sort of stuff that's like, You know, there are artist backdoor whisper channels and stuff about different entities and whatever, but like, you know, every now and again you'll see someone mention the, like, the Slack group or whatever that I've seen mention of in Tender and Graylrs, but like—

Speaker A: And in DMs.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But you know, so people talk obviously, but like having someone who can ask around all that stuff for you so you can focus more on your art or on other stuff is really helpful, I think. to some people, right? And like, not everyone wants or needs that. Some people really enjoy that process.

Speaker A: Totally. I mean, I'm not sure how often or if you've ever listened to the show before, but like, even starting through like middle of last year, we were talking a lot about this artist needing to say no to things, except coming on our show. Of course, we love it when they say yes to coming on the show. But that is, to a degree, illustrates like how yes-oriented and like grateful and kind these people are for the most part, right? Like, maybe they've never even heard of your show and they'll just say like, yeah, of course I'll come on if you want to talk to me. Like, there's that level of like, someone's interested in my art, of course I want to talk to them.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, especially when it's like, when you're someone, like if you've been doing this for a while and it's mostly been a hobby and now it's like, people fucking love my art. This is amazing. Yes, I want to talk about it. Yes, I want to release on your thing. Yes, I want to get more art in more people's hands. Like, what's not to say yes to?

Speaker A: Well, there's that accumulation of yes that happens though, cuz I mean, we've, we've talked, you know, we've had on the show a lot of artists, we keep up relationships with them and it's just like, you hear from them like, oh my God, like I committed to this thing and I don't wanna do it and I'm not excited about the project. And like, but then they also don't wanna pull it back. You know, I come from a brand background, right? Like I work at HBO, like doing stuff with Game of Thrones and licensing, right? So I'm used to like making deals and like understanding what it means to like give your IP, like give your brand to someone else. In exchange for money. And that's the part that actually never, as far as I've heard from talking to artists, that they tell me like, yeah, I'm doing this thing and I'm going to be there like the 3rd drop here. And someone asked me to be in this. And it's like, well, are they giving you anything in advance? Because like, especially for a new platform, right? If you're in that first 10 or first 20 that they've kind of gathered to be like their genesis crop of artists, like you're doing so much more for them by putting your work there and legitimizing it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: than they're going to do for you because they don't have a community. It might be on a chain that doesn't have very much activity or isn't used to collecting art. Like, do you think that's something that's going to change? Like, I kind of feel like artists should be getting like some guarantees and some, a little bit more than just like, this is exposure for you, or like, you can be the first here.

Speaker B: So that's certainly something I try and dig into when I have conversations with folks around this stuff is like, what is the benefit here? Why should we do something with you versus with someone else? Or not at all, right? And I think there's different artists are in very different positions in terms of all sorts of constraints. So some artists need the money and some don't. Some artists have a bunch of collections kind of at the ready and some don't. Some artists are interested in trying out new platforms and taking those risks and some aren't.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so how those kind of variables shake out for any given person can be quite different, I think, which is sort of a diplomatic way of agreeing with you ultimately. But moving slightly away from generative art, so fdot, he does a lot of physical art as well, and then he'll often do these large-scale paintings and then he'll make a digital piece that is sort of inspired by a physical piece he made. And so he had these 4 editions or 4 pieces that he made at an artist residency last year in Mexico. And he turned them into digital pieces. And we were thinking about how best to release them. And ultimately, we had been chatting a bit with Transient about a few of the things they've got cooking. And ultimately, we decided to release with them because they really bring something to the table in terms of they've got some collectors who are interested in Like, there are some people who buy things because like Transient does interesting shit. And so we knew that releasing with them, there'd be like some additional audience to tap into there and some additional community to tap into. Some other platforms who we've had conversations with, that's much less clear. I think it's a really tricky moment with this glut of new platforms. They're all staffed and run by, as far as I'm can tell, very well-meaning people who are legitimately really interested in the space and legitimately see a unique selling proposition for their particular platform. But from a collector perspective, it's overwhelming. And from an artist perspective, it can be too, of like, why this versus that versus that versus that versus that versus that. And so it's definitely the sort of, who do we think is going to be around? And who's got something that they're really bringing to the table. It might not be money because not everyone has venture funding to throw a backstop at folks or whatever. And even some that do have the venture funding do that, are less inclined to. I do think there needs to be like a, what are you bringing to the table? Because as you say correctly, it's often the case that the artists are doing a lot more than the platform in terms of the value equation side of ratifying it. And I've also heard Nothing verified, but I have definitely heard tell of like some slightly shadier so-and-so goes to some artists and be like, hey, we've already got X, Y, and Z person signed up. But then you ask X, Y, or Z person and it's like, well, they DM'd me, but like, I haven't agreed to do shit.

Speaker A: I've heard that tell also. We won't, we won't name names, but I've heard it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Which is like, which is not great. And also you see things that are from like different, you know, there's like Yeah, sorry, I don't want to get into like badmouthing anyone. But you know, there are like, you know, you'll see some releases that are like, this is amazing and goes really well. And then some that are not handled that well, or that are things that feel sometimes a bit more cash grabby. And it's like, how do we, you know, that, that affects as well the decision to want to do something with a platform going forward.

Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. I mean, I think taking into account the platform brands, it's, it's also very, I think, going to be a very difficult thing for artists because So many of the new platforms popping up, at least this year, have all been open platforms and they're trying to do that pitch of like tools for artists, own your contract, put up whatever you want, no gatekeeping. But at the same time, and maybe this is a good way to transition to talking a little bit more about like the bear market and stuff, like it feels like there's a lot less demand for that type of thing right now. Like it doesn't feel like people are so interested in digging through 100 new projects a week from artists they might not know. Looking for the next big thing as they are like going to an Art Blocks or a Verse or a Tonic and buying with the confidence of like, this is an artist that has great work, is well collected on a platform that's well curated, that is gonna come with some other bells and whistles, like a physical or some other cool thing, right? Like, what's kind of the vibe like? I guess, you know, you have just the 3 clients for now, but when you're talking to them or even talking to other artists out there who you might be considered working with.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, where do you think these open platforms stand in the current market?

Speaker B: To some extent, there's, I think, a need for us to evolve a bit the way we think and talk about releases, where it's not all like— there's, I guess, an extent to which this runs against the whole decentralized ethos of crypto stuff. But it's like, not everything is like everything else. And so, you know, right now, this— it's Wednesday the 23rd when we're recording. And we're in the midst of the Highlight on-chain summer releases from Melissa Wiedrecht and James Merrill and Holger Lippmann and Leander Herzog, right? And like, those are all great. But like, if we're talking about, we wind up at 10,000, 20,000+ mints at $9 a pop, which is the case, like I minted a few this morning, and they're fun. I like all 4 of those series. They're really cool. Melissa's especially is really interesting and thought-provoking. Those sort of can't exist on the same mind space as a Take Wing or Melissa's Take Root series on Verse, these finely crafted series of 10 beautiful pieces that are still fucking mind-blowing to me if no one's seen them. Or Ori in James Merrill's His End versus the thing on Highlight. In a physical art or traditional art world space, we've got everything from mass-produced poster To signed edition, nice poster, to large edition print, to monotype print, to lithograph, to edition lithograph, to working your way up to small painting, to big painting, whatever. All of those would exist at very different points along a kind of price and demand spectrum. And I think that the open platforms are great, But they will tend to exist and to point much more toward the analog of the like mass-produced poster or like nice edition poster side of that analogy in my mind. I don't know how we like get to where we have a good way to distinguish those things.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The chains is part of it. And, you know, I think that being on an L2 kind of indicates that already a little bit, but like not entirely. And certainly there's Lots of stuff on, you know, series on fx hash and lots of stuff on Tez that we think of as just as precious as anything on ETH. But like, that feels to me like where the open platforms are gonna ultimately thrive, if they do, is in finding that kind of a market niche. And I think it's great that options like that exist. I can't imagine too many of them surviving. I think you're right that like, the vast majority of pieces that get minted will wind up floundering in obscurity, just because there's not the demand. There's not the liquidity, right? Like, I used to be, I used to be hawking the like fx hash incoming feed. And I'd be like, oh, this is cool for $4. I'll mint 5. I don't feel like I have the liquidity for that anymore to be doing that too much. And also, I don't have the mental bandwidth or liquidity to do it anymore. Like, I feel like my wallet's got enough of that kind of art in it. Even though that's a totally reductive and like kind of obnoxious thing to say, like, my sense is that I'm not alone in that feeling, right? It's like, I got a lot of art that's like nice, but isn't more than that. And so like, I don't hawk that in the same way. I mint when I feel something is super special.

Speaker A: I kind of have 2 views on what you just said. Like, first on the Coinbase thing on Base and Highlight and those projects, like, I think it's a little chicken and the egg because If the goal of those is to bring really good artists, like really well-respected artists to those of us who are already in the space, right. And would know those names and try to create that same experience that like, say you had the first time you saw something on Art Blocks and like pierce into the casual crypto user who maybe only dabbles in like ETH and Bitcoin and keeps it all on Coinbase, right. Like try to get them interested.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's a very good idea. We need more people taking shots like that. I think it remains to be seen if it'll be effective. And I think the L2 thing actually creates such a natural barrier, right? Like, I understand the motivation. You want the transaction costs to be low so prices can be low, but asking people to like convert their ETH to wrapped ETH to then use it and then install it on MetaMask. And now you have this like thing on MetaMask where you're flipping through the menu and you're on different chains and this weirdness. It's not as simple as like, oh, well, it just costs less, right? You're adding more steps, which means there's more friction, which means you're going to lose people along the way. Yeah. And ultimately, like, I don't know how much, how many new users that those projects will bring in. Holding judgment on that until we see, right?

Speaker B: I would love to see stats also on like crypto versus credit card payments. Everything I minted, I just bought with a credit card.

Speaker A: That's a huge thing. Although I've heard anecdotally that the pieces being bought with credit card are like not minting or showing up still, and they're having some issues.

Speaker B: That's not true. That's not true in my experience.

Speaker A: Okay, that's good to hear.

Speaker B: Like, I like connected with my wallet, and then I paid with a credit card, and then the pieces were in my wallet.

Speaker A: All right, sick. All right, I'm gonna go buy some after this then.

Speaker B: I've had a couple calls with the Highlight folks and it seems like a really good platform. They're building cool stuff. I haven't spoken with the Prohibition folks yet, but by all accounts, the same is true there. It's a bit tricky. I certainly think to the kind of the flip side piece and where your question started out a little bit, I do think the folks I'm working with generally are looking for release partners for anything major.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: I think the full-on Ability to roll your own and just do it basically solo certainly exists, but it's really hard to drive sufficient attention to something without just putting in a ton of legwork. And like, who's going to be the hype person and who's going to really make that happen becomes a tricky question. I think that's a big part of it. You know, different platforms will bring different things to the table, right? I think Verse is a really nice— Verse is wonderful, especially with helping to illustrate the physical manifestations of these works, which is something that I think is great to see both from a collector perspective and also just the artists love to see it. Zach had a Verse solo a couple weeks ago with them and obviously spoke about it with you on a previous Waiting to Be Signed.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And I firmly believe that the physical show they did in London led to better performance of the sale. I think that People saw the cone gradients printed out. And when I say saw, I mean, obviously some people attended and saw in person, but then like other people then saw photos of them printed out or heard anecdotes on Discord of people, someone who went to the show in London was like, holy shit, these look great. And even more so the videos, the colorblind studies, you know, they did this really ambitious, like huge, you know, 2-meter by 2-meter LED screens.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: a huge room just with one on each side. And everyone who went was just blown away.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. And like, they then told stories of how amazing these were to see at scale on screen. And that absolutely drove interest in the auctions and drove more people to participate at higher prices. Like, if Zach had done all the same exact work, and we had just released it on OBJKT, or on an ETH version thereof, it wouldn't have done nearly as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I think it also shows like not just, right, the social media, like seeing the quality of the print, you know, I think both Verse and Zach were posting like some really nice close-up shots just showing all the detail that you get in the printed outputs of the cone gradient studies and just building excitement like that for people who are in the price range of being able to bid on it. But also the fact that the exhibit exists tells everyone who's looking or considering, there is a team, the Verse team, that is so convicted in this that they're willing to put on a show like that, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, just the conviction of getting the prints made, displayed, the 2-meter, you know, graphical displays and stuff, like, all of that makes it feel like, oh, this is really good to more people than just me. Like, it's so good that someone else is willing to spend money against just exhibiting it, which is like I don't know, it just creates this whole other impression, I think, to people who are collecting. I wanted to jump just also on the fxhash thing and like collecting, right? Just something that we talked about too this year, both of us and a lot of people have slowed down their collecting on fxhash, not because they don't want to, but I think it's because it just feels like there's no new artists coming in to the ecosystem. Like, it kind of feels like we're in this closed circuit now where A lot of the people who you used to be buying for like 5 Tez at a time last year have now moved on and they're doing like Verse and Art Blocks and other stuff on ETH. And then the queue, like you look in the queue and you see like the same 3 or 4 people every week posting their project a day or whatever they're doing, but you don't see someone like new coming in that you've never heard of before who's like wowing you. We've reached this like cap on the size of the ecosystem here. But I don't know, maybe you observe it differently. I wanted to get your take on that.

Speaker B: I buy that, I guess. I'm not watching that queue, right? And so like between Tender and Graylers, if there's something cool that's being dropped, you'll hear about it. I'll hear about it. Yeah. And what winds up getting posted, I don't find frequently is something that I'm like grabbed by. I don't mean to be an asshole to like lots of new artists who have, I'm sure, released amazing work. in this period. But like, if I look at my Tez wallet, and I'm looking at recently received, so I minted some Digits, I minted some Ecologías A and B by Marcelo, I minted a couple of Rebellions. And prior to that, the last FXHash thing I have is Reunion, the Tyler Boswell series from like May. And like, that's crazy to me compared to where I used to be. But certainly, I mean, ratifies what you're saying, right? Those are all established artists, Whose work I own already on both chains in multiple collections. And yeah, I mean, I finally picked up a Pixel Rug a few weeks ago, which had been a glaring hole. I buy that read. But the thing is that I don't know how much, how much of that is true and how much of that is like, there isn't enough attention on what's coming in because of the market moment. And therefore new artists who are coming in just aren't getting noticed or aren't getting like picked up in the same way.

Speaker A: Maybe they come in and then they disappear because they don't mint out and they kind of resign themselves to like, well, you know, I tried.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, I'm just kind of looking through. You got me inspired to browse my recent collection. I've got a little bit more than you. You know, there was like an ItsGalo piece that was cool. There was the Ty Vek Ego Trilogy kind of recently. Leander put out a piece a couple months back. So there's, there's been some, but again, those are all names like that I know and Of the stuff that is like a name I didn't collect in 2022, I'm having a very hard time finding it in here.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's also like, I think post the reunion mints from Tyler, I like, I went through a multi-month period of not buying anything because I was down to just very, very little Tez and then went through and listed a bunch of stuff and then like had some sales. And so then when Rebellion came around or when Marcelo released the Ecologia series, I like had some Tez lying around. So I was like, all right, cool. I'll, I'll get some of these. Like, I look back on what I spent on some things last year. And it's bananas, just in terms of like, where did that liquidity come from? I don't know. Like, you know, compared to like, now I've got like, I've got like 2 ETH total liquid. And I bought a GM last year for 10x that, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Just from anecdotally talking with people, like, not everyone's in that situation, because different people have different, obviously, like income and earning setups. Different people played shitcoin season well. I didn't at all. The couple of punts I made lost. I didn't lose a lot. I just like didn't really play. But some people made a ton of money on like Turbo or whatever. But in this sort of severely liquidity-constrained environment, I feel personally much less well set up to just take flyers on new stuff, which I think is kind of the mindset you need in order to help some of those newer folks mint out.

Speaker A: And that's where being careful in picking where these artists release or helping them choose matters, right? Because liquidity is so tight. Yes. The fact that Zach, you know, I ballparked it in primary sales at around half a million on the Verse stuff, looking at the auctions and knowing what the passes went.

Speaker B: Not quite.

Speaker A: It was like $300,000. I think I ballparked it like $300,000, like $150,000 out of each. But that was my ballpark, right? I didn't actually crunch the numbers. That's a big move. Like, there's a lot of liquidity right now. It wouldn't have been a year and a half ago. But for right now, like, that's a ton of liquidity. I guess the question here is like, what else are you doing with the people that you work with in this bear market? Those opportunities to release like that are gonna be few and far between. So are there things you're doing outside of like, you know, I know that Zach, for example, does work with like Apple and Google and has done other types of things. Like, are you working with them to help line up other revenue streams or is it more about helping them take those like one or two big swings that they can get and like maximizing those?

Speaker B: A little bit more the latter and not necessarily maximizing. Like, I don't think the Zach Verse show was like fully max extract. I think we definitely could have charged more if we wanted to on the mint passes for the editions. We wanted to ensure that there was like something there where it felt like people were able to kind of get a deal. So I don't think it's all about maximizing revenue necessarily, but to the broader point, It's a lot of thinking about what are the kind of major things and how do we create space for them and how do we make sure they go well. It's also what are the things in between. So Zach gets a fair number of commission requests, for instance, and he'll get a lot of galleries that want to do a piece of his along with a bunch of other things. There was a piece of his at the Christie's 3.0 show in July that sold and It's just things like that every now and again. And Marcel has a little bit of that type of flow as well. Marcel is a really interesting, I mean, it's a fascinating artist at like, he's pretty unique in the space in terms of how connected to physical objects, the physical objects he produces.

Speaker A: And uses, right? Like his whole collection of vintage machines.

Speaker B: Yeah. So he uses these plotter machines. The vast majority of the NFTs he sells all refer to a specific, unique physical art object, right? So far, at least, he hasn't done any kind of digital-first, code-based, long-form series. You know, that presents some interesting questions to think about in terms of like releasing a collection. And, you know, it sort of falls into a different mental bucket for a lot of people than just like an Art Blocks mint or an fxhash mint or whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: With FDOT, it's like the non-generative one-of-one edition side of the NFT art space is it's very different. It's really been a learning curve for me because that's a space that I've also collected a fair bit in, but it's— I'm not nearly as embedded in any of the communities. You know, some like in Noble and in some like Twitter chats and stuff, but like I haven't gone nearly as deep. And so just really interesting to go deeper there and see how that all works. And it's a very different rhythm, right? Because like if you're not selling at a really high level, but you don't have the, like, every few months a major drop, which gets you enough revenue for the year or whatever.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Like, that flow doesn't work, right? So you need to be having a much more frequent cadence. And it's like, how are you doing the auctions? How are you doing the editions? Like, what's the pace of the different releases? How are you marketing them? How are you making it so that you're marketing yourself in a way that feels authentic and doesn't turn people off, but also does actually get the word out and make sure people aren't like, not knowing about things you're releasing. And you need to be in like sales mode a lot more, I think, on that side of the space, which is really hard for everyone involved, right? Just because ultimately you want to be talking about art, not about like the upcoming auction, but you kind of have to. And so, you know, I think the bear certainly affects how we deal like with any of those guys, the way we're thinking about navigating all that stuff is a bit different. But it's certainly all responsive to market conditions and others responsive to their needs and balancing short-term and long-term and not wanting to go too far with supply in any different way, but also wanting to, you know, to make it so that they're like exploring and working on stuff they want to be exploring and working on and not just like producing something because that's what people keep asking for.

Speaker A: And right, like Marcel could just keep making, you know, those spirals. And selling them like all day long, probably, right? Like there's a lot of demand for some of his like earlier, like colorful stuff. Like I know I in particular would love to get some of the stuff that he was selling, you know, around the end of last year.

Speaker B: You still can.

Speaker A: Yeah, but I mean, at the price point, I've missed a couple on Versum and stuff because that's when he released there because that site was like so janky and it was like not accepting my bids and there was opportunities to get some of his stuff for like $100 bucks, you know, in Tez, which is like crazy. Using him as an example, right? Like maybe there's a release that I haven't seen since then, but the last one I'm familiar with was the It Is What It Is, which was on Foundation. And so, you know, that's like a do-it-yourself platform where you don't have Verse doing the exhibit or doing any of the added like marketing promotions, kind of like all on you, the artist, or like in your team, right? And I thought that was a really cool project. I minted one. But it didn't mint out. And like, part of it to me is probably like, well, people wanted cool, colorful plotted stuff. And he kind of took a turn. And I think it was a super cool project. Mine's in the mail right now from Artfora. But like, is this a little bit where your role as like business coach comes into play of being like, hey, you know, like, kind of like picking them up a little bit and being like, look, it's okay, right? Like, I don't know, like, to the extent that you feel like you're comfortable talking about it, like, what was that kind of postmortem? like in that process, like in the relationship you have with him and like looking forward?

Speaker B: It was surprising to me as well that that didn't sell out. We thought we were pricing it at a pretty competitive place. And, you know, like, I was worried it was gonna like all go during the allowlist period.

Speaker A: I mean, I was worried I had you mint mine for me because I was gonna be flying. Yeah.

Speaker B: So in terms of those specifically, the question about like, what's my role after that kind of thing? I think totally depends on the person. Marcel is, I think, quite mature in terms of being totally fine with something not selling out immediately, right? Like he's been a practicing artist since long before NFTs and has showed in galleries and stuff and is like, is totally comfortable with the idea that you don't get to sell, you don't always get to sell 100 pieces in 20 minutes.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: Right. And they'll sell when they sell. I think it's like a really conceptually rich It's like they look interesting and they're conceptually fascinating, right? And I think that that mix, when art that is more weighted on the conceptual side than the visual side, often struggles a little to break through in our current space. And that's any number of causes for that. But like, I think that's just true. And we know that and we'd have conversations about it. But at the same time, I think it's really, I do think it's Incredible. And the idea that you can get this like unique luminogram made by Marcel in his studio for 0.25 ETH at the mint was bananas to me. Like, that was just such a good deal. And in terms of the open thing, Marcel had an open conversation with Foundation about doing a drop with them dating back to last year. So like before we had been in touch and been working together, and we had been chatting off and on about sort of what could be a good fit. And like, this kind of came up and they did a reasonable amount. Like, it's an open platform, but they choose what to promote.

Speaker A: Yeah, I did notice it got some good featuring on the main page.

Speaker B: Yeah, they did their best to feature it. And there was a nice post that they put up. There's like an interview with Marcel and diving into the process and all this stuff. And so like, I do think there's a really interesting question I don't have a perfect answer for of like, how do you make the case for something like that to folks in a way that actually breaks through, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because like, I had a bunch of conversations before that drop where every time I had the opportunity to explain to people like, okay, so this is what a luminogram is and this is the jerry-rigged, like MacGyver setup Marcel has figured out to make these in his studio. And This is the roots of the practice. And it goes back to this Gottfried Jaeger idea of concrete photography and generative photography and like all this stuff that it references and all these sorts of things. And I'd be like, and it's only 0.25 ETH, like, and it comes with the physical. Amazing. Right. So everyone I actually sort of walked through that whole process with was sold.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, but like, I felt like I was, you know, Mr. Shill. the weeks leading up to it in terms of posting in different communities I'm in and trying to help tell the story of that, but not going too far in terms of just being obnoxious about it. And then after the fact, there's so many people who are like, man, I had no idea. And it's like, what more can I do? You know? And like, how do you pierce through? And I just, I don't know. That feels to me like the biggest challenge for, especially for artists who are more on the conceptual side or more on the You know, there's certain art that is like really fits the zeitgeist perfectly. It's the collector's—

Speaker A: We call it, we call it the meta. There's on-meta art and the meta kind of changes every— it used to change almost every week and now it's— I'm not even sure what the meta is right now other than just be a really well-known artist that people like and are eager to collect.

Speaker B: Sure, yeah, but, but to an extent, yeah, like that, that is— yeah, it's like, you know, if you're If you're not that, there's this real question of how do you— and there's an extent to which people straddle both lines. I think Marcel is someone who has a tremendous amount of respect and admiration from collectors and maybe even more so from fellow artists. But then there's like, the stuff doesn't sell the way you might expect it to sometimes. And there's also, I think, interesting questions of to what extent the physical object helps that or not.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right? Where, like, you know, I certainly heard from a bunch of people the idea of like, oh, I already have a couple of Marcel pieces. I don't need anything more on my wall. It's like, well, do you stop at 2 for any other digital artist in your wallet? I get it. But at the same time, on the other hand, it's like, well, you don't have to claim the physical.

Speaker A: Yeah, but there is, I mean, speaking for myself personally, like, I feel like if you don't claim the physical, I would be super worried about my ability to claim it in the future. I'm not saying in Marcel's case, like, I distrust Marcel, but it would just be like, if it's an artist that I maybe don't have a DM-level relationship with, and I bought something that just had an Artfora redemption link, I don't know anything about Artfora as a company. I don't know what happens if Artfora goes down. Are they warehousing it? Does then the artist have to get it back? Like, so there's like a lot of questions that I would have of, or a lot of concerns I would have of.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Not claiming it. And then once you have it, if you don't have it, you know, the spot to put it, it's like, oh, how do I store this properly? Because you also like, you know, I wouldn't want to have a piece start to degrade because I was too careless with how I stored it. And so that means getting it framed and up on the wall. And that means talking to your partner about where it's gonna go. And as we call it on the show, the wife test, like it's got, where's it gonna live? So the stuff that fails goes into the office and the office is very small.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I think it is a bit of a tricky thing, like for people who are very invested on the art-only side of it, I think they really do care about where am I going to display it. For people who are just like thinking about flipping it in a year, probably less so, but they're probably not attracted to these physical projects as much.

Speaker B: A few things jump out as interesting from that. One is just to note, so generally speaking, ArtFora is not warehousing any art that I'm aware of. They have a print-on-demand thing, but like, basically Artfora is software that enables artists or Verse or whatever to more easily do like wallet and like token ownership verification workflows for shipping art. All the pieces that are unredeemed are in Marcel's studio in his possession. The same is true for like a Verse project that's being shipped out or whatever.

Speaker A: I'm just kind of coming up with like a hypothetical scenario of like a collector who might be worried, right?

Speaker B: Yes. So for anyone listening, so you know, the other thing I'd say is get a flat file cabinet.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Totally changed my approach to getting physical art associated, you know, prints and stuff associated with tokens I own, because I now know that I have somewhere safe for the long term to store anything I receive, and then I can kind of make decisions. There's a large piece I have that I got framed in my sort of initial, like, flurry of collecting and falling in love with stuff when I was getting prints of everything and putting it all up on the wall. And it's a token I no longer own. Like, I like it, but it's also, there's a lot more that I've received that I maybe like a little more. And I got Cory Haber's Atmospheres series on Verse. You know, it's this thing where like the top 10— Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Got a print.

Speaker B: Yep. Got a signed print. And so I have one of those and it turns out it's like the same size. And so I'm planning to take it back to, you know, it's been living in my flat file cabinet for a few months, but I'm planning when I get around to it to like take the framed piece and Cory's piece to the framers and they're gonna swap it out for like $80.

Speaker A: Oh, nice. Huge.

Speaker B: Yeah. Which is nice. I think all that is, is true. And it's interesting. There's all these, all these interesting challenges. And, you know, I think there's also like, My understanding is that when you're talking about kind of collecting behavior, my understanding is that in the, like, the more traditional art collecting world, you also often notice people get into it, they buy a bunch of stuff, and they like run out of space to put stuff.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And then collecting really slows down.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so I think there is an extent to which the same, maybe a similar thing is happening with some folks in our space, right? It's like, we've been at it for a few years, and we've got a lot of art now, and our wallets are really full. There's tokens, especially on like the Tez side, there's like tokens in my wallet that I couldn't really tell you anything about, no real relationship to. Yeah, just because there's like, you go through flurries of like buying something because it's cool. And that leads to this overall sense I have of like, man, I got a lot of stuff. And I gotta pull it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's gonna, it's gonna be interesting to see where it goes to, right? Because like, in theory, we're gonna get out of this bear market. In theory. Hopefully with the next run, there'll be renewed interest, not just in crypto, but in everything that crypto has to offer. And hopefully primarily that'll be art and NFTs. How are you kind of planning for yourself, your business, but also with your artists for that next big boom, assuming it's coming? Do you have a goal for like, you want to get a few more people signed up? Are you going to wait for that boom to like kind of grow your business? Like, what is your kind of like longer or medium-term thinking?

Speaker B: Yeah, from the personal perspective, my goal right now is not to like build a firm. I really am enjoying the work I'm doing with artists. And I think when you get into building a firm, there's just necessarily a lot more work you wind up doing that's about like hiring people and operations and marketing and all that sort of stuff, which is like, less attractive to me in terms of how I spend my day. Right now there's one other artist who I'm in frequent conversation and gonna help with a project or two coming up, but not necessarily an ongoing thing, partly because they already have gallery representation and stuff. And so it just doesn't make sense to have someone like me, or maybe it could, but whatever. There's a couple folks I'm having various conversations with. There's one project that I've done a little bit of advising towards, I would love to have a few more clients who are clients in the way that Zach and Marcel and Eric are clients, where it's like ongoing, regular, really trying to build something together type of a relationship. But I'm also not interested in like rushing that or getting into a relationship with someone just in order to increase my revenue or my client number. Right. So I really want there to make— want there to be a good fit and to have Folks I'm working with who see need and value in what I'm doing. It's not just sort of like having an assistant, which, yeah, you know, takes time, takes word of mouth. It takes interesting foundational conversations where there's some chemistry and like all that sort of stuff. But I'm definitely interested in that. And I would love to have that in place before, you know, if and when a bull returns. I'd love to have that in place beforehand so that we can ride that wave together. But It's entirely plausible to me that a lot of artists won't see the need for that until a bull returns, until you're back in a world of, you know, the money is easy and what's hard is attention and, or like your own mind space and mental energy and all this sort of stuff. And it may be that like a cut of earnings in the bear is like, man, I'm already barely making it. That's not of interest to me. Right. But yeah, you know, trying to have that in place and trying to be levelheaded about it. I think there's reason to believe that a lot of what folks are releasing now could be the kind of hidden gems, gold mines, whatever, in the next run.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like that people will covet to some extent things gotten more cheaply now. And so it's about being really conscientious about how, where, and when you're releasing and trying to build a collector base that really wants to hold your art. Collections aren't gonna appreciate in value over time if everyone's just a bag holder looking to get out the second there's some renewed attention and liquidity. And so like, how do we avoid that? How do we construct things so that we're kind of— everyone's getting in as much as possible in a good place and looking to go on that journey with us?

Speaker A: That's certainly kind of a bit of the paradox, right? It does feel like we need not just new people, but we need new people who have a little more earnestness to them and like, not just hear, you know, so many people here in this space came to art from purely a speculative standpoint, right? Like myself included when I first started in. And those were the heydays of like, you could mint something on fx hash and it would 100x, you know, in a day. So it just felt like so simple back then.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And then it takes everything kind of slowing down and doing things like making the show to kind of get more invested. in like the greater scene and like what's going on here. It's a big, certainly like a big open question for the future.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I guess maybe to kind of finish it up, a couple rapid fire and maybe some of these, well, this one in particular, I don't know if this will be a rapid fire because it might be a long answer from you, but you know, like you were saying, the way that you're compensated, right? You are getting some percentage, some agreed upon percentage as your cut for the work that you do. I get the sense that you're actually very good at it, but like, how do you balance like the incentive of saying yes with kind of like the job of saying No, or maybe, or like, let's think about that, right? Because it's gotta be like difficult, especially if this is like your full-time thing. And actually, I'm not sure if it's your, your true full-time thing at this point. I didn't ask you at the top, but ultimately you need people to be releasing work, right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: For you to get your fee. So, but also artists aren't gonna work with you if they don't trust you to keep their best interests in mind, kind of regardless of your participation. So how do you kind of think about that? Or is it as simple as like, I love these artists, I want to do what's best for them. And I believe that my own compensation will like redound from that.

Speaker B: It really is the latter. I try to approach things from an abundance mindset, from the perspective of like, what are their goals? And if I help them achieve their goals, it'll all work out. And, you know, when I started thinking about this and moving the ball forward in January, it was a different market. And so when I was thinking about sort of projecting earnings and things like that, it was like a rosier picture than has wound up being the reality, to be frank. But me counseling Zach to do an extra thing or counseling Marcel to do an extra thing that I didn't actually have any conviction in would be just so dumb. It's such a privilege that I get to work with these guys. And help them achieve their goals, that there's no part of me that is particularly tempted to do that ever. And I would far sooner pick up some consulting work on the side in my old world, right? Like, I can get some campaign work. I can get some facilitation gigs for nonprofit work if I need a short-term bridge for something. And in fact, I'm chatting with a former client right now about doing a retreat for them in October for a couple days. to bring in a little bit of extra money. There's certainly some privilege involved in that of like, I have enough savings that I'm not worried on any given month about like hitting rent or whatever. I've not found myself at all ever tempted to like cross over into counseling something that I don't believe makes sense. Or, or, or, I mean, there have been times where in conversation it's been like, well, you know, could do this, it might be fine, but like— You're already pretty busy. And if there's something about it that really resonates with you, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but like, I probably wouldn't do it. That kind of thing. And like, can be transparent about the idea of like, you know, if you wanna bring some extra money, this could maybe work. It is pretty remarkable to me that when I sort of put out into the world that I was thinking about this, that specifically like Zach and Marcel are the people who reached out. And then also to have been looped in with FDOT has been excellent. Yeah.

Speaker A: Huge congrats, honestly. Like, And Zach in particular, I would've thought he already had representation or something, you know, kind of at some of the levels that he plays at from time to time. So, and also just like hooking yourself up with like really good artists. It's gotta feel good to say like, yeah, like, Yeah. I represent these 3, take a look at their stuff. Like you're, you're fans of them. And I think that's gotta feel great. That wasn't an attempt at a gotcha. That was more just like, I literally had thought of this at the end of last year too. So around the same time and like immediately my business case mind was like, man, like I don't wanna be in a situation where Every time I do my job well, it means I'm not making money, you know, like, because I had been hearing so much from artists about like all the outreach they were getting for all the platforms and DAOs and groups and various things. So.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, you know, I would certainly say like for any artists who are, who are listening, feel free to reach out. Very happy to have chats with folks and also happy to have like informal one-off chats about stuff if it's helpful. Happy to be an active member of whisper networks and all that stuff.

Speaker A: All right, well, one last one. Other than the folks that you represent, who would you like to hear us interview on the show? I mean, we've already interviewed one of the 3, but who out there in the ecosystem would you like to hear an interview with?

Speaker B: Have you had Jan on Funny Guys?

Speaker A: We've tried, but he doesn't want to do voice. Now that Le Random is up, I think we'll get to him eventually. Cool.

Speaker B: Okay. You should do him. I'm not sure how much you'd want to do it, but there's a Vera Molnar scholar I've met Sophie Valinach, who just finished her PhD at University of Chicago. I think it'd be fascinating to have a conversation with her about a kind of view of the space from more of the academic perspective.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I would love to hear from the curator at LACMA who did the Coded show and I'm sure was involved in accepting the donations of the big high-profile gift from Cosimo and a bunch Yeah. It'd be fascinating to hear from her. I'm personally very interested in the view of this space from academia and how we help to bridge those worlds more. I live that specific question every day, as I mentioned. And that's a super interesting area to explore for me. I have no idea how interesting that is for like your average listener. It might be highly or not at all.

Speaker A: That's a really good idea. And I'm kind of like mad at myself for not thinking of it because I saw that exhibit a few months back. I have that book, the hardcover Coded book that they released too. And I bet her name is like right in the first page of it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Weirdly it's not, which is why it was taking me a second to find it. Yeah. But like, it's somewhere, gotta be somewhere in there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: 'Cause it opens with this like chronology before actually getting into like an index.

Speaker A: That would be a great episode. It would take some prep work for sure. And especially with like Casey just releasing 923 Rooms, right? And like the kind of progenitor work to that was on display there. I think it would be really good. I like this one a lot.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: This is a good place to end it. I'll invite you, Simon, if you want to get any plugs off, if there's anything, you know, obviously we just had the solo show from Zach, great success there. Anything coming up?

Speaker B: So there's nothing else I can plug from Zach at the moment or Marcel. You know, so we mentioned that sort of part of how I came together with Eric is that he's working on turning a series of unique drawings he did, drawings of like a city grid type setup. But, you know, he works in this sort of abstract style, some of which are— it's kind of reminiscent of like Automatism, the Yazid series.

Speaker A: Oh, sure.

Speaker B: But whereas, whereas that's more of like a pure abstraction. This is sort of layered and it's like, it straddles the line between— it is abstract, but also it's very clearly kind of figurative and like, you know, it's like recognizable abstraction, I guess. And sort of turning that into a generative series of cities, which I think will be really interesting. And like, we don't yet know when or where that will happen, but it will happen. And when it does, it'll be cool. It'll be really cool. Keep a lookout for that. And you know, there'll be some other stuff from him fairly soon. Like, you know, he's got a couple one-of-one Cities pieces that he'll be releasing in the next few weeks. His Twitter is @efdottstudio, which I would definitely check out. And there'll be some other, some other awesome stuff coming up over the next few months from Marcel and Zach as well. I just can't say what those are yet.

Speaker A: Upward Spiral 2, here we go.

Speaker B: Upward Spiral 2 Electric. Yeah.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, we'll look forward to all that, and everyone should give you a follow. Is it? It's @Simon Says.

Speaker B: It's zero x Simon Says.

Speaker A: Oh right, zero x Simon Says. Get the little eth nod there.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you know, Simon Says itself was already long gone when I came around.

Speaker A: So @zero x Simon Says. If you're an artist interested in maybe getting your freaking career together, give him a DM.

Speaker B: Hit me up. And if you're if you're not verified and therefore unable to DM, you know you can find me. In Discord, my email is also the same as my Twitter, so it's 0xsimonsays@gmail.com.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Simon. It was great to have you on the show, talk the market, and kind of like hear a different side of the business in a sense and get your take. Hope you enjoyed being on the show. It was great to have you.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Great to be here. Thanks for the great conversation.

Speaker A: Thank you. All right, that's it for this one, everyone. Hope you all enjoyed. We'll be back again soon. With another episode. Later everyone, bye!