"To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting." E. E. Cummings
I’ve seen images in my mind, and I feel what I see deeply. I’ve turned to writing poetry to express these images to others. I’ve yearned to create them myself. Knowing that my poems would never full express what I see and what I feel, I’ve nevertheless dedicated myself to creating. Sometimes, when the words are right, or they’re read right, or the light is right, the meaning comes across. Then, others feel what I feel.
There is no greater joy than gifting to someone I care about, you–the reader–the magic that an image in my mind brings to me.
Enter Mid-Journey, an AI tool which turns words into images. Suddenly, it is as if I were gifted with another sense. I can create images that match my feelings and bring to life ideas so vividly and clearly that anyone can appreciate them. This inspires me to create and frees me to imagine ideas unencumbered by language.
Today I created this young woman; I brought her into being through my language. The AI gave her life. This is the first of many works I’ll share with you. I am grateful you’re on the journey with me, and without further ado, let me introduce you to her:
I am drawn to artists who create unforgettable worlds, whose imagination lives vividly in the characters they create, and whose sense of poetry and play pervades the screen. That’s why @ThisisaRobot’s work captivated me from the moment I experienced it.
1 year ago I started to learn sculpting in VR and use Blender. Finally I got the skills to start building my own gallery. Creating is playing and playing is learning. "Rainbow Art Lounge" guided tour♥️🔥🤖 accepting offers in 24h, 21tezhttps://t.co/6BAVGAIujrpic.twitter.com/8EFHseoXWP
He’s made a world that’s unlike any other I’ve explored. In it, vibrant, animated characters intertwine in embrace, some praying, others groovin’. He places us in his world not as outsiders—not as spectators of the exotic staring at animals in a zoo, but rather as welcome guests invited to his strange feast. Here the monsters are approachable, baby demons adorable, and the landscape vibrates with energy. I interviewed the artist recently about his work and inspiration:
Q: What was your creative life like before blockchain?
A: I have been running my own Imagination Studio for 10 years now, doing creative direction and design for various brands and advertising agencies. In the last 5 years I focused on creating character based IPs.
Q: How have NFTs changed your work and personal world?
A: It changed that it created a new source of income for my own work, and a new way to connecting with other artists and collectors. It is been a real rollercoaster ride, ups and downs.
Q: What about the Tezos ecosystem called to you?
A: Last year I had not idea that it existed, then my friend James Patterson aka @presstube, invited me to join hicetnunc and sent me 1 tezos to start minting my work. Since then I never left 🙂
Q: How have you seen it evolve?
A: I have seen the beginning driven by passionate artists, all pushing the limits of their arts and trying to innovate. Art was first. Then it slowly turned into this foam race where people started to think about gain firsts and art in the second place. Now we are seeing how all changed compared to how it started.
GM Love Junks!❤️❤️❤️Only have eyes for you😍 Doomed Life series – Edition of 9 +.glb file pic.twitter.com/763LQ4j631
Q: What are you interested in exploring with your work that you haven’t yet tried?
A: I would like to add interaction to my work, so I am learning new softwares that allow me to do that. I would like to create interactive experiences with my characters and my worlds.
Q: How did you create Baby Demon and can I adopt it?
A: I was going through a dark phase of my works, was into doing a collection of demons and dark themed animations, so to break it up I decided that I needed to work on something super uber cute, and little demon came to be. I don’t suggest you to do it, it is a hard one to take care of 🙂
A: She is always around my studio, drawing, singing, playing, watching what I do and giving me ideas. Baby Demon with twinkle little star was her idea, I just made it for her 🙂
Q: What’s a lesson about NFTs you wish you knew earlier?
A: Don’t rush! never rush! take your time, and act only when it feels right.
Q: What do you wish more people understood about your work?
A: I wish that they appreciate the effort and the amount of passion and dedication I put into them. Hope they understand that there is a bigger story that has been told, that connects them all.
Q: What do you do when you’re not creating NFTs? A: I am in nature and play with my daughter
Since the interview, ThisisaRobot has been invited to SuperRare.
Meet the Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet Keeping Us All in Suspense
Xer0x is a NFT artist and provocator. His blend of satire and generosity, combined with a behavioral economics-inspired play, unmasks truth in the NFT space, including:
He accomplishes this through his artistic work, a trojan horse through which he launches his “fuckery” – a satirical assault on conventions.
Xer0x noticed that Twitter can be an echo chamber in which we lose perspective on the important happenings in the world. He learned about the attention-grabbing power of the “shill post.” He designed his own type of shill post, one that he laced with eye popping headlines from world news stories. In doing so, he commanded attention from the buying and selling frenzy and redirected it as an experiment in social hacking.
I have ~1500tez 🍸🧊 Putin orders troops into Ukraine. Oil prices surge. 👇 #shill#tezos
Trust, one of his most respected works, is memorable NFT performance art. To explore the concept of trust, Xer0x invited bids on the piece, which he had no intention of accepting. Instead, he used the bids as a strategy to identify and sort highest bidders. The highest bidders, and a few random ones too, were to receive art in exchange for their trust in him. He received ~$250,000 in bids, which he did not accept. It became one of the most talked about NFTs projects of the year and had thousands of people on the edges of their tweets.
“Trust” has been minted. Highest offers WILL NOT be accepted. Instead offers will be used as a tool for selecting 25 free airdrops. 9975ed will be burned. 5 random. Going to have to trust me 🪤https://t.co/z7xqiPmn9Apic.twitter.com/WaRhlFdZ1A
Royalty, one of his most celebrated pieces, provides insightful social commentary on the rat race artists face to find and persist in their style. The piece is a meta commentary on royalties within NFTs. In fact, Xer0x received no royalties from this influential work. That’s right: 0. The premise behind Royalty was to create a work that had no contractual means of benefiting him in the future, but rather based on “merit,” on the community choosing to find some other means of bringing value to him as the creator. Further, he used this work to invite hundreds of artists to create derivative works exploring the same concept.
His sense of play, combined with social commentary, is more a hallmark of his work than any aesthetic choice alone. In an approach one might describe as half Banksy, half Robinhood, he frequently refuses money for his works, delights unexpected fans with airdrops, and plays on the norms and social conventions.
Derivatives are essential to how he creates and plays. Even the name Xer0x is a derivative of the company holding a trademark for that name. The etymology of Xerox is “dry” and “writing,” which was so named to emphasize the differences between the old and new ways of copying.
No one knows his IRL identity. We spoke recently. In the hour-long conversation, he shared that his artist career, and perhaps even sense of play, started as a teenage graffiti artist. Counter culture credibility underlines all his work.
He is among a tight-knit, invite-only community of counter culture artists called, “La Creme.”
Xer0x challenges the status quo not as a nihilist, but as a provocator: one who uses his talents to point us to a better way.
We explored his vision further in dialogue:
Zach: How did you get into digital art and Tezos?
Xer0x: I always liked the idea of being able to control perceived reality, and digital art is an easy way to do that. My main artistic interest has always been in sound design. I still love sound; it is ungraspable and fleeting. But I turned my focus to the visual arts because of a hearing condition I developed.
Zach: Expand on your interest in “perceived reality” and sense of play?
Xer0x: Well I realized early on that perception can be altered and that people exploit the perceptions of others all the time. I have a keen interest in the Viennese psychologists as well as the works of behavioural economists such as Veblin, Kahneman, and Thaler. Using tricks to distort perception isn’t new to any of us here, but to make a mockery of this and to put it on display, that I think has been somewhat new.
Xer0x is a self professed copy artist who is foremost interested in things like satire, performance art, and self-mockery. I also need an audience and people to “play” with. Although I like to mock and satirize our current reality, my audience is never the subject of such mockery. They actively participate in the performance aspect of my work and help shape it.
Xer0x: Bilge Kaan is perhaps my favourite artist in the space. Yazid, Kim Asendorf, Alonerone, Daniela Leoni, Rover, Drain, Waxhead, Everlastingbuilding, and Justin Wood (Antique Future) also come to mind.
Zach: What are you interested in exploring next?
Xer0x:What is the NFT equivalent of graffiti or rebellious vandalism? A true graffiti artist risks their own freedom to beautify some dark corner and does so for free. Some beautiful mural or message that the public can enjoy as a result of an artist’s sacrifice. THAT. I will continue to explore that idea for as long as I’m in this space.
Zach: What do you wish more people understood about your work?
Xer0x: I am known for making free airdrops. I’ve minted 17 works so far and have only accepted offers on one piece called Royalty and also auctioned 1 ed of my Right-Click tribute. Royalty has a 0% Royalty as well. Some people seem to think I’m stupid for doing this or that I am some kind of communist, though with every airdrop I am able to ask the recipients to directly set the value of my work. So far they have continually decided to value it higher with each passing day. So the airdrop recipients effectually own my project and set the value of my work directly.
Loser was a free airdrop to 1000 people I did not know, an act of vandalism. Parasite was an airdrop for people who bought the Loser airdrop, an act of generosity.
Zach:How have you seen the community for NFTs change since you’ve been involved?
Xer0x:I have seen a lot of exceptional artists enter the space only to leave it disillusioned. When you reduce art to a mere speculative token and artists can see how people value their work in real-time, there are consequences.Though there have been some amazing advancements, most notably with Obkjt and FXHashoverall, the Manitcor’s, Ciphrd’s, and Marchingsquares of Tezos give me a great deal of confidence in the future. Akaswap is also pretty cool….I’m not a fan of platforms using KYC. Artists are not investment advisors and the value of art should be more personal than a bet at a casino.
Zach: What keeps you busy outside of NFT creation & appreciation?
Xer0x: I have a family and occasionally try and make some actual money to support them. Can’t pay my mortgage with these chuck-e-cheese tokens. I kid, Chuck-E-Cheese I think is bankrupt now…
Zach: What was the most surprising reaction to your work?
Xer0x: Someone messaged me during the drop for Trust and asked if I could delay the snapshot I was to take in time for a loan they had taken to clear. The person said they were going to use their line of credit. It made me very sick to be honest. That and the 40 some odd derivatives that have so far been made on my CC0 piece named Royalty. I can’t express how much of an honour it is seeing far greater artists than myself reinforce my imposter syndrome. So nice of them.
Zach: Who are your influences?
Xer0x: XCopy’s work opened my eyes to the concept of colour-in-motion. I don’t think people really appreciate just how deep XCopy has gotten into colour theory— – he uses illusions such as chromostereopsis and what we call impossible colours…some of his works are effectively rhythmically sequenced. He lands on 4 like you would on a drum sequencer. Bansky is certainly an influence as far as fuckery is concerned, as well as Aphex Twin, Burial & Modeselektor on the music front.
Xer0x: Mostly interested in psychology and run psychological experiments on people all the time.
Zach: How important is your anonymity?
Xer0x: I think it’s best everyone imagine me as whatever they like. I once wanted to know who XCopy was because I’m convinced he makes music as well. I just wanted to hear what an XCopy track would sound like. But then I thought ‘What if he’s a fan of Manchester and drinks cider?’. So yeah, not planning on ruining XCopy for myself…
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Connect with Xer0x here and see it all unfold in real-time….
Sarana Haeata‘s work offers insightful social commentary that is raw and beautiful. It is rooted in a desire to build a better world and is bold and honest in its pursuit.
Sarana, and her talented partner and husband Tom Lee, comprise the Creative Design Studio Aslan Ruby. They are kind and active artists with a young family, adventurous spirit, and deep empathy.
There is vulnerability in Sarana’s “Postcards from Home.” Her vibrant, hand-painted scenes make us long for a sip of tea, the sound of crickets, and the texture of good paper. Like all of her work, these postcards are more than just beautiful objects: they are stories that invite us to a dialogue with art and ourselves.
Sarana’s signature storytelling gave the Honey Badges’ collection its witty edge and Meta Angels their wings. Celebrities and Web 3 collectors alike are among her many fans.
Her 63 Patron Saints is one of the most exciting collectives I have seen. It honors women and non-binary people elevating them, and their daily experiences, to sainthood. Each hand drawn 1/1 in the collection is iconic. It captures essential truths in our society and celebrates them artistically.
Sarana doesn’t just take her existing work and mint it; she creates with her community. Recently, she auctioned an opportunity for one of her fans to be portrayed as a Patron Saint and included in the collection.
Sarana, Tom, and Aslan Ruby represent the best of Web 3: extraordinary artwork, exceptional storytelling, and authentic experiences that make a better and more inclusive world. I had the pleasure to speak with her recently and have included the interview below.
One fine day Sreeranj Sreedhar’s photography appeared on my Twitter feed. At that time, I didn’t know who he was. I closed my browser and poured myself a cup of tea. I realized several minutes later that his images stayed with me—like the after taste of a favorite ice cream. So, I returned to Twitter to find them.
@SREERANJ’s work feels so personal to me that it’s almost like my own memory. Every other year or so, I travel to India. The worlds I’ve encountered there fill me with curiosity, contradictions, and a collision of the senses.
@SREERANJ’s images give me the visual language to express to others what I see and feel in India. He’s self-taught. He’s honed his instincts to use light to find and tell the story. He bring us intimately close to his subjects. His work is more than beautiful; it is visceral. The moments he bring us to are not “captured,” they unfold in us—as if we were there to witness them ourselves.
Others have seen what I see in his work. He’s been recognized with dozens of International rewards and serves as a founding member of the In-Street Collective.
“It only takes 2 hours,” “it won’t even hurt at all.”
I heard this from Simone for two weeks before my appointment. As advertised, they asked 33 questions. They filmed, and dissected, my reactions to each: how my voice changed and trembled, and the subtle movements of my micro-expressions–how my eyelashes flutter when flustered. The scientists seamlessly made a version of me. Simone is so terribly afraid of losing me, you see. Now, she never will. “As if you were ZOOMing for eternity” the sales guy told her from mall’s kiosk. “Eternity” she said kissing me goodnight. “Eternity,” I repeated.
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It won’t be long now until we can turn our loved ones into Avatars, whose mannerisms and voices are familiar to us. In times of great loss, will they bring us comfort or confusion? Will we introduce them their grand children? Will we keep them in the cloud like our parents, and their parents, kept their ancestors in leather-bound picture books?
Will Moore’s Law, or the law by another name, apply to them, so every two years, two months, two days, two seconds they will become better versions of themselves? Will we take solace in what they are scripted to say: that they long for us; they are proud of us, and that we will be together soon?
One of the most generous NFT artists on Tezos is BlomBlom. His analog, 2D and GAN animation loops capture the essence of daily life and reveal a truth that show up as you watch the loop play, again and again. We recently collaborated on a piece that explored the temptations of good and evil.
I recently collaborated with NFT artist Omid Kzemi on a work we call Mother Tree. Here’s the poem I wrote. I encourage you read the poem while watching Omid’s beautiful animation here.
When you visit Nikolina’s website for the first time, you will arrive at open green door beyond which colorful birds commingle with vibrant flora and fauna. You will find yourself wide awake in a dream world. Images narrate stories and unleash myths. Here nothing is impossible, or out of place. Oversized flamingos walk freely on city streets and inhabit vibrant palaces. The feel of fairy tale lingers in every scene. It were as if our ordinary lives aree but boring closets, her work is the Narnia which lay beyond them.
Nikolina Petolas’ is an accomplished artist. Her work was among the first I encountered in the NFT space. It has stayed with me ever since. I admire it frequently. Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing her.
What do you wish more people understood about your work?
My works are imaginary, fantasy stories. I love to take viewers on a journey through my fictional world. These stories and characters often appear in various environments, bringing viewers often more than just aesthetics, telling little stories about life, our journey through it, through struggles and fears, about being lost and finding ourselves again. I wish people would look at my work as a whole, rather than just as individual pieces. I’ve created these stories for the past nine years, so although every piece is approached individually, through observations and feelings, they are parts of the whole imaginary universe.
I love art that is not obvious, that raises questions. My stories are like a modern fable, animals being presented not always as animals we know, but also as personified characters, sometimes being playful and inhabiting man made places, living there in harmony, and sometimes also carrying a burden. This world is anti(utopian), presenting harmonious sceneries and peaceful situations. However, it often contains elements of allegory and irony and we don’t really know when things can turn for the worse, and go to the dark side.
Which of your pieces do you feel most deeply bonded with?
I don’t have a favourite piece. My goal is to create each piece as a part of a bigger puzzle and I give everything I have to each artwork. It takes a long time to create each one, and although some pieces turn out better than others, I think each one is equally important. They are all a part of the world I created, showing us various sceneries, with cinematic feel.
Sometimes I like to see them as screenshots of an imaginary story, and I love to capture glimpses of that story. There is always a lot of emotion involved in creation, but also when viewing your own art later on, and it would be strange to judge artworks according to that. Some days I feel better about certain artworks than the other, then it changes in a day or two later. Some things don’t depend on me, either. I don’t have all the answers why I do what I do. Art also chooses us, and I let that something, like an intuition to guide me through creative process. That’s the beauty of it. When I let that happen, some incredible things come alive.
In what ways have NFTs changed how you tell stories?
Not much has changed for me, art-wise. My bodies of work existed before Nfts, and I found that the Nft market is an excellent opportunity for me to continue my work, and share it to the wider audience. I worked on my personal visual stories for a decade, coming from the traditional fine art scene, so it’s not that this is the first time I started doing my own art, after doing years of commercial work. However, since this space is so dynamic and prone to experiments, I also find myself exploring a lot of new areas of creative development and I really enjoy it.
Has the ability to create NFTs shaped the physical artwork you create?
Majority of my art is digitally created, so transition to releasing my new art as Nfts was very natural for me. I have not released my oil paintings as Nfts, but who knows what I’ll decide to do with the future ones.
What artists in the nft/digital arts space inspire you?
It is very hard to name them, because there is just too many. I met online many concept artists, whose work I admire, and somehow this made the great impact on my art before, as I love to create sceneries myself, and pay so much attention to the composition. There are also incredible 3D digital artists and animators, photographers, traditional artists. The space draws such such talent and quality, and almost every day I find something new and remarkable to admire.
To learn more about her work and to follow her on the journey, connect here.
A Life of Wonder 