Speaker A: All right, hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a special interview episode. We're joined today by Steve Pikelny, who you may know as Stevie P. Trinity is here as well. We're down for a nice interview here. It's the New York crew. What's up, Steve? How's it going?

Speaker B: I'm pretty good. How are you?

Speaker A: Doing well. Excited to have you on.

Speaker B: I'm excited to be on. Longtime listener, first-time caller.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker C: Ooh, I'm so proud that you've listened to us throughout all of this, or at least through some of this. I remember when we first discovered you through Dopamine Machines, it was kind of revelatory. In many respects, it was just such a fun project.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I was so flattered that I was getting mainstream media attention for my project. That's us.

Speaker A: I like to think of us as alt media. We're a little outsider. Well, you know, Steve, since you're a listener, it'll come as no surprise. The first question for you is to introduce yourself to the audience. Tell us a little bit about your background in art and coding and how you came to NFTs as a way to release your work.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So hello, I'm Steve. How did I come to NFTs? I guess it really started when I was in college, as originally I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I got seduced by the very seductive field of economics and ended up going down that path and had a 3-year career in finance as a mutual fund analyst, which is very exciting. And once I pretty much had all I could take of that, I decided to learn how to code.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then I became a software engineer. And very soon after that, I realized that building websites was a lot of fun and just making stupid shit and putting it on the internet was a very fulfilling creative outlet. So I started doing that and spent a few years doing that on the side as a hobby. And then in 2020, NFTs were doing things and I'm like, cool, yeah, people are paying attention to digital art. Maybe I should try this out. The rest is history. Now I'm here.

Speaker A: Well, I'm curious then, you know, to kind of expand on the NFT part of it because so much of your work, and we'll get into this, I think, in the themes and stuff, but one reading, my reading of your work is you seem very skeptical of economic systems. Perhaps that's related to some of your education and professional history. And at that time, there was so much negative sentiment around NFTs, right? And like the financialization of things, and it's all pyramid scheme and a scam. And so considering that you seem to approach things with a lot of skepticism yourself, why or what brought you into the fold, I guess, to kind of embrace this as a way to produce art?

Speaker B: In a lot of ways, my skepticism turned itself into optimism, I guess. In professional wrestling, there's this one term called a work, which is, you know, you work in the crowd, you're in kayfabe, And you're sort of playing in that universe. And then there's this other term called a shoot, which is, oh, you actually punched me in the face and now we're actually fighting. And this is real life. This isn't part of the role-playing. And then there's a third term, which is working yourself into a shoot that kind of starts off as the role-playing and kind of turns into reality. So I feel like in, in some ways, my journey in the NFT space has been working myself into a chute, because I definitely came in in a more skeptical and critical frame of mind. Similar to how I was seduced by the field of economics, I feel like I was ultimately seduced. But yeah, I mean, I think like at the end of the day, the things I was initially skeptical of were also the things that kind of kept me around, just because I feel like on an abstract level, it's all very interesting and fascinating that people are willing to assign value just to arbitrary digital objects that otherwise would be meaningless. A lot of that kind of stems from just when I was studying economics, one of my big areas of research was studying financial bubbles, which are driven largely by optimism and delusion and, you know, ascribing value to things that aren't really tied to reality. You just have this speculative mania that happens and it feeds on itself, and then eventually it collapses. So with NFTs, late 2020 and early 2021, you sort of had the crypto world in general moving in that sense of total mania and ascribing insane values to these silly little digital objects. So right away, I'm like, oh, this is what's happening here. We've seen this in 2017, just with crypto in general. And this is obviously what's happening with NFTs. But, you know, at the same time, it's absolutely fascinating. And I think just from a philosophical standpoint, I think money is very interesting. And I think scams are very interesting. So as an artist, this is a space I definitely want to play around in because as skeptical as I am of the value of it, I think just from a material standpoint and from a social standpoint, this happens to be at the intersection of a lot of things and a lot of themes that I'm very interested in. So yeah, it was sort of a no-brainer that like, oh, this is a thing I should focus on and build art with. You know, the longer I was here, more interesting stuff came up. And yeah, I think also just as a side note, I think just crypto as a technology, you know, despite the rampant speculation, is something I've always been kind of vaguely optimistic about for various reasons. So even though in the short term, there are all these cycles of manic speculation and insanity, in the longer term, I kind of feel and hope that it'll lead to something less crazy.

Speaker C: So short-term, crypto is weird. People are weird for what they get into and obsessed with. Long-term, crypto is the way forward. Is that kind of a good summary?

Speaker B: Saying it's the way forward is a little—

Speaker C: A way forward.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a way forward along certain dimensions. I feel like when I'm explaining like what the blockchain is useful for to people who aren't in the space, a lot of times I try to make very clear that all of the crypto bros going on about like, oh, this is going to change the entire world, and it's digital gold, and like all that stuff is mostly bullshit, I think. But I do feel like it's a revolutionary way to order events in a decentralized way. And I guess like when you put it that way, it just sounds kind of sort of like overly technical and specific. I guess it is. But I feel like that, like there are certain really useful things that you could do with that. And yeah, money is like one of those things. But at the same time, I don't really buy the whole digital gold idea, partially because I think gold itself is kind of stupid. And digital gold is also kind of a stupid concept.

Speaker C: You bring it back to traditional finance and gold and also the WWE. And in some respects, maybe TradFi is like the longest series of WWE wrestling that has ever existed going back thousands upon thousands of years with— we get the drama, we get the absurdity, we get the level of seriousness that people take with it. I really liked what you talked about, like, kind of like this, the narratives and the stories that go along with the WWE, because it is like the most insane, over-the-top thing. But you also have so many people are like, this is totally real, man. I'm curious as to how that sense of absurdity And like that tie into like the concept of scam ties in with your design and artistic aesthetic.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker C: Because you didn't say anything in your background about having like a design or an art background, but obviously the way that you've developed these websites and these experiences speak to something that's incredibly engaging to the end user and also speaks to kind of the mania that we surround ourselves with in a day-to-day.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I think from a, like a nuts and bolts kind of skills level, I think one of the reasons I latched onto that style was because as I started to become a professional software engineer. So first I taught myself how to code. I did a bunch of Python. I was just doing like algorithms and backend stuff. And I did a bootcamp where I thought like, oh yeah, like databases are cool. And I want to work with business logic and all that. And the first job I got was, okay, we're going to throw you into the deep end of this insanely complicated frontend where you just have to get really good at CSS and basically figure out all of these ridiculous interface bugs that we've introduced into the system. So for the first few months of being a professional software engineer, I ended up just getting really good at CSS and HTML and figuring out the logic of how user interfaces worked. So as I started experimenting as a code-based artist, that was right off the bat one of the things I was really good at. Then as I started using the internet more, I started just picking up more on not only just functionally how they worked, but also just a lot of the design patterns that were being used and a lot of the dark design patterns that were being used to manipulate the user to do certain things. And also just as someone who most likely has some form of undiagnosed ADHD, I think it's just as I'm using the internet, it's like, I'm just becoming like more and more aware of just how all these websites are manipulating my attention with the user interface. So I think this was just something that As I started making weird websites and art, it was something that I was very conscious of as a form of expression that just kind of felt like a very natural thing to do is just like, oh, what if I made a website, but I made it intentionally look kind of shitty? You know, also at the time, I think the first kind of website I made that wasn't just a purely audiovisual thing, but had something of a narrative to it was fakebullshit.news, which was a fake news website. I guess it was right after Trump got elected when everyone was talking about fake news. And for whatever reason, like that idea just really stuck in my head of just, I just thought it was really interesting how you could use user interfaces to manipulate people's realities. And I think also kind of similar to wrestling and kayfabe, I was really interested in the idea of, okay, you have a fake news website, but what does it mean to make a fake fake news website where you kind of take that level of reality another step up or down or, or whatever? So just like conceptually, that idea really resonated with me. So yeah, that just like really captured my attention. And then I really liked the outcome of it. And then I just started getting more ideas in that ballpark of, okay, what are some other ways that I could manipulate the user's reality through the user interface and through the text on it? And like, what sort of stories can I tell through the website? And I guess I've never been like a huge fan of reading hypertext fiction, but I think just as a medium, it's really interesting and fascinating. So I just really liked the idea of how do you tell nonlinear stories where the user is in full control of what they click on and what they learn about next. And how does all that unfold?

Speaker A: Yeah, I really like how a lot of your website projects tend to link to each other as well. I think that's such kind of a nice way of tying the whole universe of these things and interlinking them, like literally interlinking them. So what is your relationship with the internet like? Because I think for anyone who ever creates critique or creates satire, like it comes from a place of being a fan. Generally, or you have to be an expert. You have to love it to be able to really skewer it effectively, you know, like fake bullshit. I, I see like a lot of visual nods to things like Drudge Report and other sites like that. And then you've done a ton of stuff exploring online dating, which we can talk about your dating life or not, up to you. But I'm like, but it does, I mean, it does authentically, like legitimately make me curious. What do you feel about that stuff? Because I guess as a side note, like Trinity and I both met our partners through online dating. But yeah, like, what is your relationship with all of this? Like, how do you holistically feel versus what you put out there in your art?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would define my relationship with the internet as unhealthy, largely. What I've said and just like things I've explored in Dopamine Machines also, just in that I feel like it kind of interacts with my brain chemistry in an unhealthy way where it just sort of habituates me to just like always seek the next sort of like dopamine rush of just like, ooh, I wonder if someone liked my hot take on Twitter. How many likes do I have? Or do I have any matches on the dating app? I think you rightfully noticed that my experiences with dating apps was a large influence on FinSexy, partially because of that dopamine reward. system of, has the love of your life found you on this app yet? Maybe if you see a little red notification, then it's possible. So it just sort of trains you to every time you open the app or go to the website, you're just looking for that notification. And if you get it, you just get this huge dopamine rush. And yeah, there's always like the, if you get a match, you get a dopamine rush. But you know, you don't get matches all the time. So I feel like swiping on a lot of these apps, like it literally does feel like a slot machine where it's like lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. Oh, I won a thing, and then that feels really good. So similar to like how slot machines are designed where obviously you can't win all the time because then the house wouldn't make any money. They want you to win just enough that it keeps you coming back for more, and it feels like a this rare thing that you got and you just kind of get that reward that you're seeking.

Speaker C: There's a lot that we could say there about that and the mechanics around features and rarity that exist within generative art. But staying on the thread of FinSexy, are there any of those moments baked into the project itself? I've done a little bit of exploration, but definitely haven't had the chance to explore the entire set of conversations. Is there anything that people who are engaging with that should be looking forward to or like trying to find?

Speaker B: In some ways, I feel like with FinSexy, I sort of subverted that expect— well, I guess in some sense I didn't, because when you log in, just immediately within the first 5 seconds, you get a notification. And even when I was user testing on people, Even if they were sort of like roleplaying as someone who is into being fin-dommed, there was a minor sense of excitement of just like, oh, I got a notification, like, who's this sexy lady? And then start talking to the fin-doms. But at the same time, I kind of tried to subvert that a little bit because normally with crypto, you get a lot of dopamine from making the money. But with this, there's the idea of, as the user, you're supposed to enjoy losing money and spending money and sending money to these characters. So the whole experience is— the way I describe it is, as the user, you might like X, Y, and Z, but the interface is designed for someone who likes A, B, and C instead. So I I feel like with a lot of people, there's probably a disconnect of like, I don't like losing money, but obviously this interface is trying to make it seem like I enjoy losing money. One of the ways I try to do that is when you actually send ETH to one of the FinDoms, you get sort of like the loading screen is sort of like a pre-orgasm, like wavering where it's like, oh, it's like, it's very exciting. What's going to happen? And then when the transaction goes through, you get this flash of bright pink light with a sound that simulates an orgasm. I'm just like, oh yeah, I just spent all this money. That's so hot. Which I'm sure, again, most people using the website probably don't feel that naturally. But in kayfabe, like in character, it's designed for the pay pigs and like the people who do actually get off on spending You mentioned user testing.

Speaker C: Is that a particular interaction that you really spend a lot of time honing in on and getting like the exact reaction of your testing base? Just to make sure it felt as genuine and as orgasmic as possible?

Speaker B: That's a good question. I think with like that feature in particular, I sort of knew what I wanted to do and I tested it out on people and Initially, it didn't have sound. And I think people kind of liked it, but they were sort of confused. And I tested it on one of my friends who is familiar with a lot of my work and likes the audiovisual stuff in particular. And he was like, it needs sound. It definitely needs— and I was like kind of considering it, but I'm just like, okay, yeah, sure. You're like, maybe you're right. It's like, it does need sound. And then once I added that, I feel like it popped a little more.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it sold the experience a little better. And I think people, people kind of got it a little after that.

Speaker A: When you're making these websites, there's kind of like these 2 eras, right? There was like the pre-NFT websites, like the fake news one stuff where there's really no way that you're making money off of it. And I presume that that was kind of like in your hobbyist or more in your hobbyist era. But now in the, I'm a full-time artist era, and you're still exploring and making these websites. But you have to kind of like also balance the, how do I actually make some money off of this, right? To sustain my practice. So like when you're designing these things, like how do you balance it? That must have been a strange shift to go from just making something that's like purely aesthetic and for you and for whoever might enjoy it to now, like also there has to be some kind of hook here where people can send crypto ultimately somewhere into my wallet, right? Like however convoluted it might be. And in some cases, or in most cases, it seems very convoluted actually, like how you make money.

Speaker B: That's definitely something I've been existentially grappling with as of late. I guess the short answer is that I was very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time in 2021. So I have a lot of runway, so I could afford to basically do whatever the hell I want for a while without having to worry about pulling in a sizable revenue every year. But At the same time, like, it feels good to make the money. And I feel like in NFT land, a lot of it's driven by money. So if a project isn't making money, people don't give a shit about it. So, you know, even though it's unhealthy, it's kind of a metric of success to some extent. In the last, like, year or so, I think, I guess, especially as the money has been drying up, I've been trying to move a little bit more in a direction of Not having, or at least not compromising the art for the sake of making the money and to trying to focus more on what's a good project that I could put out there and making the money is kind of a secondary pursuit. I think up through FinSexy, like a big, one of the big reasons that that was a project that appealed to me was even though it's kind of stupid, there is a hook there where I can make money on this feasibly, where if People are really into the project, and they're having a lot of fun with it. You know, at the end of the day, it is a project based around giving me money. I sort of am the fin dom, and you know, at that point, I didn't know what the market for actual fin domming is in the crypto world, and turns out it's quite small. Didn't know that at the time, and I'm like, oh, maybe this is a viable, a viable business option, like because. There are a lot of crypto sissy boys out there and girls who just enjoy getting wrecked on all these stupid meme coins, or just like, oops, I didn't pay my taxes. And just like, you know, there are all of these touchpoints where I feel like people are getting financially dominated in various ways. And like, in some ways, I feel like that's like kind of part of the fun, or at least the fear of being financially dominated is part of the fund. So, you know, I kind of figured like, okay, like best case scenario, maybe I'll strike a nerve there and people will be into it and give me a lot of money because they enjoy being financially dominated. But worst case scenario, it's still a really interesting avenue to explore. So even if no one is into it, and they just want to explore it, like, I do think it's a really valid artistic theme to try to tease out in this project. So yeah, I guess to answer your question is in terms of just like generating revenue, that was sort of what was going through my head with that project. But I guess also like moving forward, it's a little murkier. At the moment, I'm working on a project that basically has like no path to revenue, but in the long run, maybe it could lead to better. I guess I don't know is the answer to that question. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker C: Neither do we, but we're open for consultation. I feel like there's such an interesting balance, and I don't know if this is intentional or accidental, between the types of solo engagement that people have when using some of your website-based work, such as FinSexy, because it is very participatory, it is very engaging. Like, you're clicking around, you're trying to make things happen, you're like exploring. And there's kind of an interesting balance between that and what we would traditionally consider NFT markets. You know, you've obviously released a ton of work on Art Blocks where there is that level of user participation and engagement through being a part of these Discord feeds and market cycles. Do you have a sense of which type of project you prefer releasing and why? And especially as you've gone through this last year or so, Have you noticed any differences in how people engage with those different types of projects and the type of feedback you get?

Speaker B: I do think one of the things I do genuinely like about the NFT world is like, even if you're talking about just like the— I don't want to say boring, but like the most vanilla, straightforward, here's an NFT, all you can do is sell it, and it exists on the blockchain. Even with those sorts of projects, one of the things I like about it is you do get that sort of interactive community-based thing where there is a feed that you could set up in your Discord where you could see, here are all the sales, here are all the listings. And every time an event happens, you get the thumbnail of the piece and that piece has a history to it. And people in Discord might talk about the history and you do have this sort of interactive thing going on. I really do like that level of interactivity. But I think on top of that, when you're kind of talking about everything beyond just the out-of-the-box NFT features Like, I definitely do think I am becoming more and more interested in projects that have a higher level of interactivity. I think for a couple reasons. One is that I think just in general, they tend to be more fun to build because it's not just this like one-dimensional thing, but you get to build out this whole universe with lots of different facets and you get to think about how the system works and how this thing interacts with that and like what the user's feeling and It allows you to just like empathize with the user or viewer or player a bit more. I like all of those elements. But I think also on top of that, I think just in terms of, you know, if one of my goals as an artist is to go after the very scarce attention of people, because the world we live in, especially on the internet, is that there are a million things vying for your attention. So I think that one possible metric of success as an internet-based artist is like, how long can you hold people's attention for? And I think with a lot of static visual-based generative art, I think the level of engagement there is fairly limited. It feels limited to only talking about market dynamics or just kind of sharing on social media. And yeah, you could explore a collection and like, that's cool. But there are very, very few generative art collections that I've spent more than 2 or 3 minutes on, I guess, where even like optimistically, a lot of collections are like, okay, like, I like this, this is cool. And then I look through stuff on OpenSea for 2 or 3 minutes, maybe 5 minutes. And then that's sort of the end of it. And then maybe Also optimistically, it's relegated to, I check into the Art Blocks Discord server and pop in a block talk, and then I see like, oh, one of these things sold, and then maybe people talk about it for 20 seconds, and that's kind of the end of it. But I think with something that's more interactive, then like right off the bat, you have the chance to actually engage someone for, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes. Maybe more. Even just thinking about silly little free web-based games, even if it's something that's not very spectacular, if it kind of has some level of a hook, then there's a good chance I'll spend 10, 15, 20 minutes just clicking around and playing with it and seeing what'll happen. And, you know, like 15, 20 minutes of attention doing that is more than 2 minutes of attention of just like, oh yeah, that looks cool. Anyhow, what else was I doing?

Speaker A: Have you ever thought about making a game? Because I think honestly, it's such an underexplored side of crypto. For as much as people are investing in it, there's so little that's coming out and doing anything. And like, I think what we're missing is that kind of actual fun, engaging— the example that pops into my mind is this game that came out in the beginning of COVID called Blaseball. I don't know if you saw that, but it was like a fantasy baseball game that had its whole narrative built into it. But It was just a browser game. It was crazy. It was like such an awesome experience and it hit right at the right time.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And like, I just know for months people were just obsessed over it. So yeah, I think it kind of speaks to what you're talking about. Like there's like a zeitgeisty thing that you can hit.

Speaker B: That sounds cool. I've not heard of it. I'll check it out though. But I have thought about it and I am doing it at the moment. The current project I'm working on, which I don't want to give spoilers about, but it does fall into this genre of minimalist, free web-based game that should have an experience of— I guess it depends how quickly you figure it all out, but it definitely has an experience of more than 2 minutes of just simply looking at a cool generative art piece. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but—

Speaker C: There's so many things wrong with that. It's on the record. You said it.

Speaker B: I said it. All generative artists are crap because generative art sucks.

Speaker A: This is Perfect, because the episode that's coming up before this will be our interview with Kevin Esherick talking about his generative anesthetic piece.

Speaker B: So you can— Okay. Yeah. Well, if anything, it sounds like you guys are moving in a very specific anti-generative art direction.

Speaker A: Well, we actually just ended the show, so—

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: But you're still in. You're grandfathered in.

Speaker B: Great. Awesome.

Speaker C: Cool.

Speaker B: You don't need to worry about any fallout in that case. You can just say Whatever you want, whatever's on your mind.

Speaker A: Exactly. Well, I mean, you, first of all, you should know that both Trinity and I have backgrounds in game design and stuff. So if you actually want someone to test and help you think about monetizing that project, loop us in because we can probably come up with some ideas and we have more time to do stuff now cuz we're not gonna make the podcast.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, I absolutely do want you guys to playtest it and gimme feedback and stuff then. Awesome.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: But yeah, so like at the moment I'm taking this I guess it's like a TTRPG worldbuilding design class at SFPC, School for Poetic Computation, which I guess for me is like a weird class to take cuz I don't actually like TTRPGs and I've never, I never really played one. I played Disco Elysium, which is sort of a TTRPG, but not, not really. And really liked that.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: I've never played like a real true blue TTRPG, and most of the ones I've seen, they don't really appeal to me. But I'm taking this class anyhow, and even though it hasn't really convinced me that I want to play more TTRPGs, I do think it's actually a very good class, and it's been really good to help get me to think about worldbuilding as an exercise and game design in general and experimenting with various forms of roleplay, which are all kind of like themes I'm interested in exploring in my work. So yeah, so the project I'm working on right now is ostensibly like the final project for that class, but at the moment it's sort of a demo that's in desperate need of polish. So I think over the next few weeks, I, I have a lot of ideas for other things I want to add to it. And there are a lot of things that like really need polish to make it a bit more of a seamless experience. Hoping to get that out in the next few weeks or however long. But in any case, game design's cool. It's fun. I want to do more of it. I have no idea how to monetize it. Maybe I won't, but it's fun.

Speaker A: Kind of continuing on this thread, probably people know you best for the Art Blocks project for Dopamine Machines, and you can't do an Art Blocks project without monetizing it, right? So what made you even want to approach Art Blocks or consider trying to do a piece like that? I mean, obviously aesthetically, I think it's very aligned with your work, but the fact that you worked with the platform, it's in the ecosystem in a way that your other projects aren't. So like, what kind of brought you to do that? And you haven't really gone to other platforms like Verse or do— I don't know if you have any representation or anything, but a lot of artists seem to have gone that route of like trying to do more and more curated stuff with platform assistance, but not you. So, so what, what was that experience like? Or like, why'd you do that?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Why not anymore?

Speaker B: The initial reason I got into it was because winding back the clock, it's late 2020. COVID is still happening. I've been sitting around for a year, not really doing a lot. And at this point, I had recently completed my 4th kind of like elaborate stupid website, Rona Merch, which is still up and still a good website. You should check it out, ronamerch.co. to take care of all your merchandise needs. So I just completed that. And similar to like the other projects, you know, I was working at the time, so I wasn't doing it full time, but just like maybe spent like a few months kind of chipping away at and put in all this effort and energy into. And the result of it was, you know, my friends liked it. So we got a few days or like a week or so of just kind of joking about it with my friends. And then after that, Just sort of like, okay, this thing's just on the internet now and no one's going to it. And that was the end of it. It didn't really feel good to like put in all that effort, even though I enjoyed doing it. It doesn't feel good to put in all this effort and then just no one cares about it. So at that point, I'm just like, you know what, I'm gonna stop making art. This sucks. It's not worth it. And then a couple weeks after I came to that conclusion, a friend of mine was like, oh yeah, like Things are happening in NFT land again for some reason, and there's this cool platform called Art Blocks. And then I checked it out and I'm like, oh, actually, this is really cool. I popped into the Discord and I saw like, oh, there are actually like a decent amount of people here who are engaging with the art. And it seems like there's a good community of people here. So at that point, I'm like, maybe I should try making generative art and selling them as NFTs because It does seem like there's a community here, and there's a community I could tap into of people who are willing to engage with this thing that I'm putting in all this time into. You know, also, like, by the time they got around to taking me off the queue, they started picking up a lot of steam, and there was a lot of money being thrown around. So at that point, I had dollar signs in my eyes also, where it's like, oh, maybe I could also make some money off all these saps who are willing to waste all their money on these worthless NFTs. But yeah, so it's just like, mainly I thought like, okay, well, this is a cool community I want to get into. And then things just sort of like picked up steam really quickly. There's just like so much money being thrown around in 2021. And the community was growing really large. And every time you released a project on Art Blocks, it feels like you're a fucking rock star. The money feels great. But just like the feeling of being a goddamn rock star also feels really, really cool. And that was something I liked a lot, especially after just like artistically languishing in obscurity for a long time. It was cool to have all that attention. So I think the first 3 projects I did with them were largely driven by that. After that, you know, I'd previously played around with Solidity.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Development, and I wanted to explore a bit more doing that. So then I started doing projects that weren't generative art, things that incorporated Solidity a bit more. And also just since I have a background in software engineering and building websites, I kind of got to the point where for most projects I wanted to do, I didn't really need to work with a third party. And I think also just like one thing I really tried to do from the beginning was to build something of an audience on Twitter. So basically, I got to the point where I didn't really need platforms for that much. I think Art Blocks always had like a pretty good pipeline to collectors. So I did the first 3 projects, and then in early 2022, I did another project. I'm like, okay, well, it's— I've already been working with Art Blocks. And at that point I didn't think there was that much competition for generative art platforms, and I was too lazy to build a thumbnail renderer from scratch just for my thing. So it's like, okay, I'll just, I'll, I'll do another one with Art Blocks. And then I did a project with Plottables later in the year because they focused more on pen plotter stuff and I wanted to do pen plotter stuff and also Matt Jacobson, the guy that runs Plotables, helped a lot with putting a live event together. So that was all around just really worth it for me. But yeah, I think after that, I kind of was like, okay, well, I don't really feel a desire to work with any platforms unless Art Blocks wants to curate me, which is a big gold star that I've been chasing for a while. And then they gave me the big gold star. So it's like, okay, I'll, I'll do another Art Blocks.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Art Blocks project. But yeah, I think like after that, I think that was the last generative project I've done. And everything since then, I just like, I just straight up haven't needed to use a platform for anything. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, I don't have anything against a lot of these other platforms. Like, I've talked to a bunch of them before about maybe doing a project, but it never really felt like that they would give me enough to make it worth it. So, you know, it just like less is more. I like controlling the full pipeline of my project anyhow, of doing the contracts and building the website and pumping it on social media, because I do view it as sort of like this holistic internet experience that you're building for people. So it's not something I necessarily need or want help with. I think at the end of the day, it's not something that I'm opposed to. It's just if the right partner comes along, like with Plottables, I think that was the right partner for Instructions for Defacement. I've also worked with Ensemble. They're really cool because they focus more on artistic process pieces, and those are things where I would feel weird just releasing some of that on its own. But I think they do a really good job of presenting it and putting out supplementary video materials and stuff. So there's stuff I have sitting around that I wouldn't release otherwise, and they sort of take it from zero to something. So I'll work with them. But yeah, otherwise it's just like in general, I haven't quite seen it as worth it.

Speaker C: So it sounds like you're feeling a little bit more down about the space. And we started this conversation and you kind of started your whole NFT art career talking about like the absurdity and the themes around subjective value and belief. And it sounds just reading between the lines that you're kind of moving away from that in particular, from like a crypto perspective. And like more focusing on that intersection of being online, having these crazy interactive experiences. Do you feel victim to your own early aesthetic around subjective value? It's like been very meta because your own work is very subject to that subjective value as well.

Speaker B: I don't know if I'd say I feel victim to it. You know, I think that was a theme that I found really interesting and still find really interesting. So I'm glad that I. Explored it a lot in general. Like, I probably still have more to say about it. But yeah, I mean, I think just like at the moment, there are sort of other things that are top of mind and other themes that are capturing my attention. And yeah, I think like the money is like part of it. But on top of actually like making the money, the money sort of adds a lot of energy to the space in general. And it just leads to a lot, a lot of crazy behavior online. And I think without that energy, it's a little bit harder to just get excited about it or just for that thing to capture my attention. So I think now that it's a very sleepy time in NFT world, although I guess it's not as sleepy in meme coin world or prediction market world, which I do have an idea for a dumb prediction market project. So that might be something I do in the future. But yeah, I think just it like thematically, I think just because there's less energy, it just does feel like there isn't as much of an emotional draw for me. And meanwhile, I don't wanna say I'm sick of focusing on all of that, but I think just sort of doing the money thing for a while was— I did it and I kind of said a lot of what I needed to say about it at the time. And I kind of—

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: feel like just like taking a step back from it and letting it, letting it regenerate. And there's still a lot of interesting things that I could say about it, but I just kind of feel like giving like a little bit of space. And then meanwhile, there's a lot of other interesting stuff that I wanted to focus on. You know, it's just like all of my existential dating woes.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: It's like that was a thing I'd been sitting on for years. And, you know, I felt like, okay, this is a good time to sort of do that project and just say a lot of stuff I want to say about that.

Speaker C: With that in mind, do you feel like there's still this criticality or importance of cleaving to the crypto space and, you know, having the connect your wallet side of things in order to receive payment via crypto versus a PayPal link? A lot of your work is digitally native, which is something that we often associate with NFT art and generative art especially. But do you think you see yourself moving back to more of traditional financialization of your work?

Speaker B: I never really had traditional financialization of my work. And I think with a lot of the projects I've done the last few years, the financialization of it was, it wasn't this secondary thing. It's not like I built the thing and then I'm financializing it. It's like, it always felt like the financialization of it was structurally built into the thing. And it was part of the theme that I was trying to explore. So I think if I were to do something like incorporate PayPal into it, like it would have to be something where PayPal would be part of the piece.

Speaker C: Hmm.

Speaker B: And I think that for the right project, I think that could work. But I think just in a vacuum, it does make it a little bit difficult because PayPal is this third-party dependency and it just is this other company that I don't really have any guarantees around. So if they decide to stop my account, which they've done before because when I created a business account, I called it fastcashmoneyplus.biz and it got weird. So just having this third-party dependency just means that the art could break. And sometimes that's a thing I'm okay with. Other times, it's not something I'm okay with. And one of the things I really like about doing blockchain-based pieces, this goes not just for the financial element to it, but just any sort of stateful element to it, is that the blockchain theoretically should always be there. And it's like, like, it kind of is a third-party dependent dependency, but it's also not really a third-party dependency, or at very least it feels like it has this more robust sense to it where it's not just going to go away. It's not something that someone can simply and arbitrarily turn off. It's just this entity that exists and it's open source and it's there. So I think when dealing with financialization, but also kind of stateful elements to the art, It feels like it has more permanence and it feels more like— a lot of people talk about like the digital objectness of NFTs and crypto in general. So like it does feel like it has more of an object-like feel as opposed to this performance-based feel. If I did something incorporating PayPal, it would feel a lot more ephemeral and it would feel like more of an ongoing performance that might need maintenance because things are changing. they updated their API, my account got suspended and all that. But if it's on the blockchain, then it's like, nope, this is an object, it exists. And it's kind of set in stone. And as long as the blockchain is there, it'll always be there. For example, like my project, Money Making Opportunity, which is a— it's not really a pyramid scheme. It's like a convoluted game theory, vaguely pyramid scheme-y sort of thing. But I guess like the crux of it is that there's about 45 ETH just locked up in the smart contract. And there's this convoluted mechanism that one can use to retrieve the money, but it might take up to 28 years to do it. So in some ways, it's like, yeah, that is a 28-year performance. But if I was locking up that money in a bank or in PayPal, then it's like you don't really have that guarantee that that money is going to be there in 28 years. And you also just don't have the guarantee that the custodian of that money just won't do something stupid with it or disable the account or go out of business or just anything along those lines. And for that matter, we don't really have any guarantees that a third will be around in 28 years. But I think that's part of the thrill of it. It at least like forces you to ask those questions about permanence to some extent.

Speaker A: It's definitely baked in, I think, for everyone who's collecting. We're 95% sure it's going to be around, but you know, who knows?

Speaker C: I guess decrease it.

Speaker A: Yeah. I wanted to ask though, to what degree does the medium dictate the politics or the themes of your work? Because so much of what you do is satirizing the hyper-capitalist elements of crypto. I mean, you've occasionally touched on other subjects too. You did a pro-abortion project as a fundraiser and you did like a defacement of money project. the pen plotter one. But everything that you've described is all about the systems that we're working within because it's crypto, because NFTs, like, so do you ever feel tempted to try to bring other elements into this space? Or are you very tied to just like, hey, I'm here, I'm working within crypto, and I want to just kind of keep throwing in people's faces that what they're doing is kind of dumb?

Speaker B: I wouldn't say I'm like consciously, I'm not like sitting down with a pen and notepad going like, okay, I need to come up with 13 ideas of like things I could do in crypto. I guess when I first started doing things with NFTs, I was a little bit like that. But I feel like with me, like a lot of it is these tools and mediums at my disposal. And most of what determines that is just what I happen to have some level of expertise in or skills in. And these are the tools at my disposal. And Sometimes I come up with ideas for interesting mechanics I could do with those tools or media. And then separately, I kind of have other ideas of stories and themes and aesthetics, and I guess more abstract things that I wanna explore. You know, at one point I had a, a big spreadsheet of ideas and now I just kind of keep it in my head or just in various forms of notes. But at any given point in time, I just have lots of little ideas floating around, both related to the tools and the medium or media, and just the more wishy-washy artsy stuff and like things I want to explore. Things just like a lot of times coming with a project is just, I'll go for a walk and some new ideas will come up. My brain will just try and combine things. It's like, no, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. That doesn't work. And then every once in a while, 2 or 3 different mini ideas kind of form or get close enough together where it feels like it makes something more holistic. And a lot of times that, like, one of those ideas involved in the mix has to do with, like, the tools and the medium. And I think when that happens, then I start getting a clear idea in my head of just like, okay, like, what is this going to look like at the end of the day? Which I guess is all to say that the desire to sort of like work with a medium isn't the primary driver, but it's kind of like one of the components of it. Like, for example, like when I first got into doing NFTs, using the blockchain as a medium was an idea that was really exciting for me. So I just very naturally had a lot of ideas of just like, oh, you could do this with NFTs. And this makes me think of that. And then you could also do you could use this mechanic, and this makes me feel this way. And that leads to these interesting questions. So I think a lot of my ideas at that stage were very driven by the medium. But I think also now that that energy is largely cooling off, it just sort of feels like it's another tool in my repertoire. And, you know, sometimes I'll, I'll see something like, oh, prediction markets are really stupid. But here's this like kind of funny idea around prediction markets. What if I did this? And then And then I start daydreaming in that direction. You know, other times it's more like, Fyndom is like really fucking weird. And then I just start like building this whole universe and it's like, oh, actually, it would be cool if this was a website that I could interact with, but also it would be cool if you could pay the Fyndoms with crypto. And then it kind of generates starting from the opposite direction. But yeah, like I do think in general, I do like having multiple media I could use at my disposal and, you know, just not get locked into one thing in particular.

Speaker A: Well, we're over an hour, so we should probably start doing rapid fire. We always end with a few rapid fire questions. There's, we usually ask our guests who should we interview next, but considering we're not in the market for more guests right now, let's start with another one. What do you like to listen to while you work? Or do you want to just throw out cool music and media recommendations to help us get to know you better in general?

Speaker B: I guess that's a weird question because when I'm working, I usually don't listen to anything, but when I am listening to stuff, it's usually just like the most boring generic ambient D&B that I could find on YouTube. 'Cause it has a rhythm, it's like kind of energetic, it doesn't have any lyrics. As I just go to YouTube, it's like ambient IDM D&B and then just like whatever pops up. It's like, okay, this is fine. This works. I think aside from that, I've been listening to a lot of various ambient synth stuff. Like, I'm really into Plantasia at the moment. Steve Reich is really good, even though he's not really synth, but he's really cool. Also, I found out about Steve Roach recently, who has a very similar name as Steve Reich. He's also good. Yeah, I don't know. There's like other Stuff that I like, but I'm not actively listening to at the moment. You know, I like noise and punk and new wave, no wave stuff and blues and classic rock and '90s hip hop. Yeah, I think at the moment, I think just various synthy things are capturing my imagination. Next question.

Speaker C: All right. In as rapid of a way as you possibly can, This— I don't know if this is too rapid fire. How do you feel about the emergence of AI as kind of the new focus within the art and business world? And do you think, and why do you think, it will either lead humanity to transcendence or doom?

Speaker B: I don't have enough expertise in the technology to look multiple years out. I think at the moment, if we just sort of like take what we have now and assume like, okay, we've kind of hit a technological wall, it doesn't really progress that much. I think that it will still lead to a lot of fucking societal stuff. I'm not a big believer in the AI goo Terminator stuff where we're just going to get sentient AI who's going to destroy us all. But I feel like the bigger danger is more we get a bunch of AI drone warfare stuff happening, and that just makes wars more dangerous and more pervasive. And on top of worrying about nukes, we'll have to wake up one day and just worry about China sending a bunch of killbots over and just thousands and hundreds of thousands of killbots that could just act autonomously. Fuck shit up, and we're seeing this today. But I think just on social media, it's rapidly increasing the level of disinformation that is out there. And even if it's not AI itself, it's like we're starting to see stuff like Trump being like, "Oh yeah, Kamala Harris didn't actually have all those people at the rally. That was all AI." So it's even just the existence of AI. Enough to sow seeds of doubt in people about real things happening. Also, just catfishing and just like phishing in general scams. A couple of years ago, we were at the point where you could use rudimentary AI systems to basically shortcon people of just like, here's a message, send money to this address, and that's the end of it. But to sort of have a long con, you needed an actual human in the mix. to build a relationship with someone and sort of get them going for a while. But now it seems AI is advanced enough where you could automate the long con and gain people's trust over longer periods of time to scam them out of money. So I think those are sort of like the 3 ways that I think AI is, as it exists today, is sowing the seeds of our destruction.

Speaker A: Here's another one I just came up with for you. Have you ever been scammed?

Speaker B: I have, although it was a really long time ago. It was back in the, uh, the days of AOL when I was a kid.

Speaker C: Oh, okay.

Speaker B: And I fell for the whole, hey, this is AOL customer support, we've noticed like an issue with your account, just send us your, your password and we'll like fix this for you. I'm just like, oh yeah, like of course. And then I send them my password and then I guess like the next day my family subscription was like canceled or disabled and We called customer support and they were like, oh, well, you sent a bunch of like scammy emails or whatever. And then they reset the password. And then as this was being explained to my mom, I'm just like, oh fuck, I gave that guy my password. That probably wasn't actually AOL. And then I looked at my email outbox and there were just like a few hundred just like, congratulations, you won such and such, whatever. Awesome.

Speaker A: I mean, I was just curious because of some of the scam-related projects you'd done, but you're crypto-wise, at least so far. That's good.

Speaker C: So far.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think another thing is I just really, really like scam websites and the aesthetic of them. One of my favorite pastimes is going to real fake news websites and clicking on the incredibly skeezy-looking ads and then just ending up in these like weird pockets of the internet where they're trying to sell you weird, stupid shit. And there's a thrill to it on top of the— so you get to step into these like alternate realities, but because they look like such dogshit, you're not as worried about believing it. And like, it feels like the delineation between scam world and real life feels like a little bit more clear.

Speaker A: Anything else, Trinity, or should we wrap it? You have one more?

Speaker C: One more for people who are online dating out there or just dating out there. Best and worst ways or services to meet somebody?

Speaker B: That's a good question because it all kind of sucks so much these days. I'm mainly using Hinge and Feeld to meet people, and those aren't the worst. Everything else is total utter garbage for the most part, but maybe meeting people IRL. I haven't like quite cracked that code, but I've been slightly better at it in the last couple years. It's looking pretty bleak out there on the internet dating front, and I wish I had better things to say about it, but I don't. But it's at least inspiring artistically because it's so bad that it gives me Good ideas. Like on OkCupid, for example, I was getting all of these messages like, oh, someone liked you, but you can't see who it is unless you pay for our premium membership. And it's like, okay, fine, I'll pay for the premium membership because I have all these cuties in my inbox who like me. And then I pay for the premium membership and then it's just like all women in the Philippines or something, which— Nothing wrong with women in the Philippines, but I'm in Brooklyn, not Not the Philippines. And I don't know why they're showing my profile over there. Times I've been scammed, I think that counts as a time I've been scammed where they pulled the bait and switch on me of just like, hey, there's so many people who like you. And then you find out, it's like, but they're all on a different continent.

Speaker C: Whoa.

Speaker B: I don't know. And every— everything sucks. But what are you gonna do about it?

Speaker A: OkCupid used to be wild. Like, I was on it way back. This would have been like 12 years ago. So it was like a lot bigger back then. It was before a lot of like the alternatives were out. And they did this thing where they sent an email to everyone telling you what quartile of attractiveness you were. At the time, it seemed interesting because they were doing all those blog posts and taking the data, and that was their angle and kind of really trying to break it down. And I think in a way helped people strategize or understand like what was going on behind the scenes. But it was just like now, I feel like if they did that, it would just be— it was just a wild move by them.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm pretty wonky, so I was really fucking into that. Like, I don't know what portile of attractiveness I'm in. I mean, I have an idea, but like, I, I would love to have just like highly detailed statistics on just like things that are working and things that aren't working so I could, uh, fine-tune it a little better. But I feel like Yeah, like these days that's generally seen as weird. In terms of advice for meeting that special someone, there's actually something I think I read in their blog a long time ago, but have gotten a lot of mileage out of, is that I found it's a lot better to show your weirder side and go more for the niche matches out there as opposed to trying to hit the lowest common denominator because Out of 100 people, it's better that 1 or 2 of them are like, wow, this person's really cool, versus having 50 people going like, yeah, this person seems, seems okay. So front and center on my dating profile, it's like collects Jesus pamphlets, into scams and New Age woo-hoo shit.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: And all of those things, because those are good conversation starters.

Speaker A: Hell yeah. All right, well, I think maybe we leave it there. We're about at time, so it seems as good a place as any. Is there anything that you want to plug other than this upcoming game, Steve, before we sign off?

Speaker B: Yes, there is something I'd want to plug. I promised my roommate I'd plug this, but one of the jokes on FinSexy is that the Stevie P FinDom has an Amazon wishlist of sexy gifts that you could buy him. And one of the things on the Sexy Gifts wishlist is dish soap. I kind of desperately need dish soap at the moment. So if someone wants to buy me dish soap from the Sexy Gifts wishlist, that would be great. One of the other items on there I think is a $3,000 fuck bench. Please don't buy that for me because I don't have anywhere to store it.

Speaker C: But we should buy it for your roommate.

Speaker B: I think if someone bought it for me, my roommate would really get a kick out of it. And I, like, I would also get a kick out out of it. But just from like a practical standpoint, I do not have room for it. So it'd have to go into the hallway of my building and some, someone in my building would hopefully take the $3,000 fuck bench and put it to good use. But from a pure level of practicality, I very much need dish soap. Please get me dish soap or any other sexy gift you want to get me. I'm holding out for the dish soap. That is my plug.

Speaker A: Awesome. All right, well, that was Stevie P, everyone. Steve Pikelny. Thanks to Steve for coming on the show. This is a great conversation.

Speaker B: Thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Right on. Talk to you all later. Bye-bye.

Speaker C: We're waiting, always. We're waiting to be signed.