Carlos Gomes is the Founder of Forefront. Early contributor at Seed Club and Mint Fund.
Currently building Farcaster Index as a place to discover farcaster tokens and mints. On the other side, they shipped Terminal as the fastest way to create a channel token on Farcaster.
Carlos and Nick met IRL for the first time at FarCon in California, and then again during ETH Berlin. Current topic of conversation is going faster. Build it faster. Do it faster. Accelerate everything.
Derek Taylor is a musician and founding member of the park. A band with many of the largest onchain music mints of all time. Based in Los Angeles, originally from San Francisco.
They stage Fridays at the Park, bringing artists together in the room to write and record music. In-person experiences that also help onboard into the onchain and crypto world.
Derek is a coffee enthusiast and raconteur. Owner of the legendary Menotti’s Coffee Stop in Venice Beach. We jumped on the mics to record days before I flew out to FarCon. We co-hosted HIGHER SESSIONS down at Venice Beach skatepark on Saturday morning, with the park, $higher and UFO. Trevor aka The Gardener had a mountain of flowers there and was creating bouquets for people passing by and the park was providing coffee.
We talk about the back story of the park, stories of creative collaborations across the world, how best to get started on the onchain scene as a musician, and how things look into the future.
Happy Friday! Grateful for this pod and to The Park for constant evolution, grit, and always creating on-chain. This was easy to digest and I see it helping many. 10000 $Enjoy
Martin, Six and Kugusha are all early members of higher. A new creative collective with its own native currency, built with a token on Base, publishing on Zora, and accelerating out of sight as one of the all-time fastest growing Farcaster channels.
Higher is a lifestyle, an optimistic mindset, a brand being built in real time by hundreds of people on the internet. The word itself was used in crypto for some time, but the idea that “Higher” could be something bigger was kickstarted by LGHT in March.
LGHT created the arrow logo and the /higher Farcaster channel, after a suggestion from Jacob from Zora that the unicode up arrow (↑) could be the symbol for “higher”. And LGHT then made a few memes in a collection on Zora.
We talk about everyone’s early experiences on Farcaster and views on how it’s developing.
About the origins of higher and what’s emerging so far from this experiment, building a brand together. Zooming out on the possibilities and general sense of fun and play with people on the internet that is something to be a part of.
Scene Infrastructure Company is a software business building better instruments for socialization. We recorded with the founding team, Jose Mejia, Ethan Daya and Neesh, and what we got down on tape is super valuable context, experiences and thoughts around founding a new company.
For design, product, community building and technology choices. Coming from earlier founding experiences at organizations like FWB and Zora. On designing a brand, and finding inspirations from retro spots like computer magazines, playstation games and lore, to create something fresh.
We talk about their vision for the future and what they’d like to build, as they’re figuring it out in real time. They will be activating a social product experience for FWB Fest in California in August.
LATASHÁ is the founder of Topia. The evolution will not be televised. It will be onchain. She’s an artist, musician, producer, world builder.
An original from the onchain music scene who was minting works on Zora back in 2021. She became Community Lead at Zora and produced ZORATOPIA. An events series and community which helped to onboard artists into new internet ways of releasing music and working together.
Music prize winner in the We Love The Art contest from Optimism for WAVE, a track and music video produced from her home studio.
We talk about her origins in music and production, making beats and writing, coming up in the scene in New York. Experiences working at ZORA in these earlier formative stages. Reflections on the space in this moment in 2024, and hints at what she’s building now at Topia.
July is a founder of Faust. Developing Roc: a reality oracle computer that notarizes reality, onchain. He’s an engineer who built flying cars and autonomous vehicles with Kittyhawk, a startup backed by Google.
He’s an early Farcaster user and creator of the /july channel with 6.5K members. A place where anyone is invited to post musings, thoughts & dreams.
We talk about counterculture movements. What’s happening on Farcaster and onchain. About collective imagination and the zeitgeist, how that is expressed through culture. Why people want to build robots. What all these things mean for the future.
Nat Emodi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Highlight. Their product is being used for generative releases by leading artists, organizations, and platforms.
Helping creators to release any type of collection, from tightly curated series to generative open editions.
We recorded an episode about the ideas from his article '20 for ’24: Digital Art Trends That Will Shape This Year' and put the focus on art and trends in the industry, technology, for artists and collectors, galleries and curators.
Alvaro Delgado is a musician, artist, and co-founder of Oval — A newborn creative community from Barcelona.
Oval is putting together a series of concert and club nights, community events, suppers, and writing camps — designed to foster cross-pollination among individuals who have come to the city in search of something more: a spotlight, a sense of belonging.
Nick Hollins, Alex Guy, aiio and LGHT are hosts of the first shows on the UFO network.
Alex is head of Growth at Zerion and recently launched Still Here. A show to explore his curiosity talking with people who are active web3 citizens. Through all the ups and downs of crypto. Answering the question of what motivates and inspires them. Why they’re still here.
aiio is a researcher, community builder and writer bridging across web3 and the underground electronic music and arts communities in Copenhagen. Soon bringing a podcast to UFO. She writes about the concept of space, linking it to human culture, existence, and the need for adaptive ecosystems.
LGHT is an artist, designer, writer, and technologist based in the Eastern United States. Creator of the Hypercultures essay series as well as co-founding Based Management. His work mainly focuses on protocol design, the science of digital language/memetics, and zero to one acceleration of tech primitives and adoption.
Today we’re announcing LGHT’s upcoming series on UFO — PROTOTYPE
We talk about UFO as a collective signal. Building a radio station onchain. Sharing experiences and imaginings for how we see this going forward into 2024.
Leo Pastel is a musician, songwriter, multi-sensory artist and builder in web3 music from Cincinnati, Ohio. Releasing music since 2018 and in the early days of the crypto music scene.
His first single Woah had 750,000 streams and he's produced with Songcamp and Camp CHAOS, performing at FWB Fest.
Leo tells stories from the gospel scene, growing up in a musical family, and singing as part of the Sunday Service Choir with Kanye.
Music on the internet is in a state of change. NFTs are still unpopular to a general audience, while Condé Nast announced layoffs at Pitchfork.
If we’re making music and no-one’s around to listen, critique, write about it and record into the zeitgeist — does it make a sound?
Nick Smith is a designer from Melbourne, Australia. Founder of Fam, a space for music communities to grow, collaborate and collectively fund creative projects.
He’s an early member from FWB and helped to organise Soulquest, a collaborative music project featuring Iman Europe, V.C.R, illcamille, and Swarvy, along with visual artists Jamee Cornelia and Shawntel Johnson.
The group performed and recorded at FWB Fest in Idyllwild, CA in 2023.
Adam Levy is the creator and host of Mint Podcast. Exploring the web3 creator economy. One of the best podcasts in the space.
He is also a founder of Bello, where you can discover actionable insights about your collectors from their wallets and onchain activity through a simple search.
Recorded between NYC and Liverpool, we talk music and playing drums, onchain media and messing about with technology.
How Adam's early podcasts drinking with Mark Cuban in 2020 illuminated a path forward to creating Mint and putting out 7 seasons so far with guests in crypto, music and entertainment.
Which led to creating Bello and exploring what onchain data reveals about audiences, mints, web3 social, and communities.
Rafa is the founder of Folklore, a community crafting knowledge of connection, lorecraft, and digital realms.
Jihad Esmail is a writer, researcher and builder. A media dealer at Forefront proliferating onchain collective creation.
We talk about The Casino on Mars written by Matt Huang for Paradigm. Also a research piece written by Rafa in which he’s exploring ideas around swarm theory and how groups form and how this manifests online.
Matthew Chaim is a founder of Songcamp which is an artist collective and creative studio experimenting with songwriting camps and emergent technology to unlock new ways of creating and releasing music on the internet.
We talk about all three of the previous Songcamp releases to date: Genesis, Elektra, and CHAOS ~ the epic headless band with 77 contributing artists. Leading up to their latest, C4 which drops today!
Jesse Pollak is contributor #1 at Base. A new Ethereum L2, incubated by Coinbase and built on the open-source OP Stack.
We talk about Jesse’s origin stories in tech and joining Coinbase early. How an idea to do something radical like decentralise Coinbase and bring the whole org onchain set things in motion, and led to Base being developed like a breakaway startup from within.
You'll hear stories about how it’s working behind the scenes for players in this onchain movement including Base, Zora and Optimism.
We look back on Onchain Summer from August and highlight projects including Basepaint, Happy Friday coffee by thepark, create.fun, Paragraph and Lore.
Zeneca is the founder of Zen Academy, a space designed to be a helpful community to learn about about web3 and NFTs.
Former professional poker player. Speaker and content creator, writing about crypto, web3, NFTs, and the future of the internet.
We talk about new ideas in onchain media. Adapting when your business model disappears along with NFT royalties. Highlights from the blur that was the NFT boom.
About Zeneca’s interest in stoicism and well founded concerns about mental health and burnout from being maxed out when you are extremely online.
Matt Alston and Melissa Zhang are co-founders of Bonfire. The no-code website builder for web3 creators, brands and communities. A place for artists to connect with their fans and design exclusive experiences.
We talk about the origins of Bonfire and the opportunities to be found in new models for artists on the internet.
Paff is a co-founder of Take Up Space. A community, creator collective and media company for culture-makers.
Their goals are to create opportunities for POC & queer voices to take up space as their most authentic selves. And they are curating an artists drop on @ourZORA with a theme of technology of togetherness.
We talk about earlier times on the internet, music forum culture, meeting people IRL through music festivals and dance floors, and new ways to make connections now that life is going digital.
Robin Schmidt aka SuperMassive is the founder and CEO of BasedAF.
Multi-award winning film director and creative. That dude what ran an ULTRAmarathon in VR Chat. Sponsored by FRAZ, the No1 beverage in the Metaverse.
He also produced YouTube videos with The Defiant all through DeFi summer and the NFT run from 2021.
Now he’s stepped out of the crypto world, jumping into another industry that’s at the edges: The Metaverse. Fucking about with what’s possible, and experimenting with virtual content creation.
Thomas Scaria is the co-founder and CEO of Lore. Where communities turn social energy into collective power.
Lore V2 introduces a modular protocol that covers the entire lifecycle of community capital formation, coordination, and allocation.
Explore communities and mint Membership NFTs. Make things happen with internet friends.
We talk about socialfi and friend.tech. Crypto as a counterculture movement. Internet subcultures and group chats. Building collectives to take action together.
LGHT is a creator, artist and writer who explores web3, art, NFTs, DAOs, memetic icons, hypercultures and more at lght.mirror.xyz. Publishing imaginative concepts, research, insights and models.
Gami is our first returning guest, a member of Nouns and founder of Gnars DAO. This recording was the first time these two have met each other “in person” for a conversation.
We jam about memetic icons, skateboarding, hyperstructures, minting onchain, psychedelic experiences and the future of the internet. Wandering into the philosophical, a few concepts were struck upon: serendipity machines, and ever increasing novelty in the universe as per Terence McKenna.
🎙️This collaborative conversation between @lght + @gami, and hosted by Nick Hollins of @ufoclub, is essential listening. Same can be said for the minting.
Fancy is an instigator at RADAR and previous founding team at Protein.
RADAR is a decentralised global collective of more than 300 researchers, early adopters and innovators accelerating better futures.
We catch RADAR as they launch Cycle 3 — Our Centaur Future. Producing a foresight report that paints a picture of what lies ahead with artificial intelligence and lays the groundwork for how to bring it to life.
wijuwiju.eth is an initial contributor at Interface. Their app is a companion for exploring the realms of Ethereum.
Making sense of onchain data, context and meaning that is all over the place. Gathering it together in ways that are understandable, $enjoyable, surprisingly social and actionable for being on top of signals in crypto.
We talk about how their team came together with support via a 50 ETH crowdfund on Mirror. Including essential contributions in design by annoushka.
Thinking about what the Interface app can do today and some alpha for what’s on the near horizon.
Jayden Windle is a developer from Future Primitive. Isaac is a product manager from Zora working on Nouns Builder. Neokry is a resident engineer from BuilderDAO and Nouns Builder.
We join for a conversation about the new NFT standard ERC-6551 which Jayden is working on with Future Primitive, including our friend Benny Giang. Any NFT that has previously existed or will in the future has now become a wallet. NFTs can now hold other NFTs. It’s turtles all the way down.
We talk about Nouns Builder and what’s happening in that ecosystem. The state of DAOs in 2023. Manifestations of onchain media. Collective creation as DAOs form around NFTs.
How ideas like these and many others are forming a new lifestyle for the internet.
Ivano Salonia is the creative director of UFO, based in Amsterdam. An artist, musician and creator in extended realities and virtual worlds.
Since July 2022, Ivano and Nick Hollins have been creating the visual identity, art and brand of UFO. We went to ETH Tokyo in April and hacked on a UFO project with Lens Protocol and Livepeer. We just built a website at ufo.fm — an onchain radio station and club for music, arts and ideas.
We talk about Ivano’s artistic practice starting out in advertising, design and brand. Doing work with global companies and agencies. How he became interested in making art in virtual reality, and experiments with AI and generative tools such as Midjourney.
Diving into the web3, crypto and NFTs space from 2020. Working on projects including the motorcycle art video game Night Run with Matto from Hypercastles, and designing the 3D records for the Metalabel Quality Drops.
Karma and Violetta are music artists, travellers in the crypto space, exploring onchain music and art and creative collectives.
Founders of wavWRLD. Seeking to create unique musical experiences that connect artists with their true fans. A creative collective and music community that has been a shared space for many web3 music artists and builders.
We talk about their new project wavGAME. A collective release involving artists who performed at their first wavWRLD live showcases in New York featuring TK, Tarot, AbJo, Cam Murdoch, Jadyn Violet, Fred Riko, KarmaVioletta, and Black Dave who was the guest for from UFO 11.
pet3rpan is a partner from 1kx. Investing in autonomous worlds, NFT IP, metalabels, generative consumer and DAOs.
Summoner at Hydra Ventures, a fund backing investment DAOs. Early founding member at MetaCartel from 2018, the web3 community of creators and developers focused on building blockchain applications, using crypto in interesting ways, exploring new ideas and experiments with DAOs.
We talk about his experiences in the web3 space. About the early internet and how it works. About the cypherpunks from the 70s, 80s and 90s who pioneered these ideas about digital freedoms and rights, and cryptography. And about collective lore and canon, like a shared belief in the Star Wars universe.
Chris Carella is a founding DAO member from Purple. He’s an artist, contributor across Nouns and Product Lead at the DAO tooling platform Charmverse.
Phil Mohun is an early member of Purple and a founding DAO member of the arts community at Bright Moments.
They met each other through joining Purple DAO which took form in the Farcaster community and ecosystem of builders in Ethereum. Purple was an early DAO launched with Nouns Builder. The daily auction is up to #257.
We talk about experiences behind the scenes at Purple. Contentious votes and ideas about DAO governance. The urgent need and opportunity to build out the web3 social ecosystem. What they like about the properties of Farcaster. And the potential for DAOs like Purple to fund public goods and open source projects in ways that don’t always require a profit incentive.
Steph Alinsug is a brand builder, storyteller, community organiser, and media creative. Founder of VESSEL. An emergent startup designing for the onchain media ecosystem.
Until recently she was the Media Steward at Seed Club. Internet native accelerator with a growing network of alumni projects including ALLSHIPS, Cabin, Forefront, Metalabel, Poolsuite, Protein, Refraction, Songcamp, Take Up Space and Water & Music.
We talk about Broadcast - an inaugural web3 media event held in Brooklyn May 2023. An invite only summit focusing on the future of onchain media. It was a collaboration between VESSEL and Foster which is a writers collective based in New York, and Seed Club.
Natasha Hoskins is a creator, brand builder and Co-Founder of Boys Club. A social collective bringing a new voice to the new internet.
Product studio and media company. Best known for their parties, community, podcasts, interviews with crypto builders, memes, merch and a newsletter.
We talk about their experiences building a social collective brand in crypto. How they designed their DAO. How they are thinking about audiences and making collaborative releases like printing a physical zine ~ distributing by hand across South by Southwest.
Marcus AM is a creator, researcher, builder and artist. Fellow of the Ethereum Foundation and co-creator of Ethereum Guatemala. Researcher and author of the Last Mile Defi Report on crypto adoption in Latin America.
Host and producer of the Odisea Podcast and recently the Last Mile DeFi Podcast.
We talk about Marcus’ origin stories growing up in rural Guatemala, observing corruption and fraught financial infrastructure leading to his early interest in Bitcoin. Through to verging into the Ethereum and crypto builder space and being accepted as a fellow of the Ethereum Foundation to research opportunities, challenges and use cases for crypto adoption in Latin America.
Crypto as a counterculture movement. Marcus’ interests in podcasting. Supporting young developers and teams in the Latin American ecosystem and the impact created by Devcon and ETH Global events happening in the region.
Clare Farrell is a founding member of Extinction Rebellion. She’s an activist, artist, designer, communicator and organiser.
If you’ve ever seen the Adam McKay movie ~ Don’t Look Up ~ with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, in which an asteroid is found to be on a collision course with Earth, and the protagonists go on television in America to try and raise the alarm, only to be met by the banal absurdity of how mainstream news works.
Well, Clare Farrell has that role in real life as part of XR. She appears on TV to speak on behalf of this decentralised movement, especially when the show has potential to be a bit antagonistic. A surreal experience to find yourself in.
We talk about Clare’s origins in fashion and design and creative activism, up to being part of the originating group of Extinction Rebellion in 2018.
We discuss their demands for net zero carbon emissions by 2025, citizens assemblies and direct democracy, and reparatory justice for nations and people around the world most impacted by the climate crisis.
Gami is a founder at Gnars and a member at Nouns. With his team at Omega they just dropped an NFT project called Forgeries. An open edition minting NFT copies of Noun 401 and one of those tokens unlocked ownership of the real Noun.
Gami has a background in skateboarding, growing up in rural Australia, before becoming a sponsored skater and other adventures. In this episode we talk origin stories in crypto and NFTs, his early involvement in Nouns and the founding of Gnars, a community owned (and run) extreme sports club with over 1000 $members.
They are responsible for the grind box in a public square in Rio de Janeiro which was a bright red pair of Nouns noggles, some iconic early Nouns images. Now they’re teaming up with skateboarding hall of famer Bob Burnquist for community projects in Brazil.
Evin McMullen is the co-founder and CEO at Disco. A company building tools to make it easy to carry your data from web2 to web3, under your ownership and control. Using Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable credentials.
We talk about Evin's origin stories before web3 and crypto, how the Disco team came together, and the community design superpowers unlocked by combining Disco with tools from Guild.
Yuri Rybak is a musician and producer. Partnerships at ZORA. Member at Friends With Benefits, including as a producer at NFT Pirate Radio with Chuck Anderson.
We talk about writing and producing music, the music industry, and what we see as emergent for music NFTs and artist collectives.
We get into Yuri’s musical path through life, leading to early involvement with FWB, where he was on the scene for many experiments in NFT releases from artists including Glassface, Pussy Riot, and Eric Hu.
Experiences from the inside at ZORA where he now works, their brand and creative, zorbs, minting to 1155 contracts, and the rising ecosystem of Nouns Builder projects.
Sirsu is the co-founder of BLVKHVND. He’s an artist, designer, brand creator, gamer.
BLVKHVND is creating an emerging ecosystem for onchain esports organizations. Their mission is to be the center of competition no matter where it lives.
We talk about Sirsu’s journey from earlier days in gaming, art, NFTs and crypto. What it’s been like behind the scenes. From raising $1 million in one day on a Mirror crowd fund to booting up an eSports organization with multiple teams competing around the world.
Helping to launch Mint Fund in collaboration with others at Forefront, Zora and Seed Club ~ a community-owned initiative helping crypto creators mint their first NFTs.
Sirsu has many stories to tell, and much of it is shared here for the first time.
Nir Kabessa is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yup, along with Co-Founder Vernon Johnson. Yup is the best of web3, all in one feed. Aggregating the best content of Lens, Farcaster, Mirror, NFTs, and Crypto Twitter.
Nir was President of Blockchain at Columbia from 2018 to 2020. Since 2020 he’s been a Mentor at the Columbia IBM Blockchain Accelerator. He’s a speaker and investor, contributing at publications including Forefront, Hacker Noon and Big Think.
We talk about the EVM as a social network. The rapid evolution, growth and experimentation we’re seeing in web3 social. What it means for DAOs and media networks like UFO. And Nir’s early origins in the crypto space, starting way back in 2014 and amping up from 2017.
Rafa is a web3 creator, writer, and operations specialist. Crafting lore and exploring web3 collectives, combining org design theory with digital community building. Most recently he worked at Mirror as their Community and Growth Lead.
He's the founder of Folklore, a community exploring long-form articles related to belonging, lorecraft, human relationships, and digital realms.
We talk about topics of content, media and internet communities. The web3 creator playbook and NFTs as unlocks including the ability to earn ownership in protocols and DAOs through participation rather than only financial means.
Dutchtide is an independent artist, designer and founder based in the Netherlands. Creator of the NFT collection ~ MidnightBreeze, released in late 2021.
Illustrations inspired by 90s vaporwave and the Japanese word Ma 間 which translates to ‘space’ but can be interpreted many different ways. In this case to space in-between spaces.
We talk about the inspirations of Japanese art and culture and its influence for his art practice coming from a Dutch style of colour, light, composition and architecture. His earlier days in NFTs including the life altering sale of a Beeple work which funded his own projects and secured a CryptoPunk.
Experiences with MidnightBreeze as a community of collectors has grown up around the works. And what their team has been busy doing ever since the initial drop to create a second version in which the collection is being reimagined in a time intensive process, evolving from still image into fully rendered animation.
losingmyego, 0xTranqui and Salief Lewis are founding members from Public Assembly. A collective of web3 developers building dev tools and educational materials ~ libraries and repositories of information.
Public Assembly launched on Nouns Builder on December 3, 2022 ~ leveraging the unique physics of the internet to create what’s missing as fast as possible. Bread crumbs to leave in the dark forest of crypto.
We talk about the origins of their project which began as a four-week creative sprint and evolved from being anti-DAO to in fact launching a DAO of their own. We talk about the philosophy of co-creation, open source, and the types of communal environments we create together on the internet.
Jihad Esmail is a core contributor at Forefront ~ proliferating collective creation. Key author for Tokenized Communities Year In Review. He’s a researcher at Other Internet, an applied research organisation studying social technology.
Jihad is active in the Nouns DAO community, one of the most fascinating things happening in the crypto space as its evolved since launch in 2021.
We talk all things governance, memes, NFT memberships, onchain media and trends seen over recent years for web3 communities from ERC20s and social tokens to PFP NFT collections, web3 social and the emergence of nounish projects.
Scott Moore is the Co-Founder of Gitcoin, the community of builders, creators, and protocols at the centre of open web ecosystems.
We talk about the ideals of solarpunk, aiming to build towards a techno-positive future, what it means and how this ties into recognising web3 as a counterculture movement.
About the origins of Gitcoin and what they’ve discovered along the way. Thinking about funding public goods like a subway system that produces value for a whole city ecosystem, for the people who live there and all their activities.
And we talk about the nature of web3 projects like Nouns DAO, formed in a memetic way, almost entirely from the grassroots as people try to collectively figure out what this meme is and what they’re trying to do with it.
María Paula is the retired founder of the Department of Decentralization which organised the ETH Berlin hackathon events.
Trent Elmore was working in DeFi before teaming up with María and Sam Spike as co-founders of JPG. A platform and infrastructure to promote and preserve the NFT ecosystem's cultural objects via exhibitions and canons.
We talk about the origins of JPG, community co-curation for the Dynamic and Conceptual Art Canons, and observations from earlier years in Ethereum through DeFi summer and the NFTs bull market up to present day.
Matto is a generative artist, audio, code, and visual. Managing Director of Thousand Ant, creative studio based in New York.
His latest Night Run is a conceptual art project with three parts: A motorcycle game where you look at art in a generated city space; An NFT collection with imaginary fashion houses; A series of videos with commentary.
UFO art director Ivano Salonia collaborated on creative and design, including for the Night Run logo and designs for imaginary fashion houses you’ll hear about in this episode.
We also talk about the NFTs ecosystem that Matto has been interested in over the past couple years, with a few highlights including Terraforms, Blitmaps, Loot, Toadz and Nouns.
Benny Giang is a product marketer and creative thinker in UX design, growth and community. Co-founder at Future Primitive where they work on experimental creative projects involving NFTs and DAOs such as the Stapleverse with Jeff Staples.
Team member #13 at Dapper Labs and a co-founder of the iconic CryptoKitties early NFTs project in 2017. Later working on NBA Top Shot before departing from Dapper in October 2021.
We talk about the origin stories of NFTs and creating the first ever NFTs discord community for CryptoKitties, a group chat including founders from Dapper, Axie Infinity, OpenSea and many others.
We explore new creative experiments Benny is working on with Future Primitive, including BEEP3R ~ a hackathon project from ETH Global making nostalgic 90s pager NFTs that can communicate onchain via XMPT.
Black Dave aka Dave Curry is a music artist, producer, rapper, photographer, and innovator in the realms of web3 music and NFTs.
He’s a contributor at leading music DAOs such as Water & Music, and shares ideas about crypto and music at his Mirror publication. He helped to found a collaborative music project Amethyst from his hometown in Charleston, South Carolina.
His latest release Black Dave Token is an audacious project which aims to support his musical journey raising 250 ETH with 1 million NFTs.
We talk platforms for minting music such as ZORA, Catalog and Sound. Dynamics of scarcity in music NFTs ~ 1/1s as fine art and editions as building blocks for communities. And his belief that we should value artists by their potential, not their present moment.
Anna Bulbrook is a musician, multi-disciplinary cultural curator, creative producer, and director. She is part of the founding squad at Metalabel and is the Music Curator at TED, and has played violin for artists like Perfume Genius, Beyoncé, Vampire Weekend and Spiritualized.
Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He’s the cofounder and director of Metalabel, cofounder of Kickstarter, and cofounder of the artist resource The Creative Independent.
We talk about their first onchain record, explore two new articles by Yancey which are Reinventing The Record and The Onchain Era, and the importance of directly valuing the creative work you love.
Nicolas Sassoon is a Franco-Canadian artist using early computer graphics to create a wide array of pixelated forms, patterns & architectural structures. His works are published on SuperRare, Foundation, and Objkt, having been collected by some of the most notable NFT collectors in the space.
Sam Mason de Caires is an engineer who’s into generative art. Presently at Syndicate, and previously at Foundation and Rainbow. Along with their friends Tim Smith and FEELS, they are a collective who are collecting art together as a DAO.
We talk about art and the web3 space. About Nicolas’ artistic practice and how he makes his works. How technology is enabling new ways to create, collect, and support artistic expression. And what kinds of NFTs Sam and Nicolas are interested in for Gossamer.
Martí Ruids is a musician and sound artist. Professor and researcher in the sculpture department at the Universitat de Barcelona. With more than a decade of experience with sound sculptures and working with masters in Japan.
Member of Híbrida, Nen i Cavall. Part of a duet band RIUH with Raquel Cruces performing traditional folk music from the Iberian Peninsula. Member of Pangamelan, exploring gamelan music from Indonesia, using pots and pans to create unique instruments, rhythm, pitch and percussion, achieving trance like states.
We talk about experimental music. Sound and resonance. How it effects consciousness. The very nature of reality. Martí's work reviving Baschet Sound Sculptures with concerts in Japan. And exploring the realms of traditional music from Iberia, across places in Catalunya, Basque country, and Portugal.
ATARA, aka Johannes Saam, is an Academy Award-winning creative technologist, futurist, and web3 artist. With two decades innovating in visual effects and film, raised by 80s and 90s movies and video games, he's an explorative creator of generative art, and most recently as co-founder of a new NFT collection ~ DALL-E Punks.
We talk about his visual effects career in the film industry, exploring creativity through coding, mathematics and technology, the latest from AI generative platforms such as DALL·E 2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, and we go behind the scenes for the creation of DALL-E Punks.
Peacenode is a designer and graphic artist at Seed Club and Songcamp.
We talk about his origin stories in crypto, background in the music scene, about creative practice and making poster designs for over 200 days straight, how he got involved at Seed Club and Songcamp, and a jam about projects we’re into like Nouns Builder from Zora.
Reka is a co-founder at Guild, the ultimate tool for platformless memberships and quests for internet communities.
Reka writes about communities, DAOs and internet culture and has just dropped a new series on Mirror — chaos is a public good — co-written with her friend LDF from Disco.
We talk about the origin stories of Guild, how their team came together, what they’re focused on building and Reka’s interest in jokedao and jokerace.
Alexander Guy is head of growth at Zerion a Smart Social Web3 Wallet. A place to manage your crypto, DeFi and NFT portfolios. Trade across multichain and connect to any decentralized application.
We talk about the crypto lifestyle. Why we think it’s a compelling space to be looking to join a company or create a project. We talk about common pitfalls of the crypto lifestyle like FOMO, always being on, stress about security, excessive information input, and challenges in getting up to speed when you’re new and joining crypto.
Austin Robey is a member of the founding squad at Metalabel. An assembly of founders, creators and producers emerging from the web2 economy, now helping to amplify the meme of the metalabel.
Imagined as a release club where groups of people with shared interests create and release work together.
Nyx is a co-founder of Crypto Coven, focusing mostly on art, code and lore for an NFT collection of 9999 witches created by five friends.
We talk about creating a project like this from the inside perspective. The power of lore, storytelling and world building. And what can be accomplished in smart contract design and doing creative things with the tech.
Charlie Waterhouse is a co-founder of the Art Group and Media team at Extinction Rebellion based in London. He’s Creative Director of This Ain’t Rock ’n’ Roll and a director of the Brixton Pound.
We talk about the origins of Extinction Rebellion, a global movement using non-violent direct action to persuade governments to take action on climate, and inspire public consciousness to the cause.
ufoclub
59 Going Faster with Farcaster Index and Terminal — Carlos Gomes
Currently building Farcaster Index as a place to discover farcaster tokens and mints. On the other side, they shipped Terminal as the fastest way to create a channel token on Farcaster.
Carlos and Nick met IRL for the first time at FarCon in California, and then again during ETH Berlin. Current topic of conversation is going faster. Build it faster. Do it faster. Accelerate everything.
58 Nouns Culture with The Yellow Collective — Toadyhawk, Benbodhi
They are founders of The Noun Square, an onchain media collective funded by Nouns, which is home to the Zero Rights Reserved Podcast.
The project has evolved into The Yellow Collective on Base. Supporting artists and creativity onchain and exploring nounish culture.
We talk about memes, DAOs, the vanishing media business, hanging out at FarCon in California, and the future of Nouns.
57 Happy Friday with the park ⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ — Derek Taylor
They stage Fridays at the Park, bringing artists together in the room to write and record music. In-person experiences that also help onboard into the onchain and crypto world.
Derek is a coffee enthusiast and raconteur. Owner of the legendary Menotti’s Coffee Stop in Venice Beach. We jumped on the mics to record days before I flew out to FarCon. We co-hosted HIGHER SESSIONS down at Venice Beach skatepark on Saturday morning, with the park, $higher and UFO. Trevor aka The Gardener had a mountain of flowers there and was creating bouquets for people passing by and the park was providing coffee.
We talk about the back story of the park, stories of creative collaborations across the world, how best to get started on the onchain scene as a musician, and how things look into the future.
Happy Friday 171171 $enjoy10000 $Enjoy
⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ ⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ ⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ 22222 $Enjoy ⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ ⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ ⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ56 Higher is a lifestyle — Martin, Six, Kugusha
Higher is a lifestyle, an optimistic mindset, a brand being built in real time by hundreds of people on the internet. The word itself was used in crypto for some time, but the idea that “Higher” could be something bigger was kickstarted by LGHT in March.
LGHT created the arrow logo and the /higher Farcaster channel, after a suggestion from Jacob from Zora that the unicode up arrow (↑) could be the symbol for “higher”. And LGHT then made a few memes in a collection on Zora.
We talk about everyone’s early experiences on Farcaster and views on how it’s developing.
About the origins of higher and what’s emerging so far from this experiment, building a brand together. Zooming out on the possibilities and general sense of fun and play with people on the internet that is something to be a part of.
Notes —
↑ 100000 $ENJOY55 Designing Social Instruments with Scene Infrastructure Company — Jose, Ethan, Neesh
For design, product, community building and technology choices. Coming from earlier founding experiences at organizations like FWB and Zora. On designing a brand, and finding inspirations from retro spots like computer magazines, playstation games and lore, to create something fresh.
We talk about their vision for the future and what they’d like to build, as they’re figuring it out in real time. They will be activating a social product experience for FWB Fest in California in August.
Notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/Xk-3VmSnIkwTP4Ny6EB3S8dkYbAz0xBVrlFv6w5d9NI
54 Music Evolution with Topia — LATASHÁ
An original from the onchain music scene who was minting works on Zora back in 2021. She became Community Lead at Zora and produced ZORATOPIA. An events series and community which helped to onboard artists into new internet ways of releasing music and working together.
Music prize winner in the We Love The Art contest from Optimism for WAVE, a track and music video produced from her home studio.
We talk about her origins in music and production, making beats and writing, coming up in the scene in New York. Experiences working at ZORA in these earlier formative stages. Reflections on the space in this moment in 2024, and hints at what she’s building now at Topia.
notes —
1000 $ENJOY Lets gooo Latasha53 Flying Cars, Robots and Reality Oracle Computers with Faust — July
He’s an early Farcaster user and creator of the /july channel with 6.5K members. A place where anyone is invited to post musings, thoughts & dreams.
We talk about counterculture movements. What’s happening on Farcaster and onchain. About collective imagination and the zeitgeist, how that is expressed through culture. Why people want to build robots. What all these things mean for the future.
notes —
$6900 $enjoy sage chad10000 $ENJOY
YESSS 111111 $ENJOY52 Digital Art Trends for 2024 with Highlight — Nat Emodi
Helping creators to release any type of collection, from tightly curated series to generative open editions.
We recorded an episode about the ideas from his article '20 for ’24: Digital Art Trends That Will Shape This Year' and put the focus on art and trends in the industry, technology, for artists and collectors, galleries and curators.
notes —
51 Coming Together for Music in Barcelona with Oval — Alvaro Delgado
Oval is putting together a series of concert and club nights, community events, suppers, and writing camps — designed to foster cross-pollination among individuals who have come to the city in search of something more: a spotlight, a sense of belonging.
notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/_Kp-X93r0DuuL7qKcHTYbYzKgIfdldQygzi3cXBZ3Zo
50 A Collective Signal with UFO — Alex Guy, aiio, LGHT
Alex is head of Growth at Zerion and recently launched Still Here. A show to explore his curiosity talking with people who are active web3 citizens. Through all the ups and downs of crypto. Answering the question of what motivates and inspires them. Why they’re still here.
aiio is a researcher, community builder and writer bridging across web3 and the underground electronic music and arts communities in Copenhagen. Soon bringing a podcast to UFO. She writes about the concept of space, linking it to human culture, existence, and the need for adaptive ecosystems.
LGHT is an artist, designer, writer, and technologist based in the Eastern United States. Creator of the Hypercultures essay series as well as co-founding Based Management. His work mainly focuses on protocol design, the science of digital language/memetics, and zero to one acceleration of tech primitives and adoption.
Today we’re announcing LGHT’s upcoming series on UFO — PROTOTYPE
We talk about UFO as a collective signal. Building a radio station onchain. Sharing experiences and imaginings for how we see this going forward into 2024.
notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/OU_6D3dxBBn8OIR-7PqgWh2oZg3m3PCAara3RZyqCBs
49 Songwriting, Music and the Internet in 2024 — Leo Pastel
His first single Woah had 750,000 streams and he's produced with Songcamp and Camp CHAOS, performing at FWB Fest.
Leo tells stories from the gospel scene, growing up in a musical family, and singing as part of the Sunday Service Choir with Kanye.
Music on the internet is in a state of change. NFTs are still unpopular to a general audience, while Condé Nast announced layoffs at Pitchfork.
If we’re making music and no-one’s around to listen, critique, write about it and record into the zeitgeist — does it make a sound?
notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/m5dymtY0qldI3431x6nuolSqLjpFamYar8LegXoULOw
48 Multiplayer Music Communities with Fam — Nick Smith
He’s an early member from FWB and helped to organise Soulquest, a collaborative music project featuring Iman Europe, V.C.R, illcamille, and Swarvy, along with visual artists Jamee Cornelia and Shawntel Johnson.
The group performed and recorded at FWB Fest in Idyllwild, CA in 2023.
notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/NNyuo2uXxdIhfKTOfMALwj8iqKtpm7fn6efhd-CARhE
47 Music, AI and Neural Audio Synthesizers with SEMILLA AI — Hexorcismos + aiio
aiio is a researcher, community builder and writer bridging across web3 and the underground electronic music and arts communities in Copenhagen.
notes
46 Reimagining Content Collecting with Mint & Bello — Adam Levy
He is also a founder of Bello, where you can discover actionable insights about your collectors from their wallets and onchain activity through a simple search.
Recorded between NYC and Liverpool, we talk music and playing drums, onchain media and messing about with technology.
How Adam's early podcasts drinking with Mark Cuban in 2020 illuminated a path forward to creating Mint and putting out 7 seasons so far with guests in crypto, music and entertainment.
Which led to creating Bello and exploring what onchain data reveals about audiences, mints, web3 social, and communities.
notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/wlGU80XYk9agumnsjm-Gl-zdhwwPCvhLnMZGQp1qhac
45 Memetic Tribes and The Casino on Mars — Rafa & Jihad
Jihad Esmail is a writer, researcher and builder. A media dealer at Forefront proliferating onchain collective creation.
We talk about The Casino on Mars written by Matt Huang for Paradigm. Also a research piece written by Rafa in which he’s exploring ideas around swarm theory and how groups form and how this manifests online.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/Tgct3FEgXiP9wXKTnmXjuFa7VB1lhct5QfwZMtBKl2Y
44 Minting Blank CDs with Songcamp — Matthew Chaim
We talk about all three of the previous Songcamp releases to date: Genesis, Elektra, and CHAOS ~ the epic headless band with 77 contributing artists. Leading up to their latest, C4 which drops today!
notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/HW6kAAWhG0FXWHo_8WsK-4Mnli-bsaLrwstP5zTnFzM
43 Bringing the World Onchain with Base — Jesse Pollak
We talk about Jesse’s origin stories in tech and joining Coinbase early. How an idea to do something radical like decentralise Coinbase and bring the whole org onchain set things in motion, and led to Base being developed like a breakaway startup from within.
You'll hear stories about how it’s working behind the scenes for players in this onchain movement including Base, Zora and Optimism.
We look back on Onchain Summer from August and highlight projects including Basepaint, Happy Friday coffee by thepark, create.fun, Paragraph and Lore.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/xymRfatJuK8xVLTAlUTElnpljOGhrmYiWXrMrst_BEY
42 Creating Within the NFT Mania with Zen Academy — Zeneca
Former professional poker player. Speaker and content creator, writing about crypto, web3, NFTs, and the future of the internet.
We talk about new ideas in onchain media. Adapting when your business model disappears along with NFT royalties. Highlights from the blur that was the NFT boom.
About Zeneca’s interest in stoicism and well founded concerns about mental health and burnout from being maxed out when you are extremely online.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/7mbDvoQi8VpAmE38IGAMDIdKfmZr9PUva9XF3NYntK8
41 Revolutionising Websites for Artists and Fans with Bonfire — Matt Alston, Melissa Zhang
We talk about the origins of Bonfire and the opportunities to be found in new models for artists on the internet.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/WWPjNivzPT1MZSjYJtcIm8F8Qq8MpskYlF_2FkLdbrU
40 Community for Culture-Makers with Take Up Space — Paff
Their goals are to create opportunities for POC & queer voices to take up space as their most authentic selves. And they are curating an artists drop on @ourZORA with a theme of technology of togetherness.
We talk about earlier times on the internet, music forum culture, meeting people IRL through music festivals and dance floors, and new ways to make connections now that life is going digital.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/NIAWYeJVwmvXJWIF-EqrWbgfQwK68pcN_MDrQrAzDYg
39 Producing in The Metaverse with BasedAF — SuperMassive
Multi-award winning film director and creative. That dude what ran an ULTRAmarathon in VR Chat. Sponsored by FRAZ, the No1 beverage in the Metaverse.
He also produced YouTube videos with The Defiant all through DeFi summer and the NFT run from 2021.
Now he’s stepped out of the crypto world, jumping into another industry that’s at the edges: The Metaverse. Fucking about with what’s possible, and experimenting with virtual content creation.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/KR_2CLshinnCG84Yhvq--zdceWcWGDfyWMWy-Odn7UA
38 Internet Energy as Collectives with Lore — Thomas Scaria
Lore V2 introduces a modular protocol that covers the entire lifecycle of community capital formation, coordination, and allocation.
Explore communities and mint Membership NFTs. Make things happen with internet friends.
We talk about socialfi and friend.tech. Crypto as a counterculture movement. Internet subcultures and group chats. Building collectives to take action together.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/Sl1V8GoO4osTsjL3FQAVZjzuBmTxHF4hUR0vHkD91Gc
37 Serendipity Machines & Hypercultures — LGHT + Gami
Gami is our first returning guest, a member of Nouns and founder of Gnars DAO. This recording was the first time these two have met each other “in person” for a conversation.
We jam about memetic icons, skateboarding, hyperstructures, minting onchain, psychedelic experiences and the future of the internet. Wandering into the philosophical, a few concepts were struck upon: serendipity machines, and ever increasing novelty in the universe as per Terence McKenna.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/hvVJdLF9MN7gsliUfBqProXhE-gtA2xDQt697v8tFU8
Minted on Zora via Token Chat.
👓 🔵
36 Accelerating Better Futures with RADAR — Fancy
RADAR is a decentralised global collective of more than 300 researchers, early adopters and innovators accelerating better futures.
We catch RADAR as they launch Cycle 3 — Our Centaur Future. Producing a foresight report that paints a picture of what lies ahead with artificial intelligence and lays the groundwork for how to bring it to life.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/_mm45BXQu0YsDUQ89BtkbvOgEtLSp8_z06J9CIjKQLI
35 Exploring Ethereum with Interface — wijuwiju.eth
Making sense of onchain data, context and meaning that is all over the place. Gathering it together in ways that are understandable, $enjoyable, surprisingly social and actionable for being on top of signals in crypto.
We talk about how their team came together with support via a 50 ETH crowdfund on Mirror. Including essential contributions in design by annoushka.
Thinking about what the Interface app can do today and some alpha for what’s on the near horizon.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/cAMrtR1KF2LACCfIK-pi7WLoBt1CKfwyCV5CAHDW5XI
34 Onchain Culture x Nouns Builder with ERC-6551 — Jayden Windle, Isaac, Neokry
We join for a conversation about the new NFT standard ERC-6551 which Jayden is working on with Future Primitive, including our friend Benny Giang. Any NFT that has previously existed or will in the future has now become a wallet. NFTs can now hold other NFTs. It’s turtles all the way down.
We talk about Nouns Builder and what’s happening in that ecosystem. The state of DAOs in 2023. Manifestations of onchain media. Collective creation as DAOs form around NFTs.
How ideas like these and many others are forming a new lifestyle for the internet.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/_FgEgWCk3AYP-cAGxVIZcBLZuMzheAJBz0e9q86lwqs
here's to all the future onchain communities :)
33 Reimagining Art Practice with UFO — Ivano Salonia
Since July 2022, Ivano and Nick Hollins have been creating the visual identity, art and brand of UFO. We went to ETH Tokyo in April and hacked on a UFO project with Lens Protocol and Livepeer. We just built a website at ufo.fm — an onchain radio station and club for music, arts and ideas.
We talk about Ivano’s artistic practice starting out in advertising, design and brand. Doing work with global companies and agencies. How he became interested in making art in virtual reality, and experiments with AI and generative tools such as Midjourney.
Diving into the web3, crypto and NFTs space from 2020. Working on projects including the motorcycle art video game Night Run with Matto from Hypercastles, and designing the 3D records for the Metalabel Quality Drops.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/A7esAVQeLL7hqSGQ8twWIjkRjbY1GIQ0HJVe0xE1Nmg
31 Experiencing Music with wavWRLD — Karma + Violetta
Founders of wavWRLD. Seeking to create unique musical experiences that connect artists with their true fans. A creative collective and music community that has been a shared space for many web3 music artists and builders.
We talk about their new project wavGAME. A collective release involving artists who performed at their first wavWRLD live showcases in New York featuring TK, Tarot, AbJo, Cam Murdoch, Jadyn Violet, Fred Riko, KarmaVioletta, and Black Dave who was the guest for from UFO 11.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/THhlb8a-iwtdQ-6UQJH2C-tnHotu9cZ5Le9J4K_WftI
30 Investing in the Future Internet with 1kx — pet3rpan
Summoner at Hydra Ventures, a fund backing investment DAOs. Early founding member at MetaCartel from 2018, the web3 community of creators and developers focused on building blockchain applications, using crypto in interesting ways, exploring new ideas and experiments with DAOs.
We talk about his experiences in the web3 space. About the early internet and how it works. About the cypherpunks from the 70s, 80s and 90s who pioneered these ideas about digital freedoms and rights, and cryptography. And about collective lore and canon, like a shared belief in the Star Wars universe.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/GIe7oZaUMvafN4DYxpyesjEArLtxpMfMhZB3aQYvQrg
29 Decentralizing Social with Purple — Chris Carella, Phil Mohun
Phil Mohun is an early member of Purple and a founding DAO member of the arts community at Bright Moments.
They met each other through joining Purple DAO which took form in the Farcaster community and ecosystem of builders in Ethereum. Purple was an early DAO launched with Nouns Builder. The daily auction is up to #257.
We talk about experiences behind the scenes at Purple. Contentious votes and ideas about DAO governance. The urgent need and opportunity to build out the web3 social ecosystem. What they like about the properties of Farcaster. And the potential for DAOs like Purple to fund public goods and open source projects in ways that don’t always require a profit incentive.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/aJxqbXMI6wSTxO65EfHqDBdATMkaJYAvmmLwqZ1yrww
28 Broadcasting Onchain Media with VESSEL — Steph Alinsug
Until recently she was the Media Steward at Seed Club. Internet native accelerator with a growing network of alumni projects including ALLSHIPS, Cabin, Forefront, Metalabel, Poolsuite, Protein, Refraction, Songcamp, Take Up Space and Water & Music.
We talk about Broadcast - an inaugural web3 media event held in Brooklyn May 2023. An invite only summit focusing on the future of onchain media. It was a collaboration between VESSEL and Foster which is a writers collective based in New York, and Seed Club.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/hR0JAz_M7tNHgDcn437SPd6Lhx91aQwcHlpf77INQkY
27 New Internet is Here with Boys Club — Natasha Hoskins
Product studio and media company. Best known for their parties, community, podcasts, interviews with crypto builders, memes, merch and a newsletter.
We talk about their experiences building a social collective brand in crypto. How they designed their DAO. How they are thinking about audiences and making collaborative releases like printing a physical zine ~ distributing by hand across South by Southwest.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/dRpujtiz3J88kMtDPSLpPvxdEnAXjhKgne0uw39D_z0
26 Towards Infinite Gardens with Ethereum in Latin America — Marcus AM
Host and producer of the Odisea Podcast and recently the Last Mile DeFi Podcast.
We talk about Marcus’ origin stories growing up in rural Guatemala, observing corruption and fraught financial infrastructure leading to his early interest in Bitcoin. Through to verging into the Ethereum and crypto builder space and being accepted as a fellow of the Ethereum Foundation to research opportunities, challenges and use cases for crypto adoption in Latin America.
Crypto as a counterculture movement. Marcus’ interests in podcasting. Supporting young developers and teams in the Latin American ecosystem and the impact created by Devcon and ETH Global events happening in the region.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/soTth5FSSZN4FWnXWPh2_2fAgzf1tbzI_TAoetWmg6A
25 Navigating the Future with Extinction Rebellion — Clare Farrell
If you’ve ever seen the Adam McKay movie ~ Don’t Look Up ~ with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, in which an asteroid is found to be on a collision course with Earth, and the protagonists go on television in America to try and raise the alarm, only to be met by the banal absurdity of how mainstream news works.
Well, Clare Farrell has that role in real life as part of XR. She appears on TV to speak on behalf of this decentralised movement, especially when the show has potential to be a bit antagonistic. A surreal experience to find yourself in.
We talk about Clare’s origins in fashion and design and creative activism, up to being part of the originating group of Extinction Rebellion in 2018.
We discuss their demands for net zero carbon emissions by 2025, citizens assemblies and direct democracy, and reparatory justice for nations and people around the world most impacted by the climate crisis.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/uZa7aLgrmZMCw2mdfwk8M-ndUeoF4EmSnBNb_WRll9I
24 Skateboarding in a CC0ciety with Nouns & Gnars — Gami
Gami has a background in skateboarding, growing up in rural Australia, before becoming a sponsored skater and other adventures. In this episode we talk origin stories in crypto and NFTs, his early involvement in Nouns and the founding of Gnars, a community owned (and run) extreme sports club with over 1000 $members.
They are responsible for the grind box in a public square in Rio de Janeiro which was a bright red pair of Nouns noggles, some iconic early Nouns images. Now they’re teaming up with skateboarding hall of famer Bob Burnquist for community projects in Brazil.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/YA4Sb3CyMDWCnpwMsfkuMP6utSiD1b0c3ne8-enYTBQ
23 Reflecting Your Identity with Disco — Evin McMullen
We talk about Evin's origin stories before web3 and crypto, how the Disco team came together, and the community design superpowers unlocked by combining Disco with tools from Guild.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/H9Hpxk5fpwQPPZDZWiZq_V4bIMZ_NHwxOWS1OfGlCT0
22 Playing Piano with ZORA & FWB — Yuri Rybak
We talk about writing and producing music, the music industry, and what we see as emergent for music NFTs and artist collectives.
We get into Yuri’s musical path through life, leading to early involvement with FWB, where he was on the scene for many experiments in NFT releases from artists including Glassface, Pussy Riot, and Eric Hu.
Experiences from the inside at ZORA where he now works, their brand and creative, zorbs, minting to 1155 contracts, and the rising ecosystem of Nouns Builder projects.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/sLplq7k8qWiWt6Qm1yWYbTqEvmakQoJx4mJ1jde8U7E
21 Reimagining eSports with BLVKHVND — Sirsu
BLVKHVND is creating an emerging ecosystem for onchain esports organizations. Their mission is to be the center of competition no matter where it lives.
We talk about Sirsu’s journey from earlier days in gaming, art, NFTs and crypto. What it’s been like behind the scenes. From raising $1 million in one day on a Mirror crowd fund to booting up an eSports organization with multiple teams competing around the world.
Helping to launch Mint Fund in collaboration with others at Forefront, Zora and Seed Club ~ a community-owned initiative helping crypto creators mint their first NFTs.
Sirsu has many stories to tell, and much of it is shared here for the first time.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/TjEsmlKoOvded1iNLPTu0zejevdcAJgDhkSixDB2A9o
20 Aggregating Web3 Social with Yup — Nir Kabessa
Nir was President of Blockchain at Columbia from 2018 to 2020. Since 2020 he’s been a Mentor at the Columbia IBM Blockchain Accelerator. He’s a speaker and investor, contributing at publications including Forefront, Hacker Noon and Big Think.
We talk about the EVM as a social network. The rapid evolution, growth and experimentation we’re seeing in web3 social. What it means for DAOs and media networks like UFO. And Nir’s early origins in the crypto space, starting way back in 2014 and amping up from 2017.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/75AiFLfKQ0385pLwvUDbsk2AdynEN08eiKtEfUyNr7Q
19 Exploring Web3 Collectives with Folklore — Rafa
He's the founder of Folklore, a community exploring long-form articles related to belonging, lorecraft, human relationships, and digital realms.
We talk about topics of content, media and internet communities. The web3 creator playbook and NFTs as unlocks including the ability to earn ownership in protocols and DAOs through participation rather than only financial means.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/BAo8fVVqnu44DdV2BNGWsWE2n7v_iNSUQhlyIEoT_pg
18 Bringing Japan and the Netherlands together with Midnight夏季Breeze — Dutchtide
Illustrations inspired by 90s vaporwave and the Japanese word Ma 間 which translates to ‘space’ but can be interpreted many different ways. In this case to space in-between spaces.
We talk about the inspirations of Japanese art and culture and its influence for his art practice coming from a Dutch style of colour, light, composition and architecture. His earlier days in NFTs including the life altering sale of a Beeple work which funded his own projects and secured a CryptoPunk.
Experiences with MidnightBreeze as a community of collectors has grown up around the works. And what their team has been busy doing ever since the initial drop to create a second version in which the collection is being reimagined in a time intensive process, evolving from still image into fully rendered animation.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/1MywLU2dFGRODRQpwZVdVK4pkZu8NVpb4jnmYNQ9hwE
17 Create What's Missing with Public Assembly — losingmyego, 0xTranqui, Salief Lewis
Public Assembly launched on Nouns Builder on December 3, 2022 ~ leveraging the unique physics of the internet to create what’s missing as fast as possible. Bread crumbs to leave in the dark forest of crypto.
We talk about the origins of their project which began as a four-week creative sprint and evolved from being anti-DAO to in fact launching a DAO of their own. We talk about the philosophy of co-creation, open source, and the types of communal environments we create together on the internet.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/jcZOHueEFPMtRH6kbOo63nMzS9aG6-ygzD0hco2nLts
16 Amplifying Tokenized Communities with Forefront — Jihad Esmail
Jihad is active in the Nouns DAO community, one of the most fascinating things happening in the crypto space as its evolved since launch in 2021.
We talk all things governance, memes, NFT memberships, onchain media and trends seen over recent years for web3 communities from ERC20s and social tokens to PFP NFT collections, web3 social and the emergence of nounish projects.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/lPb3rI6x6GubTxmNmikyQcNvuqzNziKUv3sshHze5Ik
15 Funding Public Goods with Gitcoin — Scott Moore
We talk about the ideals of solarpunk, aiming to build towards a techno-positive future, what it means and how this ties into recognising web3 as a counterculture movement.
About the origins of Gitcoin and what they’ve discovered along the way. Thinking about funding public goods like a subway system that produces value for a whole city ecosystem, for the people who live there and all their activities.
And we talk about the nature of web3 projects like Nouns DAO, formed in a memetic way, almost entirely from the grassroots as people try to collectively figure out what this meme is and what they’re trying to do with it.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/IZzzagjs0hO5iMA0vw5Qgsl_WOkVhlwRU5GbA3t-2-8
14 Co-Curating the Art NFTs Ecosystem with JPG — María Paula, Trent Elmore
Trent Elmore was working in DeFi before teaming up with María and Sam Spike as co-founders of JPG. A platform and infrastructure to promote and preserve the NFT ecosystem's cultural objects via exhibitions and canons.
We talk about the origins of JPG, community co-curation for the Dynamic and Conceptual Art Canons, and observations from earlier years in Ethereum through DeFi summer and the NFTs bull market up to present day.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/eRfp1DbMdOPRocSdrzhZL8enjqfh1JHwdYLGjKFz1OM
13 Riding Motorcycles Through Art Worlds with Night Run — Matto
His latest Night Run is a conceptual art project with three parts: A motorcycle game where you look at art in a generated city space; An NFT collection with imaginary fashion houses; A series of videos with commentary.
UFO art director Ivano Salonia collaborated on creative and design, including for the Night Run logo and designs for imaginary fashion houses you’ll hear about in this episode.
We also talk about the NFTs ecosystem that Matto has been interested in over the past couple years, with a few highlights including Terraforms, Blitmaps, Loot, Toadz and Nouns.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/wa9gr9uELMwpWJ-vzRuaiw4LQFWNdRLhPFbSe8PexBo
12 Talking 2017 NFTs With CryptoKitties & Dapper Labs — Benny Giang
Team member #13 at Dapper Labs and a co-founder of the iconic CryptoKitties early NFTs project in 2017. Later working on NBA Top Shot before departing from Dapper in October 2021.
We talk about the origin stories of NFTs and creating the first ever NFTs discord community for CryptoKitties, a group chat including founders from Dapper, Axie Infinity, OpenSea and many others.
We explore new creative experiments Benny is working on with Future Primitive, including BEEP3R ~ a hackathon project from ETH Global making nostalgic 90s pager NFTs that can communicate onchain via XMPT.
11 Valuing Artists By Their Potential — Black Dave
He’s a contributor at leading music DAOs such as Water & Music, and shares ideas about crypto and music at his Mirror publication. He helped to found a collaborative music project Amethyst from his hometown in Charleston, South Carolina.
His latest release Black Dave Token is an audacious project which aims to support his musical journey raising 250 ETH with 1 million NFTs.
We talk platforms for minting music such as ZORA, Catalog and Sound. Dynamics of scarcity in music NFTs ~ 1/1s as fine art and editions as building blocks for communities. And his belief that we should value artists by their potential, not their present moment.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/3686uJlbzm0epVn_BNNdHKatBVFD8QT-WRCFFDSBSI8
10 Creating Onchain Records with Metalabel — Anna Bulbrook, Yancey Strickler
Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He’s the cofounder and director of Metalabel, cofounder of Kickstarter, and cofounder of the artist resource The Creative Independent.
We talk about their first onchain record, explore two new articles by Yancey which are Reinventing The Record and The Onchain Era, and the importance of directly valuing the creative work you love.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/wNY7YVmHdW6Gtmr35sbnFsqhND4naw52NQMO433Nn-o
09 Collecting Art With Friends — Nicolas Sassoon, Sam Mason de Caires
Sam Mason de Caires is an engineer who’s into generative art. Presently at Syndicate, and previously at Foundation and Rainbow. Along with their friends Tim Smith and FEELS, they are a collective who are collecting art together as a DAO.
We talk about art and the web3 space. About Nicolas’ artistic practice and how he makes his works. How technology is enabling new ways to create, collect, and support artistic expression. And what kinds of NFTs Sam and Nicolas are interested in for Gossamer.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/uLYE8McPCQg6pPKa2Lp5L1nlHzYuyTf5pU2IhjziGeA
08 Music, Sound Sculptures & Reality — Martí Ruids
Member of Híbrida, Nen i Cavall. Part of a duet band RIUH with Raquel Cruces performing traditional folk music from the Iberian Peninsula. Member of Pangamelan, exploring gamelan music from Indonesia, using pots and pans to create unique instruments, rhythm, pitch and percussion, achieving trance like states.
We talk about experimental music. Sound and resonance. How it effects consciousness. The very nature of reality. Martí's work reviving Baschet Sound Sculptures with concerts in Japan. And exploring the realms of traditional music from Iberia, across places in Catalunya, Basque country, and Portugal.
notes — ufo.mirror.xyz/S-qr5wl9Z-CCL_latNHcbOsrx8x-0gMOqq9iJbx8aYo
07 Creating with AI in Generative Art & Visual Effects — ATARA
We talk about his visual effects career in the film industry, exploring creativity through coding, mathematics and technology, the latest from AI generative platforms such as DALL·E 2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, and we go behind the scenes for the creation of DALL-E Punks.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/AbyacImqI06namD3n0ES5BBfmRgTC2NjCTjJ2Cnb1mA
06 Design with Seed Club + Songcamp — Peacenode
We talk about his origin stories in crypto, background in the music scene, about creative practice and making poster designs for over 200 days straight, how he got involved at Seed Club and Songcamp, and a jam about projects we’re into like Nouns Builder from Zora.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/Ulxg7jnKghyodk_BWL-pOSKItGXi8gpjxfvEHx80l8E
05 Evolving Web3 Communities with Guild — Reka
Reka writes about communities, DAOs and internet culture and has just dropped a new series on Mirror — chaos is a public good — co-written with her friend LDF from Disco.
We talk about the origin stories of Guild, how their team came together, what they’re focused on building and Reka’s interest in jokedao and jokerace.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/3sWl6IDvXjRwP5g4rDqI65QCusAYRWFsp0LqMS_sMPY
04 Social Web3 Wallet with Zerion — Alexander Guy
We talk about the crypto lifestyle. Why we think it’s a compelling space to be looking to join a company or create a project. We talk about common pitfalls of the crypto lifestyle like FOMO, always being on, stress about security, excessive information input, and challenges in getting up to speed when you’re new and joining crypto.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/TZf6HdxqvF0t2hZWU7OOKqkjBK_agJXLV977cIyZqsA
03 Creativity In Multiplayer with Metalabel — Austin Robey
Imagined as a release club where groups of people with shared interests create and release work together.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/Ve2YLuIuaG6DgUTtkNVnXP76wWNiscBzixaNtVKfXOw
02 Making Art, Code & Lore for Crypto Coven — Nyx
We talk about creating a project like this from the inside perspective. The power of lore, storytelling and world building. And what can be accomplished in smart contract design and doing creative things with the tech.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/VcjRj6XUhZn2R0WQxa6OJXbFdZ5HCqjMn1IuSiZgCTk
Thanks!
01 Creativity with Extinction Rebellion — Charlie Waterhouse
We talk about the origins of Extinction Rebellion, a global movement using non-violent direct action to persuade governments to take action on climate, and inspire public consciousness to the cause.
notes ~ ufo.mirror.xyz/zc8DCqTbFUirzn8edcrhSdjvbUOx0-IiCkEOhol66vQ