Mint Gold Dust - 79Au

79Au | 1.21-27

FEATURED ARTWORKS OF THE WEEK

FEATURED ARTICLE

GRAFFITI AND NFTs | THE ERA OF DIGITAL TAGGING

Since ancient times, graffiti has been a way for people to express themselves and make their mark on the world in a world that would prefer them to be silent. It’s a declaration of oneself, a sign that says, “I was here.”

“Graffiti is our modern day hieroglyphics telling the past, the future, but most important, the present day story without a political media spin but with a grassroots version of our present day lives. If we don’t document this work on chain then we are erasing a large part of our history that some believe is not worthy of historical study.” – Mint Gold Dust Founder and CEO Kelly LeValley Hunt

At the end of last year, we caught up with graffiti artist Curve to discuss his latest NFT Graffiti works on Mint Gold Dust and his thoughts on blockchain technology. Check out some of our interview with him below.

In your own words, why do you think NFTs are a good medium for graffiti writers?

From my understanding NFTs allow artists to have ownership of their work. Graffiti has been co-opted, exploited, and straight up stolen, and NFTs can create opportunities for graffiti artists to profit from their work on their own terms. It can also allow writers to keep their anonymity, which is very important for some.

Would you say that the disruption that decentralization and NFTs bring is attractive to you and other writers?

In part yes, because it’s new and exciting. Although I cannot say that I completely understand it. I think graffiti grew alongside other disruptive and anti-establishment movements, so there is definitely a lineage there.

Tell us a bit about your AR NFT pieces. How do you see this technology being a solution for writers and taggers?

The concept behind my AR NFT pieces is about the dilemma of seeing graffiti digitally versus the real world. The environments where graffiti exists are intrinsically tied to the process of making it and the aesthetics of said graffiti. The experience of viewing it outside, in person, and in the elements where it was created, are an important part of how graffiti grows, expands, and holds its power. I don’t seek to change or reinvent graffiti in a digital space. Since that is our current reality and affects so much of how we interact with one another, I seek to comment on this with my graffiti. I see the current technology as providing new avenues for writers to keep doing what they’ve always been doing; Getting Up.

FEATURED PODCAST

Mint Gold Dust curator Eleonora Brizi was in Paris last week to celebrate and exhibit at NFT Paris.

On this week’s episode of the podcast, she shares with us her takeaways and her positive outlook on the coming year in the world of NFTs.

Check out last week’s edition of 79Au here where we interview artist Iovi Sacra Art and revisit our podcast with the co-founders of Illust Space to talk all things AR.

Weekly Recap

79Au | 1.14-20

FEATURED ARTWORKS OF THE WEEK

FEATURED ARTICLE

AN INTERVIEW WITH IOVI SACRA ART

This week, Mint Gold Dust caught up with Iovi Sacra Art about her unique work, Golden Rain, inspired by the ethos of Mint Gold Dust.

Iovi Sacra Art is a NFT Artist and Visual Designer based in Italy. Her work aims to find beauty in imperfections and isn’t afraid to rewrite the rules. She muses, “I don’t settle for the visible world, I don’t want to be passive, I think that nothing is absolute. Breaking the rules of standardized processes I gave birth to my artworks: they are always different from each other, irreversible and unrepeatable.”

Check out our full interview with the artist below.

“Golden Rain with its Golden Drops, until they finally explode into billions of particles, both to spread light across the universe and to go back to the origins, where they were born.”

Tell us about the work you are presenting with Mint Gold Dust, Golden Rain

I’m proud to be part of Mint Gold Dust and to have been selected by a leading figure like Eleonora Brizi. This has meant the world to me. For this reason I wanted my first NFT to be a huge tribute to the platform.

First of all I wondered what were the elements characterizing to be distinguished in Mint Gold Dust such as light, gold, and dust. But I didn’t want to stop there. In addition to the visual aspect there was much more. So I asked myself: “What has not yet been done? How and what can I bring from our real world into the virtual world of the blockchain?” I wanted to test new ways of creation and give birth to something never done before, and as unique as Mint Gold Dust is for me.

Then Golden Rain was born. In the real world, we see rain as something sad and we can’t wait for the sun to come back. In the blockchain, in particular inside Mint Gold Dust, even the rain is different: made of gold and light, it becomes something precious, as it’s precious for an artist to be part of this community.

How was this artwork created from a technical standpoint?

Golden Rain is an animation made of 1000 quickly moving layers. To create this, I inverted a standardized process that should lead everyone to the same result, but I manipulate specific digital operations that always lead me to a different conclusion, if not opposite, to the one that this process would have produced if I hadn’t interacted with it. This artwork (and its creation process) is unique, irreversible, and unrepeatable.

You talk a lot about finding beauty in imperfections. Can you talk about why that inspires you?

At one point I just asked myself, “What has marked your soul and mind? Can you feel the fire that roars deep within you? What is the tide towards the future?” And then everything has risen spontaneously.

I broke a circle, the perfect geometric figure, and made it my logo. It reflects myself and my vision of the world and it is always associated with my slogan “I try to find beauty in things that are imperfect. Like me.”

I have felt imperfect for many years in a world that would want me to be too perfect and promote values of absolute perfection (bodies, thoughts, job career, family) until, after years and years, I simply learned to accept myself and turn all my inadequacy into a plus.

I bring the same poetics into digital art, and I began to distort everything I was given by society,

Everything seems to be too perfect, too schematic, too preset, too symmetrical, and at the same time, so terribly unreal. With my photography manipulations, for example, I try to give life to an environment where, thanks to my art, I can feel more comfortable, free and real.

My abstract artworks arise from the same place of imperfection, from a sort of “digital error.” By breaking the rules of standardized processes, I gave birth to my artworks. They are always different from each other, irreversible, and unrepeatable.

Tell us a little about what you’re working on in 2022?

Creating this piece for Mint Gold Dust’s NFT Marketplace gave me a chance to do research and experiments in total freedom, expressing myself 100% and has helped me to keep pushing all my limits.

This experience has given me boundless energy for the future and given me belief in myself and artistic career. In 2022 I’ll keep looking for new ways of creation and manipulation, trying to go further, every time a little bit more.

FEATURED PODCAST

This week, we are revisiting our podcast with the Co-Founders of Illust Space.

Augmented reality has the ability to connect the physical and the digital, facilitating the emergence of a new form of interaction and socialization. Illust Space is an environment for viewing augmented reality NFTs, but that’s only the beginning.

Seth (SINUOUS RILLS) & Eleonora (BREEZY ART) sat down with Tim and Rob, co-founders of Illust Space, to talk about our geo-dropped art show at Art Basel 2021 in Miami. The drop featured art minted on Mint Gold Dust’s marketplace and displayed art from the vault of Whaleshark.

WE’RE GROWING!

Mint Gold Dust is looking to bring on new members to the team.

Available Positions include:

UI/UX Coordinator
Community Manager
Fullstack / Solidity Developer

Please email [email protected] to apply.

Catch up on last week’s edition of 79Au to read our interview with Le visionnaire sur la lune and hear from Sean Sullivan of THE IMPOSSIBLE COOL about the future of NFT Photography.

Events

4 years ago Events by : Mint Gold Dust

Mint Gold Dust at NFT Paris

Mint Gold Dust is a curated NFT platform and ecosystem focused on highlighting artist and collector voices while promoting quality over quantity. The unique platform offers an always-on, 24/7 artist marketplace, a creative studio for NFT creators, and managed service Whitelabel solutions for digital and physical NFTs.

For NFT Paris, Mint Gold Dust presents their genesis collection and selections from their marketplace, alongside curatorial powerhouse Breezy.

GENESIS 8

In the Chinese language, the pronunciation of the number 8, “ba,” is very similar to that of the word prosper, “fa,” making the number 8 the most auspicious of all the numbers.

For the Genesis 8 series, we asked our 8 artists to express what Gold Dust is for them through the filter of their artistic vision, style, and techniques. For some, it evokes nostalgia and remembrance. For others, it’s the primal spark of creation and nature.

For us, Gold Dust is something very special. Every object, and by extension every person, possesses inherent worth as well as the innate potential to metamorphose into something far greater than its present state.

Bard Ionson’s piece Mysterious Value was created by training an AI model to create its own version of a Challenge Coin. In the US, these coins are given out as a reward for working on special projects or being top performers and have taken on a life of their own as collector’s items. The coins themselves held no material value, but the riches and mysticism lie in the stories they tell. LEARN MORE

Gisel Florez began her artistic journey through the lens of a camera. Eventually, her lifelong pursuit in the development of her own unique visual language and her love of light play led her naturally to the vast potential in the digital art world. Her piece Space in Touch was inspired by analyzing physical responses associated to interacting within an exponentially digitized life & economy. This piece references the energetic response to a physical touch. LEARN MORE

Giant Swan sculpts stunning, exquisitely detailed, ethereal creations. However he does not chip away at marble or mold clay; instead he plies his craft with a headset and controllers in the multi-dimensional medium of virtual reality. The pliable fabric of virtual reality allows for his conception of movement and form a freer reign than a static medium ever could and produce eternally memorable work. LEARN MORE

In Hackatao’s creation process, the stream of consciousness takes the shape of a stream of drawings. In the perpetuous and unstoppable flux of drawings that come to life from the unconscious, our inner demons and unspoken thoughts come to visit us and manifest in the form of art. In this artwork, the artists duo Hackatao goes even further, beyond the stream of visual manifestations, until reaching the matter itself. The duo keeps a jar of the left over art materials they have after a project that is filled with pencil nubs and graphite. To create this PRIMORDIAL, they used these left over materials to create something new. LEARN MORE

Stuart Ward (Mueo) shines a penetrating spotlight on the world of repetitive form in his works. Stuart Ward’s Transformation at the gates of eternity expresses a duality between denotative and connotative messages to create a sense of tension. From a denotative perspective, the piece is glossy and beautiful to look at, while from a connotative perspective, the artwork shows an intense moment of struggle and transformation of incomparable magnitude. LEARN MORE

Lily Honglei’s art explores the duality of opposing forces and the ensuing result as well as their experience as immigrants and Asian Americans. Their work remains consistent and ripe with humanity as they explore and sample a variety of mediums, from AR art, to VR art, to video art as well as more traditional static mediums. In this piece, The Butterfly Lovers, Lily Honglei symbolically highlight the dichotomy of having dignity and pride of their heritage while also experiencing the profound loneliness and isolation that comes with deep seated prejudices against the Asian American community. LEARN MORE

Ben Snell is a creative force whose works explore the meeting ground of technology and humanity while revealing the act of the creation as much as the production of the actual piece itself. Snell’s Ritual Nature intertwines the observer and the observed. The piece uses a sculptural interpretation of image-making that strips away the light and color of a photograph, leaving something raw and wild in its place. LEARN MORE

Lapin Mignon is known for her deeply personal and mesmerizing artworks. Her piece Anatomie D’Une Poussière d’Or began in a meditative state thinking about what gold dust might mean to her. From that, flashes of abstract shapes, color, and 80s inspired motifs began coming to mind. LEARN MORE

MARKETPLACE SELECTS

Mint Gold Dust features highly curated artworks from established and up and coming digital artists.

“In the blockchain, in particular inside MINT GOLD DUST, even the rain is different: made of gold and light, it becomes something precious, as it’s precious for an artist to be part of this community. Golden Rain with its Golden Drops, until they finally explode into billions of particles, both to spread light across the universe and to go back to the origins, where they were born: MINT GOLD DUST.” – Iovi Sacra Art

“In Made in abyss, I tried to personify the feeling of when you can’t take it anymore, when you get stuck and can’t find solutions to get out of it – almost as if you were drowning and could not do anything to avoid it.” – Le Visionnaire Sur La Lune

“In this increasingly crowded society of temptations and challenges we find ourselves having to adapt in order to ‘survive’ among the people. More and more frequently we are faced with situations where people hide what they really are for fear of being judged and labeled.” – Svccy

“Embrace is derived from the artist’s original painting on canvas. It symbolizes the power of physical touch, translating a sense of human connection, kindness, support, security, and love.” – Masha Ermeeva

“This artwork has two souls, physical (oil on canvas) and digital. Dream Variation was first created in oils in 2016, re-created and painted digitally with Procreate in 2018 and animated with After Effects in 2021.” – Dominque Czerednikow

“Part of the Four Seasons Series. This work, Autumn Pond, was inspired by the vibes and feelings of the autumn season. Pond with leaves and reflections of the skies above.” – Hyper Aesthetics

“Amura of the thousands rains.” – Ryota Nomura

STAY CONNECTED

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Weekly Recap

4 years ago Weekly Recap by : Mint Gold Dust

79AU | 1.7-13

FEATURED ARTWORKS OF THE WEEK

ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

AN INTERVIEW WITH LE VISIONNAIRE SUR LA LUNE

Rebecca Fiaschi, otherwise known as Le visionnaire sur la lune, is a digital and NFT artist based in Tuscany. After graduating from Design Campus, the architecture department at UNIFI, she began creating her metawomen, a project that aims to bring diversity and inclusiveness to our new digital realities.

We recently talked with Rebecca about her latest piece on Mint Gold Dust and her inspirations

Tell us about the collection you are presenting with Mint Gold Dust.

The collection that I present with Mint Gold Dust is Made in abyss. This selection of works represents my first transaction of moods in real creatures. In this case, in Made in abyss I tried to personify the feeling of when you can’t take it anymore, when you get stuck and can’t find solutions to get out of it – almost as if you were drowning and could not do anything to avoid it.

I imagined a creature devoid of colors except in her gaze, as if she were looking inside you. The body is white, aseptic, and the details are composed of soap bubbles, almost as if they were something ethereal and not lasting, something changeable. All this placed on a completely black background, as if to represent the depths of the abyss.

What’s the inspiration behind your work?

I’m inspired by shape and feminine curves. I see myself as the storyteller behind my stories. They generally focus entirely on the figure and not on the space that surrounds them, so as to bring out particular emotions given by the poses or their expressions. I started by creating hyper-realistic characters to approach texture mapping and sculpture, then moving to characters that recall something deeper.

I believe that each of us is made up of infinite “masks” or facets. The concept is the basis of Pirandello’s theory where masks represent the shattering of the ego into multiple identities and an adaptation of the individual based on the context and social situation in which we found ourselves. I believe that my works represent various facets of myself or various moments in my life.

What are you working on in 2022?

Ok, this is not a simple question!

This year I would like to try two approaches. The first is to pursue the path of the meta-human trying to integrate more abstract elements. The second focuses on the creation of NFT objects that are 3D printed and customized according to the buyer’s choices. It would also be a one-of-a-kind work, created specifically for the buyer.

BACK TO BASICS: SETTING UP A PORTIS WALLET

This week on the Back to Basics series, we are walking through creating a new wallet with Portis and connecting it with Mint Gold Dust from your desktop.

Portis is a Blockchain wallet that can be used from any browser to buy, sell, and spend crypto. It offers a user-friendly interface without having to download any extra apps or plugins while allowing you to purchase crypto using a debit or credit card.

FEATURED PODCAST

Sean Sullivan is a photographer, art director and curator. He started the blog, THE IMPOSSIBLE COOL in 2006 and has seen the way the internet connects with digital photography change and morph over the years.

He gives his thoughts on the Mint Gold Dust podcast regarding NFT Photography, and how he sees it both as an archival tool as well as a new platform to connect directly with collectors.

Catch up on last week’s edition of 79Au where we discuss Mint Gold Dust’s origin story, revisit our favorite podcast from 2021, and more.

Weekly Recap

4 years ago Weekly Recap by : Mint Gold Dust

79Au | 12.31 – 1.6

FEATURED ARTWORKS OF THE WEEK

ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Have you ever wondered where the name Mint Gold Dust came from? CEO and Founder Kelly LeValley Hunt reflects on a personal experience at an auction and how that led to the creation of Mint Gold Dust.

“Some years ago at an auction of Old World artifacts, I witnessed the sale of empty canvas sacks sold solely by weight. It baffled me that anyone would pay substantial sums for empty bags hundreds of years old, and I inquired further.

I then discovered these nondescript canvas sacks had once been used to transport immense quantities of gold. While the sacks were now empty significant quantities of gold dust still remained, filling the crevices and folds in the cloth. By practical alchemy this precious residue had transformed otherwise mundane objects into coveted pieces of considerable worth.

As I often reflected on this memory over the years, I realized the metaphor in these canvas sacks that kept drawing me back. Every object, and by extension every person, possessed inherent worth as well as the innate potential to metamorphose into something far greater than its present state. In addition, those hundreds of pounds of gold had left remnants that held and created significant value long after the main attraction had moved on. And so I wanted to create a platform for everyone to mint their own Gold Dust.”

BACK TO BASICS: SET UP AND CONNECT METAMASK IN 10 STEPS

We believe that collecting NFTs should be easy and not intimidating. If you agree, this new series is for you. Whether you’re a first time NFT collector or just new to our platform, our Back to Basics series will guide you through wallet set up options so that you can collect NFTs on Mint Gold Dust.

The first in this new series is setting up your Metamask.

FEATURED PODCAST

This week we are looking back at one of our most popular podcasts of 2021, The Amen Break with Theo Goodman.

Seth and Theo broke down this idea correlating The Rare Pepe to the Amen break, the roots of NFTs and the roots of sampled music, planting the seeds for more conversations on Rare Pepe in the blockchain community and understanding how we got to where we are today.

Miss last week’s recap and holiday curation by Mint Gold Dust curator Eleonora Brizi? Follow this link to catch up and stay up to date on all things Mint Gold Dust.

Weekly Recap

4 years ago Weekly Recap by : Mint Gold Dust

79Au | 12.23-30

FEATURED ARTWORKS OF THE WEEK

ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

HOPE – A HOLIDAY CURATION

The holidays mean something different to everyone. It can be a time of celebration, contemplation, sorrow, religious sentiments, and family traditions, but there’s one thing that ties all of these together: hope.

Mint Gold Dust curator, Eleonora Brizi presents a not so typical holiday curation. One that isn’t filled with ribbon and bows, but one that chronicles the journey of modern humanity experiencing a shift towards hope after a season of growing pains and uncertainty.

The curation features work from Mint Gold Dust’s marketplace and would make a great gift for any crypto or art enthusiast still on your list. Artists include Svccy, Lapin Mignon, Chris Nacht, and more

MEMOIRS AT MINT GOLD DUST

The memoir feature on Mint Gold Dust was created to solve the gap between the artist and collector and track the artwork’s personal history.

FOR ARTISTS

When an artist mints a new work on the platform, they are able to write a memoir entry that is attached to the work. This can be more info on what their inspiration was behind the piece, a story about the creation process, or even just their general feelings about the piece. It’s a place that allows artists to share their personal connection to the piece outside of the typical art description attached to the token.

FOR COLLECTORS

Once a collector buys the piece and holds the token, the memoir travels with it. The collector now has their own opportunity to add on to the story and share their connection to the piece, why they collected it, or even why they support the artist. A collector and viewer’s connection to the piece might vary from the artist’s own point of view, so this allows the collector to share their story.

In a way, this feature takes the connectivity of Discord and Twitter into the platform itself.

PROVENANCE

As the piece travels hands, the memoir travels with it. The memoir becomes a written record of the ledger, not only sharing who owns the piece, but what attachment they had to it.

FEATURED PODCAST

Art for everyone, anywhere, all the time.

On this week’s podcast, Eleonora Brizi and Seth Scher sit down and talk about the age of art we’re in, where we can show art anywhere at any time, and how the coming digital advancements open this up wider for the experience of art. Check out their conversation below.

Happy New Year from all of us at Mint Gold Dust!

Events

4 years ago Events by : Mint Gold Dust

Art Basel Recap | NFT Takeover

Every year, city dwellers and art lovers flock down to Miami for Art Week, and this year, NFT enthusiasts went with them.

After a year off due to the Covid-19 pandemic, art fairs made a triumphant return in Miami. Many are already reporting record breaking attendance numbers, but that wasn’t the main attraction. This year the name of the game was NFTs. There were pop up NFT galleries, parties, and large public installations of digital art.

One of those projects was Mint Gold Dust’s geo-drop with Illust Space. Using Augmented Reality technology, we created a scavenger hunt around Miami’s hottest fairs and attractions. Visitors were able to use their phones to reveal artworks from Mint Gold Dust’s marketplace that were hiding in plain sight. Artists in the drop included Hackatao, Gisel Florez, Bard Ionson, and more.

The drop was an effort to democratize the art presented during art week, promote NFT artists, and introduce the art and tech communities to the unique AR technology that can bring your wallet to life.

Ahead of the drop, Mint Gold Dust CEO Kelly LeValley Hunt praised, “Miami Art Week attracts artists and collectors from around the world. By ‘hacking’ art fairs around the city, we are securing NFTs & Digital Art for now and the future.”

Also featured in the drop was $WHALE x BREEZY, an NFT curation of rare NFTs from $WHALE’s famed collection, The Vault. The curatorial team at BREEZY, led by Mint Gold Dust curator Eleonora Brizi, worked with $WHALE’s Head of Art, Decryptolorian, and Illust Space to geo-drop 20 works from the collection.

Eleonora Brizi commented, “We’re bringing art directly to the people, changing the shape of the city, and bringing people and physical experiences together through a digital medium…Through AR, we are making art more accessible for everyone.”

Stay tuned for more geo-drops and live events in 2022!

Editorial

4 years ago Editorial by : Mint Gold Dust

Without the Token, All You Have is a JPG

We Are Our Own Martyrs

A Column by By Theo Goodman

—

Without the token, all you have is a jpg:

As seemingly random cookie-cutter 10k PFP projects blink in times square during the cheaper breakfast hours one might ask, is the top in? These precious collectibles, art, modern cave paintings were reproduced for all to see. One can simply -click- or as some might say -right-click- and a copy is made, so simple, so elegant the reproduction! In the current mania state of expensive jpg, one might forget that without the token, all you have is a jpg, but with the token, you still have “it” the NFT. It is ok if you don’t get it now, you will just FOMO in later.

The Gesamtkustwerk.

The NFT is not simply an expensive JPG that burns the earth to its core while allowing for new levels of carbon-neutral virtue signaling which give way for unthinkable business plans of feel-good tokenized carbon credits with no accountability. The NFT is not simply a profile picture that one can flex online in social networks by right-clicking the image of an NFT you own or don’t and adding it to your ProFile Picture in order to be part of the club. Want to join my new playground club?
The NFT is not simply a digital image in a vacuum of which one can only conceive of it as a digital image and nothing more. The NFT is a Gesamtkunstwerk(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk), total artwork whose concept is not simply the image but the intersection of the image, the token, and the timestamp of the token on a blockchain. This is the total concept, the jpg does not exist in a vacuum. Now you might think that each of these elements is of equal value in accordance to what you have and what you don’t, however, this is not the case.

I just right clicked 5000 Bitcoin, I am now Nouveau Rich. If the three elements of the NFT were of equal value then you could simply right-click a bitcoin logo 5000 times and be one of the new elite, one of the nouveau rich with a stereotypical Lambo and walk around in sweat pants and a hoodie since you are probably not old enough to know how to dress anyway. In any case, you are rich enough to do the Zuckerburg dress style, halfway smart casual with trainers, please don’t do that.

Now that you right-clicked 5000 bitcoin logos and have 5000 bitcoin you are good to go, generational wealth and all! Why doesn’t that work, because you don’t have a token. Bitcoin is simply the native token of the bitcoin network (incoming comments -bitcoin is not a token it is just utxo- for all practical purposes bitcoin is the native token just stop having knee jerk reactions to the word “token” thanks!). If you don’t have the token, you don’t have any bitcoin, if you right-click and save Vitalik´s favorite ETH logo, even though it is his fav, you don’t have any ETH without the token ETH. One day the jpegs didn’t load…………..

REKT

The day the jpegs didn’t load

One day the jpegs didn’t load. You reset your laptop, the nouveau rich one with an ape sticker, the one with a “NO SHITCOINS” or the one with a “This laptop is carbon neutral” sticker on it. After the reset the jpegs didn’t load, your Bitcoin logo was gone, your ETH logo was gone and all your NFTs were GONE, annndddddd ITS GONE, but wait. They are not gone you have the tokens! Even if the link to the jpg is broken, there is a history of this link. Of course in this case there is an element of social consensus that is needed to agree – which token belongs to which jpg – but in the end, you have the token, without the token you just have a right-click jpg, or as I put it, nothing.

The Pirate Bay NFT and Arweave

Let us simply look at the first lines of the Pirate Bay NFT.

“Did you know that an NFT is just a hyperlink [1] to an image that’s usually hosted on Google Drive or another web2.0 webhost? “(https://github.com/ghuntley/thenftbay.org)

This is simply incorrect. If this were the case then the Pirate Bay NFT would have indeed simply right-clicked billions of dollars worth of NFTs, but they did not. On top of that, they shilled Arweave with the [1] which makes me think this is simply an Areweve shill action. The link that is referenced also doesn’t get it, shocking!

“NFTs are fragile because while the metadata may be stored forever, the asset itself is likely not”(https://arweave.news/nft-404/)

Which misses the point that in fact, the token is the asset, and as my friend Joe Loney has said many times “the token is the art”. While I applaud both NFT Pirate Bay and Areweave for continuing the tough discussion on file storage and the future, I do not think either understands what an NFT is. Both are focused on the JPG, either overlooking the token or just in order to highlight that using a dependency like Arewave that is branded as permanent (yet highly experimental and new) is better than just hosting on imgr. It will take another issue of We are our own Martyrs to unpack the perma storage claims, maybe next time.

TL:DR

An NFT is a Gesamtkunstwerk, a Total Artwork. Without the bearer asset, the token you have nothing. If you cant load your jpg and still have the token, you still have the NFT.

The Power of Zeus and the Fury of Hades.

Editorial

4 years ago Editorial by : Mint Gold Dust

Graffiti and NFTs | The Era of Digital Tagging

Since ancient times, graffiti has been a way for people to express themselves and make their mark in a world that would prefer them to be silent. It’s a declaration of oneself, a sign that says, “I was here.”

Mint Gold Dust’s Producer Seth Scher knows this world well. Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1990’s, he was exposed to the thriving straightedge hardcore, rave, and hip hop culture there, and the graffiti movement was the cultural thread that tied it all together.

Fast forward to 2007, Seth was introduced to graffiti artist and designer Curve on a film set.

Curve moved to Philadelphia by way of New Haven, CT where his passion for exploration was forged and his introduction to graffiti began. It was in Philadelphia where he found himself immersed into the scene. His teenage years were spent painting in the streets, tunnels, and rooftops, using the city environment as a workshop and stage to express himself. This led to exploring other art-forms, which graffiti has roots in: including illustration, animation, and graphic design.

In 2020, Seth Scher was analyzing NFTs for his own work when he and Curve first discussed the idea of graffiti NFTs. The ultimate goal was to capture the essence of graffiti and create something that serves as a permanent historical record. Selling an NFT was one thing, but preserving a cultural echo and oral history was another. Graffiti by nature is ephemeral and defined not only by its markings, but by the space it occupies– a unique challenge to solve in a digital landscape.

Around this same time, Mint Gold Dust founder Kelly LeValley Hunt was having some of these same thoughts. She explains,

After going back and forth on how to retain the essence of graffiti when translating them into NFTs, they decided to simply borrow materials done on a wall, be it a tag or an art piece. Once hi-resolution images were taken, Curve’s pieces were then digitally enhanced to add depth or variation to each piece. The blockchain offered a permanence and formal authorship to work that was temporal and co-opted, but the story didn’t end there.

Curve was connected with Mint Gold Dust partner Illust Space to geo-drop his NFTs into the physical world through Augmented Reality, essentially creating a digital tag. This digital act of disruption is able to act as a record of where the original piece was tagged, offering a permanence that was unachievable before, or it can help writers create new tags that can be dropped anywhere in the world creating a new wave of graffiti.

We recently caught up with Curve to discuss his latest works on Mint Gold Dust and his thoughts on blockchain technology. Check it out below.

In your own words, why do you think NFTs are a good medium for graffiti writers?

Would you say that the disruption that decentralization and NFTs bring is attractive to you and other writers?

What’s your process when digitizing your works? How does having video files supported influence this chapter in your artistic process?

My process for the most part still involves old fashioned sketching and drafting. Although with my iPad I don’t need to scan anything. If I paint a wall, I can begin digitally manipulating it immediately. I still create graffiti in a traditional manner and often digitizing is an afterthought. When it happens, that is when my pieces change and alter in their form and function. When I started sharing my graffiti on social media in 2013, I began to see this potential. There are times when the addition of digitization has made me approach my traditional process differently. For instance if my goal is that a particular piece be eventually animated, the steps with which I start it and finish it, will allow for that option, making my creative process very different from my norm. I enjoy experimenting with all the technological tools offered, without completely knowing what the outcome will be. While there has been a small video art tradition involved in graffiti since the 80s, I think our phones have made us all part time multimedia editors and artists. The supported video files have opened new doors and ideas for my work. I have been able to collaborate with digital video artists, who have many years in that field, and may have never got a chance to work with graffiti art as a subject. I also enjoy adding a musical or sound element to my pieces. The association with certain musical genres has always been alluded to, but has never been able to be explicitly shown until now.

Tell us a bit about your AR NFT pieces. How do you see this technology being a solution for writers and taggers?

What’s next for you? I’ve seen Zoidrecords on IG, are there any plans to do audio NFTs in the future?

My plan is to take my Zoidrecords project to the auditory level. Ultimately, releasing music and graffiti asmr is the idea. I’d like to treat these aspects as important as the graffiti that is seen.

Check out our 2 part podcast series with Curve, Seth, and Mint Gold Dust curator Eleonora Brizi below:

PART 1

PART 2

Events

4 years ago Events by : Mint Gold Dust

Mint Gold Dust Hacks Miami Art Week

Mint Gold Dust is hacking Miami Art Week with augmented reality by creating a GPS scavenger hunt for NFTs. In partnership with Illust Space, Mint Gold Dust has geo-dropped NFTs from their marketplace throughout Miami, allowing fair-goers to follow a map and use their phones to reveal the works hiding in plain sight. The pieces are discoverable via Illust Space’s online app, https://ar.illust.space through December 5th.

Mint Gold Dust has dropped NFTs outside of Art Basel, SCOPE Miami Beach, Untitled, Art Miami, Spectrum, and at the Wynwood Walls. Artists in the drop include Hackato, Svccy, Gisel Florez, Bard Ionson, and more.

“Mint Gold Dust is not just a platform, but an ecosystem that functions to support artists and collectors. With the artists and collectors, plus the industries we have invested in and partnered with, Mint Gold Dust is a self-sustaining economy,” said Kelly LeValley Hunt, Founder and CEO of Mint Gold Dust. “Miami Art Week attracts artists and collectors from around the world. By ‘hacking’ art fairs around the city, we are securing NFTs & Digital Arts for now and the future.”

This year’s Miami Art Week is slated to return in a big way after 2020’s fairs were called off due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Fairs and events will be taking place around Miami and Miami Beach all week to celebrate the return of in-person art events.

Also, a part of the drop is $WHALE x BREEZY, an NFT curation of rare NFTs from $WHALE’s famed collection, The Vault. Curatorial team BREEZY has worked with Decryptolorian, $WHALE’s Head of Art, and Illust Space to geodrop over 20 works from the collection, giving people access to view this legendary collection in a unique and personal way.

“The $WHALE Vault has been deemed by many as one of the most historically and commercially significant collections of digital art in the world,” said Whaleshark. “It’s our pleasure to share the beauty of our collection with you as they come from the pioneers of a new digital era, empowered by true provenance and scarcity of blockchain tokenization.”

Breezy founder and Vault curator Eleonora Brizi added, “When I heard about what Illust Space was doing through Mint Gold Dust, everything clicked into place. They have one of the best AR tools I’ve seen, so it was the perfect fit to bring light to these pieces and stories from the Vault that I want to share with the world. We’re bringing the art directly to people, changing the shape of a city, and bringing people and physical experiences together through a digital medium. This is why I’m excited to be curating this collection and presenting artists like Hackatao, Pak, Giant Swan, Brendan Dawes, and more. Through AR, we are making this art more accessible for everyone by sharing it with the world.”