Salon 34 // Old-school Open Mic with Robert DuGrenier

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to our Techspressionism Virtual Salon, the very first of the new year of 2022. And hopefully an exciting new year for Techspressionism, but we're not quite sure how everything's going to go because there's a lot of things up in the air right now. But hopefully we've got some good things planned. We tentatively do have our Southampton exhibition coming up and there's other, you know, Techspressionism projects that are popping up in other places that recently happened. I think there's one in India, led by Malavika, that was inspired by the collaboration project that yours truly got started. So there's that. Yeah.

Davonte Bradley

So the agenda for today is that there is no real agenda for today. Just putting it out there. We normally have presenters lined up, but in the spirit of the new year, new format to start with, right? No, no, not actually. But we do have a couple of people that wanted to go ahead and talk a little bit about what they're doing or, you know, just share a little bit about what they've got going on in their lives and their craft.

Davonte Bradley

So we'll have a couple of people that wanted to go ahead and talk a little bit about what they've got going on in their lives and their craft. And then it's just going to be, you know, the discussion. Kind of like the original format that we used to have once upon a time back in. Oh, wow. Has it been that long? Yeah. Like the very first couple of salons, like numbers one through five or so.

Davonte Bradley

But yeah, I think we can go ahead and get started. We have a couple of new people. I see in the chat some unfamiliar names and faces. And yeah. So that being said, one of them is Robert here who had some a little bit to share, I guess. Yeah.

So welcome, Robert. Thank you a little bit about yourself. Thank you for included me in the in the Zoom meeting. I'm Robert DuGrenier. I'm a glass sculptor. I've been working in glass for over 47 years and pretty traditional background in sort of design and craft. I'm definitely an object maker. I do a lot of large scale sculptural installations all over the world. And the latest one that I'm working with is with James Terrell on a big project that he has out in Arizona, which is. It's called the Roden Crater. And he's commissioned me to do some pieces as part of his installation that are sort of large slumped glass planets that emit light that will help people navigate around the crater when they're looking at various viewpoints to the universe out there. And hopefully the crater will be open.

Robert DuGrenier

Well, it's supposed to been open ten years ago. But hopefully in another two or three years, it will be it will be open. So a big project I'm working on. And that project kind of really got me thinking about planets out there. And so I started creating a collection of these blown glass spheres that emit light from the inside. And they're unique objects, beautifully colored and kind of kind of almost meditative. In some sense. And the idea came across, you know, maybe I should be using these as a tool to make an NFT. And so I went ahead and I've created hundreds of these objects, which have been photographed and then and then tweaked a little bit with color, taking out certain reflections I don't like.

Robert DuGrenier

And with the thought and idea of minting these planets on a on a black background. As an object maker, you know, going into a digital world, it's all new to me. And a friend had hooked me up with Colin and he had some experience in that. And I'm just sort of kind of investigating and trying to learn about what the process is. And I am approaching a museum or a museum has approached me to create this hanging sculpture for them as a permanent piece in one of their galleries. And I'm trying to figure out what the process is. And my presentation to them is going to tie it in with the launch of these NFTs that I'm doing. So I envision the galleries with really large monitors with these sort of glass planets that are that are that are throughout the museum, which will then correlate to the actual piece that will be part of this hanging lighted sculpture with hopes that sales that derive from the NFT somehow you'll be able to turn your planet on or off at will anytime, you know, from an iPhone or an app or whatever to kind of connect you back to reality.

Robert DuGrenier

But also have the pieces of permanent collection in the museum. So it's not just a digital NFT you have it's interactive and potentially, you know, would have a lot of potential to be able to take this piece out into the world. But also have a 24 seven can or can and monitoring it so you could see activity of people around the world, turning on and off their particular planet in the in the in the metaverse if you want to call it so it's kind of an out there project. I love to do large installations that involve things that change with time. Time has always been a really big element of my work. And it was interesting earlier today Colin was talking about, you know how the how your group sort of started. And I was showing in New York City for 20 years with a group and we're trying to clone a name which was called actual art.

Robert DuGrenier

It was the actual art foundation down on green and broom street, and it was a group of I think 13 artists. And we were working in mediums that changed over time, so I as an artist would create something that nature somehow would continue the process. And at the point that I visually. Liked what nature did to this piece would stop it and bring it into the gallery so I work a lot with living organisms.

Robert DuGrenier

I had a big show there with. They actually got shut down by the city, which was a beehive that had these beautiful glass objects in it, and the bees over time would cover these glass forms with wax and honeycomb. And then one day. For some reason. They were doing a scaffolding went up in front of the building. And the bees were going out through the front window and a tube into the into the gallery and outside to collect pollen to create the sculpture, and they got confused and couldn't find their way back into the gallery. Somebody called animal control and shut shut shut the show down and Jeannie Moss from CNN did a great piece of me moving the hive to a rooftop around the corner. So the show could continue which was kind of funny. And so, you know, trying to bring a new sort of you know expressionism or whatever.

Robert DuGrenier

The, the gallery director, unfortunately died Valerie Shakespeare. After 911 she got a really rare stomach cancer and passed away from that and so the gallery kind of shut down and her husband. Terry few gay Wilcox who was another artist that was part of the group. And she died. But she died in an accident. It was really sort of the forerunner in creating this actual art as something that was really unique so that's sort of the thread that goes through my work that I can do something and capture it and it's really capturing a moment in time. And when the glass freezes and cools. It's done, but it but it happened at a specific specific time. And sort of an aesthetic that I had knowing that I wanted the piece to end at that point. So the whole NFT minting thing and trying to bring it back to somewhat of a reality that is backed up with a physical object that helped create the NFT is really kind of fascinating to me.

Robert DuGrenier

I don't know if it's really the direction that most of the digital artists out there that are working in just really creating an algorithm that's then creating the future NFTs. It doesn't really fit into that, but I think that there's an interesting direction that artists who have been in the traditional mediums now are being challenged or activated in this new world. And as I said earlier, I think the one fact is that the resale value and to be able to code in potential future sales on something that has been done in music, it's been done in writing, it's just never been done in the visual and sculptural arts.

Robert DuGrenier

Any criticisms? Any thoughts? Am I nuts? Should I go back to just glassblowing? No, no, no. I mean, exploration and experimentation is kind of par for the course for artists, right? So, I mean, even if it doesn't work, you tried something new and maybe you'll come back to it later and refine it again. You'll have another new thing. So, I mean, it's just, I think the project that you're working on or trying to get off the ground is exciting.

Robert DuGrenier

I think the interactive element is a really, really strong plus to the whole thing. It does kind of set it apart to some degree as a former game designer. I can relate to that. I think that's the power of interactivity. So, I think that's a great way to integrate a traditional artist, if you will, into the digital medium. So, yeah, kudos. That's a great, great idea. Thanks.

Robert DuGrenier

I have a question. I think it's great. I like just what Michael was saying about joining the old with the new. I think that's fantastic. Yeah, I also was really interested to hear about this project because of the combination of work in traditional media or physical media and NFTs. Like that's something that I've just been trying to figure out myself, being that my original training was in painting. And then, do I just make new work from scratch? Do I sort of revive work? Do I make new work that exists? And actually, just like literally 20 minutes ago, I sold my first NFT that is the blockchain counterpart to a physical work on paper that was sold into a collection some time ago. So, that was an experiment, you know, where I thought, well, you know, I see people minting photographs and all sorts of other images, not just straight computer drawings or glitch stuff, but, you know, photographs, straight analog photographs, a lot of them.

Robert DuGrenier

And so, that started me thinking, you know, why would work that's been produced as a physical object be any less valid as an NFT? And I did it as an experiment. So, you know, I think it's interesting to think about objectness and rarity. Like I've seen some things where I think it was a group of people. It might have even been a DAO, a distributed decentralized autonomous organization. They pulled money together and they bought a Banksy and photographed it and burned it and minted it as an NFT after they burned it. I think maybe they minted it as like a grid of all the different little tile pieces. Each piece was an NFT. And I mean, you know, there's a couple ways I guess you could look at that. You could see it as, you know, straight.

Robert DuGrenier

A strategy towards monetization. You know, but you could also look at it as, well, wow, that's an interesting piece of conceptual slash performance art questioning physicality and objectness. You know, it's both of those, I think. You know, it's interesting. Colin, how does that work? Whereby your physical piece then becomes an NFT.

Robert DuGrenier

Like the photograph you mentioned. And the person would then, you know, acquire the photograph as well as the NFT rights. How would that work? Well, I mean, there's really no transfer rights inherent in an NFT sale. Unless you explicitly stated. Yeah. And there are platforms, I think, that you can actually write in, you know, some language that would transfer rights. Although I, you know, can't imagine why an artist would necessarily opt for that. And I've seen it done. There's an artist, I think his name is Trevor Jones, who is a painter in London that does work where the physical object sale is paired with the NFT sale. So you buy the NFT and you get the painting and I guess he's, you know, just will ship it wherever the collector is. My thinking on that is that a lot of the people in crypto and the NFT space want to remain anonymous.

Robert DuGrenier

They do not want, I don't know the actual names or locations of any of my collectors. Of my NFTs. And I would imagine that the reason they use a handle is they don't want anyone to know who they are or where they live. They don't want to be shipped anything physical. And most of the people that have bought my physical work could care less about NFTs, to be honest. They are not interested in NFTs. So, you know. Two completely different audiences. The work that's been sold already. I mean, I did not sell the rights of my these works on Twitter. I sent the paper to the hospital that bought them. You know, I own the rights. So I thought, well, why not create a digital like a blockchain or an on chain counterpart to physical works, you know? And at this point, you know, the strategy that I'm sort of developing is to only mint work that's been sold.

Robert DuGrenier

So that way it's not like cannibalizing the sale of physical work. So there's no conflict then? It's an experiment. There's no conflict between doing that, selling the physical work and then minting an NFT of the work. Those are two separate transactions. Yeah. I mean, that's certainly within my right as an artist to do. You know, there's no transference of copyright in the sale of a physical work unless that's explicitly stated, like Artist Rights Society.

Robert DuGrenier

Rauschenberg was a big proponent of that. I think that's a big part of, you know, artists retaining their intellectual property rights, you know? And I think that ultimately, like, you know, I struggled with this philosophically for a while when this became an option. And does it cheapen the physical work? But, you know, ultimately what I decided was I like the work. And it puts it out there in front of a different whole audience of eyeballs that would never see it if it was just published in some archive online. So I decided to put it out there on my website. So just by making it available on a platform as an NFT, it's republishing the work and sort of leveraging the work. And, you know, I would be selective about it. You know what I mean? But that's something I'm trying to figure out as sort of like, you know, just a strategy for how this technology can best benefit me as an artist.

Robert DuGrenier

Having produced images for a number of years now. Why start from scratch? You know? Right. So the NFT, you don't lose rights on that either? So you can continue to make prints, let's say, of that? Or no? Yeah, you can. And, you know, I mean, I actually did a paper in grad school called Art and Memetics, talking about, you know, like people talk about memes now, you know, Internet memes. And everything else. But memetics was really like created by this guy, Richard Dawkins, who's a scientist as, you know, the sort of intellectual counterpart to genetics. How do ideas spread? You know? And it's based on a genetic model. And, you know, when you think about artwork that's famous, like the Mona Lisa, say, you know, it's because it's been reproduced so many times that it's just ubiquitous. You know, it's everywhere.

Robert DuGrenier

People don't, you know, it's. And so I feel like as an artist, do we want our work to be memorable and recognizable? Like, of course we do. Right. So, you know, this is just another medium to be able to do that, I think, in a way. And, you know, it's something I think for artists to utilize, you know? I mean, the artists have always been like the plankton. And the food chain of the art world, you know? And the whales are like sitting up top munching all the plankton. You know? So it's a way that I think artists can sort of leverage technology for themselves, you know?

Robert DuGrenier

I had an experience, Cynthia, where I sold the physical work after I had made it. First it was an NFT. And I sent an image of it to a collector of mine, a woman who lives out west. And she said, you know, I'm going to sell it. And she said, oh, I have to have this one. This is the one I want. Print this one. So I had it printed on aluminum dye bond. And then about a week later I started thinking, wait a minute, it's an NFT. So I had to sort of grapple with that. What have I done? But as Colin said, we are lowest on the food chain. And it is okay. I mean, she's not upset. I'm okay. If somebody buys the NFT, it's okay. It's okay. It's all good.

Robert DuGrenier

So what is the benefit or the motivation to buy an NFT? That comes down to each individual collector. Because right now, from what I've seen, there's like at least two primary camps with collectors of NFTs. There are those that are thinking of an NFT as an investment opportunity where they see it as, oh, this is something that can appreciate in value. That I can resell. And then there are those that are collecting them because they see the value of the piece as art and just want it as an art piece. And there are a couple of people that are like kind of in both camps a little bit. But it really just comes down to each individual collector what they're looking looking for and then it's also the case that like for some nfts depending on the project they can confer all sorts of different things like there's some nfts that allow you to be able to book a meeting with someone someone like a celebrity and that's cooked into the nft as and there's just a lot of different things that are going on happening it's a lot has changed in just the past year with the development and you know just adaptation or adoption of nfts for artists there's a lot of just experimentation still going on like I don't going back to robert don't think there's any other projects right now that are trying to do something that he wants to do like that.

Robert DuGrenier

Like, and I've been in the space for a minute. I haven't seen or heard about anything like what he's trying to do right now, which means there's just still so much more that can be done and so much more that can be, you know, experimented with. So. So in your second case, an NFT is like a donation to a museum, but to an individual artist?

Robert DuGrenier

In a way, yeah. I mean, this is someone likes your work or my work and they say, you know, I'd like to support you. So I'm going to provide you with a certain amount of support. As a donor, I don't expect anything back except perhaps entry into the museum or to the gallery. Yeah. And so, or association to say, yeah, I'm associated with some particular gallery. Yeah. That I support, not that I exhibit it. So I'm trying to understand this for myself. And it's sort of, it sounds like you either want to get something back as an investment. So you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's a question about how a work might appreciate. The other thing is whether I just want to support that artist and then go from there.

Robert DuGrenier

Right. Oh, S.T. Rivera, do you have a question or comment? See your hand up. Hi, I have a comment. I didn't know how to speak. It was my first time being in the Zoom. You're fine. You're fine. Michael, in terms of the example you just gave, like let's say you have a museum or a gallery that has a membership, right? That gallery or museum can create an NFT that is like a tiered system. So let's say, you know, basic membership, there's one NFT that those members get. Then you have like another standard where there's maybe a different NFT associated with that. And with that comes maybe early access to certain exhibitions. And then another tier, which is, I don't know, an invitation to a gala or something like that. So that's how you can kind of pair donations with an NFT, just as one very quick example of that.

Robert DuGrenier

So in a way, I mean, this is this is technology, communications technology. So it's not like a gallery in Chicago would like to provide those things just because you're close by. And NFT provides a convenient way, if you're in London, to be part of the same gallery. Yeah, it is a global marketplace.

Robert DuGrenier

So in a sense, yes. So like you can, so one of the one of the things I was hearing a lot about is like, you know, big exhibitions that happen internationally is like the cost of shipping all of this artwork, right? Instead, you can have the NFT at an exhibition. The art doesn't have to be shipped to that location. Instead, whoever purchases the NFT, then they own a kind of certificate of authenticity of that work. And then the work can be shipped directly to the consumer as opposed to shipping it to London or Paris or Hong Kong and then taking it to the next person. So I also have to worry about things like insurance claims in case something gets lost, which is actually very, very troubling for some people because I've heard horror stories. Yeah. Now, right now, a number of different galleries are using because of COVID and stuff, they don't require you to ship a piece of work.

Robert DuGrenier

I mean, a photograph, a print or something like that. A photograph is nice. Benjamin's ideas. It's about duplication and stuff. You can you can send the print or you can send the file and that goes online and that gets printed at the local gallery and they distribute that. The question in the background is, is the idea of the object and the object being unique in some sense. Photographs are not unique because of that. They try to be. But here the NFT is really offering a way for distribution of not only donation support, but also distribution.

Robert DuGrenier

It's not a unique way of distribution. Maybe it's a certified way of distribution. I don't know. I think from just watching and being a part of it for since about the end of 2019, I think even if it's the case that, you know, NFT is as we know them right now, go out of fashion. What's happened with this space has kind of laid the groundwork or laid the seeds of ideas of, you know, what further can be done with art because it's like, OK, maybe it maybe NFTs go the way way of the dodo, like what they just stop being a thing. There's more than likely going to be something new that takes its place, that does something very similar or expands upon the idea that was. Established with NFTs.

Robert DuGrenier

Like, I mean, take take take what we've done with barcodes. Barcodes have expanded a lot. Like we don't even necessarily even need barcodes anymore because there's other things that do the same thing, but better. So I think that even if NFTs might go away, there's going to be something that capitalizes on what's been happening the past couple of years, actually, because NFTs aren't as new as people like to think like they've been around for what?

Robert DuGrenier

At least since 2017, at least. I think they might actually go back a little bit further than that, but they've been around for years, it's just that last year in January is when, you know, there's all this focus because of what happened with Beeple, because big price tag. Any kind of thing that happens, where there's a large dollar sign associated with it, it gets everyone's attention. It's like they sold what for how much?

Robert DuGrenier

And that got everyone interested, like, huh, there's money here. What's going on? What are we what are we doing here? What can I learn? How can I participate? And that spurred this whole thing with artists coming on board, collectors coming on board, people that weren't even familiar with cryptocurrency coming on board because that initial thing kind of, you know, sparked their interest. Now, I know a lot of artists that myself included were interested because we were thinking about or a lot of us were thinking about ways to, you know, distribute and market our work that was digital because the traditional gap, like the traditional setup didn't seem to be all that accommodating, which was, you know, a major part as to why this movement kind of got so big. And that's when that got started, like just legitimizing the digital work and, you know, other sorts of technology based artwork that people are producing.

Robert DuGrenier

That galleries and museums aren't looking at or weren't looking at before, but are now starting to accept and just kind of pushing the envelope a little bit further to, you know, push further adoption. And I'm seeing things going on the chat. Yeah, rare pepe. Yes. In 2016 and sorry yeah crypto punks were in 2017 yeah but it's right now I'd say and I said this last year it's still the wild wild west with nfts right now there's just so much going on so many different things are happening and it's all happening really fast which makes it really scary for a lot of people and it's gonna be an interesting time did anyone else have anything that they wanted to share or because I could probably keep talking and rambling because that's what I do I know I think some of the very first work was it was this guy kevin mccoy I think he was with postmasters gallery actually and he you know minted something with his wife back in 2014 actually I'm like googling I was googling around a little bit the art center had to reschedule but yeah kevin mccoy and anil dash the supposedly the first known nft was created by them called quantum just interesting let's take it even back apparently can go back as far back as 97 with bowie bonds can't say I've ever heard of those before but I'm not I'm not shocked in that was my comment I'm just gonna jump in the bowie bonds were a way for him to develop a financial or capitalization on his music catalog or intellectual property which normally!

Robert DuGrenier

You couldn't capitalize on or you couldn't authenticate or make what walter walter benjamin would refer to as the uniqueness of the artwork but by selling shares or bonds or nowadays tokens on the blockchain you there was a way to capitalize on intellectual property I think I think the thing that's been most interesting over the last year or two is for people that have strictly been in ethereal media namely like video artists or digital photographers there was never a way for galleries to capitalize or quote sell work unless there was like a value add of you know signed artwork or stills taken from the work but that wasn't the actual work itself but now you can actually authenticate have a digital certificate of authenticity with an nft and by going back and looking at the stream of capitalization on intellectual property you can go back to 97 with the bowie bonds where they fluctuated with the market just like ethereum or bitcoin or dogecoin whatever you happen to be in fluctuates so it's yeah well that's an interesting interesting property of nfts is the authentication it's an authentication it's the signature just like on the back of one that's called yeah work.

Robert DuGrenier

We're talking about perhaps a limited edition. So you have 10 items of 10 copies of something and we're using that to limit the copies. I can go on to the tape and look at a particular copy of a work. I can say, oh yeah, I've got that. I put it on my screensaver, but it's of little value in terms of exchange. I can use it to give to someone else in exchange for some type of monetization. So perhaps that's, and it's an interesting thing. It's an interesting question is how does an NFT, a blockchain piece connect with or substitute for a signature on the back of a piece of work or on the front of a piece of work for that matter, the bottom of the sculpture, whatever it is.

Robert DuGrenier

I mean, your signature is your authentication of that piece of work. This is becoming a digital authentication. Well, that was always a problem, particularly for video artists. I mean, people like Ed M. Schweller or these like old school, old school video artists, you'd make the piece, but galleries didn't really know how to handle it in the traditional sense of artwork, you know, buying, selling and taking a commission on it. You know, you really can't hang it on the wall and if it was a videotape, it would deteriorate a lot faster than a painting would. And if somebody wanted a copy, they could just make one. But the NFT itself provides a, you know, certificate of authenticity, which is even greater than just a piece of paper. It's, you know, it's a decentralized piece of data. In a way it's centralized though too, which is an important part.

Robert DuGrenier

So it's decentralized, it's convenient to get to, but because it's central, you can actually find the current value when associated with a particular piece. It's like an ISBN number in a way on a piece of literature. You have, you know where it is, it's attached to that. And if you want to buy it, you can say, okay, I want this piece of work, this document, this book, and that's the ISBN number that I want. So this provides, this is, Devavod had said, it's part of a marketplace and it's maybe an important component to make art marketable in multiple copies across the world or even to the moon perhaps.

Robert DuGrenier

The nice thing is, unlike walking into Barnes & Noble and buying a copy of Catcher in the Rye, if you want to own the first edition, first print that came off the typewriter, in the sense you could, if there was an NFT for that. It provides, you know, the uniqueness, which has always been the problem with art in the age of mechanical reproduction is the uniqueness of its existence.

Robert DuGrenier

Within the limitation that you can trust that source. Well. Archery, archeries. Yeah. But a lot of people don't even think that. And if you take a look at the digital world, it's only as secure as it can be secured. Well, that's true with anything. I mean. Well, exactly. So people are calling this like some kind of panacea.

Robert DuGrenier

Not so. No. So just, just trying to bring it back to reality here. So is that an analog or digital reality? Digital reality. This is the own things. It's can be one of the most common things. It's not that you can't see that. It's not that you can't see that. It's an element of that. It's an element of that. It's an element of that. Many people own the same thing downloaded to their devices you know so how does that work with something that is unique you know I think a lot of it is more about maybe indie artists where their supporters would fund the creation of a particular project or something like that I know filmmakers are starting to use nfts in that way too it seems like people filmmakers I think it was a producer you know used nfts to sort of crowdfund a project that was still in early stage development and then all the owners of the nft would have some degree of equity in it you know once it was produced as a movie so it almost sounds like it's a surrogate in some sense this is David Bloom in some sense it's being used as a surrogate way to sell stock and in that case the actual SEC is if they haven't they're going to want if it gets big enough to step in and regulate it.

Robert DuGrenier

The other thing I was thinking is because someone just said you know how do you verify this because you could still have digital fraud maybe there's some role for the Techspressionism group to or for you Colin to so someone an artist that wanted to issue one of these that people didn't know could like become a member of the group or come to you for some type of verification so you this could become like a clearinghouse for verifying the artist's work and their legitimacy and then you can make some money off of it.

Robert DuGrenier

Not interested. But I think that's the process that the NFT that BitChain provides it's a digital key that takes so long to duplicate or to break. That it's not worth it to say that you're someone else to forge that key. The idea is that this has a key the BitChain takes care of all this for you and it just becomes time consuming to actually forge this and we know that the paintings can be forged over a period of time with a certain development of skill perhaps but this takes a lot more time to do than that so it's an interesting again it goes back to an interesting way to authenticate who you are and how you're connected with that. The question next in my mind is so how do you distribute a piece that you've connected your NFT with?

Robert DuGrenier

Is this like sending out a piece of software that then is you have to have a key to use a key to look at a key to observe. Does it diminish anything if you have a piece of sculpture which is three-dimensional as opposed to something on a two-dimensional screen? Do I really do I want to have a picture of a sculpture or would I like to have the sculpture here? That might might be a way to differentiate some of the buyers here. I think the authentication component you know a lot of what collectors look for I think is buying from an artist who is verified on a platform that you know is credible that is like it's very easy for someone to impersonate someone else on say OpenSea like it's a lot easier than on a platform where it's more tightly curated because on either platform you can look at their ad I mean if you're actually you know going to do your due diligence you can look at their wallet address you can look it up on ether scan see the transaction history see other pieces the artist is minted all that stuff you know what I mean which isn't to say that people easily could get duped and not do those things and buy something that is minted by someone using someone else's name and their images I'm sure it's happening every single day right now.

Robert DuGrenier

I would be where I guess due diligence to make sure. Yeah so you know part of it is like you know the way that Twitter. Has a verified user badge or Instagram has verified user badges and most of the platforms. You know offer or require that as well for the artist to be. Verified by. You know posting something you know to their social media which some bot then goes and checks the link and make sure it's coming from that address and so on and so forth so it verifies. The identity of the user on the particular. NFT platform. I know that foundation does that and I believe open C does that as well you know but. Of course an enterprising hacker would just set up cloned social media accounts using some other variation on the person's name you know what I mean like it never ends really it's sort of like cops and robbers you know when it comes to like.

Robert DuGrenier

It's essentially like any other sort of hacking or phishing type scheme you know where there's something that looks like it's something else and people are tricked into you know transacting with it you know there's an interesting thread I read on twitter that actually the brett kinsella the guy from neftorian reposted about securing your nfts and how you can use like a hardware wallet you know which would hold your private key to authenticate any transactions versus using a hot wallet like metamask or something like that then there's you know all different levels of sort of how many degrees of precaution a user might take when getting involved in this stuff you know it gets pretty deep think so an interesting thing is suppose you how does your work how does how does a collector let's say access your work if you've used an nft to authenticate it well the nft is the work essentially you know so some people might display it on you know just I think a lot of it is just sort of for collectors almost like pride of ownership.

Robert DuGrenier

Like they just know they have it. They could pull it up on a screen and say, I own this NFT by XYZ, you know? And I think that, you know, the commodity value of NFTs, you know, on the one hand, someone might say, well, that's about as devoid of any sort of artistic. As you can get, right? It's just commodification. But I mean, in the end, doesn't that benefit each one of us as an artist for artwork to have the ability to be commodified so we can all make a living at it? You know what I mean?

Robert DuGrenier

But the actual, how do they get the work? I think the work generally is what is on screen. Although, you know, some NFTs, you know, also include what's called unlockable content, which might be a link or a download. You know, I recently looked into that because I was considering dropping some old digital drawings that I have EPS files for, which is like an early vector format, predecessor to PDF format. And I was thinking, well, I could upload those, I could upload those somewhere and offer that as unlockable content so the collector could print the work, you know, at any scale because those files are resolution independent.

Robert DuGrenier

And I started looking into it and really the sort of best practice right now is to upload the work to what's called IPFS, which is Interplanetary File System, which is, yes, that's the actual name of this thing that people have invented. And essentially, it's a decentralized, you know, file format system. Most of the NFT platforms use that to store the data. So it's decentralized file storage, but there's a platform called Pinata that I was playing around with that is a pretty cool front end to IPFS that allows you to upload. And it basically lets you, gives you a certain amount of storage for free and you can upload a bunch of files and go through the process and it'll give you back a URL and a CID, which is like a key for that particular file that you've uploaded. And then honestly, I don't know how this actually gets funded, like who owns the servers that are then distributing the data.

Robert DuGrenier

I would imagine it's something along the lines of the way LimeWire or these other peer-to-peer networks used to work, you know, where the data is just shared. It's peer-to-peer, you know, duplicate. But probably a lot of it is backed, you know, by the people involved in the Ethereum Foundation, things like that. I'm not exactly sure.

Robert DuGrenier

So again, but if I was, I wanted to curate electronically a show and I said, these are my own, this is what I really like to see. And I want to say that I have the originals or the, the, the, the,!! The fact that I can get it in this 3D space and it's all here. That you can see that you can see that you can see there.

Robert DuGrenier

Sorry, I was gonna say this was ST. Yeah, I can see on screen, your name, at least. But anyway, so when you view a three dimensional, when you do a sculpture, three dimensional work, how do I differentiate it from something, a video, let's say? So it's the file format. So most people that I know who are doing three dimensional works, create a GLB file, which is outside of my scope. I'm not a 3d artist. But when that gets placed in some place like Mozilla hubs, it shows up as a three dimensional object.

Robert DuGrenier

Okay. Okay, thanks. Thank you very much. You can do moving You can place video within Kunstmatrix, but it's fairly limited. Yeah, Kunstmatrix is really not made to integrate with NFTs or blockchain stuff. It was a little bit of a hack, actually, to put what we've done so far together. But there's definitely more sort of elegant solutions. And there's also places like CryptoVoxels or Decentraland, which are true on chain, you know, virtual spaces within the quote unquote, metaverse, although now, apparently, Mark Zuckerberg owns the metaverse. So we have to come up with some other cool name to call that thing that existed before Facebook appropriated it. But those are both I know, there are online galleries that, you know, people put NFTs in within both Decentraland and CryptoVoxels.

Robert DuGrenier

And I think there's a lot of stuff there. There's another one at Sandbox. I haven't really messed around with that one too much, but Yeah, and with CryptoVoxels, you can, there, if you connect your wallet, there are hundreds of spaces that are accessible for you to explore and play with. So you can build something in CryptoVoxels without necessarily needing to purchase land or parcel in CryptoVoxels.

Robert DuGrenier

I like to always offer a number of $6.9 or $7.7 out of your net worth in your purchase. So you can work with me and I'm more than happy to help you with that. Free solutions or solutions that are accessible to people who are just learning and with on cyber in particular because you connect your wallet you know it's going to something that already exists on chain so I think one of the things that would be an interesting conversation to have and maybe expressionism can be part of this is that I think with nfts especially tied to visual art whether it's movies or static or models or whatever I think there's a really a difference between people who are working on the terms of natively in a digital environment that's where their natural output is versus artists who are not and if you want if you create physical objects then is it's like is a photograph of the Mona Lisa the same as the Mona Lisa now if there was only one photograph of the Mona Lisa is it still as rare as the Mona Lisa and my argument is that not everybody's creating digitally natively or that's where their output goes and I think as a conversation when we're talking with collectors when we're trying to I think educate ourselves and others as to what we're actually talking about I think there's an illusion at times that an NFT is the artwork for some people that's probably exactly true and other people it's some sort of replica of artwork or it's an adjunct or it's an outgrowth but if you have an original piece that you've created in another environment you know is that is that the legitimate piece and the other and the NFT is a different beast along the side with it I don't I'm not sure that I have an answer to that but I do see that as a legitimate difference between natively digital art where that's your output where that's where you create and also where you output your creations versus people who are straddling various medias and that and I think we haven't had much chance to talk about that because the hype has been of the media and I think it's a great question and I think it's a just the coolness of this.

Robert DuGrenier

And like you said before, Colin, the big numbers that have been generated and things like that. So I guess for me, this is what's been perplexing in this whole discussion is that there's some real basic differences here that we're kind of glossing over. Yeah I think that's a really interesting conversation and I think that you know this group in particular is very well suited to have that conversation because it wasn't formulated around topic of nfts you know it's sort of prior to this becoming sort of like a mainstream semi-mainstream sort of thing and we all sort of came into it or you know the people that have been involved with the this project for a while kind of come into it through this you know through the course of this going on and you know like I mean I know for myself like there were like the works that I first minted were from digital drawings that I created back in the 90s that I then came back and animated and created audio to it to make them new works that were based on these drawings I originally called that series of work metagraphs because I thought of the actual work as the file like you could literally open up the file and read the code and I always I never did this as a show I still one day want to do it but print it out on like old school tractor paper and hang the code for the piece next to the next to the piece I did that did you I figured someone's done it already but you know but like you know I thought, well, like the actual work is this, like the file it's like, and then when I, when I, physicalize it into a print or stretch it up as a canvas, that to me is a derivative of the work.

Robert DuGrenier

It's not the work, you know, whereas in other circumstances, like these ones I just minted, like I threw India ink down on paper and then ran it through my printer. And that was the work. It's the physical singular piece on paper. And then the NFT is sort of the derivative. You know, I think it varies from circumstance.

Robert DuGrenier

Yeah. I mean, for me, all my, all my original files are all digital because I work digitally, but I create for physical prints and I've had people ask me, well, can we get a smaller version of that? And I said, well, no, because that's my, my original is what I had. If you want, if you want to commission me to do something new at a smaller size, I'm willing to do that. But my artwork is, well, it is a commodity, but it's not, it's not one that I can go just, I'm unwilling to go into Photoshop and just create a smaller digital file because you want a smaller version of the artwork. That's just me. You know, that, that's, that's kind of dilutes the value of your work. So for me, like an NFT, if I were to create an NFT, with, I don't know, whatever pixel size is, that doesn't feel, that doesn't feel like the artwork to me because that's my digital file.

Robert DuGrenier

That's what I've worked on that. That's my process. And I'm unwilling, I'm unwilling to sell my process. That's, but that's just me. And, and that's why for me, NFTs, I have, I have to be thoughtful, kind of like what Robert's project is about, that it needs to encompass something. More than what I do normally as a physical end product. And that's the part right now over this past year that I haven't come up with a good reason for me to do NFTs because I, I haven't found, found something yet that I find interesting enough to incorporate something that goes beyond just a physical image. Cause my physical images, I want to have, I want to have them in the world, in the physical world, the way I want them, the way I print them on the paper. I want the way I frame them and all of that. That's for me, that's who that's what my artistry is about.

Robert DuGrenier

And that's just personal. And I think that's what, that's why for me, this conversation is more than just about putting my artwork out in a digital format. Cause I could easily do that. I just choose not to because I don't see that as the end product for me. And that's just that, that's just where I'm coming from as an artist. And I, and, and that's why I think this conversation is really important to have because I think we are each approaching this in very different ways and we can learn from each other in that way. And I think that's really, I think that's a good thing for us, which is why I value our salon meetings so much.

Robert DuGrenier

In, in response to what you say, I want to remind you that when, when I started selling my JPEGs on flash drives, I was encouraging people to show them in their homes on a small backlit screen, because there's some really important component of digital art that hasn't been mentioned in today that concerns me a lot, which is when you print, it completely changes the look of your work. It, where it's backlit and it's glowing and the colors shimmer, the minute you print it on a surface, you're going to lose the quality of light. And so you have to adjust your file and I do print my work, but I don't make it to be printed.

Robert DuGrenier

You know, the, the, if I make, if I make a, let's say a note card out of my, my, my piece of art, it's just a signifier for what I actually would prefer you to have, which is the full size backlit work, I, either on a video screen of some kind, or like that is what I produce. And, and I really, because I'm such an esthete and looks are so important to what I do, I can't stand seeing it lose that shimmer, lose that depth, lose that magic of the, of the backlit screen. And also with video work there, at least I have a guarantee that it's going to, it's going to be what I wanted it to be because I'm creating it on a screen for view, viewing on a screen. But it's really different from, from your perspective. And I, I appreciate what... And yours is completely valid. See that's my, that's exactly where I'm coming from is that, you know, or people are, or, you know, people creating audio work that they tie in a visual.

Robert DuGrenier

I mean, there's such a cool, just wide range of artistry here and, and the whole NFT thing is very interesting. But it's not just... Not like one size fits all and I'm trying to wrap my head around how whether it is whether it is something I could utilize or not I haven't come to that conclusion yet but I get where you're coming from because yeah and that's why my home studio my monitor is set for digital digital prints because exactly of that backlit illumination I have to mitigate that so that I what I'm seeing I know is going to be valid when I print it and that takes you know that takes a lot of time to get to the right thing. So I totally get where you're coming from, Renato. And I think that, you know, it's really interesting because working in glass and glass being so luminous from the inside, I've found that the NFTs that I'm creating represent that luminosity that I can't get any other way.

Robert DuGrenier

And it's absolutely spectacular. So it's such a beautiful bond. Beautiful interpretation of the glass sculptures that I'm making because these things are inner lit just like glasses and that's what excited me about this medium if they looked horrible and like a flat piece of paper I wouldn't have gone there you can use aesthetic effects that will make the printed image seem somewhat more luminous and also Renata on the screen that they would be seeing probably a lower resolution and lose some detail so they would gain something it depends I guess on what kind of a screen they have doesn't it which that's a whole other part of the conversation too yeah what the screen is that you're using because the iPad is very different than like a big is that you're using because the iPad is very different than like a big it's not it's not I'm not going to say that in the video so you're not going to get the power of the camera on the screen or a big 4K monitor even so you're So you're just going to get a wildly different experience sometimes just depending on the screen.

Robert DuGrenier

But same thing with prints. You're going to get a wildly different experience based off of the material that you print on or the settings that you use. But we have control over the print if we're selling a print, whereas if we sell a chip, we don't have control over how it's going to be viewed. You know, doesn't that disturb you somewhat? It? I've actually been selling digital work with Raspberry Pi. With small displays so that it comes in a in a package and it that's the way I can control how it's how it looks yeah that's twice that's what that's what clive holden insists on too he'll sell the video screen in a frame as part of the work and ideally that's that would be how I would do it too it would add a lot it would add a cost to the work but if the collector was a serious collector they'd probably be willing to go go that way no infinite objects is like a solution especially specifically for that I know patrick said he sold an nft piece in the show that he just curated as an infinite object which is like you know essentially a small screen that can get pre-loaded with still or time-based work and I think a lot of nft artists are using those as a way as a way to sort of provide a physical you know counterpart to the to the blockchain yeah I don't really like the way they look yeah I think they look good but I don't know about how much you can put on them because I tried uploading an mp4 and they just they didn't have the space so I have to I guess I have to go back and look again they weren't being used at kaddaf at the big digital art fair in paris in the spring hmm I think that's a wonderful question those things too like because and because we're having these conversations right now I'm pretty sure that technology is going to develop a bit more like somebody at some point is going to get the bright idea to be like hey we really need to service these artists that work digitally a little bit better with displaying their artwork in a out outside of a computer space and I think that's a really good point I think that's a really good point it's the most important thing in the future that we can like have to like really think about this as a way to like but as f what's the point of like just like loops and it looks amazing it was totally worth the money wow but yeah I'm gonna get into that business it's still very new so that first mover bonus if you're there at the start who knows like what kind of a lion's share of the what happens you'll get it's much like becoming becoming a clearinghouse for nfts building display systems for galleries and museums is not what I want to do with my life and there's platforms that are like you know I think sort of almost like subscription services where I don't know if it's nfts or just straight digital media that then the artists license and then a collector might have a screen on the wall where it like rotates the art I forget the name of the platform well I'm on I'm on I'm on sedition art that's and I was with them right around 2013 and I was sort of you know my collectors all had to wrap their heads around that they were suddenly getting a digital vault and the work was locked inside vault but then somebody hacked their certificates of authenticity which kind of to me made it not so valid anymore at least with nfts on the blockchain there's a better way of checking there's you know not like and but sedition is still going there's they've got damien hirst they've got yoko no they've got practically everybody with work on there now are they just not and like blockchain to authenticate the work now or are they it's still like sort of just proprietary by you buy this little thing and you get a vault and then you can show it on your computer screen at home or on your as a screensaver on your computer basically yeah but I think I know what you mean there are some other services that allow people to stream art in their home one of the things I noted everybody worries about their peace going out but no one mentions they'd like to see their peace in a particular environment galleries provide that particular environment but would you would you not sell a piece to a collector who lives in a cave I guess just because they don't have the right environment for you to view your particular arc I would sell my piece to whomever enjoys it yeah if they're if they're in a cave and they can see it on whatever device they have access to they didn't want us you Well, even if they can't see it, if it connects with someone and it's out there and available for purchase, then my personal feeling about it doesn't matter to me.

Robert DuGrenier

And it's the same thing with physical work. If I have a piece hanging somewhere and someone wants to buy it because they love it, then I'm happy about that. It doesn't, the environment in which it's shown is less important to me. I have had work shown in physical galleries, metaverse galleries, pop-up galleries that had digital screens showing the NFTs.

Robert DuGrenier

Any way for someone to interact with it, view it, love it, that's all I really care about. Makes me happy. That someone is appreciating it. Even happier if they decide to spend something on it. It's all about sharing. I get that. But I'd like to add a caveat to that. I would not be, like, I don't care too much about the environment where my art might end up. But I definitely would feel some kind of way if my art ended up in, like, certain contexts. Like, if it was shown next to certain things that are just, like. Really? You're going to put that next to it? Like, just, no?

Robert DuGrenier

Okay. It's in your house now, but still. Why? I totally get that, especially with how many profile picture projects there are. You know, if someone had my work next to, I don't know, just any, any PFP that I'm not a fan of, I get that. But, you know. But at the end of the day, it's whatever. It's just. Right.

Robert DuGrenier

It just kind of happens. Well, it's like, yeah. I'm glad you enjoy this. I'm not glad where it's ended up next to, but that's fine. It's out of my hands. Yeah. But at the same time, to pretend to be as naive or as precious as the Max von Sydow character in Hand Under Sisters, where the guy wants to put it over his couch and he has a fit. It's like, as an artist, nine times out of ten, the collectors and you don't meet until maybe there's a dinner. And that's only after they've bought a few pieces. No. I mean, if someone's buying your work, you're like, oh, my God, I can eat this month or I don't have to, like, take that silly side gig. You know, you're just glad to sell it. Yep.

Robert DuGrenier

We don't have the control over it. You know that just the owner of the work by purchasing an NFT, that doesn't mean the rest of the world can't see it. You know, people could just go view that people everyday piece or crypto punk. Yeah. Number four, six, seven, five or whatever it is, just as easily as the owner can pull it up and view it wherever, you know, wherever it was minted. I mean, I guess I'm not sure if you if you buy an NFT, if that gives you the ability to burn it. Does anyone know the answer to that question?

Robert DuGrenier

You can. It just doesn't feel good. It hasn't happened to me, but I know people that's happened to. I'm going to. Buy your art. It is possible. Burn it. Yeah. Well, I actually burned stuff that I minted on Rarible before I really, like, knew what I wanted to do. And then I was like, oh, like, I want to get rid of that, you know, and I burned it. And but it's still there, you know, like, I think I don't know if it just didn't work or if that it didn't remove it from like OpenSea, you know, even though I burned it off of the platform. So I'm not sure. If I didn't do it right or if it doesn't really actually remove. It's Schrodinger's art now. Right.

Robert DuGrenier

That's great. SlimeOS agency exists and does not exist at the same time. Along that vein, I mean, any burnt NFT is Schrodinger's NFT, right? Because when you burn something, it doesn't actually go away. It just. Goes to a wallet, a burn wallet. So you can still see it if you have access to that wallet.

Robert DuGrenier

It's very interesting, a plausible thought process with that, too, because you can also ask, like, does it does it have a value as a burned object at that point, too, or no? Does it become performance art? Yeah. Like, does it take on a whole new context by being burned? I mean, we saw that. I think it was middle of last year, a little bit late last year with Taylor. What the fuck that burned an ape? And then there was a whole movement of killing the apes. Yeah. Do you remember that? I do. I do. Yeah. That yeah, that fits right into that discussion.

Robert DuGrenier

I think about. I. I. I just happened. I just happened to watch something about the Burning Man Festival, and there is art that's burned in there as part of the experience. We're going to have an NFT Burning Man. That'd be crazy, but it could happen. I read an article about Ethereum. The fact that's like a while back. It's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back.

Robert DuGrenier

The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. The fact that's like a long time back. ETH2O actually becomes what Ethereum is, does that basically eliminate minting and thus does that cap supply at that point? Because I think a lot of it is that will basically like shifting to proof of stake versus proof of work will accomplish. You know, the main thing is that it will eliminate gas fees. You know, the energy usage will be one thousandth of what it is now to process Ethereum transactions, which will get all the environmental people sort of a little more friendly with Ethereum. Although I feel that whole line of thinking is like propaganda from centralized banking personally, because no one complains about that. I mean, how many GPU cycles does, you know, video?

Robert DuGrenier

Gaming or streaming video take up? And does anyone really discuss the carbon footprint of Netflix or tell people to turn that off? Like, probably not. You know, I just feel like there is an agenda behind that whole conversation that people aren't really, you know, it's easy to hop on the bandwagon of it's bad for the environment. But, you know, these are computers that are running. When you think about all the computers that are constantly running, doing other things all the time that are data intensive, processor heavy.

Robert DuGrenier

Things like gaming, you know what I mean? Or even all those machines that are just using energy constantly for no apparent reason, because they've got a screwed up process. Because that happens sometimes where they'll end up running GPU cycles because something happened in the background and a process got messed up. And now your GPU is functioning at 100 percent, doing nothing, but it's functioning at 100 percent. So that's that happens. A lot. Just like hardware faults as a result of software.

Robert DuGrenier

And then like every trade that happens is a transaction. So you think about and like I read some statistic. I mean, who's really to know who, you know, how can you know what statistics to actually believe at this point? You know, this is like one NFT takes X amount of energy to burn equivalent to whatever. Like, you know, I mean, but the it was about, you know, what percentage of blockchain? Transactions are NFT related versus general trading. And it was a very, very small fraction because when you really think about it, you know, it's writing a record to a decentralized database. It's not like turning, you know, like you think about the amount of trades that happen to probably every second, like thousands and thousands and thousands, all the day trader crypto people with automated trading and bots and everything.

Robert DuGrenier

I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Just seems a little far fetched to blame it all on the artists and NFTs. Yeah, it's I don't know. It's I think it's become one of those things where at this point, I've seen this a lot now. The whole idea or concept behind NFTs and them being a bad thing. It is very trendy to hate on it. Like it is the end thing to do to hate on it. Like I've seen I've seen this. It's happened in video games like the video game community right now. There are a lot of people in the video game are throwing a fit about companies potentially releasing NFTs.

Robert DuGrenier

They're like, oh, we're going to boycott this game if they release an NFT for it. And it's like, it's not that serious. Like, it's like because of the energy usage or because like the model of ownership is different. That's the thing. You ask most of these people why they're doing this. They will say a lot. A lot of them probably say something along the lines of the environmental thing. But if you try to press them about that idea, you get short short circuits because they don't actually really know what actually is being affected or what the argument actually is. They just heard NFTs are bad for the environment. And that's they're running with it. They're not doing any further thought, any further research into like what that claim actually even means.

Robert DuGrenier

And so they're just trying to get into the NFTs. But so many communities, so many communities outside of, you know, just art and collectibles and the metaverse stuff that, you know, in industries, they're trying to get into the NFTs. They're getting backlash and getting even some of them even getting boycott over stuff that they don't even quite understand.

Robert DuGrenier

I'm actually looking into this at the moment. The environmental impacts of NFTs. And I've. I've seen some really great videos that argue that it's all bullshit. And I've just basically started looking. But correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no peer reviewed papers on the environmental impact of NFTs.

Robert DuGrenier

At this. From what I understand, there's like there's one thing that somebody did. It was either Stanford or MIT. One of them. They did a report on. Bitcoin. Not necessarily Ethereum, but it was about Bitcoin. Yeah. And that's kind of like the go to thing people are going to. But even with that report, what came out was like.

Robert DuGrenier

It's inconclusive about how much an individual transaction is actually producing. And apparently everyone is citing a guy that wrote an article on medium. Just a guy. Yeah. Not a scientist. Not no one that actually knows what they're. It's a mess. It's a mess. And I get I get I get wanting to care about the environment. I care about the environment. Like I and when you know I first learned about NFTs and that part of the discussion that like it made me like halt a little bit. I was like hmm maybe I try to find you know something that's more eco friendly or environmentally friendly. But even then I wasn't basing that decision off of you know actual research that had been shown because there isn't any. Right. It's just one. It's an easy button to press. Yeah. It's one of those things where it's just like okay I jury's still out on this.

Robert DuGrenier

Maybe I should hold up. And I was in that boat for a while. Like that was actually probably the motivating reason why I didn't dive in as hard early on. Because it's like I didn't know. I just didn't know. And I think there's a lot of people there still there still in that mode too because we don't know. Like it's there hasn't been a whole lot of research because this is still very new. The popularity surging is really new. We're very much in undocumented territory.

Robert DuGrenier

So you don't see anybody like those saying like people shouldn't trade cryptocurrency because it's bad for the environment. Where like 95% of the on-chain transactions come from trading. I mean it's not from people minting NFTs. You know like think about it. Like it just it's not plausible to think that you know the artists are to blame. You know what I mean? Like really like and is there would be an outcry if it was really scientifically valid against all cryptocurrency against Coinbase.

Robert DuGrenier

Coinbase going public. If they're the biggest perpetrator of environmental. You know impact in the country a publicly traded company. You know there would be an outcry but it really isn't happening. And the probably the reason it isn't happening is because it's propaganda to some degree. I mean you know certainly like I think that Ethereum is not extremely efficient and things like Polygon are like being built on top of it. You know so it'll be faster transactions and other stuff. But like the people behind Ethereum are still trying to like make money. And make it better and make it you know. I mean it was conceived of as something totally different than Bitcoin. You know as you know just from the get-go as a computational platform not a currency. So I don't know. I feel like it's tough to argue with things when people are like there's no intrinsic value in cryptocurrency or NFTs.

Robert DuGrenier

It's like okay that's like saying there's no intrinsic value in rocks. Or trees. Or any other you know arbitrary thing. Like without really providing substantial reasoning why that might be someone's opinion. You know like and I think you know there's plenty of valid applications for general blockchain technology. Certainly you know I mean it just seems strange you know. But the whole phenomenon is weird. And the whole idea of like there being an anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto behind everything is weird you know. Well and Ethereum isn't the only blockchain right? That's true. That we can mint an NFT. So I think part of it is education.

Robert DuGrenier

And if you do feel some type of way about Ethereum and proof of work. Then you mentioned Colin you know Polygon. But there's also Tezos. Tezos yep. That's where I went to. Like that was my. That's where I am now. Yeah that was my like I'm not sure what about Ethereum. But Tezos is about building itself as something that's supposed to be more. Environmentally friendly. Like that like literally the on Twitter.

Robert DuGrenier

When the Hank Aknunk was first getting started. They were a big part of and like one other influencer. I can't remember his name right now. But they were building themselves as clean NFTs. Like that was that was the thing that like a hashtag clean NFT. That was that is the thing that was happening. Or it is still happening. I'm not totally sure. But I haven't seen it in a minute. But they've moved away from that language. Yeah. Clean NFT or eco NFT. Yeah. But I remember. Tezos has grown. It's grown like so fast in the past year. I mean it was Hank Aknunk and Calamint. But now you have object.com.

Robert DuGrenier

You have FX hash. I think is the latest one. I mean object has grown. Very quick. It grew out of Hank Aknunk. Yes. Exactly. Like Hank Aknunk started it and then somebody was like I was saying earlier. Somebody creates an idea a little seed of something and then somebody takes it and just like I'm going to grow it. And that's kind of how object came to be like it was an initial idea that got expanded upon it and refined very quickly like in the span of months because it wasn't a full year that came up. It was probably what maybe six or seven months. That happened. It was born out of the inability to do auctions on Hicket Dunk. Yeah. And then when the big exploit happened in July it like skyrocketed after that. Yep.

Robert DuGrenier

It's that again goes to just how fast things happen like there's a lot of very motivated passionate people in this space. Artist included not just its artists developers and. All sorts of other people they're very passionate. They're trying to do all sorts of new things. Constantly. That's why things are going so quickly.

Robert DuGrenier

But to be to be an artist during this time period and just to be not even in the space but like be even being like adjacent to it and just being aware that it's going on. It's exciting to look at. It really is. And just wondering where it's going to go because I'm, I don't even think anyone has any clear ideas of what this is even like next year. Like we didn't know that they things were gonna look like this year I didn't know things were gonna look like this into 2019 when I first learned about NFTs.

Robert DuGrenier

And it's going to look completely different. And another year so. I could even be gone. I don't know. No. I really don't know. Hopefully we'll all still be here. Well, yeah, hopefully we'll be here. But, yeah, it's just so fast. So fast. Yeah, I think most of our conversation today has been about NFTs and our NFTs in art. I know Michael earlier you had, you said you had something that you were potentially wanting to share for about maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

Robert DuGrenier

Is that still something you want to do? Well, I'm not sure. It feels like I would break the flow of where this whole day is gone. So maybe, maybe another time. I'm not sure. Unless this conversation is completely talked out, which it doesn't sound like it probably is. I mean, it's one of those things because every time, every time we get talking about NFTs and art, it just gets more and more. And it's like a nonstop conversation.

Robert DuGrenier

Well, it's crazy how you can go on Twitter like now with Twitter spaces and like literally around the clock. There's like, you know, and Clubhouse, there's just 24-7 multiple conversations of dozens and dozens of people all talking about NFTs. I mean, it's like really literally 24-7 shocking in a way. I've talked to people that they've said they've gone to sleep in a game. They've gone to sleep in a Twitter space and woken up still in the Twitter space going like eight hours later. I'm like, that is crazy.

Robert DuGrenier

But. I wanted to say it kind of reminds me about all these fertilized eggs that was a big hullabaloo. I don't know what in the 80s or 90s, something. And everybody was talking about it. What do you do with these eggs? Is it a potential human being or not? Or hell no, it's just a fertilized egg. No way. Is it a potential human being?

Robert DuGrenier

And that finally died down. But I think the philosophers and the people in ethics are still talking about that. But they probably haven't come to any conclusion. Shit. Yeah. It's just going to be talked about forever and ever. As a former philosophy major in college. Yes, I can guarantee that it is still being talked about because it was part of my coursework, actually. That discussion about personhood and when a human actually becomes a human or whether that's different or not from a person. That kind of stuff is still being talked about and discussed in those circles anyway. Your average person, probably not. But, yeah, no, there's still being thought about. And it's the case that right now there's no clear answers. We still don't have clear answers. And that's kind of one of the joys of philosophy for me anyway.

Robert DuGrenier

Everything is just so open-ended. Like, who knows where you'll actually end up. But on the journey of trying to figure out answers, even though you're not sure where you're going, you're still going to find answers. And that's how you might not get there. You might discover all sorts of other things. Like that's how we got math and science, actually. It was people thinking about these other things. And then in the course of doing that, math and science kind of developed as a result of those discussions. Because they were trying to figure out answers to certain things. And, you know, they end up developing systems to help them figure it out. And it's always fun. It's always a good time. I was going to tell you. I think one of the things that's really interesting about this is that artists are not just another pretty face.

Robert DuGrenier

Yes. Though we do have several pretty faces in here. I will say that. I see you, Sue. On a pragmatic note, is there anyone in here that does want to present for the next one, two weeks from now? So I could. I slacked a couple of weeks ago. That's fine. But it ended up being a good conversation. Michael, did you have any interest? Yeah. I'd be happy to. But Colin, if there's some that haven't presented at all or something, put priority to that. But sure. I'd be happy to.

Robert DuGrenier

I saw somebody. One of the newcomers I think light up. Yeah. My name is Lily Kostrzewa. I would like to present next time too. Okay. Cool. Yeah, we will get you in. Do you have like a site or some link that you could paste in the chat? Okay. Let me do it right now. That way I can add you to the artist index as well.

Robert DuGrenier

Robert, would you like to get added to the artist index? Yeah, please. Okay, cool. Cool. There'll be another Vermonter in there with me now. Is it Vermonter, Vermontian? It is a Vermonter. I've officially traded in my New York plates and my license, and I am no longer a New Yorker. Unlike me, you know, I'm a mass hole from Massachusetts. So once a mass hole in Vermont, always a mass hole. I have a son who's the son of a mass hole. Maybe his kid might be a Vermonter.

Robert DuGrenier

Yeah, to the people I've met so far, I'm definitely an imposter. Like, yeah, right. Come back in 20 years. I've been here more than 20 years. It still doesn't work that way. Yep. How often do you have artists present work here? Fairly consistently, actually. Yeah. This is the first meeting in a very long time, actually, where it's just kind of been a free forum discussion.

Robert DuGrenier

Normally, the case is that we all have, like, between we were before we had normally two presenters present every meeting. And you know, they'd have their presentation, then there'd be a Q&A after presentation, and then the next presenter would go, there'd be a Q&A. And then if there was any time left over, then it would be kind of look like this. Yeah.

Robert DuGrenier

So, it's each presentation, normally, we'd like for them to run between like 30 to 45 minutes-ish. And then there'll be two. Yeah. So, we, and that's a number that we, it took us a minute to kind of get a handle over because our, when we first started doing like our presentations, they were like five minutes. And we were just like shotgun them. It was like, okay, we're done. So, yeah, this person, they'll go for five minutes, this person will go for five minutes. And a lot of people were like, ah, that's not enough time. So, it just kind of gradually kept going up to the point where it's like, yeah, no, you can have a half hour presentation. It's fine. And people seem to enjoy that format a little bit better than the shorter form one. But. Okay. Then I'd like to, I have a collaborator that I work with.

Robert DuGrenier

And I'm a collaborator. And I like to have us present if that's, if that is still available to put our names in. Cool. Yeah. You can put your name in the hat. Absolutely. Or proverbial hat, so to speak. Where is this proverbial hat that I can put our names in? Actually, if I set up a form. There is a Google form. Yeah. Yeah. I'll paste a link to that. It's right on the, it's on the salon page where, let's see.

Robert DuGrenier

I might be able to find it first. Let's see. Thank you. How's your first time here being in our salon? This has been a lot of fun. I hope I didn't talk too much. Oh, no. This has been great. Good. I got it. You got it? Okay. Yeah. So you beat me to it by like a second. Yeah. So, and then I'm happy to add you, ST, to the artist index as well. If you want, the form has like, you know, some information that you can fill in. And then the artist index is basically just sort of a geographical list of people who want to be added to the artist index, basically.

Robert DuGrenier

So the sort of motto at this point is you're a Techspressionist when you say you're a Techspressionist. You're not just a Techspressionist when you say you are. And it's sort of based on the idea of self-identification, you know? And yeah. I mean, you know, I'll paste a link to this movement page too that Anne's... Oh, I've read the...

Robert DuGrenier

Oh, you read all the propaganda? Yes, I did. Okay. I read the manifesto and I was like, ooh, these sound like my people. Cool. How did you find out about the salon? How did you find out about the salon? Yeah. So I followed Giovanna's son on Clubhouse and we've been in a few rooms together and I saw her post the exhibition in Brooklyn, I believe it was. And then I found your Instagram page and followed the rabbit hole to the Zoom call.

Robert DuGrenier

Nice. Nice. Well, it's like, you know, fairly free form situation here, you know? I mean, I'm coming to like thinking about it. I'm thinking about it as a social sculpture along the line of Joseph Beuys, sort of more so than any other sort of model, because that's what feels most comfortable to me personally, you know? I like the idea of it being sort of a participatory piece of art that we could all sort of like contribute whatever we want to or, you know, versus sort of a preexisting model of a collective, you know? Or organization or whatever, what have you, you know?

Robert DuGrenier

Maybe that's too, maybe that's a little idealistic, but at least it keeps me moving in one direction versus the other. But always happy to, you know, have people jump in if anyone wants to, you know, take the reins on any particular direction. Renata has been doing an awesome job as Instagram curator for a while now. And Scojo has been really great. I've been hooking it up on Pinterest and connecting with, you know, Niftorian and everything else like that, which is, it seems like that's starting to happen and a lot of good, exciting stuff. And of course, Davo, who is the eternal face of our salons, forever indebted to Davo. When you said you were getting a full-time day job, I was like, oh no, what are we going to do?

Robert DuGrenier

I specifically, actually, I specifically chose the career. I was like, oh, no. I'm like, is this it? You know, I'm like, is this the right time? I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it.

Robert DuGrenier

I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to do it. Family so to speak so I'm not I'm not gonna go anywhere anytime soon if I can help it anyway buy some Davo masks or I see I wanted to get like a 3d printer and start actually like making masks like that is the thing that I want to do because I love masks and I was like there's so many cool designs and varieties that I could do but that'll be a project for another time because I have more capital now I can actually probably get a 3d printer so I can actually enact on this crazy idea that I have my wife is thrilled by the way yes we heard the laughter yep I think we totally have space we can make space anyway anyway anyway it would be easier to set up a real engine 3d render and projection map your face onto whoever was sitting there I don't know we'll find out you're just spinning I see it oh so one other just point of business is that the I posted this on the facebook group I was going to send out an email blast but I just never got around to it so the Techspressionism 2021 show has been archived now it's still at Techspressionism.com slash ts 2021 and the show that malavika put together in india is on the home page now and that is like sort of I put it up as like a partner exhibition in that you know she's in the index and brought some of the ideas from Techspressionism this project over to that show and you know it's sort of interesting to see how it's going to work out and so for me it's just an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show it's just it's an amazing show and we're really excited to have that part of the show started that off as a an Instagram account you know and I think that node model might be a way that artists could group together in their various local areas to put together physical exhibitions or what have you but I know there was something in new york city called the thing a while back that was a bunch of sort of technology artists in the 90s that did a similar type thing with thing with nodes and in various countries I've been featuring some of the work from the collaborative art project in india on both Instagram stories and the Instagram account and while I have your attention I just want to remind you that we have a twitter account which is under the handle at Techspressionism and that twitter account has a!

Robert DuGrenier

Banner that can be filled with artwork by any of us all you need to do is to format your work you know one to three sorry I should say three to one proportions so 1500 pixels across 500 pixels down and send the file through dm on twitter to at Techspressionism and yeah I failed to mention Jan Swinburne yeah our twitter link is at Techspressionism for thisub of at l Techspressionism that's at the end of the video we're going to get to that so jenna we're going to have to say for that so jenna we're going to have to say for that so jenna we're going to have to say for that so jenna we're going to have to say for that so jenna we're going to have to say for that so jenna we're going to have to say for that so jenna we're going to have to say for that so jenna we're going to have to say for that of today so it must have I looked yesterday and it was still under 30 so I must have just hit that which is a nice milestone I memorialized it with a story oh did you I haven't been on I haven't been on today nice I check every day the number and we need you colin you're a very important person which is what I stepping up and helping is always a good thing I appreciate it's been a it's been a tough thing where you know I feel like there's an infinite number of areas I could focus my attention you know even just within the scope of this project so sometimes it feels a little bit overwhelming but the I got I got revitalized when I heard that hopefully there'll be some definitive information about the southampton show and dates and all that stuff hopefully fingers crossed you know because that's been a source of anxiety for me but yeah I think it's you know it's really interesting and giovanna really appreciate you putting together the brooklyn exhibition the pop-up show you know I you know I really like to do that again I try to coordinate their I want to say play some upper west side it's called blockchain center I went to their event it's they have a lot of like a bitcoin event and it's a it's on the ground floor this is also I still try to do more our event even just pop up but I think it's some really decent people there's a very sincere art collector nft art collectors they were there and they all really like really young like 20 it's all like a 20 something and they just try to just want to learn more and they really appreciate that they can see all type of art so I'll try to do more this year do you know if the thing that you're you put together with your colleagues is that's happening tomorrow night, is that an open Zoom event or is that just for the people that Lucia is bringing in?

Robert DuGrenier

You know what? I have no clue because, okay, so Lucia, she's the founder of TAAC, Taiwanese American Artist Council. So, she, want to do a webinar to show all these entrepreneurs, the people, the artists about NFTs and Xiaomi fund. And also startup funders who can just talk about it. And it was like two hours. Did you write something? Is that something? Okay. So I feel like two hours is really long.

Robert DuGrenier

I think it's long. And she said there's about like 40 people. It seems like something. And the other thing is because Lucia is a very serious person. So it's not like the way we present. So it's not like the way we present. But there are people who want to join our art in this really casual artist talk.

Robert DuGrenier

And also those people who ever want to join these webinars. They all like very serious people. But they do have some potential art collectors. But they are very conservative those types. So just let you know. Okay. I wasn't sure if it was like something that I should put out through the Techspressionism chat. Yeah. You can talk about Techspressionism in New Zealand. Or even I mean the link to the you know just welcome because for me I feel like because I've been working with the TAAC for the past eight years I'm like a volunteer to do all type of things the thing is they actually never collect any of my art and never really do anything but I just like to contribute even they have a lot of really rich people super rich they have those collectors they go to freeze they go to armory show very easy to spend million dollars but they never really collect any of my art and they never like to contact me at all not until I start to really selling a lot of NIP and blockchain because they want to know they kind of try to figure out what's going on because everyone is talking about so that's it okay I just wasn't sure if it was like something where I should post a link to attend like on our Facebook group for instance or anything else like that or if it was more like they just wanted it to be internal yes it is internal that is almost like a TAAC yeah okay yeah yes entrepreneurs millionaires billionaires only by invitation only by invitation okay gotcha all right I think it's about that time all right well it was definitely interesting okay conversation today for sure sure no visuals that was no yeah I think almost a first probably and no screen sharing to speak of I mean I could I could go ahead and share my screen just because you know I'm not gonna do that but thank you everyone that has stuck around I know there's 19 of you left I'm looking at probably over half of you right now and it's been a pleasure moderating for you and just being I guess a genuinely helpful person sometimes and keeping things on the rails and all that good stuff but you know I think it's been a pleasure to be able to share with you guys yeah I appreciate you all being here I appreciate your attendance I appreciate your contributions to the discussion and you know just again for making these meetings as great as they tend to be haven't we haven't really had any bad ones that I can remember and I might be jinxing myself but no I don't think I don't think we have yeah by the way yeah this is something I like to make announcement so there is a friend of mine she just found these a very interesting AI AI audio app this actually can you can create all type of a voice and you can speak your own language and it can transform into different like a different type of a voice and it's like you can make it like a different term of a word that's your life male, female, robot, or very attractive, or very sad, or whatever.

Robert DuGrenier

So she looked for some collaborative work with artists, which I think is really interesting, that you can create something that makes with your own creative voice. So yeah, because she wants to find some work where artists can collaborate. So if you guys have any interest. I'm going to post on Discord.

Robert DuGrenier

Because I think the AI, artificial intelligence voice and audio, that'll be the next. You can tell because audio these days gets more attention. So that's why even Twitter, they tried to do it like a clubhouse. Now they have a Twitter. So everybody just keep talking, talking, talking. And the other thing is, I think that is a great idea because you can promote yourself with your voice. But you don't need to use your original voice. You can change your voice with a different type of thing. So maybe later on, even you can use in the metaverse or whatever. So it's just like something I think is an interesting word to use. But I think it's a really good project that has some potential.

Robert DuGrenier

So I'll copy and paste those information to Discord. All right. Well, I think that will be it for this meeting then. I'll go ahead and close things out. Thank you for joining. Thank you for making these meetings great. And I will see you in two weeks, I hope. All right. All right. No problem. All right. And we are signing off in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Robert DuGrenier

And that's a wrap.