Interview 9 // Andrea Bonaceto

Hi there, my name is Colin Goldberg and I'm here with artist Andrea Bonaceto, who's an Italian artist based in the UK, and we're here to talk a little bit about his work and specifically his recent work with NFTs. So, Andrea, would you like to just open up with telling us a little bit about your background, such as where you're born and your, your cultural influences and things like that. Yeah, sure Colin.

So my background is quite weird because there is quite scattered right there are many things I do not have formal art background, my background is mostly you know on the business and finance sides of degree in economics and other one in finance. And I'm an entrepreneur as well you know I'm investing in the blockchain space since quite some time. But really, this process for me has been of trying to build my business. And I've been trying to be myself more and more and, you know, I always knew that I always knew who I was so I knew that I always had a strong inclination for art on many forms. And to be honest, you know what happened with non fungible tokens digital art is amazing for me because it really came at the right time and it was at the right place because I was really looking at the development of that technology.

Andrea Bonaceto

Very closely so I basically saw that as very innovative way to basically deliver my artistic message let's call it that way. And yeah, that's basically what I did so it wasn't a very structured approach you know I don't have really say yeah I did that because I want to do that and want to do that. It really came through organically and naturally and that's in general. How I like to live. And that's how I started. Yeah, I'm. When I look back now you know I'm, I can reconnect, you know, the dots.

Andrea Bonaceto

But when I was there you know looking at all the different you know variables and directions that my life could have taken. I really, you know, tried to do what I felt deep inside me was more coherent. Let's say, was yes more creative with myself of course it's always difficult, I think maybe it's impossible to be truly yourself and the percent yourself, but I'm trying to you know. But I'm trying to you know. Be a closest as close as possible basically to that idea.

Gotcha. And you were born in Italy correct and you're now in London.

Exactly. I was born in Italy so I was just born in Pisa then I was shipped to the region which is quite close by the small city with 60,000 inhabitants, close to Pisa by the sea, where I was raised and, you know, leave the most of my life. And then I came to London. Seven years ago. And now I'm talking from London.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So, you know, like I saw an interview recently with a journalist and one thing that he said was you know save the best for first when it comes to doing an interview. So, you know recently actually a couple weeks ago. I saw you on our local news here in New York. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Yeah. Basically, it was a story about, you know, an artist who did a collaboration with a robot and minted an NFT as part of this collaboration that sold at auction for somewhere around 700,000 US dollars.

Colin Goldberg

And I saw that it was your artwork. And I recognized it from when we had spoken a couple months ago, you know, when you first got involved with Techspressionism. So, you know, I couldn't really, I couldn't even believe what I was seeing. So I looked it up and I know you had mentioned that you were involved in this, you know, collaboration or I'd seen like an earlier news story that, you know, you had been working on a drop that would be this collab. And then I saw what the work sold for. And that really seemed to make headlines. It seems like, you know, a lot of the what actually ends up in the news about NFTs is, you know, has something to do with the price that an NFT sells at, which I think, you know, it's good and bad. You know, it brings it. It brings the technology into the public eye in a way that, you know, I find that most stories about art, they only, you know, sort of escape art media into general mass media when it's about a large sum of money, you know, a sale or something like that.

Colin Goldberg

That seems like the way the general public starts to, you know, but I think what's truly interesting about the story is, is, you know, the aspect of how. You actually collaborated with this robot and, you know, the A.I. Driving the robot. So, you know, maybe if you could just tell tell us a little bit more about that, you know, that project and how it came about and some of the ideas behind it.

So about the money part first, and I completely agree with you, and that's very sad in society in general, because unless there is a headline saying that you made a lot of money, people don't really take you seriously. So even to me, you know, I. I think it's very sad because I was invested in investing in the blockchain space and doing like several things. And then when I come up, you know, with the art that I do people. Yeah, they're like, OK, whatever. You know, they really don't take it seriously. You see, unless you then make a substantial amount of money to something. It's a problem. I know it's I don't like that as well.

Andrea Bonaceto

But in this capitalistic society, unfortunately, that's how it looks. But in fact, now, when I'm talking to people. Yeah. I try to convey that message that what I really cared about was to do something very profound from an artistic standpoint that was innovative and I enjoyed the process. I was happy, you know, going through the process and the drop itself, you know, was like, whatever, you know, it wasn't really the point. You know, the point was what basically led us to that, you know, the first of collaborating with Sophia, looking at the artworks with Sophia's creator, David Hanson. That was very. Very profound, insightful, even, you know, as an artist, you know, it showed me what I could do, like with my work, you know, like I like to think always, you know, that we can improve right in everything in life.

Andrea Bonaceto

So it really showed me many different directions that what I do could have taken. Then, of course, you know, the economic like the financial result was very good. It's something that is important. Mostly. Mostly for the possibility to then amplify the message, you know, that for me really goes beyond the even art, but it's really towards a society that can be more inclusive with less, you know, inequality where, you know, through NFTs, even creators that are small creators can actually get a living and can be rewarded for the art they create. Because the problem is that take out models like, you know, even YouTube, Spotify. Right. Because NFTs also has a lot of impact, not only with digital art, but also with music, with hybrids of digital art and music. Musicians are paid on Spotify something like zero point zero zero zero five cents, five dollars per stream.

Andrea Bonaceto

Like unless you are Justin Bieber or like a very famous star, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to you. Right. In fact, I also have a basking license here in London. I play the guitar. And I offer. I used to go before the pandemic quite often to a place called Spiritual Bar. And there, you know, I think I met, you know, the people that they could be very, very.

Andrea Bonaceto

They could be basically another coin. They could be the next Bob Dylan from a quality standpoint. But because it's something that, you know, is not trendy from a mainstream standpoint and on Spotify, you know, they wouldn't go into that level of complexity. They do not see their. You know, they're not going to be able to get into that level of complexity. And so I think that's the thing that I'm hoping that through NFTs, they now have a way to actually amplify that message and monetize even small crowds of people, you know, that are very loyal to you. And they may be happy to pay, you know, certain amounts if you do something very, you know, I provide and original for them. So that was the point then.

Gotcha. Yeah.

Like that, that, you know, the philosophy of blockchain in general, the DeFi sort of decentralized finance. And I think that's the point. It speaks to social change, you know, and when I when I interact with people that are involved in sort of the DeFi community or blockchain developers in general, there's usually like a pretty strong philosophical component to their work. That is, you know, they believe in the reasons why blockchain and blockchain based economy should should exist, you know. And I think that.

Colin Goldberg

That's, you know. That's sort of I think from people who are on an outside view, it's hard to understand how that's really different philosophically from traditional capitalism, you know. But it is it is empowerment of the individual, you know. And then when the NFT phenomenon started, that sort of extends that philosophical movement to artistic creation, I think, in a way, you know, which is where it becomes really interesting. You know. I remember seeing your portraits and I think in the very beginning when I was seeing your portraits, most of them were actually traditional like acrylic paintings.

Colin Goldberg

And, you know, like I saw that you were tagging your work with NFT and blockchain. And then I looked at the work and most of them were like acrylic on canvas.

Like, what's up with this guy?

You know, and then that's when I first messaged you. And then I think we started corresponding and then you started doing these vector portraits that I thought were definitely pretty interesting. And, you know, so like probably will be helpful is if you could just let us know or let the viewers know a little bit about Sophia and Sophia's creator and sort of what that's all about and how you came in contact with both the robot and its creator. Yeah.

So the story is quite funny. So basically a friend of mine, Marcello Mari, that is basically connected with Sophia. Yeah. And he spotted my portraits on Instagram and he wrote me and he said, nice portraits. But one major question. Where is my portrait? I'm like, OK, send me a picture and I'm going to make a portrait of yourself as well. So he did that. I did this portrait. And then, you know, I already had basically a slot for Nifty Gateway. And I thought, OK, let's start to think about. Yeah. So I thought, OK, let's start to think about something that is really innovative, you know, as a first step into the NFT space that could really be historical also for the entire NFT industry. And then, you know, I basically proposed him to go and do something with Sophia where Sophia could look at my artworks or interpret my artworks.

Andrea Bonaceto

And this could be like basically the first major collaboration between an AI humanoid robot and a human. So myself. He liked a lot the idea. I did the portraits of David Hanson, Sophia's creator and Ben Gozal, the AI mastermind behind Sophia and Sophia. And then we basically had a call all together where I showed them the portraits. They were all like, amazing. Yeah, we should do it. Let's do it. You know, David himself is, you know, first of all, first and foremost, an artist. You know, Sophia herself is a work of art. Where is the lab based out of? Hong Kong. Yeah. Gotcha. So imagine we did all this together completely remotely.

Andrea Bonaceto

Me in London. They were in Hong Kong and the gallery supporting the project, Ivy Gallery, was in L.A. And we, yeah, this is also crazy, right? That you can now deliver something like that fully digital and regardless from where you're based. This is also something very important because it's even about access to opportunities, right? I think in the future. You won't anymore need to go, you know, to L.A., London. Of course, you know, you can go there sometimes. It's going to help you in some ways, but you shouldn't basically be there all the time. You know, there are going to be ways. And, you know, this is another big trend that I'm very interested about that, you know, probably is a separate interview by itself. The metaverse where everything is an NFT, basically a parallel world where anything is represented by an NFT because NFTs are digital artworks, but an NFT can also be a house.

Andrea Bonaceto

It can also be a heart museum. It can also be a guitar. And so, you know, you can put a headset on and be into these digital worlds where you can go out, hang out with people that you meet in form of avatars, go visit a museum, look at some artworks, buy the artworks. Like you can engage with these people in this way. And yeah, it's amazing. I think, you know, the future is going to go there. And that's

Also why I like... Sure. I just got an Oculus recently. Exactly.

I got an Oculus Quest recently and had my first sort of, you know, experience being in a virtual space with live people as avatars. And it's pretty remarkable. I mean, it's something that I have experienced on the desktop in things like Second Life and stuff like that. But to be in, you know, in the space in an immersive way, it really is something pretty different.

One thing I would add is, so, you know, Second Life, this is good. Basically, now what you can do is having Second Life in a way that you can... You can have a way that is fully decentralized on the blockchain where every object in Second Life, you actually own it in the form of an NFT if you want. You can buy a house on Second Life. There are people... There are real estate agencies for the metaverse where you can go and build a massive house. People... I know people that created very big art museums where then they collaborate, you know, with digital artists to actually expose their artworks in the metaverse. And as I said, this is reducing barriers to access. So, you know, it's very important that people can have access to these kinds of art museums and try and treat for people into opportunities, into high profile opportunities.

Andrea Bonaceto

And that's very important.

What... So, you know, going back to you, you know, personally as an artist, you know, what was it that originally made you want to, you know, pursue visual art? Or do you have any specific influences, you know, that you feel sort of inform your work or your style?

So I think in terms of influences... One book I read that was an epiphany for me. Was Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Kandinsky. And Kandinsky as well was an artist that started drawing at 30 years old. And I got that book when I was 30 years old. And then I started really frenetically drawing. And I think even, you know, in the portraits that I do, another influence could definitely be Modigliani. You know, that is also from Tuscany like myself. So he's from Ljubljana. And I really like his...

Would you want to share your screen and maybe pull up maybe your Instagram or something like that so the viewers could sort of see some of your portraits and stuff like that? That would be great. Give me a second.

I noticed you have done some

Sort of like Elon Musk or I think you did Bob Dylan too, right? People that...

Yeah, I do. So I do portraits and as well abstract, you know, artworks. So I like to, you know, basically keep doing both. So let me share my screen.

Yeah, that's interesting that you brought up Kandinsky, you know, because I mean, Expressionism really is something that I see as an outgrowth of Expressionism, you know, and Expressionist thought where it's about an internal emotional experience versus sort of portrayal of the outside world, you know. And I think that's something that... Probably more so in your abstract work, I see, you know, but certainly in the way that you treat your portraiture subjects as well, I think.

I think I need to give access to Zoom for my screen and he is asking me to quit the app and restart. So maybe do you want to call it...

I can send you a link. I can make you... Try it now. Let's see. I tried making you a co-host. Let's see if that... Let's see.

Yeah, there we go. You're right. Perfect. So, let me... Yeah, so these are some of my artworks. So these are some that were actually sold during the drop on Nifty Gateway. Like, this is probably what you saw on the news. Sophia's face. Sophia instantiation. And basically, what we did during the drop on Nifty Gateway for this set of artworks was to basically show the transition from my artwork to the artwork of my work. So, I showed the artwork to Sophia's artwork and then back to mine. They were like loops, like infinite loops, videos.

Looks like almost like CD-ROMs or DVDs in the retinas of the eyes. I don't know if that's your intention or just my own association.

It's true because Sophia has cameras, right, in her eyes. Oh, okay. Right. So, it was, let's say, different compared to portraying, you know, regular eyes. Yeah, so you can see.

And you call them vectorial portraits, right? Do you draw in a vector-based, like, format or...?

I do, yeah. So, these are all vector. So, the ones that you see here, the latest ones, they're all vectorial. Then these, like this Pessoa, is actually acrylic. Right. And then, you know, there are more abstract ones that I did as well, which, you know, I will be doing in the future. But, you know, more and more, like, you know, this actually is one that I have in my room.

Andrea Bonaceto

And, yeah.

I think it's interesting, like, you know, like, at first, I think I only saw your traditional work. Like, when I first looked at your feed, I think it was almost all just straight paintings, you know. And I think it's interesting to see that your style translated pretty directly when you shifted over to digital drawing. That is, you know, you really...

Colin Goldberg

Can't tell the difference too much as far, you know, like, it isn't like all of a sudden your work became full of fractals and digital looking, you know. And I think people have an association with digital art that it all looks a certain way. And that's definitely one of the stereotypes that I think, you know, is damaging to people working digitally is the idea that it all necessarily looks the same or, you know...

Yeah. Oh, definitely. But in fact, many people looking at my Instagram couldn't even tell whether these are digital or not. Because, you know, they are with acrylic colors, so the color is very homogeneous, you know. And it really goes very well with, you know, vectorial art and digital art because basically how I naturally do things. So it was like a natural step for me to basically start...

Andrea Bonaceto

Start doing it digitally as well.

Gotcha. Do you work from a photograph usually when you do your drawings or do you ever work from life, from like a model?

These... So the portraits, yes, I normally start with a photograph and then, you know, I do my own, you know, interpretation.

So with Sophia, there was an image also that had her sort of additions to it, right? Where she... The robot actually colored it in some way or added some components

To the painting? Yes, yes. You want me to stop sharing or you want to keep seeing the screen?

Is that an image that you have online anywhere that we could see?

The piece that was sort of the collaborative version? Actually, we could probably. So because if you go on Nifty and you search me... There you go. Open edition. I think you're talking about this video. Okay. So this one. Yeah, yeah. So this is the... This was basically Sophia reimagining my drawings.

Andrea Bonaceto

So this is based, you know, if you see also the ear and it's based from Sophia's portrait that I did. And then also, you know, animated. So then these were sold as so-called open editions, meaning that anyone... Anyone could buy them for five minutes and we would mint as much as, you know, people wanted for the first five minutes. So to meet the demand.

Andrea Bonaceto

And yeah, I'm also happy that these pieces did very well in the secondary market. You know, basically many people probably realize that they missed these, you know, drop and then were quite keen to go and grab a few pieces. So, yeah. You know, for me, it was also... It was important that collectors, you know, whoever, you know, backed this project from the very beginning also on top of, you know, buying art that, you know, they liked. They also made a good... Gotcha.

So the drop itself then, it wasn't that a single piece sold for $700,000.

No,

No, no. It was the total number of open editions that sold. I see. So that, you know, that's an important piece of information that I didn't know about when I... Because I think that the way that the news covers it is... Oh, it's an image.

It's a JPEG. Exactly.

And it's sold for, you know, some giant amount of money. And, oh, maybe it was like, you know, the artist themselves with a different wallet or, you know, some business partner. But when you see that it's basically like, you know, a large number of editions, then it makes it, you know...

There are more pieces actually. There are more pieces.

And, you know, like I feel like that, you know, like we were talking about in the beginning, how the... The capitalistic sort of society, you know, only pays attention to like big dollar sign numbers when it comes to art stuff. But it's also... I mean, those like transactions are what secures work in art history in a way. It's like, why does something end up in a museum? Well, it's because through the provenance of that piece, it exchanged hands and accumulated value through time, you know. And for better or worse, that's just kind of like the... The society that we live in. So... But it's really interesting. You know, I'm actually...

Colin Goldberg

You know, I dropped my very first NFT on Foundation yesterday. And I'm really excited, you know, like to be getting into this space. And we're, you know, we're putting together a show for Techspressionism that's going to be opening up during Freeze Week actually called NFT Now. And that's something that, you know, I'm excited about that we were able to start working with an artist. By the name of Anne Spalter, who she shows on SuperRare and has been on some panels there and stuff like that. Talking about female collectors and female artists working with blockchain-based work. And I think that, you know, like the blockchain and NFTs, they don't have the patriarchal system built into it the way that the traditional art world does. Right. In a lot of ways. So people who are, you know, of minorities or female artists like can actually become involved.

Colin Goldberg

You know, it's something that I think there's fewer barriers to entry. I mean, there's certainly still gatekeepers, you know, for these curated platforms. But I think it's newer than, you know, say the traditional gallery and museum system is. And I think that system is sort of getting picked apart now a lot because of the social components that people find problematic about it, you know. And I noticed like a lot of your work too, like some of the subjects might be dealing with social issues. Yes.

Definitely.

Mm-hmm.

No, 100%, you know, I agree with you. And there were multiple pieces also, you know, as you said, sold during the pandemic. Yeah. And I think the drop, you know, the headline was mostly around the auction piece that went for around $700,000. But I think the overall amount of art that we sold during the drop was like $1.3 million. Wow. Amazing. And also on the secondary market, you know, the activity was, you know, very, very high, which was good. But as I said, you know, really the point is that, you know, the art is still there. I think something very profound was done. And we're really looking forward, you know, to doing more collaborations like that. And as well, you know, myself, I will do activities, of course, as a solo artist.

Andrea Bonaceto

And yeah.

So are you going to quit your day job in finance or are you going to keep doing that as well?

I mean,

They overlap, obviously, and intersect. Yeah.

Basically, the way I see it is that I don't like to think that I have a job in the sense that I do what I'm interested in. And I'm definitely interested in innovation and technology and looking at, you know, new trends. And also, you know, the reason why the idea of doing this collaboration with Sophia came about was because of my interest in, you know, investing in the blockchain space and in the NFT space. So, you know, I think we shouldn't operate. You know. I think we should be doing this in a silo. And, you know, sometimes the society always pushes us to do that, to say they want to label you and say, oh, you're an investor, you're an artist, you're a lawyer, whatever. But I do like to live in a way which is fluid. I think the phases where society evolved the most, you know, well, when actually society was organized in a very fluid way, look at, you know, the ancient Greeks.

Andrea Bonaceto

Well, you know, or even, you know, the Romans, you know, that you had emperors that were also philosophers. Very, very profound philosophers. Or you had, you know, mathematicians that were doing study around meteorology. They were doing mathematics and other things. So, yeah, I mean, it's just how human beings are. It's just that now, unfortunately, the current model is of pushing people into certain, you know, preset, you know, boxes. And you want them to fake that they are what they're not. And I'm very against this paradigm. And in fact, I want to. I want to leverage this, you know, visibility that I'm getting because of, you know, the artwork sale to also express these thoughts that are very important. Even go beyond, you know, art itself is what I would like to see in society from a transition, you know, standpoint to basically move into something where people are able to express themselves because we can do it.

Andrea Bonaceto

Like from a productivity standpoint, productivity increased exponentially. Capitalism created so much value, you know, so much money. But the problem is that is very unequally allocated. Right. There is a big gap. And sure. And for. Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting. I think NFTs are playing a role into that process of freeing up people.

Absolutely. So I wanted to ask you, you know, like I know you've been involved in some of the Techspressionist salons and stuff like that since we started. We started doing things and I totally relate to what you were saying about this idea of having a siloed existence, you know, like a lot of my day job for the last 20 or 30 years has been in development web development, you know, and I feel like I've in parallel been making my own work within my studio practice. And now with putting this group together, those two things have been like meshing, you know, and my work. And in an online media and social media, it's helped to formulate and bring these different art artists together and into a group type of format. And, you know, there's this idea of social sculpture that an artist, a German artist by the name of Joseph Beuys, kind of came up with where it's the idea that, you know, society itself can be a medium to work in by formulating structures.

Colin Goldberg

Structures, organizational structures, and cultivating relationships between people, you know, and to me, that's kind of what Techspressionism is about. And also, obviously, it's a direct outgrowth of expressionist thinking, like people like Kandinsky, or, you know, some of the writers that like Greenberg, you know, he helped sort of capitulate a lot of the ideas that the abstract expressionists were working with. And I just wanted to ask you, you know, like, you know, from your standpoint, what does Techspressionism mean to you? And what do you find interesting about it?

I mean, it was a community that welcomed me, you know, from the very beginning. And I'm very glad for that, you know, Colin, I think what you put together is very, you know, profound and makes a lot of sense and is also, you know, syncing with technology, right? It's very important, like we are in a phase where technology is impacting all our lives. And, yeah, and is impacting also the world of art. So I think this goes very well with NFTs. And, you know, it's basically positioned in the right way. So for me, it was also very important, you know, to meet people with sensibilities, you know, similar to mine, you know, sharing ideas, I appreciate that community element that, you know, you put together. And I think there is a lot to learn, you know, from other people. And,

Yeah, I mean, you're one of the people that really explained NFTs to me very early on, because you'd been involved, you know, as an investor and a finance person within the blockchain space. So I remember when we did that initial call, it must have been a couple months ago now, you know, where you sort of like, I think I was getting involved in going on Rarible, and you might have had some stuff there on that platform. And you've sort of explained to me like, oh, this is what you need to do, you know, establish like, you know, a wallet. And, you know, I had, you know, bought some Bitcoin back in the day when, you know, it was all in the news and sort of eventually kind of lost interest to some degree in cryptocurrencies. But then it started coming back. And then when I started learning about NFTs, I was really sort of eager to learn.

Colin Goldberg

So I appreciate, you know, that sort of initial interaction. And, you know, like we and you're going to be presenting some of your work at the next salon, which I'm excited about. Hopefully, you're still interested, in doing that on the 13th. Actually, we had a salon yesterday, you know, we were talking a little bit about it, and the members there, all the other artists were excited to, you know, see your presentation and hear what you have to say. And, you know, we're actually opening up, we decided that we have this collab project that some of

The

Artists got paired up, you know, to pass digital files back and forth. So we're going to do like the opening for that, you know, at that same salon, probably after there's three artists that are going to be presenting, and you're going to be one of those three guys. And then we're going to do the presentations and then do sort of a virtual opening. So it should be a fun event. And, you know, I really enjoy the interactions with the other artists and seeing them interact with each other. I mean, it's something that I miss from graduate school, you know, is when I did my MFA, we would have these critiques, where it wouldn't just be digital people, it would be painters and sculptors and glass artists and ceramic artists all doing a crit together. So it became about the ideas surrounding the work, not necessarily shop talk about, oh, what software did you use?

Colin Goldberg

Or, you know, I think when it's all digital people, sometimes it can be, you know, consumed by the process. And people just want to talk about that, you know, but for me, the interesting part is like, what is the work about, you know, and how does it relate to each person, each artist, you know, as an individual.

Colin Goldberg

So it's been, it's been cool, you know, getting to know, getting to know a lot of different artists, and sort of see where they're coming from. And yeah, I mean, I really appreciate your time, you know, coming, coming down for this interview and look forward to the, to the next salon on the 13th. And, you know, that'll be on our YouTube channel, too. So do you have like, are you still continuing to work on portraits now? Or I just want to sort of close with like, you know, what are you working on now? And like, what do you, you know, if you choose to reveal anything as far as what do you have for future plans? Or, any new projects and stuff like that?

I'm still working on a few portraits that I had started, you know, even before I did the drop with Sophia. And I also want to start doing some more abstract stuff. And to be honest, I'm yet, you know, I'm still digesting, you know, what happened last week, to then, you know, plan my next steps. But, you know, in general, the approach that I want to follow is to be very mindful of, you know, what I mean as an NFT. And whenever I do it, you know, to do it well. So I will take some time, you know, to think about it and...

Are you going to paint as well? Sorry? Are you going to continue to work with, you know, traditional paint and stuff like that as well?

Of course. Nice. Awesome. All right. Great. Well, you know, I guess we could wrap it up. And, you know, thank you very much for your, your time. And showing your work. And I look forward to, you know, your presentation in the salon.

Thanks for having me calling. It was a pleasure.

Absolutely. Thank you. Bye. Okay. Bye bye.