WTF is Crypto Art? Are you a Blockchain Artists?
WTF is art first of all? who gets to decide what brings value to our communities?
These conversations have been annoying artists and making people feel important at cocktail parties since the beginning of time.
When people ask me what makes an artist decentralized, or blockchain or crypto niche, I feel two things, number one: hellz yeeeeh and number two: heaaalllz no.
This is such a massive topic and I feel so strongly about it that sometimes I get a sense of sole responsibility over the educational portion of this movement. However the decentralization and re-purposing of value within the art world is at it’s most exciting turning point, and there are hundreds of people creating and acting on this from all over the world.
So how does technology have anything to do with art, or decentralization in general, isn’t art technically about free expression… and sometimes also about trafficking massive sums of money around the globe.. Italian job movie anyone? Well in my opinion all of these platforms, Steemit included, are about just that, giving people the power to decide what feels good and has value and how often we want it in our faces and seeping into our brains.
Being an artists is hard. lies. being an artist, expressing yourself in a way that feels true to you is fckn beautiful that’s what it is. Monetizing art in a way that does not crush your soul, yes sometimes it can be tricky.
But this applies to anything in the fckedup world we’ve created, no matter what your craft is.
If you are a doctor you make more money when your patients depend on medications that pay you to promote them
if you are a professor you gotta play by the useless rules of getting tenure through pumping out a bunch of nonsense white papers per month to hit some quota, instead of actually dedicating your time to helping students
f you are an artists you gotta take the jobs that pay well even if it means painting a generic corporate logo on a boring wall inside some office that makes you want to cry and then you cant even afford a lollypop to make you feel better after the supplies and transportation equation
Now thanks to decentralized systems with blockchain technology as a vehicle for anything we imagine that is not controlled by one giant, we can dream up and create any market and exchange of value as we want it. And the more people believe in this system, the faster we tip over into this magical reality.
Fiat, currency, abundance is not the problem, not anymore, now that we can monetize virtually everything we desire. We have invented new ways of trading time and value while still living our lavish lifestyles! this is amazing. We no longer have the two extremes of living under the green monster dollar, or being ostracized from the city in a gift or trade economy that only works in some remote pueblos in the jungle. Hopefully as we free up our time from no-need 9-5’s we also conscientiously invest in healing mother earth so we can actually exist physically on this earth in a few hundred years, even with our extreme lifestyles. I am hopeful we are finding ways of balancing it all.
Seems like really, we are the problem, we are getting better at dealing with our bullshit, we are awakening, taking responsibility for our actions, getting rid of our crutches, drinking, smoking, over eating, manic-exercising, whatever it is. We are learning to value ourselves once again and realizing our infinite potential, which pulls us from depression, allows us to connect with the others, re-align with our purpose and collectively add to the healing of this planet and our communities, and that feels damn good.
So if you agree with any of that rant above, congratulations! you believe in the blockchain evolution, and you too can be a decentralized artist, or creator, or creative.
There are many ways in which crypto artists are being labeled, yes digital art of the blockchain, having a rare asset (rareart.io) selling crypto-themed art 
Every human being on earth is a creator, is creative, that is our nature, even if you don’t feel so, we create our reality and our connections, and if you disagree, please meditate, investigate how medicinal plants can help with your consciousness expansion, or talk with anyone about their psychedelic treatments for depression, ptsd, etc.
The most important things we have as humans are our individual experiences, we learn reflecting each other, we illuminate our blindspots and help each other grow, now we can do this in a way that is profitable because part of this human evolution and enlightenment, is to use our currency of time to patch up the years of gluttony and laziness we’ve been riding out as zombies of the ego.
I will be frank, and say that when I wore my scarcity lenses, while I was very much running on the old programming of fear mode full of viruses and glitches, I was often angry, anger coming from frustration, misunderstanding of why certain low effort automated memes would go viral, and meticulous art from hardworking artists never made the artist any profit. Now, following the chain of decentralized conferences around the world and understanding a bit more about the technology, I realize monetizing art is a personal journey of success just like anything else.
Talent matters, but charter and intention matter more. I wonder how many people are closing this article right now under the “this is getting to crunchy granola for me” this is my first steemit and I have no idea how it will be received but I am here typing with intention and frustration merging into inspiration, tired of youtube demonetizing videos that could help others connect and find planet-positive solutions, I am tired of seeing mind-blowing artists broke and broken in soul and spirit, I am tired of traveling also, so excuse my loopy-ness but loving this insanely abundant and magical life I am living in exotic locations having conversations that recode my neurons with every interaction.
I just got back from www.anarchapulco.com google it damnit! 2 weeks before I was co-producing www.cryptopsychedelic.com in tulum, and before that I have been following the bitcoin conferences around the globe throwing art shows, spray painting blockchain murals, and finding the other weirdos in this decentralized city tribe and I am learning a lot, and now i get to share it with a community who gives a fk. :) yay.
It is time to get rid of useless boarders, imaginary country lines, imaginary containers of limitation for creativity. If you want to thrive, you need to work on yourself first, and then anything you do will be a success because you will be full of energy and purpose and people will want to support you.
Memes going viral or bad art being sold for ridiculous amounts of money tells us that humans will do anything to feel something, we know that already. If a meme makes you laugh or feel something strange, who cares how it was created or if it took a person 4 minutes to render on a mediocre app. The person in creation was channelling their creative flow and that is lovely.
I cared when I believed everything was competition, when I believed there was a limit on success or recognition, but now I understand as long as we are working together towards the greater thing, there will be space for any genuine expression your heart desires, making it profitable is a combination of self-education and working consistently to make it happen.
Art, as a true expression of the self, art in dance, visual ways, musically, and whichever shapes it takes, is going to exist and evolve as long as we are around. There will always be evil and awesome art, there will always be humans trying to use it as a means of promoting or extorting or giving light to different power structures.. supper vague right.. you are welcome :)
The obvious answer is, artist who make pieces with imagery or symbols from the cryptocurrency obsession movement are blockchain artists, coating anything in gold, putting a monero or bitcoin stamp or leveraging any other logos in the circuit, and the less obvious answer is, this movement is badass, and you can join it in whichever form feels good to you.
If you believe in democracy, well.. not the fake version of a mysterious monarchy dressed up as power of the people, but if you believe in the anarchist version of decentralized choice, and you feel like an artist, in any way, you can be a blockchain artists.
Last thing I’ll say here is that I was too a skeptic and still have thoughts about trusting singularity and technology. I once lived outside of a monetary economy without a phone or laptop and thought I would never return to this mainstream life, but I got in my own way and was unable to effect change from outside. I made a youtube video about this that got instantly demonetized when I added crypto hashtags you can see it here
In my personal experience, I have been able to help myself and others, as well as create more wealth and exposure for myself my art and other projects, through this blockchain evolution, than any other of the previous vehicles I had tested. This is the teleportation and instant manifestation of vehicles, this is the endless possibilities hyper idealistic yes! with some glitches still yes, but best step in the right direction we currently have, and the more people willing to contribute to this movement, the faster we will find all the solutions.
If you are curious at all, just take the next step, don’t feel overwhelmed by this mountain of info, watch one video, read one article a day, this tech ain’t goin nowhere :)
https://cryptopsychedelic.com/
https://anarchapulco.com/
https://www.instagram.com/nanu_berks/
Saludos! Gracias,
Nanu