NFT Collector: Creative AI art, Tomorrowland sells tomorrow’s future
AI art is gaining acceptance while Squiggles inch closer to the finish line.
Greg Oakford, co-founder of NFT Fest Australia, is your guide to the world of NFTs from a collector and fans perspective.
Seventeen years ago, Pindar Van Arman built a robot that, like him, painted with a brush on canvas.
He has built several robots since, with each iteration possessing a more sophisticated artificial intelligence that tried to paint “more like I painted.
The term OG can be thrown around often undeservedly, but Van Arman is truly that when it comes to AI art.
He created his first crypto art project in 2015 titled bitPaintr and minted his first Ethereum nonfungible token (NFT) in 2018 titled
It’s a new philosophy that the asset has to be 100% sovereign. If you own something, you have total control over it, you should not be forced to pay royalties. I went hard early on against people that were saying royalties are like tips, Van Arman says.
I agree with freedom to transact and that means that artists have the right to say, there are royalties on my artwork and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it. No one’s forcing you to buy it and it makes perfect sense to me. But for some reason I have a hard time explaining that to people. They say no, no, no, the asset is worthless unless it has no encumbrance. They might think it’s worthless, but it might be worth something to someone else.
Notable sales
Rapid-fire Q&A
When someone looks at your art, are there any particular emotions you hope that they’re experiencing?
The goal for me of making AI art and the emotion I’m after is for people to not know it was AI art. To feel something and observe something and not know that the image was painted by a robot. And then only afterwards they realized it was painted by a robot, then that becomes part of the narrative. They can do a double take, they learn the story through that.
Who are the influences on your art career to date?
I don’t want to answer here. I don’t want to answer because I’m friends with some of them now and I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they were my influencers haha.
If they found out, they’d become intolerable which is absolutely true. This is what I love about this space, I am hanging out with my big influencers and it’s really fun. Love it.
Who is a notable collector of yours that makes you smile knowing they own one of your pieces?
There’s one collector I have and thats unusual and I really enjoy how unusual this collector is because this collector is silent and has possibly the largest AI art collection in the crypto space but has no social media presence. Zero.
This collector is ironically named Blur, not the platform. Why Blur really brings a smile to my face is they are so conscientious about their collecting that they don’t want to influence other people, they don’t want to ape into something and then have other people ape into it because they aped into it. I think that’s really noble, the collecting is coming from the heart and they never advertise their bags yet collect like mad.
Whats your favorite NFT in your wallet thats not your own NFT?
The one that gives me the most joy is my CryptoPunk. I own punk 7627. That’s actually a really obvious choice when I think of my collection.
What does Pindar listen to when creating art:
A lot of EDM music. Also Pink Floyd once in a while.
Whats hot elsewhere in NFT art markets
Winds of Yawanawa, a co-creation between the Brazilian Indigenous Yawanawa and Refik Anadol collection, is on fire. The floor ripped through a 10 ETH floor earlier in the week and has more than doubled in the last two weeks.
Other big sales include:
Only two fresh Squiggle mints remain
The iconic Chromie Squiggles collection has nearly finished minting. On August 30, founder Erick Snowfro Calderon tweeted that 66 fresh Squiggles would be out into the world, leaving only two Squiggles remaining for the 10,000 collection.
Snowfro distributed the 66 to a selection of family, artists, collectors, institutions and friends while announcing Squiggle #9998 will be a special commemorative mint with further details soon and #9999 headed to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Day 0 Squiggles occurred on November 28, 2020 with approximately 9,000 of the total collection being minted in the first two months after the initial mint. Snowfro decided to keep the remaining mints up his sleeve and has been releasing those at various stages over the last few years as the popularity of his artwork continues to skyrocket.
Tomorrowland surpasses $2 million in NFT sales
World-renowned EDM festival Tomorrowland generated over $2 million in NFT sales on Solana.
Tomorrowland superfans were able to secure pre-sale tickets, access secret gigs, become eligible for giveaways, and be treated to exclusive tours of the festival ground.
Tweet of the week:
The tweet of the week goes to Justin Trimble commenting on Refik Anadols work being spectacularly displayed on the new Vegas Sphere. The Sphere was first covered in this article of NFT Collector.
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Author: Greg Oakford
