Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear you.
Oh, sorry. Yeah, we can go ahead and get started, guys.
Nima, the mic is yours. Lawrence, welcome.
If you guys need anything, I'll be here in the background.
And if you guys have any questions, or excuse me, if I have any questions, I'll chime in.
Sure. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Noah and Moby Media,
for putting this together. You guys have been awesome media partners for us.
My name is Nima Beheshtyan. I'm one of the co-founders and CEO here at Layer.
Again, Layer is an NFT platform helping artists and brands launch NFT collections in seconds.
We also like to align ourselves with, you know, premiere artists, also creators as well,
who are doing really big things. And we end up sometimes doing custom development work for those special groups.
And today, we are actually joined with one of those individuals, and his name is Lawrence.
And you know what, Lawrence, I'll actually let you introduce yourself.
But Lawrence is one of my really good friends, met him at Art Basel, and we got to chatting,
and we decided to put together a collection called Winter Garden.
Hi, gents. Great to be here. Yeah, it's been really fun putting this collection together,
like with you guys. We're coming down to, like, the final couple of days.
So there's, like, it's that time where we're like, oh, do we have the oregano?
Do we have, like, the parmesan? Let's put it all together, you know.
It's really, we're in the middle of that, and it's pretty fun.
So my name's Lawrence, and I'm an actor and a writer.
And I came to digital art through poetry, actually through writing poetry.
And it was something that sort of developed out of my acting journals.
One, during my process as a method actor, I would write character journals and character backgrounds
and emotional journaling. And then it started to take shape.
The more I did it, and I did it every day.
And, you know, I think it's something, like, that you get a feel for as well.
On the journey of an actor, you get a feel for language that comes off the page,
that is, like, emotionally compelling.
You just know when you read a script as well, like, what line is going to, you know.
It's something that you should try not to do in the telling of a whole story,
but you just know there's certain moments in, like, a screenplay that are, like, okay,
that's the moment, you know.
That's, like, the compelling moment of that story.
And you know your favorite moments in movies.
Like, you can feel that as soon as you read the script.
So I started to sort of shape the writing in that way, where it was, like, okay,
this, I think this is going to come off the page.
This is going to be an emotionally compelling, you know, idea.
And then I started to shape it with poetry and a bit of, like, art history.
And that started to come together, I started pairing it with animated paintings
through a process of working on the screenplay about my late father,
who was an art critic in the 70s and 80s.
He was one of the most controversial art critics of the 20th century.
And he was, you know, known for going on TV and debating.
Like, I would just watch this debate the other day of him debating five art critics defending Andy Warhol versus him.
And it was really fun. You can see it on YouTube.
If you type in Peter Fuller, Andy Warhol, it's a really fun debate.
And so I always wanted to write a screenplay about him.
And they have his archive at the Tate.
And so I went to the Tate and, like, and started going through all his writings that were about art criticism.
And I saw that he was searching in what his craft was for this connection between language and visual art,
between, like, you know, poetic ideas and paintings.
And he just didn't have the technology to put them together.
And I found a lot of other examples of people trying to do this in the past.
And I thought, well, we have the technology in our time. I'm going to do that.
And that's going to be my expression.
I just started doing it for, you know, my friends for social media.
And then Web 3, you know, happened.
And when I heard the word NFT in a clubhouse room with Paimon, who's listening,
who was one of my first, like, you know, cohorts out here, I clicked with me immediately.
And I just delved into the world of Web 3.
I think my first collection was on OpenSea early 2021.
And then it's just been a roller coaster ever since.
Yeah, sorry, that was a lot, wasn't it?
That was wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that, Lawrence.
And also we have here Paimon, who helped curate all this stuff.
Paimon, would you like to give a quick intro on yourself?
Sure. I don't know if you guys can hear me.
I'm in a parking lot going into a doctor's appointment.
Yeah, my name is Paimon. I'm an artist, curator, collector, advisor.
And Lawrence is a great friend of mine that I met back in Clubhouse days three years ago.
I love his work. I love the way that he collaborated with Vincent and just wanted to make sure that it gets as many eyeballs as possible.
And just what they're doing is amazing.
Yeah, that's great. And Lawrence, could you talk about who you partner with on this job?
I know it's one of your buddies named Vincent, but I'm not sure if people in the audience know who Vincent is exactly.
Could you talk about Vincent and the drop details, how you guys came up with the poetic cinematic art and what it means to you and graphite method as well?
Yes, great point. Great point. And hey, Paimon, great to see you.
So Vincent is my collaborator on Winter Garden, and we started working together a couple of years ago.
Vincent is one of my favorite actors of all time. And in popular culture, people might have seen him in Men in Black as the villain.
He was the cockroach man in that. I think that was the first time I ever watched him in a performance when I was a kid.
But then people might also know him as Kingpin in Marble Universe. He was just an echo that came out.
And he was in Lift on Netflix with Kevin Hart last week and Dumb Money, which also just came out on Netflix as Steve Cohen.
Right now, especially, he's, I think, one of the most sort of active and seen actors in anything right now.
But I've always known him as his character actor who was quite underrated throughout his career by comparison to what he was able to do with his transformational quality.
In movies like The Cell, where he played the serial killer that Jennifer Lopez was trying to uncover, he should have been nominated for an Oscar in that, I thought.
And also, when he was Detective Garin and Lauren Order for 10 years, he did something very different to what any other actor was doing with that sort of role, with a detective role on a network TV show like that.
He made it like watching a theatre performance. He elevated the material beyond just an episodic detective show.
He took it in directions, I think, that were totally unexpected. And that's sort of what he's known for in Hollywood.
If they have a really difficult character that they don't quite know what to do with, they get Vincent and what he does with it, which is very bold, creative choices.
Yeah, so it was sort of this amazing coming together that had ended up happening in this way because I was interacting with his poetry on Twitter, and he was putting out a lot of poetry.
And, you know, I guess I saw an opportunity to sort of connect with one of my acting heroes, and so I started engaging with his poetry, and I told him how much his work as an actor meant to me, and then just left it at that.
And then a few months later, he shared one of my poetic pieces, one of my cinematic pieces.
I guess he'd come across it somehow. And I thought, you know, I was thrilled he shared it, and then I thought, well, I've got nothing to lose. I'll ask him if he wants to collaborate.
And I did, and he DM me, and he was like, what do you mean, collaborate? Like, tell me about it. What's going on?
And then we sort of, I started pulling him into this journey of web3artworld and digital art, and, you know, it's been really cool, I think, to see artworld through his eyes, and to see like how someone
who sort of comes from that wealth of experience in film is now seeing this new world.
Because he's now 64 as well. So he's got like 40 years of experience working in the film world. So he's got a lot of, you know, established ways of doing things in his mind.
And then seeing like how he can apply that experience to this new world, I think is really interesting. It's a really interesting thing.
Like we were just at Miami Art Basel together, and exactly where we met, Nima, and was hanging out with Pima, and Victoria in the audience as well, was hanging out with us for a lot of the time.
And Vincent met like 100 people when we were there, and we did talks and panels, and we went to the digital art exhibitions, the Makers Place exhibition, we had a piece in that, and a few others.
And he had his manager hanging out with us as well, Sam Maydew, who's like just a Hollywood player, like he's really someone I was trying to get a meeting with for a long time as an actor.
And he was just hanging out with us and like coming along to all the web three events, and that, you know, they see the future in all this, like they understand that this is where the world is going, and that this is, in essence, like the future of art in many ways.
And they want to be a part of that, because they understand the importance of being early on, on a movement. And the artistic movement in particular, I think, is what really lights him up, like he just, he just wants to make art all the time.
And, you know, he's constantly sending me poems and ideas and for us to work on together. So I think that creative passion and energy is, that made him the actor that he is, is also making him the artist that he is.
And we've collaborated on, I think, six, six or seven pieces now. But this Winter Garden is our first collection that we've done is it's got two cinematic portraits that are open editions.
And that actually came about when we were in Miami and we were at the Nifty Gate, sorry, the Gateway, NFT now Gateway exhibition that was partnered with Christie's and we were walking around and they had these horizontal screens.
And Vincent turned to me and he was like, what if we had like our faces, like in this, in this portrait style, like just our faces were like, you know, and they could change with the AI and we could do the readings of the poetry.
And I was like, yeah, that, that our faces could be like the canvas. And we developed this idea of a Winter Garden and, you know, snails and hummingbirds and trees and, and people like reading books in the garden, like coming out of our faces as we're talking.
And, you know, as we're talking about, you know, in the poetry, like a wave coming, like a wave crashes over Vincent's face and we were trying to evolve and I think see where we could take a poetry reading and some of those essential things that we know as method actors into fine art and visual art and portraiture.
And in Winter Garden Collection, all we just came out of that.
That's incredible. Beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing with us. I'm actually curious, was, was this an actor first, then a poet and an artist? Like, how did he develop all these skills and when?
Yes, he, he was an actor first and he was, he was in his early 20s when he got cast in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket as Private, Private Lawrence, the guy who ends up shooting up every, goes on a shooting spree at the start of the movie.
The character that gets bullied and then goes on a shooting spree, which is, you know, I think any actor who ended up in a notable role in a Kubrick movie ended up sort of on the walls of the Museum of Cinema History.
And it, you know, he said since then he's never stopped working since Stanley cast him in that film. So that was 40 years ago.
And then he started writing poetry. So he did a lot of films and, and then he became, he became best friends with Ethan Hawke and those two made a lot of movies together and projects because they just like working together, you know, much like us.
And then he ended up doing a play that Ethan was directing. And part of their process in that play, this was like 10, 15 years ago, part of the process in that play was to write poetry and
as, as, as the characters, it was a Bertolt Brecht play and Bertolt Brecht had a very sort of unique style of directing theater. So that was part of what they did just to in rehearsals.
And then he just kept doing it after the play finished. He just sort of became obsessed. I think he just became this habit that, you know, was really a great contribution to his day, like, you know, creating this, these poetry out of just thin air and
and so that's how he came to poetry. And he's a published poet now, he's published a couple books of poetry. And it was something like his fans and people like me would really get into when he was posting from his personal Twitter account, which he shut down
end of last year to dedicate full time to graphite method Twitter account. So now he posts his poetry from graphite method. You can get the handle to that in my bio and see, you know, read his poetry.
Awesome. Could you maybe pin something from the graphite method channel about the drop? I know you guys had some posters to leave, but just so audience members can get there, like, easier.
And just for everybody here, the mint date is set for this Thursday, the open editions and the 500 collection set will all be available.
Yeah, I mean, we're super excited. This is like an incredible collaboration. One of the best actually that we have worked on here at layer. We not only have a phenomenal artist and actor. Oh, and by the way, Lawrence is an actor as well. I didn't even realize this until I started doing a little bit more research on you, Lawrence.
I figured you were an artist and a poet, but I had no idea you're an actor. So that's like absolutely incredible. I'm working with you and someone like Vincent, a high caliber actor and artist as well. And the Hollywood space is like tremendous. So thank you so much for the opportunity.
Hell yeah. I mean, I see we there's also like someone doing a lot of cinematic poetry and sorry, cinematic art in web three and storytelling web three in the audience and only force. I think they wanted to come up and say something.
Yeah, if anyone has any questions, feel free to request the mic and we'll let you up on stage.
Yeah, yeah. So, but it's been great fun working with layer. And, you know, the layer twos and I think alternate chains like arbitrum and
Well, layer twos and other other chains have been embraced a lot in the last six months or so by the community. I think everyone's sort of excited to discover new territories on chains. So I think that's really cool.
Yeah, that's definitely very interesting. And just so people know, this will be on arbitrum for many reasons. One, we have really great partnership with them to we wanted to be mindful of the gas fees.
And also three, they're really focused on art. That's one of the things that I realized when I was working with them that they've done stuff on.
I know prohibition is a generative art platform that uses the block art blocks is engine and it's all powered on arbitrum. And also there's going to be a fiat component. So if you don't want to use arbitrum or don't feel like using crypto or don't have any crypto and want to just use a debit and or credit card, we're going to be integrating cross net for this as well.
So, again, if you if you're not crypto native and or don't want to use any of your crypto assets, you can go ahead and use a debit slash credit card.
I think somebody come on stage.
Hey, man, did you have any thing you want to add any questions?
Could you just give me a few minutes? Sure, sure. No problem. I'm getting into the doctors. Yep, yep. No, a movie media. Anything for us?
No, just listening in. Wait. So I suppose I would like to know what Lauren thinks about the curve.
State of the film industry and some of the ways that crypto and Web or blockchain, some of the ways that blockchain can help solve those problems.
Yeah, I think it's something that I think is really important.
Yeah, I think it's something that for sure people in the film industry are concerned about. And in, you know, the film industry is going through this huge flux and this these massive changes in lockdown.
When lockdown happened, the box office global box office went from 11 billion to 2 billion. And now I think it's up at like 3 billion. So that's a huge difference, right? From 11 billion a year to 3 billion a year.
So that that mostly went to streaming, which is a big part of what the recent strike was about the sag after strike that shut down the film industry for like six months of last last year.
So these huge changes are sort of colliding together at the same point that, you know, people a lot of people working in in more traditional mediums are wrestling with technology and how technology is distributing the cinematic art in a completely new way.
And also how people are making it in completely new ways. A lot of people don't have an adaptive yet. They don't know how to adapt to concepts like AI, which is a big part of, you know, how we created Wintergarden.
But they're more concerned about how a company like Netflix might take their likeness and then just use them in propriety forever.
And so that I mean, that's one example of the these technologies which are changing our world very fast.
And a lot of the people within the film industry aren't really sure how that's all headed. It's it looks like a very different landscape, even to what it was a few years ago.
And many of them have not even sort of discovered the NFT world or even looked at it or even sort of grappled with it, which I think is is missing a huge trick for the capacity of storytelling in Web 3.
The way that digital ownership allows for chapters of a story to be told over time and for that story to evolve and for an audience to be sort of captivated and to feel a part of something in a way that they were never really able to before.
I mean, you know, I guess Marvel fans could surround their world, their walls with merchandise and toys and stuff, but, you know, they couldn't they can own a part of it and be invested in that journey.
They couldn't directly own like, you know, a film, for example, that has not even really been tested in Web 3.
And I think there's been a couple experiments about how feature films could be on chain.
But I think the world around it, for me, is actually the most interesting aspect, the world around films.
The the staff in in these directors and actors drawers that doesn't get made by Hollywood because Hollywood deemed it, you know, not commercial enough or not sort of doesn't check all the boxes of their corporate sort of agenda at that time.
What how many like genius bits of art are just left in the drawers of people who live in LA.
You know, how many how many draws are just full of this artistic gold that we can mine and create out of in Web 3 because it's such a liberating space to create in.
And so I think maybe people maybe people in the cinema world, you know, maybe the way that they create will change.
I think there's going to be huge changes to the landscape in the next few years.
And I do think Web 3 will play a big part in that.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that it's a great question.
And it's something, you know, that I love to ask Vincent in the space that we have with Roger Dick and Dickerman tomorrow as well and get that takes on it because sometimes he gives me glimpses of like what his perspective on it will be.
But, you know, I think we we can definitely feel like we're in the right place at the right time.
Technology isn't going anywhere. It's definitely accelerating how all these things are being made and distributed and consumed.
And you either embrace that tide or you get swept away by it.
That's interesting. And just so for the audience members, is there any way you can pin that spaces for tomorrow or Vincent will be joining?
So in case anyone wants to hear Vincent's story and what he has to say about this and maybe even get up on stage and ask him a few questions.
Are you ready to do so at that time?
Cool. That's pinned up at the top with Roger Dickerman.
And we met both Vincent and I met Roger in Miami at Pablo Frele's house and Vincent did like a shout out video for Roger's wife.
So that's how come I could ask him to host a space for us.
Apparently, Vincent is Roger Dickerman's wife's favorite actor.
Yeah, he's getting a lot of brownie points for hosting it.
Are there any other actors in Hollywood who are artists who are asking questions and are probing within the web free space?
There's not many, honestly, but there's a few. Anthony Hopkins, who I actually connected with through Web3, Sarah Anthony, who I'm now one of 50 people that Anthony Hopkins follows on Twitter, which is insane.
But he had a collection called The Eternals.
And there's also David Bianchi, who had a film out recently called Razor, which was funded through NFTs.
Gosh, I think that's about it, really.
Oh, Val Kilmer. I was working with Val for about a year. And we did about a dozen collaborations together with his poetry.
He was he was definitely, you know, experimenting and very interested in Web3.
You know, it's funny, it's funny, not nearly as much as you would think. And that is something that we're working on with Graphite Method.
Yeah, we are looking to onboard.
Yeah, no, I was gonna say, can you actually talk more about Graphite Method? I know you briefly mentioned it and how it's like a collaboration with or a partnership with you and Vincent to promote and grow and expand the web free space with certain players.
But can you talk about a little bit more in detail?
So with Graphite Method, basically what we formed was our partnership that was based on the concept of writing poetry by hand and that being an evolution of method acting.
And then finding, you know, in the digital age, how we can transform those mediums and pull it into these, you know, credible developments that are happening with AI and the Web3 art space and how that all comes together.
So we are, we're just, we're really actively working on pushing the boundaries of our art and of this medium of poetic cinematic art.
And that's something that we're keeping abreast, you know, a lot of Vincent's friends that he's made over the years and some of mine too from the film industry.
And there's one project that we're looking at that came through a producer friend of mine that has John Malkovich and Brian Cox that I actually shared with you recently, Nima, that we might be doing a piece that's set in World War II for.
So, yeah, so we're looking at adapting those sorts of properties that come through our contacts in the film industry.
And also, and also, you know, Vincent's on the phone to Ethan Hawke, like quite a lot, like when we're walking around, when we were walking around Miami and through these exhibitions.
So that's something that we're talking about, you know, I think as these things develop and as these things keep going well and like everyone sees it going well and it's sort of like, yeah, of course they have this poetry in their drawer that they've been writing for a long time.
I know that Ethan has published a couple of books himself.
So you never see, you never know like these people who are, I guess they're celebrities or they're high profile at what they do as actors or directors.
You never know like what their passion really is unless you really, unless you look, unless you sort of find out, oh, you know, this guy was actually a writer, this guy actually loves to play guitar.
And that is actually a much easier connection to make through their passion that they also happen to be very talented at.
You know, I know Russell Crowe, for instance, is a singer, a very passionate musician, same with Johnny Depp, and it's much easier to work with Russell Crowe or Johnny Depp on their music than it is their acting because when it comes to their acting, it's like you got to go through their agent and they cost like 50 million or something.
So unless, unless you're a big studio, it's hard to get to them for that.
That's crazy. I had no idea that actors in the space had other talents as well.
I mean, now that I think about it, I guess it's like obvious, right? But I had no idea prior to this.
Yeah, for sure. It's something that's like you come across in like bookshelves or something where you're like, oh, damn, I didn't know this person was a writer like Steve, Steve Martin, the actor, comedian, is actually a very accomplished novelist.
And that comes to mind. I'm sure something else will come to mind. But yeah, I would advise if anyone's looking to get a hold of, you know, a figure at that level is that's an amazing way route to go is to find out like, what are they trying to do? Yeah, they're really accomplished at this.
And like this, like falls at their feet. They have offers every day to do this. But what are they trying to do? That there has been a passion their whole life, but they never got to fully realize it for whatever reason, they're more known for this. But what do they love doing?
It's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah. Could you talk about any and a nominal job just kind of like explaining that to me?
And we definitely all love listening to you. Could you talk about your journey as an actor? I'm personally very curious. I'm like, why acting, how you got started, and where you're at today?
So, so yeah, that was something that I guess was a rebellious act in me. My family was in the art world and my mother was a painter and had a gallery. And I guess there was always this expectation that I would be a part of the art world.
And, but I love cinema, you know, as since I was a kid, I would watch films. I watched like adventures and just want to be inside that film inside that adventure. And to live it and to play it out and to be the person experiencing it, I thought was sort of the height of, you know, experience that you could have.
I thought it was, if only I could sort of like push through that cinema screen into the world that was playing out in front of me is what I felt.
And as I got older, I took it more seriously, started doing Shakespeare plays and started trying to uncover like, what are these actors who are doing this at like a whole other level, at a level where they're transforming themselves completely?
Like Daniel Day Lewis, Robert De Niro, Vincent D'Onofrio, Philip Seymour Hoffman, like how are these guys like taking a character and connecting it with themselves and transforming into that character just seemed like magic to me.
It just seemed like how do you change yourself and like inhabit this other being to walk around as this character? I just thought it was an amazing concept that that could be done, you know, that you could become someone else for a while.
So I started delving into that and started delving into what is method acting and went to train at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which is where Daniel Day Lewis trained and learnt Shakespeare and the classic theatre, which is where I got a lot of my style as a poet and as a performer from that time.
And that was such a funny school and it's still preserved as this old Victorian house that they have transformed into a theatre school. And it's like taking a step back in time.
And, you know, it's definitely like for, you know, an American, it would definitely be like stepping into something from Harry Potter, you know, it's like they were so old fashioned about everything and that was a part of it, you know, because it was a lot of the materials that we were taking on were from a different time.
So they wanted it to have a lot of authenticity from the past. And the teachers were old actors and old theatre directors and things like that. And they taught us all their traditions.
And it was very old school and there was parts that I loved and other parts that I really rebelled against as well because I wanted to be a contemporary. I wanted to be of my time. I wanted to find out more modern ways of doing things too and what was new in evolutions of acting.
And I think I was always at odds with my teachers in that respect and they sort of pushed me to come out to America where I am at the moment in LA because of that reason. Because I had, you know, all these creative ideas that I think were difficult to control.
And then I got cast in this film. I got noticed from some theatre that I did in England, a play that got transferred to the West End, which is like Broadway in England. And then I got cast in a film called The Apostle Peter and the Last Supper out here when I was 23.
And I was acting opposite Robert Lozier, who is an Oscar nominated actor. People might know him from Scarface or The Sopranos. But he was playing the Apostle Peter and I was playing his prison guard in his final base.
And who in the Bible, the Apostle Peter, he converted him to Christianity. And my character, Saint Martinian, became a martyr. So that was the story of that film.
I just loved the sunshine, the palm trees and the possibilities of the new world in Los Angeles and the film industry. And so I got my green card and I stayed and I did more movies like Road to the Well and Paint It Red.
And most recently I was cast as David Hockney in a series called Minx for HBO, which was a crazy ten of events because David Hockney was best friends with my late father. And David Hockney is an artist, a painter.
And I think he's notably the most expensive living painter. One of his paintings sold for 92 million a few years ago. So he's got that notch on his belt now. But he started out as a painter in England and was extremely popular amongst the art scene out there.
And then he moved to California to be amongst the palm trees in the sunshine and to get away from some traditions in England that I think he was railing against as well. But the directors of Minx had no idea about any of that.
They just liked the way that I portrayed Hockney on my audition tape. And I told them later that I was Peter Fuller's son and that David Hockney was best friends with my late father. And I have this connection to the digital art world and I'm a part of the art scene. They were like, what?
We had no idea. They thought that they would, you know, look at what we did. We found this guy. How did we do this? But yeah, they had no idea about any of that. It was just sort of magic how it came together. And so that came out last year. And that was good fun being a part of that project and that show.
Yeah, now the film industry is starting to come back. I'm auditioning for new TV shows and films that are being made again all the time. And I get glimpses into Vincent's world as well. He took me along to the ACO premiere recently and got to meet some of his entourage there.
And so yeah, it's a fun adventure to be on. And like we've just been discussing, nobody knows where the film industry is, where all this is going. So I embrace the new world and I also carry with me the traditions of some of the old things too and honor our ghosts. Who knows what's next?
That's incredibly beautiful story. We've got about 14 minutes left. Anyone in the audience have anything? Oh, I think Captain Levy.
I think Captain Levi did.
Yeah, Captain Levi, sorry.
Yeah, thanks, Nima. Thanks. Hi, Lawrence. I won't say I was going through the works on your Twitter. And I don't think my phone screen is doing enough justice to the pieces I am seeing there.
I think I'll need a bigger screen to get the essence. It's a really impressive works, I must say.
I just wanted asking about you just made a statement a couple of seconds ago regarding the fact that you needed to embrace something new.
There is a difference. I think I feel there's going to be a difference in unique three dimensional arts.
For example, I was actually just thinking of what arts would look like if I were using, say, something like an opposition pro to view myself in there.
I was looking at it as another concept and something that's definitely going to be coming up because some 10 years ago, people thinking of integrating digital art wasn't really a thing.
But now, digital artists are actually feuding with regular artists at some point. And while some agree with each other, others really don't.
What do you think do you think the evolution of art, especially digital arts, and what's your take on, you know, where it's actually advancing to?
You know, this fight between traditional and contemporary, the avant-garde tradition, has always been present.
There's always been a new technology that has threatened old ways of doing things in the romantic era that was machines.
Even just working with machines and steam power and how those things were affecting our world was completely different to what had come before.
And the camera, I mean, the advent of the camera was a huge thing when you could take the image of something away from its physical presence with this mind-blowing idea to people that the image could be extracted from the object.
And now that can be taken further, the image can be extracted from the object and then changed into a new image.
That advancement is one of, you know, is one of mass media potential, is one of something that has the potential to reach a huge amount of people.
And it's an art form that is, you know, very much in line with our world now, the way it is.
And I think ideas and concepts that are aligned with the contemporary culture quite often can just be trends that fade.
But then there's some that just last that have, because they have an eternal truth to them.
And those eternal truths at the moment that they're spoken will always be valuable.
They'll always be something that people return to because there is truth in it.
You know, there are old movies that people will always go back and watch.
You know, like Schindler's List, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Stanley Kubrick films.
Every Christmas, you know, absolutely.
Like people will chock on Sound and Music.
Like, yeah, all of Stanley Kubrick films.
It's something that people will return to regardless of the time it was made.
And people will also, they will make things that are set in the past.
Like a lot of my work is set in the past.
The Winter's Garden is set in this sort of timeless sort of 40s era that is not our time,
but you can see that it was made in our time because of the mediums that we used to create it.
And I think timelessness, when it comes to the cultural subject, will always be that.
You know, timeless work, I think, is the stuff that people will come back to in the future.
And, you know, the art world in our space and just as much in the traditional world is hugely speculative.
Like, that is actually that speculation, that speculative nature of what will be valuable in the future
or what will speak to people in the future is just as prevalent in the gallery world as it is in our world, in Web3 art world.
And for me, I look for eternal truths.
I look for things that will be true today, that were true yesterday, and that will be true tomorrow.
Thanks, Lawrence. I think I actually agree with this because earlier today, a couple of hours ago, when I was on my way home,
I decided to stop by and observe some artwork that some artists put out for sale.
And there was this feeling I had, I was still able to connect on a different level than I would connect, you know, a digital art piece.
You know, that relevance is still there. It seems like the digital art piece has a dimension of its own, while that physical art piece has one of its own as well.
So I must say, I think I really appreciate the concept and, you know, the way you put it, because, of course, evolution is critical for survival.
And it's really one way to actually go about it. Thanks again, Lawrence. Thanks, Nima. Thanks, Noah.
So we got just a few minutes left. If any other audience members want to come up and ask some questions, the time is now.
Lawrence, I know this is kind of a hard question to answer, but if you were to rank your top five favorite films of all time, what would be in that list?
It's super difficult because there's films that are very, like, imperfect and quirky and small that I just love for, like, a performance in it, like My Left Foot, which is Daniel Day Lewis's breakout movie where he played the painter Christy Brown, who suffered from cerebral palsy and he was in a wheelchair, the whole film.
And you can see in his body that he was in that wheelchair for months for, you know, in the preparation of the film and for every shot and every day he would show up in that wheelchair.
And his dedication to that physicality and to trying to understand how Christy Brown lived his life as someone with cerebral palsy that expressed himself as a painter was just an incredible feat of acting and an incredible dedication to the craft in Capote, where Philip Seymour Hoffman transformed into Truman Capote.
Raging Bull, where Robert De Niro gained and lost and gained 40 pounds to play the fighter, Jake LaMotta. He was in, you know, championship boxing shape for the first half of the movie and then they stopped shooting.
He put on 40 pounds of fat to play the older version of Jake LaMotta for the second half of the movie. And I think also Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon is just one of the most beautiful films ever made, entirely lit by candlelight.
There was not a single artificial light in the entire movie and it was adapted from the novel Barry Lyndon, which was about this con artist in the 17, 1800s who came from Ireland and worked his way up to the heights of British aristocracy and married this Countess and then had this amazing rise and fall.
And that sort of rise and fall sort of narrative that's also prevalent in a lot of Martin Scorsese films like Goodfellas and Casino, which basically is the same story told in the subject of American capitalism, of the rise and fall of those heights of ambition,
and that American capitalism is so well distilled in the ethos and the relationships within, you know, the mafia, that they almost encapsulated American capitalism, if you were to take it to its extreme and wanted to see the drama of American capitalism play out between people.
That ambition and those follies and that hubris of flying too close to the sun and your wings burning and falling into the ocean, like not Sisyphus, the other one.
Yeah, that guy who made his own wings and flew too close to the sun.
But yeah, I think that that's always really interesting stories of hubris, like there will be blood, you know, when Daniel Day-Lewis and there will be blood.
You can see the characters going for something. He's like, there's some sort of deep void that he's trying to fill with this idea of being an oil mogul, and that happens to be what he thinks is going to fill the void in him.
And watching that play out is like watching the grand human story sort of play out in an operatic sense of like, this guy's life, you know, he really tried to fill this void.
And it didn't quite get him what he thought, you know, it didn't quite get him what he thought he wanted, but he ended up getting it.
You know, the Greek mythological character that you mentioned that flew close to the sun, I think his name was Icarus.
I want to quickly chime in to Lawrence. I love that you brought up Daniel Day-Lewis. He's one of my favorite actors.
The movies that you mentioned are definitely my favorite, but also the one that was called In the Name of the Father. That was an amazing movie that he did such a great job in acting, too.
In the Name of the Father. I like to put on In the Name of the Father sometimes if I'm just feeling like I need to be inspired by a performance.
Yeah, he played an Irishman. He was wrongly accused of an IRA bombing in England. The IRA had this rebel militia group to fight the English that had occupied Northern Ireland for 100 years or more or 200 years.
There was a lot of conflicts in England in the 80s and early 90s. I remember being a kid in England at that time and there being warnings of bombings here and there.
Daniel Day-Lewis played a guy who was wrongly accused. The Irish got a really bad rap in England for a long time. There was a lot of prejudice against Irish people because of that era.
It was a distillation of all that, I think, in that movie. This guy got wrongly accused and put in jail. Daniel Day-Lewis just really wanted to go through what the character had gone through in that interrogation.
There's these interrogating scenes that are the most difficult to watch, I think, of any movie. Daniel Day-Lewis was like, let me have it. If you're going to hit me, hit me for real.
They put him through this crazy semi-torture. It was really this masochistic thing that he did. The film is so real because he really put himself through all that. Yeah, it's a credible movie. Thanks for reminding me of it.
Also, I wanted to just say thank you to Noah and Moby Media for having us. Sorry I couldn't speak much because I had this previous appointment made before the spaces were scheduled.
Lawrence, one thing that you mentioned earlier, as I was listening to you, and Neema, you've done such a nice job of asking questions, and so did Noah. I just wanted to also give you guys some flowers.
You mentioned Ethan Hawke and you mentioned a few other artists, actors, directors that are in talks with Vincent.
I wanted to also say that a lot of actors have hidden second talents that they don't really share with people because they're just so focused on their acting.
I've spoken with Lawrence about my brother. He's an actor in Hollywood and he's super talented writer too, but he never really shares his poetry with anybody.
I know that he has some other actor friends that, like Lawrence mentioned, are musicians or photographers or painters.
One of the things that I'm really excited about, 2024 and beyond, is helping connecting those actors with Lawrence and Vincent to be able to continue their collaboration and onboard more of the talented actors that are in our society, in Hollywood and internationally.
So yeah, I'm super excited about this collab project. Winter Garden is going to be an amazing drop, and Lawrence has been doing such a hard job of constantly, like even, I remember we were up at 5am or something the other week, giving an interview to another collector.
I forgot the name of the gentleman, but it was... Lawrence, do you remember that space that you were up at 5am in the morning talking about this drop?
Was that Grateful Abe? That was not?
Oh, that was... Oh yeah, no, you were talking about the one with Particle Collection that's in the audience.
Particle Collection, that's right. There you go. See, I thought I... Yeah, they did an amazing job of asking questions too. Yeah, they did a great job of that interview.
It was 5am, I gotta tell you. I go to bed that time in Silicon Valley, so 5am is usually I get up at that time to do my meditation, to prime my day, but that day I had to go in and join and support Lawrence.
And yeah, the gentleman behind Particle Collection did such an amazing job of interviewing you and asking so many awesome questions, just like today.
I really appreciate these spaces because we get to sort of learn more about you in detail, Lawrence.
And again, thank you Moby Media and Noah John for having us today. Ima, I'll give it back to you to our apps close and wrap it up, please.
Thank you so much, Ima. Any last words from anybody? Moby, Lawrence.
Alright, well... Oh, go ahead, Lawrence.
Yeah, just wanted to say thank you, Lawrence, so much for coming on and giving us a different kind of space. We typically have projects on here and they're oftentimes talking about crypto or AI or fintech.
So it was a pleasant shift of gears towards art and film and acting and poetry, which is something I think a lot of us have within ourselves and most of us kind of give it up once we grow into adulthood because you need money to live and not everyone has the opportunity to explore these things.
So I think that art, I mean, not to sound bleak, but it doesn't die, but it goes dormant in a lot of people and they get caught up with the hustle and bustle and kind of the rat race that is our world.
So it was a pleasure for me to kind of live a little vicariously through you and hear you mention some of my favorite films and some of the films I grew up watching.
You know, just like Paimon, I also love Daniel Day-Lewis and I admire so much his dedication to method acting. He really takes it to another level, doesn't he?
So anyway, Lawrence, you're always welcome back on our podium and I'll let Nima get the final words in or you get the final words and give us some concluding thoughts before we close things out.
Hold on a second. I think you just gave us an invitation to bring more artists into your spaces to mix it up. Is that what I heard?
We'll be doing that. There's so many amazing artists in this space. I mean, just looking down there, Victoria, you know, Renee, Hint, you know, the food master, Pong. I mean, we have Aisha there.
I mean, my goodness. Trust me, Noah, we'll come back with some on a regular basis. By the way, your partner, Fijital, is a good friend of mine, too.
So when Nima told me that you're going to be coming to your spaces, I'm like, yeah, I know those guys. So how much love? Thank you again for having us.
And I'll let the two big guys close it out.
Yeah, of course. You know, any time artists want to come on our podium, we really believe in cross pollinating and we really believe that Web 3, blockchain, crypto, they overlap with other industries, gaming, fintech, AI and art, excuse me, the art industry, whether it's like art paintings, as we've seen with kind of the NFT boom of 2021, but films as well.
I genuinely believe that down the line, maybe not this year or next year or the year after, the blockchain as it evolves and solutions become more robust and find product market fit will shift paradigms within the film industry.
And I think that it's going to hopefully democratize the opportunity for a lot of actors and a lot of artists that go unknown.
I mean, Lawrence mentioned that how many ideas, how many amazing stories are there locked away forever in the drawers of actors or artists in Hollywood that just never made it.
So I think it's a cool future to think about. But with that said, I'll stop my monologue and pass it to Lawrence.
Yeah, that was a great summation there. I think you're absolutely right, Moby, about where this can all go.
And we're just so at the very start of that, thinking of when you asked me like earlier in the space, like how many other actors are in the space.
Not many, but there are there are tens of thousands of really talented actors in the world who have all sorts of passions and things to contribute to our space.
And we're at the start of bringing them in and showing them new ways of doing things. We are the pioneers that are showing people how to do these things.
We're entrusted with something precious. We're entrusted with the future of art and how to guide that in the direction that we want it to go.
It's really up to us how this thing plays out. So thank you for giving me the space, guys.
I really appreciate the time to talk about the things that I love doing and love talking about.
And thanks for coming with me on a journey through cinema and art and all that fun stuff.
It's great working with Nima and Paimon. You know, these guys are super passionate about what they do, a passion about art here for the artists.
You know, they just are super attentive to the needs of a collection and I can talk to them about anything.
So definitely recommend working with them. And yeah, so thanks to everyone who listened to see your friends down there.
Thank you, everyone. And remember, everything you hear on the mobile media broadcasts are meant for educational purposes only.
Nothing is financial advice. So be safe out there and we'll see you all on the next one soon. Take care.