On Building Collectives

Written by
Lisa Liang

On Building Collectives

Written by
Lisa Liang

On Building Collectives

Written by
Lisa Liang

We’ll team up again with TokenSmart’s WIP to invite their community to join us this Thursday, Mar 25th, at 1:30pm PST on Twitch as we go through our Cryptovoxels HQ, to go over with Sam Brukhman the March auction pieces.


Cyber Watch

On Feb 25th, we unveiled the “Afterparty” of our genesis piece, “Cyber Watch” exactly one year after our launch party. An epic collaboration of 33 unique artists from The Guild, “Cyber Watch” contains Layers from well the original First Supper artists such as Matt Kane, Coldie, Sparrow, and Rutger Van Der Tas as well as newcomers who essentially crashed the party after supper.

Check out the trailer Horus our community member made:


The artwork is paying homage to Rembrandt’s “Night Watch”. Just as the subjects in the original painting had unequal visual representation (a controversial aspect of the painting), the modern Async reinterpretation have characters that unevenly sized, overlaid on top of others, with no unifying theme except in the fact that is represents the diverse collective that is The Guild.

The artists were assigned specific characters and aspects of the artwork. It was quite revlating to find out how each artist approached their assignment differently and with such enthusiasm. Highly recommend anyone to check out their Twitter account to learn about the



To celebrate the Master going to a new owner on Saturday, March 27th, the Guild artists are hosting several promos. There is an ongoing raffle for 10 limited edition variations of Cyber Watch.


It Takes a Village

The iconic Frank Ape, created by esteemed artist Brandon Sines is well known in several ways. 


Frank Ape is commonly depicted as a friendly, lovable character who is a key iconic element in Sine’s work. Community, creativity, and self-expression are core values expressed in Frank Ape’s biography: “He is all colors at once, he is you and he is us. He means helping someone in need.” 


We see this theme very much exemplified in Sine’s Async pieces. In the artist’s own words:

“I love the idea of the community owning various Layers on Async so therefore thought it would be fun to make the subject of the piece the community itself. The city [which closely resembles his previous NYC piece so there is a bit of continuity here] is made up of Layers. Both in a literal sense with the underground, street level, apartments stacked upon each other, as well as in a metaphorical sense in the paths we weave and the levels of relationships with others.” 

“When I was a kid I would love looking out the window and see all the different people going about their lives - some relaxed, some stressed, some having fun and others doing nothing at all.  Each one is the star of their own movie - completely unique but bonded together by the stage they share.”

Check out this creative process video from the artist:


“It Takes a Village” contains 3 unique Layers where the owners can change the animals, the Franks, as well as 6 backdrops where the citizens live.


Tarrying with Topiary


Mark Zlotsky’s magnum opus is made of over 55 Layers, 52 of those made of lovable little characters that will only show up in the Master when their new Layer owners change their state.


Very similar to attending a private garden party, Layer owners will “show” their attendance by triggering their character’s 4-5 possible states within the whimsical, quaint scenery. Each character also has a little back story, so make sure to read through them as one of them may just endear themselves to you.


Learn more about the artist’s inspiration and his creative process here. The Master was already snatched up several weeks ago, but many denizens of this topiary garden are still available and waiting for their new owners. 


Unfairground Monthly Report


Cryptoart OG MLIBTY returns with a latest piece on online social phenomenon. With tongue-in-cheek prose, his latest Async artwork was highly customized to change on a daily basis.

In the beginning there is only one Shadow, the Denizen Shadow. He has the special gift to convince people what he is saying… is true. So with each passing day of the month, a new follower of his appears on the Master artwork. The more followers he has, the more gossip they share about the original Denizen Shadow, until they all gang up against him on the last day of the month, and the vicious cycle begins again anew.


Each Protagonist Shadow in this piece was generated with the crumpled paper and then the face was extracted by drawing over it. The first twenty protagonists of this artwork are tokenized under "Marko Zubak" contract, using Mintbase and Arweave. The buildings in the background are all from the artist’s photos of Barcelona, as well as details from other places.

 

MLIBTY’s signature Shadows represent people in general but also shadows behind the curtains, invisible inhabitants you never meet, but can feel their presence. Sometimes they are watching you, sometimes they smile, black and white, no hands and no legs, just Shadows with faces.


Eight Nomads



TooMuchLag is a well known artist for his 3D rendered characters. So it is no surprise to us that he debuts on Async with a rich narrative of multiple characters with multiple combinations to tell their stories with. Check out his launch trailer here.

“There are eight protagonists, each facing multiple choices. Within the Async piece lies an epic journey into ancient worlds, magical forests and eerie landscapes.

 

This is a programmable artwork of 4 Layers with respectively 7, 8, 7, 8 choices.

You will choose the fate of these travelers, heroes of an unsung future that will tell their stories through the time and sing their melodies vibrating ripples throughout the universe.”

We highly encourage interested parties to explore this artwork. The amount of possible unique combinations are mind-boggling and we cannot wait to see what the new Layer owners will create. 


The Master and Layers will go to the highest bidder on Saturday, March 27th. 


The Order of Stone Warrior


Crom had created and sold his last two Async artworks at near lightning speed. His third one has the most Layers thus far, and represents a fond childhood memory. In the artist’s own words:



“The Order Of The Stone Warrior” is connected in many ways to days when my mum would take me to the city parks so I could run around and chase pigeons. There was a fountain that had a statue of a child blowing water through a horn and I would stand in front of it with a sense of nostalgia as if I had met this child before, in another life when he wasn’t made of stone and his duties of Guardian and protector of the park didn’t exist. At night he comes to life and fights monsters when I’m not looking.”


All 3 Layers of his latest piece were snatched up quickly. The Master is up for auction this week, with the highest bidder taking it home on Saturday March 27th.


Horizon



Natascha Einat, an artist with a visual arts major based out of Paris, is no stranger to digital art and digital manipulation. She has minted her first NFTs on Async and continues to experiment by using visual metaphors in her art, to create emotions and meaning.

Within the Day/Night programmable piece called “Horizon”, the artist is illustrating how growth and learning draws from a single open book. It feeds into a single eye, which ironically represents society as a whole. Whether we approach information, with an open or closed mind that is completely up to the viewer. Or she is also alluding to the the daily decision-making one must do through an endless parade of facts which is embodied with the tireless opening and closing of the eye.


Make sure to check out her other dream-like Async artworks, as this one will be going to the highest bidder on Saturday.


Wave


Joacim Svedlund is a relative newcomer to our platform. Just like the previous artist, his style is also very metaphysical and derived from conceptualizing a nebulous thought process. 



For Wave, we are immediately drawn to the attractive lighting and form. But it is when we read the description that we realize the subject matter is much more complex.
In the artist’s own words:

“I want my work to be a form of visual anchor to a thought or a concept that I find myself pondering often. We will all die one day - everyone shares the same fate. But we all have our unique perspectives and ways to think about death and the ego.

Without fate in the afterlife, it is easy to be lost to nihilism when we ponder our mortality.  I have myself been deeply nihilistic for a big portion of my life. But through experiencing the perspective of others on this topic, I came to realize that if life is suffering, we can at the very least dedicate ourselves to lessen that suffering or even to the embetterment of the lives of others. The meaninglessness folds in on itself and creates meaning. 

This Async piece was tailored for the autonomous Day/Night cycle. To me it represents the actual Day/Night cycle that makes up our lives and the ever changing information pattern in spacetime that we associate with our ego. It represents the continuation of that pattern even as the physical part of it disappears.”


Voxorium

Fabin Rasheed is very much one of the most innovative artists on our platform. He loves experimenting with linking up outside data sources and attaching interactive experiences to the Async platform.


In his latest piece he allows the audience to play with the concept of visualizing sound. Users can memorialize their unique sound byte by visiting his interactive experience. The external site will ask for access to your microphone, and the Voxarium will start generating soundwaves in a circular render based on pitch, volume and length.

To learn more about this unique sound-based Async work, visit here. All Layers and the Master are available for auction this week. (There’s even a Beeple Layer which should be interesting!)

All auction pieces will end with no time extensions on Saturday March 27th. Tune in to Twitter and Discord to get the latest updates.Our March auctions feature artworks that explore collectives and how communities are already built within Async pieces.