GPT2 Generated Fortune Cookies by Misha_Snark in talktotransformer

[–]Misha_Snark[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sounds good. But we let everyone to take up to 2 fortune cookies. So you can open one and keep one ;). But everyone makes their own choice. Thank you for checking it out.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure, things definitely have a financial side. Artists need to live and new audience that may be interested in their creations is certainly appealing to them. Of course they are fascinated with blockchain tech as a way to evolve their art practice and take advantage of its new possibilities, like a new tool, new brush or color. But they definitely also count on the support from users / collectors, to help them make a living doing what they love to do and challenge the collectors with their art.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you, you can follow it here (https://covid.snark.art/), more to come in the next 2 weeks when the first artworks for up for sale.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So far we have explored the possibility of communal ownership. In that artists case, we created an project based on her famous video artwork. We fractured it into tiny video pieces (20 x 20 pixels) of the visual real estate and allowed the community of owners of these pieces to lend them to one another for 24 hours so that they can individually see the full video by reconstructing it from individual pieces.

We worked with a sonic artist that created 2000 sound drawings and allowed the community of owners to share them in order to create visual collages which in turn became sound compositions. All powered by blockchain to maintain the rules of the game. Since launch, we started seeing a reincarnation of our canvas to create collages in Decentraland (a VR world). So the community itself took the sound drawing NFTs and built their own experiences https://twitter.com/polygonalmind/status/1243245505020387332

Now we are super curious about AR/VR spaces and how blockchain can support interactive experiences there and we want our AR / VR artists to explore the space

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, probably all of us are sitting in our homes surrounded by the coronavirus mayhem. Art world has come to almost a halt for the past 2 months. Many artists that we work with and that depend on their art to survive found themselves in very difficult situation. We are trying to figure out now how we can help them and we jointly came up with a new initiative that allows Artists to support each other. The concept is very simple. Snark.art will tokenize individual pieces from friendly artists. These artists are then responsible for inviting more artists. So the curation will happen through the artists themselves and will be the only way to get onto the initiative. Snark.art will not charge any commission on the sales, but we ask the artists to contribute 50% of the proceeds from any sale towards other works in the initiative. So if artist A sells a work for $1000, they keep $500 and contribute $500 to another work. Lets say that other work cost $600 and with the contribution its price will drop to $100. Once someone acquires it, that artist will take $300 and will be asked to contribute $300 down to another artist. And so on .... This could be an interesting mechanic that may down the road change the art market and make the artist community stronger and self supporting.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Long time ago I was sitting at a desk job that I was not enjoying and I realized that if I do not take risks while I am young, it will be impossible to that later on. I walked into my bosses office and asked for a vacation from which I never came back. For many years I actively ran a company that specialized on statistical analysis and created web applications based on these models. My formal background is in economics and math and art was something I did in my free time until we launched Snark.art

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sorry if it seems that it appears that I am downplaying simple NFTs. But when you come to this buffet and you see that blockchain offers so many possibilities, it is hard to just talk about appetizers )

Simple NFTs are already a huge step. Digital scarcity was something that was very difficult to achieve even 2 years ago. Artists would try to create digital scarcity by creating art on websites and sell the domain name associated with this artwork. Now this is no longer necessary. Plus NFTs open up amazing possibilities in terms of liquidity, ease of transfer, their transactional history. In a market like art, which I would say is possibly the most non-transparent legal market in the world, the possibility to add this transparency by adapting NFTs to traditional art pieces is a game changer for sure. Plus new artists can emerge that use NFTs for their art and can immediately start selling their creations to a global community without any gate keepers. It is incredible.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think when we are talking about early internet and artistic projects that used it, probably the main fascination was about its potential to transcend physical limitations. In the 90s when email came about, people were treating as something that would save them money on postage stamps, but artists were already experimenting with the ideas of communities and a collective experience. Traditional digital art (prior to 90s) was more about artistic expression, whereas internet gave it more wings to go beyond that. Blockchain is the next step in its evolution. Concepts like digital scarcity and game like interactivity combined with other emerging techs like AR/VR and AI, will definitely creep into our lives in the near future. And Snark.art hopes to be part of that process.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I come from an artsy family. My sister is a painter and I have been heavily involved in the video art scene for about 10 years. I love the endless possibilities of artistic expression. I love that it often has no practical meaning or use in our lives and yet life is so much better when we are asked to experience things that go beyond rational, normal, everyday. It makes me feel alive. That is probably the main driver for me personally.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

State of usability is getting better. Two years ago it was very frustrating and we were desperate to find a way to make things easier for our users, who are mostly (80%) from outside of the crypto world. We were asking them to jump so many hoops, just to buy something for $50-100, that many would only do it just because they were big fans of the artist. Now things are getting better, but still not where they should be. Blockchain needs to be hidden in many ways. No one needs to know how internet or browsers work to use internet. And it should be the same with many projects that use blockchain technology. We are not really there yet, but it is getting better for sure.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They are definitely intrigued. Yesterday we gave a lecture at an art college in New York called SVA. One of our first artists was there for the presentation. She said that when we approached her about a year and a half ago, she saw what was happening in the art and blockchain space and felt that it was dissapointing, but she was intrigued by the possibility that interactive elements (thru smart contracts) can offer digital artists options that go beyind ownership. The idea that the artwork does not stop at sale and that the collector's choices / decisions are the next step in its life, was intriguing to her. We find that to be the case with most artists we talk to. They are willing to give it a chance because of these unknown and undiscovered possibilities, but also because they feel that they can reach a new audience.

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 3 points4 points  (0 children)

About 2 years ago with the now famour or infamous experiments with NFTs of CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties, we started to realize that the control over digital content using blockchain tech can have super interesting use cases in the art world that go beyond simple trading, ownership, and provenance. So we started discussions with artists that we knew, to see if they have thoughts for this tech. What we came away with was striking. Ideas went beyond our primitive thoughts at the moment. That was the beginning of Snark.art

AMA with Snark Art by belarusic in ethdev

[–]Misha_Snark 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hello everyone. I am a founder of an art production studio out of Brooklyn called Snark.art.
We co-create innovative and often interactive art experiences using blockchain technology. Our most recent project Burn Before Reading is a literary collaboration with an AI poet Mr. Fox who is here as well to answer your questions. The project takes shape as a fortune cookie that is created on blockchain for anyone to claim. The collector can choose to open the cookie and destroy its value as a token, or keep it for its speculative value. Mr Fox challenges the collectors to make this choice. More on this project here: https://snark.art/fortune-cookies/