After reviewing the lecture held by Art Basel (Conversations, 2021), with the aiming of expanding influence, I invited big names into the events. Finally, Sun Bohan accepted my proposal, who is the founder of BCA and MetaOpus.
I really appreciate what Holly Herndon mentioned about the community towards artists in the NFT world.
For now, I’ve had several meetings with Sun’s colleague and made sure about the question I’m going to ask in the seminar.
The seminar will happen at the festival, which is a stage commensurate with his reputation. I also invited Matilda as co-host, the student who also study Crypto Art from MA Culture, Criticism and Curation. The preparation includes negotiation and promotion.
The promotion methodology refers to the last live streaming, furthermore a collaboration with media. This intervention is still ongoing, though the process opens a door to the professional NFT team for me. They also invited me to join the physical BCA Gallery in Shanghai after graduation.
Questions to Sun
Intro of Sun (BCA and MetaOpus)
Would you please introduce yourself, your work at BCA and MetaOpus, and your personal collecting experiences on Crypto art?
NFT & Crypto Art in general
For some audience here who just wandered in to this space, NFTs or Crypto Art, could you explain the history and how it works a bit?
NFT & Crypto Art in China mainland
To what extent do you think the Chinese public has known and accepted Crypto art? And the Chinese artists?
As we all know, the Chinese government already banned the trading crypto into fiat money, and even BCA changed the name Crypto Art to Technical Art on Chinese social platforms to avoid censorship, in this context with all regulations and inconvenience, what have been the implications for you as the leader of BCA, also for the Chinese artists and the collectors?
What’s the scale of artists now in MetaOpus, and who are they? What’s the feeling when reaching artists from different places and cultures?
In-person experiences in NFT world
Virtual Niche is the first major gallery that stage an offline exhibition about Crypto art, and BCA announced the opening of an in-person Gallery in Shanghai this October. What do you think the in-person experience could bring to BCA and Crypto art?
As suggested by Kevin, who is my classmate and also hold opposite opinions to the Crypto art, I’m going to hold a conversation that happens between two stakeholders who have opposite attitudes toward each other.
I understand that stakeholders would only swap their attitudes if they were supposed to. People think from different positions, some were born to embrace the novelty, some of them are not, sometimes it may take some time for them. I frequently feel I did not do much, might be a compass, who lead people, but never be the one who makes people move, they move by themselves.
In this case, by accumulating people who hold opposite attitudes through the project, I planned in-person debates between stakeholders to provoke widespread criticism. There is an artist in each contest who is involved in the NFT, and the oppositions are not.
Preparation
Format
Inspired by the Variety show Actors on Actors, conversations could happen well and be more chilled without hosts. Let them fight each other.
They happen in the meeting room, dining space and street, which proved the re-examination could happen everywhere. Instead of talking with me as an expert in this field, generate more sparks the same position.
Question for the speakers
attitudes towards crypto art
The relationship between metaverse and crypto art
What are the implications among Chinese policy that banned NFT in China
Reflective writing:
I think these conversations had better implications than educating them. They might assume that I totally agreed and like the idea of NFT, which in fact I’m not. The monetary arguments for Crypto art are true for me, however, it still provides a space for the new generation. I used to admire the people who live in the 2000s, there’s more chance than today, everything left today were succussed before. We got no chance. However, NFT is a new era for us.
People think with their own methodologies, it was hard to change them, but it is vital to provide a chance to make them think more.
On 12th November, I attended an online forum held by Shanghai West Bund Voice, gained some new Information. West Bund is one of the most important art fairs in China that will open a short term every autumn, this is their 8th year.
As following are some notes from the conversations.
New Trend on Online Art Collecting of the Post-Covid EraGuest Speaker: Wang Shujin (Partner of YITIAO） Alda Xie (Young collector, Founder of hAo mArket） Julia Long (Artist） James Li (Founder of CHOCO1ATE） Sun Bohan (Curator, Founder of BCA Network, Vulcan DAO co-initiator） Moderator: Ashley Qin (Yit Art & Auction, Art Advisor）
Q： Online art sales have developed extremely fast. How did Yitiao and BCA gradually deal with this matter?
Wang Shujin: Before the outbreak of the epidemic, in 2019, Yitiao was already building an art auction platform. At that time, our users came in by watching a video. After five or six years of accumulation, our users are all high-esthetic, high-net-worth users. So in 2019, we tried to build an online platform and later found that our users responded very positively to this area.
By March of this year, we have set up a dedicated online art channel to cooperate with 80 galleries and 500 artists. It is estimated that by 2022, the turnover can reach about 1 billion.
Sun Bohan: BCA has actually been paying attention to the direction of blockchain art since the end of 2018. You may have heard about the blockchain, and NFTs have also become very popular recently. Everyone will ask what exactly NFT is. It can be simply understood as an online transaction in the web3 system. The concept of NFT is so popular, I think a large part of it is because of the epidemic. In Europe and the United States, we don’t have more offline social space, so we need to find a sense of belonging online, or a sense of ritual to appreciate art. This also echoes the recent hot spot called “Meta Universe”. They are actually a digital world or a virtual online world. From the beginning, we will do digital-related, including video, or some pure programming artists. Before these artists were offline or in traditional gallery art fairs, they did not have good opportunities and paid more attention. So this is a point we are more concerned about.
Q： The amount of online art purchases is amazing. Have the two collectors tried to browse or even purchase art from the Internet? Is the experience in this process different from offline?
Alda Xie： The Internet is now a necessity in everyone’s lives, so browsing art on it must have become everyone’s habit. For example, galleries will post PDF previews of artworks before exhibitions or expositions, including some art museum institutions that will also put their collections online and open them to the public for viewing and so on. I think it is not even a trend anymore, it is already a status quo.
It has its advantages, but it also has certain limitations. From the perspective of my collector’s identity, its advantage is that it breaks through a lot of information barriers and lowers the threshold for certain collections or art purchases, so that everyone’s psychological burden is not so heavy, so as to understand all kinds of happenings around the world. The latest state of the art, including if you follow the private accounts of some artists, like Instagram, you can also learn behind-the-scenes stories that you didn’t know much about before. I think these are good places.
James Li: I think one thing is unquestionable. Although with the development of technology, our experience of viewing artworks through the media has become better and better, and even more and more abundant and diverse, it still cannot be solved. Our human eyes An intuitive reflection and multi-dimensional collision of artworks.
The development of technology is very rapid. For the first time, we had to face the online exhibition during the epidemic. When everyone entered at the same time, they collapsed. No one could enter, and everyone was very anxious. Now only a short period of more than a year has passed. All these underlying technical problems are no longer a problem, even because with the rise of the entire concept of Metaverse, whether it is VR, AR, or Some more advanced technologies, some future things, will slowly come to the collector’s side, to serve us to better choose and purchase works.
Q5: In dealing with this kind of Internet art trade, is there anything that needs to be kept alert, including some Internet reports on artists and social network exposure?
Julia Long: Many artists now post their own stuff online, or some gallery operators may not be particularly professional themselves. For many collectors, it is difficult to tell whether your own collection of artists is worth collecting.
A friend asked how a certain painter was before, and someone who knew better than him told him that there are too many people who paint like this, and they don’t have much recognition. For collectors, it is necessary to find a good reference, or a good platform to learn. As an artist, don’t over-beautify your resume. You still have to treat your creations or your own inner ideas more truthfully.
Alda Xie： Maybe some collectors who are just getting started will pay attention to the image created on the artist’s social media, but this image may be a beautiful image. Some people simply look at some of the content presented on social media, or the number of their fans. Some people may even look at it in detail. For example, a curator on Instagram may have liked him, or a collector may have known him. Does that mean that he has investment value?
Q： What new prospects do you have for the future of this form of Internet art collection?
Wang Shujin: Yitiao is actually positioning oneself in an incremental position for the art circle. Through this platform, the predicament of not being able to get out of the circle is eliminated. For art consumption, from professional art collectors (a group of very small circles) to the majority of art lovers, the mid-range price has become the largest increase. At the same time this year, collectors and consumers are showing a younger trend, and their consumption obviously has their own preferences. Coupled with the drastic changes in the way of communication: new media, video, live broadcast, etc. The art consumption and collection users found through Internet operation methods are more accurate and more matched.
James Li: As a collector, I am very much looking forward to the development of Internet technology, including meta-universe technology. Eventually, when we search for a certain artist or a certain type of artwork, we will get a diversified result.
For artists, the reverse also gives a new outlet and ideas for creation and a better platform for artists whose artistic creation is not a traditional painting technique.
After establishing my community on WeChat in August, it’s already near 3 months since then.
In the beginning, I was quite satisfied with this community, even though they’re only 10 people, but they were all selected by me carefully, and they all showed the potential to develop in the NFT world. We changed our information and opinions frequently.
However, things didn’t last longer than I thought. The activities decreased slowly recently, members show ed fewer interests here. It makes me frustrated but makes me rethink as well.
Here are some reasons I thought might be related, and some feedbacks from the stakeholders:
Members barely know each other, only the topic of art couldn’t make them feel open and easy to talk with. It should take more time to let people know each other as well to have less pleasure for talking.
Most of my stakeholders are introverted, it’s hard for them to express themselves in the long term. It may be wrong, but as my observation, many artists and workers tend to work on their own, instead of socializing with people.
On my side, I found it’s difficult to always start a topic that will inspire everyone, and we don’t have the same target and topic, just small talks are hard to keep activity.
Overall, this intervention is kinda at a standstill at this moment, however, my stakeholders truly benefit from this group and gain what they need. If this is the time to take a break, then I will just let thing goes as it should be.
Kexin is one of the stakeholders I have reached since July.
The first time she heard about NFT is this early year, and she joined my community to start her career.
Here’s a topic we talked about before.
What was the first time you heard about Crypto Art and NFT?
This early year, but learned the knowledge from the community
Your NFT experiences (When you start, how you feel about creating and selling, and different platforms…
It’s kinda same in the traditional world. Artists sold their works because of their reputation, if it’s nobody, then same work as the traditional artists. However, thanks to the emergence, less competition makes me easier to make some noise. It’s the same to the platforms, the newer the better. Hhicetnunc is quite a new one that you recommended to me. And as you suggested, I put the artwork on Twitter, then they come forward to me.
To what extent do you think the community (I built one in August) could support emerging artists, in both art markets?
It really helps, I’ve learned a lot from that and we helped each other, which is super useful at the beginning of a new world.
Traditional industry VS NFT market (accessibility, artworks, artists, exhibitions…
I prefer the one who helps me gain money hahaha. But still, the crypto world is much polite to our new artists.
Have you changed your attitudes towards NFT?
Yeah definitely. But I still couldn’t understand like people sell digital shoes and they even sold out. This is a ridiculous world but sometimes we don’t have to care that much.
To help a nameless artist to sell their artwork is such a long journey. And Kexin is not the only artist that I am working with.
Even the NFT hype its decentralization, people still need to find community and work together, which is the same in inherent tradition. This is not an ideal world for individuals. Though we still have to work on that.
This is the conversation that I recently interviewed Kexin.
After reviewing feedback from dragons, they all mentioned that I might need to narrow down the question again and create my own niche. It leads me to think seriously if my question should be back to focus on the artists again.
However, I want to make clear first that the main reason I developed my intervention to educate art lovers rather than cooperating with the emerging artists, is there’s not much solid soil to cultivate the artists yet. During my early conversations, it always happens that the stakeholders have no idea about the Crypto world for many reasons. There is a gap between Chinese artists and NFT at that moment. So I think education might be the emergency step for them.
I believe my last several interventions towards Chinese art lovers were successful, meanwhile, the tutors’ narrowing down the question feedback is justified. It’s time for me to set the stakeholders back to emerging Chinese artists again.
All the interventions and conversations wouldn’t be wasted, they’re all the process of my question.
When talking with potential stakeholders, there’s always a sound showing that: I just don’t like the idea of NFT, NFT is all about money. But soon I found that they even mixed the idea of NFT and crypto art, and ignored the difference between technology and art. They even don’t know what they are hating for, and they just hate it.
I know this is kind of the last stage of my project in my MA, I should focus on the stakeholders who I already reached. However, it is vital for me to understand in-depth why people are standing on the other side.
The book ‘How to Fly a Horse’ corroborated my thoughts. People tend to reject new things, or at least be sceptical. When we are in a familiar situation, the firing speed of the hippocampal cells in the brain is hundreds of times faster than in the new environment. The hippocampus connects two nerve plexuses, called amygdalae (amygdalae)-derived from the Greek word almond-responsible for our emotions. The hippocampus is connected to the amygdala, which is one of the reasons why we like familiarity and reject strangers.
When the brain has a response, we will follow suit and avoid evil. When new things appear, the hippocampus will not find relevant memories and will send strange signals to the amygdala, which makes us feel uncertain. Uncertainty is disgusting, and we always avoid this state as much as possible. Psychologists have proved this with many experiments. Uncertainty makes us like the old and dislike the new, and prevents us from accepting new ideas, even if we think we value them or are good at creating.
Those who rejected to know the NFT are rejecting most of the new things in their life. There’s nothing I can do rather just say I understand.
P.S the definition of Luddism:
Luddism was a working-class movement opposed to the political consequences of industrial capitalism. The Luddites wanted technology to be deployed in ways that made work more humane and gave workers more autonomy. The bosses, on the other hand, wanted to drive down costs and increase productivity
As a result of the observation that most of my stakeholders wouldn’t read the manual or the easy version that I posted on Instagram, I decided to build a WeChat group, so that people would feel more comfortable to ask questions and express themselves when they are in a small community.
Several things we share and discuss in this group:
understanding and opinions about Crypto Art
troubles we met when we bind the NFTs
the news in the Crypto Art world
Live Streaming
Background
So far I’m pretty satisfied with the 10-member group and what we discussed in this community.
But I still think there’s a limit when I tried to express a complete view, due to the text itself. Besides, I found out that it would be easier when I talk with people face to face because they will understand more easily and feel free to express their ideas. Meanwhile, I could collect more feedback from a larger group to guide my next step.
Preparation
Based on the above, I’d like to make live streaming, talking about my understanding and thought about Crypto Art.
As Cai suggested, I may package the streaming more relaxed, talking along with eating. So my topic ended up with: Live eating streaming: My UK life and NFTs. Referring to the opinions of my community members, the event is set for Friday 27 Aug, 2pm GMT/ 9pm CST, on a Chinese live platform Yizhibo.
I also invited my stakeholder Yuxin who is an expert in this field to join my conversation for 30 min. I prepared several questions for her in advance.
Sent the invitations to all my social platforms to promote.
On Air
Data
367 visits during the live
48 replies during the live
23 effective questions and thoughts
1267 visits until 29 Aug 2021
Reflection
Becausce I invited more than 300 people to join my live by the invitation card, I talked with over 20 people what I am gonna to do detailly and ask them to prepare some questions for me, ideally as a result there were no awkward scilence.
There are pretty good questions during the live, and I think I provided serveral good answers as well. This would only happens in a chill vibe, rather than texts on phone.
I believe the public would know more about NFTs, at least they’ve heard so many times from me. And my stakeholders would knows better what NFT is as well.
So far so good, but how can I appeal them to deeper cooperation?
Next Step
Cut the video to short videos, to make use of them again
Observation from previous intervention: instagram and Metaopus Manual, not too much possitive feedback(no one actually applied on a crpyo platform), mainly because that readers tend to feel pressure from paperwork
My own explanation about Crypto Art in a easy way
Built my own 10 stakeholders (including emerging Artists, workers, buyers) community to discuss Crypto Art in chill vibes
Turning point (also associated with my personal life development): from “helping emerging artists to join the Crypto world” to “help the public (especially Chinese) know about the concept”, so that I establish my own audience group who I develop from their very begining of Crypto journay
Research: how traditional museum and gallery promote a public sight
Intervention plan: answer the questions about Crypto Art during the live streaming
What Cai told me:
3 platforms that help people understand more about femenism
Django
help women to organize free, one-day programming workshop
to understand how they operate (workshop)
BUFU
accommodate unartbased organisation to explore themselves
COMUZI
Chat robort
“Me” don’t have to be an expert though everybody assume that, but my stakeholders and I could grow up together
Organaize my live streaming: timing, length, and package it
To emphaise my personal lived experience and project as I said
