Sav

I'm always looking for new artists, projects, and platforms in the #web3 space. I should check out ________!

every vote counts!

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@divine_economy Great insight @divine_economy We are building to solve these challenges, by redefining what an online marketplace could be for artists and art lovers. I would love to discuss it with you in more detail, as we are currently fundraising. Would you be willing to have a brief coffee?

three takeaways, art basel: I. it’s hard out there for artists, and i’ll be blunt here: this space isn’t giving them the support they need and that *this space* needs. because look—a decade and a half in, crypto has really just proven out three major use cases as a technology: 1) global defi for remittances, borrowing, and lending, 2) stablecoins, 3) permissionless creation, curation, and collection of art. go to conferences for the first two, and you’ll see all the prominent VCs and infra builders present to support with solutions around data availability, zero-knowledge state proofs, intents-based architecture, and the like. these all matter a lot, of course. but go to an artist conference, and let’s be honest: these figures aren’t there. hell, as an infra nerd, *i’m* not usually there. the people who show up are artists who fund their own trip—there’s no gallery, collector, or VC backing them, as there is in the traditional art market or any other part of the space—as well as the collectors eager to support an ecosystem they love. there are some major exceptions. @buildonbase set up a legitimately fun artist house where @jessepollak was *personally* meeting everyone who came through to listen to their stories and figure out how to support (i was playing atari in the back). @binji_x from @optimismFND was meeting with every project he could to figure out how to make the superchain the ecosystem for creators. the tireless @shanvasion from @livepeer was omnipresent, as she is at every conference. everyone talked about how impactful @ourZORA’s innovations have been. etc. but what about everyone else? it’s not like this isn’t a huge market—NFTs still represent billions of dollars of transactions each quarter according to @DappRadar, even throughout a bear market. so what’s going on here? the obvious explanation is, of course, that everyone got burned by the collapse of NFTs in the bear and now sees very little possibility for mass financialization. no VC wants to be a collector, and it makes no economic sense for them to do so. besides, their backgrounds, of course, are inevitably in tech and finance—not art. but i think there’s something deeper going on too. when you’re deep in infra, all you can see are infra’s issues—the unsolved challenges of automation, historical compute, privacy, interoperability, etc. i spend a good part of my job thinking about these things and the opportunities they’ll unlock for us. yes, yes, all are exciting and even transformative. but focusing on infra also makes it easy to miss the fact that *for the first time* crypto actually works for mass consumer cases that weren’t possible in web2. this wasn’t true at all in the bull run of 2021, with its prohibitively expensive mainnet fees and lack of embedded wallets. it is true now, and artists are very clearly the first movers. every infra project, investor, and chain should be talking to them and supporting them however possible. it sometimes feels, though, that we have major users and nobody wants to acknowledge that they exist. we prefer to believe that we’re one step away from a revolution than to face the scarier possibility that we’re already there. II. every major consumer technology of the past 100 years was built on lurkers as the consumers. cinemas scaled the promise of playhouses to tens of thousands of consumers every night watching in the dark. tv expanded it further; social media further still. each *also* represented an explosion on the supply side of content: fewer people might consume any given piece, but more could consume overall. and eventually, of course, that meant maximizing for *anyone* to be able to create. we’re on the cusp of AI making 100 hours of video content for any one hour that an individual will consume. that explosion of supply (content creators) to reach more demand (lurkers)—well, that’s also collapsed the division of supply and demand itself. in the world of web2 social UGC, the consumers become the creators and vice-versa as content becomes increasingly interactive. in theory, crypto represents the culmination of that interactivity. in a world of permissionless composability, anyone can not only create monetizable works, but concrete and split commissions. but in practice? not only have we failed to fully unlock cocreation—we’ve failed to build a mass audience of consumers who are interested in *watching* a space that excludes them from any financial gain. the lurkers don’t exist, not because they’ve become creators, but because we’ve only built for a tiny audience of whales. and to do that has required masquerading digital abundance as physical scarcity to imitate the economics of the traditional art world. and so, we’ve had to tell ourselves that consumer technologies were about letting anyone create, rather than the truth—that they were about letting anyone be *seen*. that? well, that requires a high-scale audience of lurkers who, well, want to see what anyone is doing. how do we solve this? well, i’ll give myself away here at the risk of giving infomercial. this is my real dream for what we’re building at @jokerace_xyz—that anyone can create exposure games for contestants and teams to compete against each other while viewers all vote from home. maybe these viewers are tokenholders of the project throwing the contest, maybe they’re part of each team’s community, or maybe they’re just identified fans. the opportunities to make viewership *fun*—and bring a mass of people who *care* about the incredible art being created right now—needs to be one of our major focuses as a space. III. i said before that NFT artists have it hard. and part of the reason they have it hard is because they’re asked to do far more than any artist in the traditional art world would ever be tasked. permissionless systems mean artists don’t get to pick their collectors, so they often have to deal with major clout-seeking figures who can work to exploit them in every possible way (luckily this is the exception, but the fear artists have towards some of the biggest names is both justifiable and real). the lack of galleries mean artists have to pay to meet and represent their work to collectors directly. and market volatility mean artists’ value is often a measure of crypto prices more than it is enthusiasm for their work. but that gets at possibly the biggest issue that NFT artists face. unlike any traditional artist, NFT artists have to create art in three axes: as an artwork, as a technological innovation, and as a *financial innovation*. a great deal of an artist’s practice is determining market strategies to maximize value based on sales trends: auctions, blind sales, open editions, 1/1s, and so on. each of these is arguably a medium for the NFT artist, but it’s a medium that blooms and wilts in popularity over the course of weeks before artists must devise new novelties to get the market interested in their work. this is obviously something of a nightmare for any artist. it’s as though DJs had to not only make great music, but create whole new format to hear it—cassettes, CDs, mp3s, streaming platforms—when none of these had been invented before, and each would remain marketable for, at most, a month. and yet, the opportunity for NFT artists is very real. the actual art basel—the one with that outdated “painting” technology—was pretty dismal, a cornucopia of platitudinous feel-good sketches of dots and flowers to help the ultra-wealthy anesthetize their business partners with the bland aesthetics of an international hotel the next time they invite them to dinner. in a time of massive political and technological crisis, NFT artists are nearly the only ones working with the most important medium of our time—the internet—to tackle the overwhelmingly *digital* feeling of being alive today. and they know it too. like any group of fringe upstarts about to throw a major revolution, they’re well aware they have to stick together in the absence of outside support. i personally just feel humbled to have gotten to listen in on the conversations with incredible artists like @berylbilici, @jarvinart, @molly_mccutch, @ozanozcelik_, @P1AbyPIA, @SkiluxDesigns and maybe most of all, to see the astonishing space that groups like @rugradio and promoters like @farokh have created for them to flourish. it feels like big things are about to happen in this space, and it’s up to the rest of crypto whether we want to support our actual users—or be left behind by the technology we created. it won’t be long before the chains and infra projects need the artists’ support far more than the artists need their own.

// Musing on Audrey Chernoff Chernoff, currently in New York City, initiated her artistic journey in 2001 with abstract works on paper. More recently, she has ventured into the realm of abstract digital art. 🔲Discover her @audrey.chernoff #linea #artisourcapital #buyart

// Linea presents Patti Endo. Endo's art explores the human body. Through models, imagination, or self-portraits, she captures her inner and outer self. 🔳 Follow @endo.patti and @linea_platform to learn more. #artistmuse #linea #artisourcapital

// Challenges in the Art Industry: Unveiling the Canvas The art industry has long been a realm of creativity, innovation, and inspiration. However, like any other domain, it faces its share of challenges. We'll explore some of the top challenges in this thread.

// We're evolving Linea is working hard to constantly improve and refine. 🔳 What do you think of our new vibe? #linea #artisourcapital #evolution #newlook #shareyourthoughts

// Throughout history, artists have challenged norms, subverted structures, and provoked new perspectives. Who are your favourite emerging artists shaping society through their work? #ArtandSociety #EmergingArtists #FreshPerspectives

It’s the reason for it!

// We’re Live! 🚀 Discover original artworks by our founding artists! Browse or buy art at linea.art #ArtIsOurCapital Remember to follow us for updates.

Artist Sneak Peek 3/3 A teaser of "Bad Dog", 2023, by @nartalka. Keep an eye out for its release. #oilpaintonpaper #abstract #psychological #colourful

Artist Sneak Peek 1/3 We are excited to introduce you to one of our Founding Artists @ellwood_art. Here is a sneak peek of one of his new works Surfers Paradise. A fusion of technology & imagination. Stay tuned for the full reveal! #LaunchingSoon #EmergingArtist #DigitalArt

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@Linea_platform personally, I relish it as it means I'm trying.

How do you handle the challenges of rejection as an artist? Share your experiences and strategies for bouncing back ! Let's support and inspire each other on our artistic journeys! #ArtistLife #OvercomingRejection #CreativityUnleashed // See our tips in the thread.

If you do nothing, you are complicit! @Linea_platform linktr.ee/linea.art

Rejection might be the only constant indication of effort.

Community is the key ingredient! What you think?

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What do you think about art as an investment asset?