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tribute trenches
Recorded: July 8, 2025 Duration: 1:01:54Space Recording
Short Summary
The recent discussion among art and crypto enthusiasts highlighted the launch of the second Tribute Trenches Spaces, showcasing the growing integration of generative art into mainstream institutions like the Toledo Museum. Key topics included innovative fundraising strategies, the significance of partnerships in the art world, and the evolving trends in digital art, reflecting a vibrant future for the NFT and generative art landscape.
Full Transcription
Hey, Tony.
All right, there we go.
I'm Kira, by the way.
I run the socials for Tribute.
on the socials for tribute.
Hey there.
Hey there.
Good evening.
Good morning.
Jim, Jim.
Hey Sophia.
Give it like another minute or two for Eli and everyone else to come.
How's Sardinia? How's the weather, Tony?
In the middle of like a windstorm, so apologies if there are any technical difficulties, but it is beautiful, but very windy.
Nice.
No, I don't hear any wind.
I've closed myself off in a back room, so I'm isolated.
I think we'll be good.
Sweet. I'm isolated. I think we'll be good. Thank you. Give it one another minute or 2. I should be coming soon.
Um. Thank you. Thank you. Eli's coming on in a sec, so just giving another minute.
Feel welcome to share the space in group chats and retweet.
Really excited to have this conversation.
I've known Tony for a while and Eli more recently.
And, yeah, I think these kinds of conversations,
we recently had Elena from Angkalsan in India with ASA.
Elena from Angkhausan in India with ASA.
And so we're trying to explore the space and interesting topics within it and people who are critical to it.
And so thank you, everybody, for coming.
Just one more minute. Thank you. Thank you. well well well look who decided to join us. Welcome, Eli.
Hey guys, how are you? Good, good.
You know, we're just waiting on you.
Yeah, apologies.
How's everyone doing?
Fantastic, now that you're here, Eli.
How are you?
Doing well.
Yeah, all is good. It's a little overcast here today, but having a good start to the day.
Awesome. Yeah, Eli's joining us from Toronto and the town of Sardinia. Really grateful to have this conversation.
Thank you guys for coming.
Welcome to the second Tribute Trenches Spaces.
These are conversations about art and culture.
Both of you are paving the way within our scene
through what you do.
And it would be great if you could both give just a little
introduction about yourselves.
Tony is an artist rep and co-founder of ArtexCode,
and Eli is a senior advisor at ArtPuzzle, amongst many other things.
And so, yeah, it would be great if, yeah, Tony, you can start.
Sure. My name is Tony Marinara, and I work at ArtX Code and co-founder of ArtX Code, which is what we like to call a generative art house, where we offer artist representation. of artists that work with various mediums ranging from coding p5.js to working with AI some you know
are digital works others live in the physical and digital realm but there's always this underlying
Is it cutting out for anyone else beside me?
Yeah, I lost Tony.
I'm just going to send him a message one second.
Hey, Tony, if you can hear us, you're cut out for a sec.
Okay.
It looks like maybe he's a listener at the moment.
Yeah, I'm going to, yeah, he's coming back up.
Okay, cool.
Do you want me to jump in?
Yeah, please.
Sure.
So I think I can sort of scanning
who is in the spaces at the moment.
And I won't bore that group with too much of a background,
but let's see.
Came into this crazy space in 2020 or so.
And then in 2021, helped start the art platform, Proof,
which I think, again, this group knows is probably having a complex history,
but also doing a lot of good work and collaborating with over 100 artists
to release their work and building a collector community, which at certain moments was a
really special group engaged very deeply with art on the blockchain.
And then in the last eight or so months, maybe 10 months, have been doing more of the what could be called art
dealing or brokering work on the secondary market. And then as you mentioned, in terms of my,
my, the way you titled me, helping Art Basel, the platform, the company, and that leadership team
the platform, the company, and that leadership team over there figure out exactly what their
digital art strategy is. And then ultimately implementing that strategy in Paris and Miami
this year and then into Hong Kong next year. And the goal there is really to give a platform
on site, meaning at the fairs, for all of the artists and collectors and gallerists and builders
and Tony, maybe, and Tribute Labs, maybe.
So I've been promised.
Into new audiences, you know, into the Art Basel ecosystem, which includes really all of the top exhibitors and many of the
top contemporary artists and collectors as well. So yeah, excited to chat. I'm not sure where we
will take the conversation, but I'm excited to dig in. Awesome. Yeah, thank you, Eli.
dig in awesome yeah thank you um there's some ways i want to take it but i want to keep it
free flowing too and uh later on like well people are welcome to come up and ask questions and um
yeah tony you were in the middle of um yeah you were mentioning how you work with artists that are code-based and AI-based, and then they cut out if you can continue from there.
Yeah, can you hear me? Because it's telling me that I'm reconnecting, but I just want to make sure that I am talking to you and you can hear me.
Yeah, yeah, all the time.
Okay, great.
Yeah, so I'm looking as well in the crowd.
There's a lot of familiar faces in here, so I don't want to go on too long of a rant,
but we work with a brilliant array of artists at ArtXCode
who work with various methods from AI to self-trained GANs
to hand-coded P5JS algorithms.
Just a wonderful group of artists.
We help them in really their day-to-day and
managing this crazy art world art market curation sales strategy really any and everything we're
with them the whole way their journey to make the creation of the art process a lot a lot easier on
them I'll leave it at that and you know I know, I think we can dive into it here.
But I've been in the quote-unquote space since, I guess, 2020
and started working in it formally in 2022.
Previously worked as an attorney
and naturally found my way into artist representation.
And I haven't looked back since i love it very
much and both eli and you josh have become very good friends of mine through my work here and um
i have many such stories so it's a it's a blessing every day is is a fun adventure
Yeah, I agree. And I'm grateful for our friendship too. And yeah, this crazy space.
There's lots of things you guys have done over these past few years, but there's like a couple
things I wanted to highlight. It would be great if you guys could go into these specific things.
It would be great if you guys could go into these specific things.
Eli, with your time at Proof, the Grails release, I think, was really interesting.
And it helps collectors and artists in this really innovative way.
And I was wondering if you could give us a recap of that and share that.
And then Tony, there's many examples with ArtX Code 2, but there was a show in New York with Lars and Luke,
which I think had a different kind of take on generative art and like people see the space differently.
And so, yeah, I was wondering if you two could share a little bit about that.
I mean, you can start.
Eli, the floor is yours.
Eli.
Am I starting or is Eli starting?
Because you started asking Eli.
I can kick it off.
I don't mind.
So, Josh, you're bringing up the battle scars of the past.
But, you know, I think, again, most of this group will probably be aware of Grails.
But the premise of that group exhibition, which we ran five seasons of, was that we would bring together 15 to 25 artists and each artist would contribute in
in artwork and when it was presented to collectors the artist's name and the description of the work
and the title of the work would be absent meaning ultimately when each collector chose which artwork to purchase, to mint, they would be doing so either that they thought they had ultimately identified which artwork was from which artist.
Obviously there's a lot of nuance with that mechanic and I'd say in the sort of later seasons of that show it became more about speculation than where it began in some respects.
But the thing that I think was sort of most interesting
and impactful as I look back on that group show
and the work we did around it was the storytelling
about each artist and each piece in those group shows.
So those artifacts, meaning those videos that we used to do,
and Sofia Garcia, who I think is in the audience,
was part of one of those as a co-host with me.
Those are all on YouTube.
Those, for better or for worse, exist out there in the world,
maybe forever.
But those were meaningful short videos,
usually a couple minutes in length about each artist about
their work and then we'd have a conversation about the artist and their piece and their
contribution to the show and I would love to get back to a place where whether it's myself or some
totally different entity and group that we're doing more of that sort of high production
storytelling for artists who are in our so-called space,
who are releasing works that are digital in nature.
Because I think that's the sort of top of funnel,
so to speak, content that a much broader audience and sort of a curious audience
can resonate with because those stories are emotional and evocative in nature. They're like,
yes, sometimes about the technical dimensions of the work or the technical background of the artist,
but fundamentally, if you go back and watch most of those artist videos,
they're about their life story and their spirit and their soul.
And those are dimensions that I think more or less any human,
let alone an interested or curious art collector, can resonate with.
So, yeah, we did five of those shows.
And, you know, there's probably some evolved version
of that same type of mechanic,
maybe that takes on a different form.
Maybe it's Art Basel.
Maybe it's a totally different entity within this space
that evolves that into something new.
But that was a great journey.
Eli, did we meet through Grails or did we meet first through that exhibit that you guys did at Venus over Manhattan?
Which one was it?
I think it was the latter.
I think it was the latter.
That was a group show that while I was at Proof, we did with Venus over Manhattan.
At that time, in the sort of lineage of the NFT art space,
Adam Lindemann and Venus over Manhattan had a really,
they'd really leaned in.
And they'd done that show with Eric and Squiggles
and then brought Squiggles to Nada and a few other art fairs.
And so we, myself and Emily, we co-curated a show that included work from, let's see, from Entangled Others.
Right, Tony? I think that's right.
And Helena, I think, had worked in that show, if I'm not mistaken.
Sasha Stiles.
And Lars Wander. show if i'm not mistaken sasha style and lars wander lars finger code uh uh ivana um dean black
i think i i think that's most of them um and we we showed the work that group show at adam's gallery
venus over manhattan i think it was nft nyc 2020 wasn't cory in it too cory haber that's right yes
he had yeah i like that work actually he he did yeah it was good Corey Haber, that's right. Yes, I like that work actually.
Yeah, it was good.
Yeah, I think that's where we first met and it's been rocky ever since.
Well, so yeah, we met there.
That's right. And then Eli had asked me after that to, get some other artists that we work with into
the Grails that he did. I don't know if it was the last one, Eli, but I think that we had
Ix Shell's Itzel Yard put in work, and so did Martin Grasser, who we were working with at the
time. And I, myself, if we're talking about the release dynamic of Grails, had probably, you know, a lot of, I was a bit of a critic and very skeptical on it. And to this day, there's like, you know, a lot of parts of it that I don't saw that he was a really virtuous, passionate individual who had artists' best interests at heart.
And I went back and I did look at the content that he was talking about earlier.
And that's where I saw, OK, you know, the way the art is maybe being delivered is for better or worse
what it is, but the, um, the content surrounding it is really beautiful, valuable asset and a great
educational tool for collectors. Um, and in getting to know Eli one-on-one, because I think Eli and I might, you know, we probably, I talked to this guy more than most people I know.
I really trusted, you know, how he handled it.
So I second that, Eli, in that the content that you guys produced there was awesome.
And I would love to see more of that in our space moving forward. And I do think that, you know, maybe that set a nice precedent that we're seeing now other people step into.
And, you know, we've done a few shows recently with Fellowship.
I think that they do like a fantastic job of, you know, storytelling and talking about, as you said, like the life story of these artists, which is, which is super important. And oftentimes, you know,
doesn't happen, right.
There's like a quote unquote drop and someone's releasing 300,
500, a thousand pieces. And, you know,
people would come and they'd buy it and then they treat the work like
whatever.
But when there's more context about the artists overarching practice,
I think there's opportunity to really change things there.
And I guess, sorry, go ahead.
That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.
You know what, just to dovetail from that for a moment, Tony,
you know, the thing that that group show did and that mechanic,
you know, as we said there's
sort of some nuance around why it it wasn't perfect for sure but what it what it did is like um
it was a draw for energy and excitement because of this reveal moment and the way that those
those videos were like part of the reveal of who created the artwork.
I think agreed, Fellowship is crushing it on the content production, many others now as well.
Definitely.
But those are all almost always in service of a single or small group show release.
or small group show release.
And, you know, without gamifying the collecting process too much,
I do think there's probably an opportunity for someone to take up that mantle
and find creative mechanics that, you know, the space at large,
you know, all of those who are engaged are focused on and excited.
And there's some sort of time sensitivity around the whole thing that isn't just like a first come, first serve mint.
And that's the thing that's channeling energy and attention.
You know, Transient's done some of this, I think, with creative mechanics.
than some of this, I think, with creative mechanics.
But, you know, like a big Christie's auction,
the contemporary auction, like, you know,
a bunch of energy funnels into that day
because there's sort of uncertain outcomes
and unpredictable outcomes.
So I think, like, there's probably some opportunity there
that I hope someone will ultimately find
the right nuanced version to take up.
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's hard because I get what you're talking about.
Like the thrill is gone,
that there was this energy surrounding these kinds of blind mints.
Like, what am I going to get? It's like opening up a pack of, I guess,
you know, cards and you pull a rare, I don't know, Kobe, rookie, whatever.
But at the same time, like, I know how stressful that was for a lot of artists too. It's like,
okay, I'm going to do this. And I'm in the show alongside these amazing, you know,
contemporaries of mine. However, like what's going to happen with the work after?
Like, are people going to, am I going to be revealed?
And then how are people going to treat the work?
Is it going to maintain value compared to X artists and this artist?
And what does that mean for my market?
And, you know, I think that it's like it was, and it is,
even with current different minting dynamics,
it's always an emotional rollercoaster.
So it's like, how can we find something that is exciting
for collectors that has that tingling that you're referring to,
but that also doesn't come at the expense of the artists
that we're all here for?
Because without them, like, you know,
what the fuck are we doing, right?
Yeah, I think it's interesting, like, you know, what the fuck are we doing? Right. Yeah, I think it's interesting.
I personally don't mind a little gamification.
It's good to have us excited and there's certain affordances that we can work with within the blockchain.
that we can work with within the blockchain
and like a certain natural emergence
that is like, it's well into the nature
of generative works of AI works and so on.
And yeah, and I think, I don't know,
Kira who's with us at Tribute and hosting,
she works on our socials and she just highlighted
a piece I really like
from that Grail series
by Lauren Lee McCarthy.
I was lucky to see it recently
at the Rhizome Hello World.
And I think it's hard also
as like a platform
to curate a range of artists.
There can often just be a focus on a few. platform to curate a range of artists.
There can often just be a focus on a few. And I think Grails did a great job of that.
Tony, it'd be great to hear about that Lars and Luke show
and how, yeah, generative works for showing,
I feel like in a physical manner.
But like, yeah. Yeah. how how yeah generative works for showing i feel like in a physical manner but yeah yeah
um yeah i mean i guess so for lars and luke we rented out um with the help of a wonderful patron
who is it has in recent news been in the middle of this whole uh generative art is dead discussion uh
of this whole uh generative art is dead discussion uh alex he changed his name to punk
something um but you know i know that he's he has a lot of hot takes that maybe a lot of people
don't agree with but he was and has been historically um really great uh patron to a
lot of artists and at for that show he helped um fund a joint show between Lars Wander and Luke Shannon
we rented out this beautiful uh penthouse uh that a crazy Italian friend of mine uh has is like a
whole I don't know it's like an Italian creative space they like do custom suits and custom
bicycles and all sorts of weird
fun things. But it's this gorgeous building that was actually an artist's residence
when it first opened. And on this top floor, we curated a bunch of physical works, works that are
just naturally physical pen plotters, woodblock cuts from Luke. And then also,
you know, some digitally crafted pieces from, from purely digitally crafted pieces from Lars,
but they were done in prints. And instead of, you know, this kind of content that Eli's talking
about, where it's, you know, living on forever, this was a moment, it was one night. But I think,
you know, living on forever. This was a moment. It was one night, but I think, you know, I'm glad
that it wasn't a forgettable one, at least for you, Josh, where we took, I guess, ArtXCode spin
on, you know, how to present generative art, how to live with generative art, the place that it was
in. It's, you know, very much crafted like a living room. And so we set it up.
Sophia did a great job of curating the walls.
My wife actually helped curate that as well.
And I think that that's something that we've historically been pretty great at at ArtXCode.
Sophia, before I joined up, put on the digital as well which was an amazing
event at um during art miami uh our week in miami uh during basel and um yeah we care a lot about
how work is displayed how it's lived with thinking about it from beyond um just something that's in your wallet, but on your walls. It's a philosophy that
I guess, you know, I'm big on with my own collection where in our house, all the walls
have some type of generative art on there, living in a physical manifestation. I don't know if that's
what you're trying to get at, Josh, but I'm happy to answer any of the questions about that show.
that, Josh, but I'm happy to answer any of the questions about that show.
Yeah, I do.
I sometimes have, I mean, you've helped encourage me to think more deeply about just having
work in my wallet versus there's this interesting dynamic between physical and digital pieces. I remember a few years ago seeing Schwindelich's Spirals
and your place encouraged me to get one and get some more physical works.
And yeah, there's this nature that we appreciate.
that we, an appreciation.
And I think we're charming and for good and logical
and reasons towards this more of a physical reality.
We've seen lots of galleries pop up in New York too
or open up like Heft and Guyanois Head.
And so I think there is,
and like Art Meta recently and Basel of course, what
they've done over many years. And so I just, yeah, I'm going to get a post up of some pictures
of that shortly, but I think the, yeah, and I just remember, I think it was the first time I met Sophie, too, during our
book, and just seeing generative art displayed in that way was something pretty remarkable.
Like, I grew up far from, like, the old Whitney Museum, and I know it's, like, kind of cliche
to, like, oh, look at the scale of this or like the scale like doesn't necessarily make work better.
Like there's like a Andreas Giesen LCD work that I really like, but it's like quite micro.
to do work justice and like the way that it was done
in that exhibit with like that support I think was amazing.
And Eli, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to bring up
any like battle wounds.
I think like the work you two have done is critical
and like I think sometimes we can focus on like
rage bait or like uh or things that are not healthy even though it's good to like
understand things um and and with that smooth transition um i'm curious both of your thoughts we might have lost tony for a second um
you know you can you can start it off but uh this whole like i don't even know why it started um
but how has the timeline changed your opinion of anything in this past week with the commentary?
Yeah, I'm curious.
It's a good question.
No, man. if you are relying on the noise of the timeline to develop your,
your opinions on super nuanced topics and questions,
you're, you're probably in for a bad time.
So I wouldn't say that it's affected my,
my opinion of generative art, for example,
I think that that's what you're alluding to but you know
it is it um it is instructive to see sort of how people react to that that rage bait uh from from
cause more or less like you sort of see the full spectrum of responses uh which which is instructive
which is sort of helpful for understanding the sensibilities
of those who are still around. And then you start to like, then maybe you actually do get a few more
nuanced responses that at least lead to better conversation. I found it as a good prompt for myself to react and try to distill how I view generative art in this moment in this context.
And the thing that as I was sort of real time writing a little post in response to cause came to mind and that I'd not thought deeply about previously is that it is true across at least
two dimensions that generative artists do not participate in the day-to-day meta and conversation
in the same way that many of the so-called like one-of-one crypto artists do and i think that's at least for two
reasons as i said one is like by nature of their practice it does not lend itself to creating
visual information and visual outputs that can meaningfully contribute to those conversations
in situ in the moment real time in the same way that someone like
Di with the most lights can right away contribute to that dialogue. So that's one. And then
two, I think we've seen, you know, Tyler has the studio, you know, Matt and John, you know,
on the sort of Larva Labs autoglyph side, they're not on Twitter all day. They're working and building new things.
And I think that is actually quite true and common for most of the generative artists
from the Artblocks curated lineage.
I think actually Dimitri is perhaps the one that comes to mind for me most immediately,
at least on my own timeline,
as someone who does play in that territory a bit more.
But I think as I responded to Cause's post,
you know, is generative art dead more or less was the prompt?
That was the one, meaning, you know,
our generative art present in the conversation was the takeaway that, as I reflected on my own thoughts, surprised me most.
And I think is meaningful. I'm not saying they should be, but I do think a number of those artists and by extension their collections and their work are a little bit less top of mind day to day because they themselves
are not engaging every day on the timeline. So, I mean, cause is great at finding rage bait to
facilitate a good conversation. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess I hear what you're saying that like these artists,
generative artists, people working with, I guess let's not, well, let's, gender of art
is a pretty wide branch term. So let's say we're not just talking, we're not talking
about artists that are working with AI. We're talking about people, what you're referring
to Eli is people like working with like, you know with P5JS and more so what we historically saw as art blocks projects. That's what you're
saying. They can't contribute to the discourse via a visual output.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's right. That's part of my point. It's like,
Yeah, I think that's right. That's part of my point. It's like, you know, can actually, you know, here's a good example.
Like William upon, I think he posted maybe yesterday or today, maybe, you know, in the last little while he posted a meme responding to his generative art dad.
And I think it had like, you know, is that meme where it's like someone at a funeral, like celebrating the funeral.
And in both cases, it was anti-cyclone.
And like, that's the method.
And Dimitri will do some of that too,
where a sort of systems-based artist,
generative artist in the meaning of like an art block curated,
for example, generative artist, code-based artist can contribute, but not with their work itself.
So, yeah, that's exactly what I mean.
Right. I mean, I'd argue that there are plenty of generative artists who can say things through their work, albeit like, you know, it's more of an abstract visual output that we're
talking about, but the messaging, their practice, that can differentiate, you know, between someone
that's just making a pretty picture. And I think that's a big thing here with generative art. And,
you know, I guess, I don't, I don't know, you referred to them as one of one artists, but let's just say,
you know, people doing more figurative, digital artwork is, you know, what are you saying with
your practice? Like, are you just, you know, making pretty pictures? Or are you, is there an
underlying message narrative in your craft? And I think that there are, you know, a handful of artists
that are doing that. I think that now, now that this so-called mania has passed, it's a great
opportunity to see the artists who have a real depth to their practice rather than, you know,
just surface level work. And that's like any genre is um not everyone is going to be
you know this next great big thing not everyone's going to be a you know the this fantastic famous
super successful generative artist there's going to be people that do it for as hobbyists there's
going to be people that are uh journey who, you know, have great work,
but never really hits off. Then there's going to be people that are on top. And in those different
categories, there's a lot of room, I think, for people to say different things with their work,
if what I'm saying makes sense. Tony, I'm curious. So, you know, in your role as an artist representative,
you work very closely with the artists that are engaged with ArtX Code. How do you sort of
thoughtfully push an artist that you might be working with to share more of themselves and and not only create pretty pictures to use
your words but to express their spirit their soul their ideas in their work how do you find the right
balance of pushing or encouraging someone to do that it It's a great question. I don't know what the right balance is.
We have to bring one of our artists up on stage to tell you if I have it down,
Pat, but you know, I, I think oftentimes myself,
Sophia, you know,
we sit down and we'll look at work and we'll say, okay, but you know what,
this, this looks really cool. But, um, what are you saying here? What were you feeling when you
made this? Like, can you tell me more about it and dig back the layers of the onion? If we're,
you know, like I see IX shells is on the call. Um, I do that. We do that all the time, right?
It's all, um, and when you open that door, she she's got she can talk for hours about you know
this one visual output that she'll send me and tell me what she was feeling in that moment and
tell me what it overarching has to do with her practice with her life um but in terms of engaging
on the timeline like you know on twitter which is you, which is, you know, we're, see, we're a slave
to it, I guess here.
It's like, we got to find a better way, I think of distributing work, of talking about
work, sharing work.
I have no idea what that will ever be.
But it's a lot like, and I've even, I'll use it till again, I show is on the call.
Like I definitely have, you know, we've definitely been talking about like what's that good balance between you know um being able to create and being able to put yourself out there
and engage with your fellow artists and with collectors um and there's some people who love it
and then there are other people who are like I don't want to spend one fucking minute on here
it's a hellhole and And I totally get that.
But I definitely think it's super corollary with the success of today's, you know,
digital artists working on the blockchain.
You know, if you're not, there are, I can't really,
there are very few exceptions of people who do well
without, you know, actively engaging.
And so I personally, yes, I encourage it a lot.
And I think there's a lot to learn,
a lot to experience and to be had for the artists to do so.
You know, I've created tons of beautiful relationships
and helped craft, you know,
and been on the journey of a career with artists
who if they hadn't
come to Twitter to talk to their collectors, that, you know, I don't know if they would have
branched out from just doing creative coding as a hobby to actually making a career out of it.
And that came from talking to me when I was just a collector. A perfect example is like,
is Lars. Lars Wander was at Google. When we first started talking, I saw like a sketch that he made and I was like,
you know, you're really good. Like, let's talk more and encouraged him to mint and the rest is
kind of history. So yeah, I'm definitely pro hopping on the timeline. There's a few artists
in here that I'm seeing right now that do a wonderful job. Like I see Jules is in here.
Like he's an amazing example.
And that's more to your point, Eli.
You know, he's not working just with generative algorithms.
So I guess he has got these different tools in his toolkit to be able to create art that can, as you said, like participate in this discourse.
that can, as you said, like participate in this discourse.
You know what, Tony, as you're talking,
I think the actual sort of nuanced perspective is,
it's less about participating on the timeline
and being sort of present on the timeline
and contributing to the discourse all of the time.
I think what I'm actually feeling and expressing, and you're sort of helping me
identify that, is that if the only way collectors experience you is through the ability to buy your
work, meaning, you know, they only hear from you when you have a new work for sale, or they only hear from you in advance of a new release
that's upcoming, then the entire relationship
feels very transactional.
So I think whether it's being on the timeline
and not selling, but just contributing to the discourse,
or whether it's having private conversations
uh with collectors one-on-one as you just described or whether it's you know someone
like rdex code putting together a dinner with collectors and artists and having conversation
at that dinner informally um it's that type of connective tissue that exists outside of selling that I think is sort of the essence of what I'm
describing when I say it's more challenging for generative artists, it's seemingly more
challenging for generative artists to be deeply engaged across those dimensions. I'm obviously
generalizing, but you're helping me at real time sort of sort through the sort of essence of my commentary.
I love that. I'm so glad to help you grow.
But I think what I'm hearing now from you is that it's not just the visual output.
So you're saying, you're talking about dinners and messaging and, you know, kind of like,
just letting the collector know that they're appreciated. So you're,
you think that that, that there's maybe like, I guess,
overarching personality type is it of the,
you know, creative coder that,
that doesn't allow for them to connect on a level such that a different kind of artist would like, I don't know, you know, creative coder that doesn't allow for them to connect on a level such that a different
kind of artist would. Like, I don't know, you know. I know people that, you know, gendered artists that
are extremely gregarious and very connected to their collectors. And then I do know others that are a bit more reclusive, but I feel like that can be for any kind of
artist, not just generative.
Let me, maybe we can sort of, we can put a pin in it here, but maybe if I were to summarize
my thought, it's like, if you're not going to participate perpetually on the timeline,
um, because one, it either doesn't feel organic and natural or two, it's an extraction from your,
your practice and your, your habits and your routines or three, because it's actually challenging
to do so in a nuanced way or with your, your work itself, then I do, then I think
it's important to find other ways to have connective tissue with your community, your collectors,
your audience. And that could be, that could be in any number of ways, but to be intentional
about finding the ways that are authentic to you. And's why um a number of great artists have you
tony to facilitate that um so so really it's your job yeah no i totally agree that there's got to be
just putting the work out and making it a transactional thing i think that
it it makes it makes a big difference totally and to say otherwise you know would would be would be false yeah i think a lot about this too i there's like uh
yeah i i i don't think there's like a one size fits all with with these scenarios and just as
artists are creative
with the way that they make work
and get that out there to the world,
there's creative ways to develop relationships
or it's even sometimes more helpful for me personally
to see someone else other than an artist
telling me about an artist
as I feel like there is a different perspective
or less of a bias or there's more context
via an editorial and so on.
And I think both of you are getting at the aspect
that it gets lost in the rage bait
that understanding nuance
and thinking about these things critically um
can bode for success and has voted for success with uh and then there's many examples with both
of you that involve that um i wanted to kind of shift gears and talk a little bit about
there's a show coming up in which artists that you've
both worked with and do work with, or Tony works with now, but are showing at the Art
of the Algorithms at Toledo Museum. And I'm just curious your thoughts on that. And then I think we've also seen a lot more intention with institutions more recently.
I mean, we've seen things at the Museum of the Moving Amidate Queens, but also like with Node just starting and Canyon opening in New York.
So, yeah, that was a lot.
But kind of curious your thoughts with all of that.
What are my thoughts? I mean, it's great.
You know, we have a bunch of people on Twitter saying that generative art is dead and never coming back.
And then you have, you know, an institution like Toledo showing a bunch of contemporary generative artists and artists that work with AI, artists that
I have the privilege of working with, showing work next to, you know, legends like
Albers and yeah, and Vera Molnar, you know, in such a important institution. So, you know, it just shows you what, what, what do we consider success?
What do we consider alive or dead? You know, clearly the timeline is talking about something
that's purely financial and going back to what I said earlier, I think that just like in any medium
where you're going to have artists that are an immense success, and then you're going to have everything in between.
So it's wonderful to see,
and I think we'll see a lot more of algorithmic art in this kind of setting.
And, you know, it's thanks to a lot of wonderful patrons,
collectors, people that show up every day,
not just the artists, right,
but also the curators and the collectors that make this all happen.
And it makes me really happy to see.
I'm glad that you're happy, Tony.
Well, we could take this in a lot of directions.
The first thing that comes to mind, though, is, you know,
it's quite interesting, and this is sort of riffing on your point tony about sort of there's this one
conversation on twitter is generative art dead and literally in parallel at the same time there's
this major opening uh this week uh thursday um at the toledo museum of Art with a focus on generative.
And it reminds me of or reinforces the way in which our subculture on Twitter of collectors and artists and conversation is not entirely, but in many ways,
and the market that exists around that, is in many
ways entirely divorced from what's happening on the institutional side and what institutions
represent out into the world and with new audiences.
One example that illustrates this is a conversation I had with Ben Alice over the last several months, where Ben's work has been acquired
by the Centre Pompidou and other institutions.
And yet the resonance that that fact and that institutional validation has with the crypto
crypto Twitter NFT art collector is almost zero. Traditionally, that would be incredibly meaningful
Twitter NFT art collector is almost zero.
and would be deeply connected to the influence on his ability to sell in his market.
And our subculture, as I describe it on Twitter at the moment, has deprioritized what those legacy institutions represent.
I think Toledo is interesting because they are, as much as is possible, trying to speak directly to us,
right? Like, yes, also to a broader and new audience with these works in this exhibition,
but also in the programming and who they're
trying to engage around the opening and even their willingness to spend,
to meaningfully acquire work rather than only receive work through donation.
I think they're actually trying to speak to us more than any group and bring a new audience into their institution.
But it's fascinating the way that more or less this subculture, which is to be disruptive,
decentralized organizations and new constructs and new relationships. So it's not surprising,
but it's very much playing out, I think. And now institutions have to reckon with
how do they best engage this group, our group, in new ways to bring us into their spaces.
Right. Do you think that the Toledo method to speak to Web3 rather than seemingly go for
the general art viewing public, say how the National Gallery of Denmark did with IHL's show Against All Odds, where,
you know, I didn't really see anyone in our space talking about it. And the SMK, which is National
Gallery of Denmark, didn't, you know, they didn't have like marketing efforts getting, you know,
influencers or curators in our space. Everyone was from the, you know, just contemporary art world
that was engaged with this project. Do you think that one method is better than the other? Should
there be like a hybrid approach? You know, I see a lot of on the timeline of people talking about,
you know, the, those traditional art collectors that you're hoping for are never coming kind of thing. And then others were very vocal, like, uh, Benny Redbeard
is super vocal about how, you know, we need to like break norms and not care about, um, what
the quote unquote trad art group wants and really, you know, focus on the digital native collector
and the future here.
Yeah. Well, here, I'll give you the very candid perspective that Art Basel has.
In all of my conversations with Noah, who's the CEO there, and Vincenzo, who's the chief artistic officer there. The things that they are excited to do are about finding opportunities for the artists,
collectors, gallerists, and many of the norms from this subculture, unchanged, to show up,
you know, in their spaces, on on their platform because they think that ultimately
is deeply resonant to their existing audience as well like they do not want to as i have been
using the the nomenclature they don't want to sterilize what we're doing here they actually
want to transport it into a new venue that gives it broader accessibility and awareness. And that's not because they're in the business of
goodwill and charity. It's much more that they're highly convicted that the things that are
happening here across all of those dimensions, collectors, artists, gallerists and behaviors are ultimately in many ways,
you know, important elements of the future of the art world
and the art market.
And they think their existing audiences will be increasingly
sort of come into that world.
And we can lead by bringing this subculture
into Art Basel's ecosystem
more or less unchanged. So, you know, I think it's sort of happening from both dimensions, but
most importantly, like not trying to appeal to the traditional norms, but very much so, you know, I think bringing the things we do as
they are today, mostly, and let sort of the broader art collecting audience, you know,
find compelling reasons and find legible work initially and interesting and compelling work
and artists that begins this path into this rabbit hole and into this subculture.
Yeah, I'm excited for that. And yeah, I agree with like, it's been really interesting to see.
really interesting to see.
Yeah, you kind of want these,
you want this merger of like,
or I'm just speaking from my own perspective,
but I don't think it's completely useful
to remain in echo chambers slash like,
I think there's like just willful ignorance on both sides,
but I do think interesting things happen
when these kinds of organizations merge
and like Ryzone, for instance,
which hadn't engaged in NFT super early on
has been a lot more open to it recently.
They had lots of generative works at their Hello World show
and it's allowed some of generative works at their hello world show and like it's a lot of some of her beautiful uh caribbean glitch panes on the wall there as well
and um there's also artists there like uh mark fingerhut who had a really interesting halcyon
ride piece um that i think many people in nfts are not necessarily exposed to, but going to things outside of our norms and comfort zones are good things.
I do have to end the space now.
I think Tony might have dropped to listeners for a second.
I'm trying to bring you back up in a moment.
I'm trying to bring you back up in a moment.
But just really wanted to thank you, both Eli and Tony,
for this wonderful discussion.
We'll be following what both of you guys are up to and doing
in the near and far future.
So thank you both so much.
Thanks, Jiggy.
We'll get some more sushi soon.
Yes, yes. All right. See you. Thanks, Jiggy. We'll get some more sushi soon. Yes, yes.
All right. See you. Thanks, everyone.
See you later. Thank you.
