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Background
Mint Season 3 episode 14 welcomes the futuristic tech-digital artist FVCKRENDER, who is a self-taught creative working out of Vancouver. With a defining affinity for sharp architectural geometry, beaming future landscapes, and brilliant crystalline arrangements, his renders pay a dark homage to what may eventually reflect our very existence. His clients include Supreme, Softest Hard, Columbia Records, Lil Nas X, Epic Records, Harpers Bazaar China, TOKiMONSTA, New Retrowave Records, High Snobiety, Puma, Spotify, Instagram, Wieden + Kennedy, Rosalía, Northlane, Damian Lazarus, Le Cirque du Soleil, Lebron James, Primitive Skateboard, OVO, 88 Rising, Dior, Hypebeast and many more.
In this episode we discuss:
- 2:50 – Who is FVCKRENDER?
- 6:02 – What does your work represent?
- 9:21 – FVCKRENDERVERSE
- 20:22 – A Shift from the Digital Art to Physical Art
- 27:23 – FVCKRENDER at Christie’s
- 34:08 – Advice on entering the NFT Space
- 38:29 – Coping Strategies
- 45:07 – FVCKRENDER’s Biggest Failures
- 47:56 – Does Crypto and Web 3 favor new artists?
- 51:54 – FVCKRENDER influencers
- 52:50 – Biggest Misunderstanding about You
- 54:10 – FVCKRENDER’s Long Term Vision
- 55:15 – Outro
…and so much more.
His Latest and First-Ever Physical Piece Revealed at Christie’s
He debuted his most exciting project yet on Mint, showcasing a physical chain he created, inspired by some of his iconic digital work.
The piece will be auctioned a Christie’s during Art Basel Miami.
I bet it will go for at least $1,000,000, a genuine steal to be honest.
Thank you to Season 3’s NFT sponsors!
1. Coinvise – https://coinvise.co/
2. POAP – https://poap.xyz/
3. Socialstack – https://socialstack.co/
Interested in becoming an NFT sponsor? Get in touch here!
Who is FVCKRENDER?
You got it. I’ve been wanting to have you on for a minute. You are a part of season three super exciting stuff you’ve been working on. You crossed a 100 K followers on Twitter. You’re making a lot of noise online, across, I guess what we call the metaverse currently. Let’s just dive right in. Okay. Who are you? Okay. What were you like before crypto? And kind of, where are you doing? What are you doing now?
So before crypto I was doing commercial work visuals for shows and like advertisements stuff like this. I was pretty much working as many hours as I could to burn out. Basically. That was pretty much what where I was. Now I don’t know. I’m just like doing stuff that I like, which is insane. And I’m doing like, I’m just experimenting with like the crypto and NFC space and see how I can build this environment and community around my art basically. And so, yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m doing right now. I’m trying to just experiment enough fun and trade like the coolest I can do because I don’t have any more barriers or like any guideline on what I should do. It’s literally just me doing shit. So yeah, it’s been, how
How long have you been an artist for?
Seven years now.
And what were some of like the initial pieces you started creating before you kind of dove deeper into the themes kind of like what you’re building right now?
All my career, I was always like trying to experiment with some stuff and like, I never like follow any trend that much, like there’s some trends that are inevitable, but I always tried to do something different than other people. I started to do commercial work, so like my art side, like people were hiring me for what I was doing. So it was pretty cool, but it was still coming with like creative director who has like their crazy vision. But yeah, so I was basically becoming the executor of commercial work and I didn’t like it. I said it on another podcast. I’m so bad at commercial work. Like I’m so bad at commercial work.
Is it because it’s just too limiting to your creative side, you’re following too much structure?
Yeah. I’m not an executant, I consider myself as a true artist where I need to do what I like to do to feel good about my art. Honestly, when I was doing commercial work, I was just burning out. Like every, like every year I was having like a major burnout. So it didn’t make sense. I wasn’t meant to do like art for other people basically. Which is basically like, [inaudible] like in the [inaudible] because like, now it’s just freedom. You can literally build something that you truly believe in and people will support that. And it’s the best feeling. Honestly. It’s crazy.
What does your work represent?
How would you describe your work to people who are unfamiliar with your craft?
I don’t like to put labels on my stuff because I like to experiment too much, but like, I would say like some digital surrealism maybe.
Whoever’s listening right now, you should go to like nifty gateway, go on opensee, look up his Instagram page. You also have your own NFT portfolio and Instagram page. Right? That’s super cool. I highly recommend you check it out. You know, we met, I feel like almost a year ago also through like clubhouse, crypto, Twitter, all of these things. We’ve been creating content through Twitter spaces and whatnot, and I’ve seen your work kind of evolve. And one thing that always sticks out to me about you and kind of like the pieces that you put out is the 3d nature of it, the ambiance behind it, the crystals, right? You have these things that symbolize like who you are as FVCKRENDER, the roses, the chains, all these things kind of like encompass you. Why do you feel like you’re leaning more towards like the crystal side? Like the rose side, the chain side. I’m trying to understand more about your work and your creative process.
And like, that’s actually funny because, if you know me in real life, I hate crystals. I don’t hate crystals, I hate the crystal people where like they put their crystal on their forehead and they’re like, oh, I feel so much better right now. I’m not like this. Some people were like reaching out to me and they were like, oh, do you put like crystals on your forehead and do shit like this? I said no. What I’m interested in the crystal is our planet is forming these crystals. And it’s all about like time, like only time create crystals and extreme forces all together. And like, this is what I like to do with my art is like, take my time and like put every energy I have and create like these artwork basically. There’s so many different phases that you don’t necessarily see when you look at it up front. It just looks so cool and so beautiful. This is the main reason why I like to use crystals. Chains to me is like community and like people chaining together to build something,I’ve always used chain in my art. Growing together is better than growing alone. Like flowers, that’s so simple, but like we’re all blooming and stuff like this. I don’t like to put words in people’s mouth, but that’s, to me, what it represented kind of.
One thing that I’ve noticed that’s super, super unique about your work is, at one point you just said, right now, you don’t like to control the way, kind of like people see and explain it and kind of feel your work. But on the other hand, you’re creating this FVCKRENDER verse, right? This entire metaverse around your art, around the ambient music around the crystals, and all these planets. Right. A part of that is trying to control the experience that people encounter with your art. Can you talk a little bit about FVCKRENDERVERSE? What is going on over there? I remember like six months ago, seven months ago, I downloaded that initial file. We were on Twitter spaces. I was going through it. I was amazed. How has it developed since then? But I guess first, like what is it?
FVCKRENDERVERSE
FVCKRENDERVERSE has changed a lot in the past few months. At first it was like mostly like a art experience, virtual experience for people to see my art in a different way. Now we’re turning it more into a game more like a virtual experience art game. I’m currently working with some of the best to make a social economics and a token economics to help me with the FVCKRENDER verse. This is the first time I say it, I think so publicly, but FVCKRENDER verse changing its name for ellipsy. I wanted to change the name because I want other artists to get involved and I don’t want artists to feel shadowed by the FVCKRENDER verse. I want people to come in and feel like it’s their place as much as it’s my place. So I really want to make this virtual experience really inclusive and let people in and let everybody have fun and don’t feel like, oh, I’m releasing on FVCKRENDER verse platform.
So does that mean you’re building the tools and like foundation people to develop their own metaverse around their artwork?
No, not really. We’re really creating like this environment where people will be able to join in. It’s not going to be super open at first. It’s a project that without the NFTs space, it would take like four years to build, but because it’s a NFT and everything goes so fast, we need to build it in a matter of few months. It’s more like an experience. I wanted to dissociate my art and utility and like this thing that I want to build, like this universe I wanted to build, like, I feel like a lot of people are associating my one-on-ones to this FVCKRENDER verse called Ellipsy. So I wanted to like, create like a separation for people that wants to buy my one-on-one. They don’t feel targeted because I released like 4,000 crystals. Because to me it’s important. Like, my art is really, really important for me. And I felt like in the past few months some collectors were a little bit concerned because I was releasing all these crazy stuff with FVCKRENDER verse. I’m trying to find a way, like, without diluting my work and still creating something that I want to create, which is this meta verse where people can just hang out together and have this art experience altogether and without like sacrificing my one-on-ones and like my personal art, you know? We’re building this. It’s going to be like kind of a free to play, but also play to earn type game where people will be able to, I can’t really talk too much, but our goal is for crystal olders to farm their crystals and like have these social events where you’ll be able to, I really can’t talk too much about this. I’m going to get the slap on the hand a little bit, because we’re building something really, really sick. I heard like some of the best to help for the experience for the economics and for the development sides of it. So in the next few weeks, it’s gonna be pretty wild.
Amazing. We’ll have to do a live show, like on Twitter space.
So one thing I want to say it’s like no more downloadable files, it’s all streamable. So you’ll be able to stream it on your phone or on your laptop, Mac or PC. Like we don’t care. It’s really like, we to make this the most user friendly puzzle, because now downloading files, doesn’t make any more sense in this new era of like [inaudible] and shit like this.
That makes a lot of sense. You know, dude, you really front ran the whole metaverse trend. You were very early on that before Facebook came out, everybody now wants to become, or a lot of people want to become like a metaverse company. You saw that way before a lot of other people did. Why do you think that is? Why do you think you were so early to it?
I don’t know. I’ll blame crypto voxel. I started to see these things coming up and this is why we changed the FVCKRENDER verse name, because everybody’s wants to have a verse. I don’t like to do what other people are doing. I remember like when I started the FVCKRENDER verse so many artists reach out to me and they were like, oh, I’m doing this artist name verse. I was like, oh, okay. I need to do something about this. I’m super pro people do their own things and everything like this, but like, I like to be different. I think the thing that really switched in my brain is like, it was COVID and I haven’t seen my brother in like years, and I was just chilling with my brother in crypto voxels, showing him like my art in crypto voxels. And I was like, this is crazy. I’m spending quality time with my brother that I haven’t seen physically in years. So it was like, so maybe I can create something for my art, because I don’t want people to only see my art on the webpage. Like, I want people to go see like the virtual sculpture of my art in like fucked up surrealistic environment. I was really like intrigued of how can we perceive an NFT’s because I think what’s interesting right now is like, if you have a physical piece only a few people will see it. Like this piece from Libby only people that will come to my place, that they were going to see it. If you have your NFT page, everybody sees it. So I was like, how can I make more people see the kind of physical, so virtual, physical, if that makes sense, but in a virtual world where a lot of people could see the actual, like, sculpture of it basically.
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. How do you feel about like the current state of what people are trying to make of the metaverse for example, Metta and their take on trying, I guess what people think is them trying to own every aspect of it, right. Control and make it look like 3d and caricature type of, you know, access through these VR headsets. Do you agree with that thesis that they kind of presented a few weeks back? Do you imagine another kind of thesis prevailing? What do you think
It’s going to be interesting. I hate to say that I think Metta is going to crush it. Because they have so much more resources than everybody else. And when I say crush it, it doesn’t mean that necessarily, I’m stoked for it. I just think they’re going to do like a good job creating the meta verse. I think it’s going to be really controlled and like not inclusive at all. And I think it goes in the opposite way that we’re trying to go with like the old decentralized point of view. I have no opinion. I’m like praying for it to not crash because of meta basically. But I think there’s so many genuine creators out there that we’re going to be able to compete with meta, I’m pretty sure more than we can with Facebook right now and the web too. It’s going to be easier for us to compete with big brands and stuff like this in web three, because we’re web trees, ownership, it’s giving ownership to your family and your community. So Facebook was never giving ownership to anybody basically. So we’ll see. I don’t know. We’ll see, maybe they’ll change it and it’s going to be really cool.
You know, what comes to mind as you tell me this I’m like imagining like this scenario, okay. Bear with me. Facebook is like the king of the world and you and I, and all these other people are like having like the civil war fare. Right. I’m trying to go after like the big guys and that there’s power in many versus a large entity. Right. And us collectively, we’re building this entire vision of what we deem to be better and more fair for the people. Right. Whatever that means and not competing against like the bigger guys. Right. Yeah. It kind of feels like David and Goliath and David is comprised of many kind of thing. Right. Do you see it the same way?
Yeah, kind of, and to be fair, like I speak for myself, but like, I’m not trying to compete with meta when I’m building FVCKRENDER verse, because I know my vision and I know where I want to go with that and people will love it anyway. So I think there’s room for a lot of platforms and a lot of like meta verse. I think there shouldn’t be just one meta verse. It doesn’t make any sense, but for sure meta is going to try to have control on all the meta verse for sure.
Okay. One thing you brought up is this intertwine between the digital and the physical. One thing we were talking about behind the scenes is this new physical drop you have coming up at, Christie’s what you showed me a picture of and it’s sick. I want to say, are you able to show a picture of it now and like walk us through it? Okay. So this is going to happen at art Basel next week. I’ll be there. So if you’re listening to this before art Basel hit me up on Twitter at levy chain, I want to meet you. FVCKRENDER, will you be there?
I won’t be physically there. Unfortunately I have to go to LA, but I’d wish, honestly, like I love art basel. I’ve been there pretty much every year before COVID for the last few years, but this event is so sick.
Yeah, amazing. Okay. Show me what you showed me behind the scene and walk me through that narrative. You’re planning a really dope piece for Christie’s it’s your first physical piece. Take it away.
A Shift from the Digital Art to Physical Art
My work is mostly like sculptures, like in virtual space and like super surrealist space. It’s been a couple of years I wanted to do a physical, but before it was so broke, I couldn’t even do anything. So with NFTs now I can afford to pay people to help me do a very nice physical. So I wanted to create like this physical, but I’m a digital artist. So doing a physical, I wanted to do something that is like my work in the physical realm that we’re living in. I have so much respect for peoples culture and stuff like this, but personally, I didn’t want to have like any screens or anything that is like, technological about it. I wanted to put my surrealistic sculptures in real life. So I worked probably like three months, and it’s a super simple sculpture, but I worked three months to understand, like, what could be interesting to see in physical life. I came with this piece that I honestly, we painted it yesterday and honestly, I was literally crying at the studio because I can’t believe this is real. And it looks really, really, rally crazy. I’ll show you two pictures. I’ll show you this one here and I’ll show you one where it, the goal was to make the chain-link floating seems like they were floating. So you got this piece here.Yeah. Yeah. It’s about like five feet tall, a little bit more. It’s super reflective and it looks honestly, it looks really, really, really cool. It’s actually not too heavy too. This one is the perfect picture, because the goal was to make it look like all the chain-link was connected but floating. So you see like the gaps between them. In 3d, sometimes I do this, I don’t stretch the chain-link together because it’s in 3d. So I can have so much room for things that wouldn’t happen in real life. So I was like, how can I create something that wouldn’t be physically possible in the physical space?
How did you create that? Are the chains, not touching each other at all?
They are touching, but the touching point are so specific that at certain degrees, it looks like they’re not touching at all.
Geez. One more time. One more time.
For sure. One more time. I’ll show you a video of it getting painted yesterday
As we’re watching it. Okay. Talk to me through, like, what material are you using to paint what’s the base made out of what are the chains made out of?
So we did a couple of tests, but we need to carry it to Miami.
Carrying it from Vancouver?
I’m selling an NFT. I’m not selling the physical. So the collector that’s going to buy the NFT is going to get this sculpture as a gift, because to me, I’m not a physical artist, so the physical doesn’t have the same value as the NFT. I want to prove that without the NFT, this sculpture has no value, basically, because it’s not what I do. My value is sitting in NFTs. So bike by building it, I wanted to make something that is pretty light and something that the collector can carry and move, move around. And it’s not like 600 pounds, you know? It’s about like 50 pounds actually. So it’s pretty, pretty light. It’s made out of a polyurethane and it’s a clear coded with a Chrome finish. It’s really straightforward how it’s made. We made the cast with laser printing so we did like these 3d models of chains. We drip the polyurethane inside, and we merged them together and we put a separation between, so we can like stick them together. And I think I have a picture of when they assembled it, they are to cut the chain so the chain link was done. So they had to cut the chain link. I wasn’t there when they cut it, but I suppose the people were like freaking out, because it was kind of scary because like, there’s a lot of work that has been put in into this physical piece. But it’s mainly polyurethane like a Chrome finish paint.
You seem so proud talking about it.
I’m so proud. I was crying in the studio yesterday because I was like, I can’t believe this is real. Like, this is so sick
And what a cool kind of way that experiment in the physical space and take what you’re so good at designing and putting out digitally and trying to manifest that in real life and kind of see that where you can touch it, you know, you can play with it, you can kind of walk around it. What a cool piece, how long have you been working on that?
So designing the piece took about three months, and it’s not because it’s complicated. It’s just because I was never satisfied of the angle and stuff like this. No, not three months. That’s a lie, maybe like a month or two. I have no sense of time anymore. Maybe a month or two, but I was never really satisfied, like on how the chain was looking and everything. The physical production took 10 people and they were literally working 24 hours a day. They were changing shifts and that was for like a good solid month. Yeah. It’s pretty crazy. Yeah.
Geez. How heavy is that thing?
50 pounds.
How do you plan to ship it? It looks really fragile.
It’s not actually too fragile. It’s actually really well designed and well welded. So we’re hiring this company in Vancouver where they have like these big shipping boxes with foam, so it’s going to be pretty safe.
So this is going to be presented at Christie’s during art Basel, Miami. Open bid? What is it like, how does it work? What’s going on?
FVCKRENDER at Christie’s
So I wanted to put a I reserve price on it, but to me, it didn’t feel right. I like to put open auction, so I can let more people bid on it. As long as it covers my cost of production, I’ll be stoked, but we’ll see how it goes. Like, I don’t like to predict any prices, but it’s for sure a very big piece for me, so I really hope it’s going to go well, and I don’t really care if it goes well, I just hope people will love it as much as I love this piece.
Well said. They’re buying the NFT that then rewards them with this physical piece, correct?
The NFTs is what people are buying.
And Christie’s has that online auction set up where you can basically bid and buy? Is it minted on Christie’s or is it using like a nifty gateway type of approach?
No, I think they’re using their own smart contract. And so there is no atrophy, I think there’s a small percentage, like super I would take, but it’s not like the traditional, like Christie’s with like the crazy armor fee where a lot of crypto collectors doesn’t like, which I totally understand, because it doesn’t make any more sense nowadays with all the platform that we were having and everything that’s getting built. I truly respect Christie’s for going forward and like changing their mentality of how they are approaching the NFT space. I think they’re actually listening to people, which is amazing.
All right. So I have a price prediction. Okay. I think at least $1 million, at least.
That would be my goal. Like that would be insane.
Dude, if a collector understands how, like how detail orientated, how deep into the process you are and have been for years prior to NFTs and kind of seeing your journey as a digital artist on Instagram, doing corporate designs, working with big artists and transitioning to owning your craft now, front running the entire metaverse trend, and kind of like betting on you as an innovator, as an individual, who’s pushing the needle forward. This physical piece, this physical piece is like one that ties it all together. It genuinely ties it all together.
Thank you so much man, for all that. I appreciate these words so much, like it’s wild man. That means a lot and we’ll see, I don’t want to put any price in my head so whatever happens, I’ll be stoked. I think it’s every artist’s dream to sell at least one piece over a million dollars or $4 million. It’s such like a privileged thing to be able to say.
I think what I respect about you the most beyond being like such a good artist is you’re an amazing community builder. You really know how to rally people around what you love and people really know how to find a common theme that they love alongside your passions. And you’ve done an incredible job, rallying people across Twitter, across Twitter spaces, across clubhouse, on discord building that downloadable file for the metaverse like I’ve seen it, I’ve watched it, you know, I’ve participated in the conversations and it’s just amazing to see kind of how far you’ve come you at your new place now to, you know, like just like everything kind of like falling in place.
Thank you so much, man. That’s so nice of you to say like, and then I’m truly like, genuine about like how I’m trying to build stuff as much as like I’m known to be the guy that experiments a lot of stuff, but I’m always cautious in my experiments to make sure that my collectors and my community get rewarded and get what they’re buying. I’m trying to make it the safest possible. So crystals are not pumping, but they’re like growing and they will keep growing because I’m not going to sleep. And I’m just gonna like, build this thing until I die.
My whole thing is it’s I prefer an organic growth versus a synthetic
Dude. I hate bumps and dumps and it’s really staining the community right now because a lot of people are jumping in project and like, they don’t 10 X or 100 X the next day. And they were like, oh, this project is shit. And this is such a toxic mentality. Like, I get it. You want to make as much money as you can in the short amount of time, but understand that like some markets are so controlled and like crypto influencers and stuff like this, like I’m not pumping your bags with crypto influencers because I want this investment to be reliable in the next few years, you know, like, I don’t know. I have a very strong opinion about like these collectible project and I like I’m investing in some.
Advice on entering the NFT Space
Yeah, yeah. But none of this is financial investment advice, purely commentary. Right? So none of this is investment-related. Okay. But I love how deep you’re getting with it. And like how you’re kind of thinking about the growth of the community, the growth of the pieces itself. You’re the definition of a new classic creators. That’s emerging creators that want to own their audience and own their communities and the things that kind of bring them aligned together. And I think you ferocious Victor there’s a ton of them like BLOND:ISH comes to mind Mad Dog Jones, people, obviously all these like individuals, these micro individuals that started on Instagram on web two, right now you guys are building viral audiences on web three. You’re now funneling those audiences to kind of build communities around them. You guys are defining a new class of creators. If someone wants to kind of follow in that footsteps, right. Issue their assets, whether it be art related, whether it be music related, whether it be a cookbook, whatever it may be that they love and adore, and it excites them, how can they get started?
The main thing, and the most important thing is make friends. Everybody is so friendly in the meta verse and like on Twitter, like I would mend some stuff and I would collect some stuff and interact with the community that you’re buying. Because if you buy an NFT that you like, that means that everybody does buying the same project, they have the same interests as you. So just build something with friends that you make online. Like this is the most important thing is be part of the community and try to build something that first, that is not a copy base. It’s something that you’re building for yourself because you think this is, this is not there yet. So like build something that is true to you and is going to either solve a problem or make people laugh or make people have fun, basically.
What do you optimize for? What are the metrics that you optimize for as a creator when you’re building out your pieces, right. To kind of build a community and find like-minded people, how do you, how do you think about it? What’s that strategy you use if any?
I don’t really use any strategy. I’m really just trying to build something that people will like. I think my biggest skill is, I really, really listen to my community. Like when I see one person being pissed on my discord, I make sure that everybody’s super stoked with everything I’m building. And I know I can satisfy everybody. And it’s a very slippery slope, because people can abuse sometime, but I can see who’s genuinely like wondering, or asking questions, stuff like this. I think putting your ego aside and understanding that sometime you make mistake and making sure that you build something from these mistakes, I think that’s how you build your shit.
Yeah. Just create to create right. Create to create. Put it out there, tell people about it, get the feedback, try to find those audiences that kind of align with what you’re creating. I think it’s solid and it’s so simple, you know, in theory, but in practice it gets harder.
It’s really hard, especially for the new creators coming in. It must be really intimidating and especially like, I, as much as I like having big sales, seeing artists, having big sales, when you start, it must be so mentally challenging. And because you’re like, oh, my art is good. Why I’m not selling for a hundred each? And it’s happening to me. Like every auction I’m like, even if I sell for a decent amount, I’m like, oh, this guy sold for X amount. Why I’m not selling for this amount. And it gets too like a repetitive like terrain where it’s kind of annuity. So I’m trying to really, to disconnect with this. And so by saying this, I totally understand like the newcomers coming in the space and be like, oh, like, I’d like to make sales. But at the end of the day, what you need to understand is like, the money is just a bonus. If you really do something from your art and for your art, you’ll eventually make money. You should never be worried about the money at first.
Yeah. I can only imagine how intimidating it is for new NFT art creators, specifically art coming in, seeing a lot of the success that early adopters had, who were popular on Instagram. And now they’re trying to make their way into web three. How do you deal with that? Like that element of mental health? What are like some day-to-day practices that you apply to kind of like rid yourself of that negativity? What are some things that you think other people can do? Cause it’s a big thing because I see the numbers sometimes, you know, even as a podcaster you know, you look at other people and while you’re very proud about the content that you push out and you stay consistent and you’re on your craft, you know, it’s, it’s natural to see what’s happening around you. It’s very natural.
Coping Strategies
Yeah. I drink a lot of tequila. No, I’m kidding. No, no, no. I think it’s important to disconnect and like, it’s so important to connect with physical life and have social life. And I feel like a lot of people, like we see like people promoting like, oh, I never sleep. And I feel good. I hate this mentality. It’s so toxic. I think it’s important to really disconnect and make sure that like you get your sleep and you do exercise. I personally don’t think I do exercise enough and I should do more, but I still try to take some time to go out and go on the water and just chill for an hour. It’s so important to disconnect from your screen. You cannot have great ideas if you’re exhausted. They just have rushed ideas. It’s not healthy. So I think the main thing is like, listen to your body and you’re going to miss maybe a generational wealth project by going on the water, but you’ll be able to stay longer in that space because you won’t burn out in two months. There’s going to be a thousands of potential project that will pump your pockets. I won’t care. Your mental health is way more important than the money you’re going to make this afternoon. I think so. This is my point of view.
Yeah. I agree with you. I agree with you. Sometimes you see these tweets where it’s like, guys, I stepped away from the computer for like three days and Loot came out and what the hell just happened? I missed like what feels like three months?
I wish I missed Loot though. I bought like a divine rope for 38, 8, and now the floor is like five. So I wish I was outside this day. So you never know, maybe you’re gonna win the best project or you’re going to lose the most like money. So go outside anyway.
Does Crypto and Web 3 Favor New Artists?
I hear you. I like that point of view. What about for creators that don’t have the capital to buy or spend $500 on an NFT to get into a community then to make friends, like, for example, a lot of what people preach is buy 10 K worth of FWB get into that community, engrain yourself, meet the other creators and artists and music managers and et cetera, et cetera, of web three, you know, get yourself in the door and then start working on your own projects. Once you build some type of community, a lot of people don’t have that. There’s a long tail of individuals that don’t have that money. Don’t have the financial means to do that. How do they get started? What have you found to be the best way?
So I can relate because I come from a totally different environment than the artists that’s coming right now, because I truly think that for me and like Mad Dog and Victor, it was pretty easy because there wasn’t as many competitor. So we had like more room to experiment and like fail. I still think we’re amazing artists, but I think we had a little bit more room to fail back in the days, than the new artists as right now. So I can’t really relate, but how I can see this right now is like build a community on Twitter, interact with people on Twitter. And like, if you’re a creator who’s selling NFTs and like try to, I don’t know, like it’s hard, man. I think just genuinely put out work that you like and put it out as long as you can. And eventually even if you don’t sell tomorrow, like I have a piece on super that hasn’t sold for four months now and it’s going to sell eventually, I don’t care. Like if you go to an artist studio, all the artwork that you see in their studio, they’re not sold. So I don’t know. I think build a community on Twitter to start, try to make some money by buying cheap and NFTs maybe. This is not FENDER financial advice I don’t know.
Yeah, yeah. You know, the way I think about it just cause we’re already on this topic. If you’re a creator that’s listening, you’re getting into crypto or at least you want to get into crypto. You want to learn about social tokens, NFTs, Dows, join some of these dowels. A lot of these dowels they’re free to enter. And there’s a lot of like-minded people that you can start building friends and relationships with. And the best thing that I found to solidify those online interactions is attending conferences. And these conferences are like our pillar because crypto is so online. These in-person events are the things that solidify relationships, long term, all the crazy parties, all the get togethers, all the coffees, all these things. We all share the COVID together. I remember I went to EPCC in Paris and I got COVID over there and I got it really bad, but it was well worth it. And it’s crazy that I’m saying that because a lot of the people that I otherwise interacted with online either had on the podcast, either worked with directly contributed to the Dow’s, whatever it may be. I got to meet them in person and like, we’ve become.
I just want to say one thing still to everybody’s listening. Be really careful with COVID it’s real. Just make sure you guys are safe and wear a mask if you can, because you don’t want to get COVID. Some people are immunosuppressive, I don’t know it’s in English, but so we need to be still careful, but I understand what you mean. When I was in NFD NYC, I didn’t get COVID and I got tested pretty much every day on it for like 14 days, I was like really paranoid about COVID. We didn’t end up getting it, but meeting people in real life that has the same value as you that are building the same thing as you, it’s an amazing experience.
Yeah. I’ll add to that COVID thing, because there’s a lot of like parties and stuff like that, and it does get crazy and people do leave sick, so really understand like your risk tolerance, like understand your surroundings, who you’re staying with at home and all that. It’s super risky. There’s a lot of thinking that goes into before attending a conference. But if you’re in a position that you’re able to financially, definitely do it. I think that’s kind of like one of the best ways to get into the door as a new creator. I want to pivot into more of like a deeper questions, because you talked about you being early adopter there being there being room for more failure, right. As an early NFT creator, what would you say was your biggest failure to date and what did you learn from it?
FVCKRENDER’s Biggest Failures
I think my biggest failure was to do too much. I was like so hot about everything, and that was like, I was taking all of the opportunity because I was really interested in like, how I can create something interesting. How can I work with these guys that could be interesting and stuff like this. Doing visuals for a music artists or like drops with music artists. If I could go back I would maybe not do as much as I did. It’s not a regret because I learned so much about it, from it, but I think the main thing is like, say, no, you don’t need to do everything and be careful about the amount of art you put out there, because it’s really important. You don’t want to put too much pieces out there. I personally think I did the mistake to have too many pieces out there. I don’t think it affects me really much nowadays because I’m always trying to find a way to create more scarcity around my art, like when I burned, like the balance and [inaudible], like the crystals, like I literally shrink down the quantity in half. I think, do stuff that you feel it’s worth it and don’t do it just because like a famous person wants to do something with you, because more likely that famous person don’t care about you and they just want your name to pump their shit.
Do you think crypto and web three favors more of the new artist or the existing artists?
Does Crypto and Web 3 favor new artistes?
What do you mean exactly?
So new artists in terms of like independent artists, let’s talk about Daniel Allen, for example. Okay. If you’re familiar with Daniel Allen, he’s a musician, a producer. He had a really successful bureau campaign where he raised like 180 K in less than 48 hours for an EP that he was working on. Right. And I’d consider them a relatively new artists that I highly respect for his craft and his taste and his songs. But compared to someone like Trey Songz or Tory lanes, orJason Derulo that like are buying punks, or that are issuing NFT albums, I’m comparing like mainstream to up and coming. Right. Do you think crypto favors more of the up-and-coming than the mainstream?
Yeah, but you know why it’s because these up-and-coming artists, they interact with their community. They build something around their community. They don’t just come in, take the cash and get out. I don’t want to bash anybody, but Blau is super active in the community and he’s selling super well. And you see ASAP Rocky coming in ASAP Rocky is way bigger than Blau in the music industry. But ASAP Rocky drop a mess. So the reason why is like people buying NFTs, they know that Blau is here to stay and they know that ASAP Rocky might not stay or might just don’t really give a fuck about NFTs or might just be like his management team that’s taking care of the NFT side. ASAP Rocky doesn’t even know he had a nifty gateway drop. We cannot know for certain what’s happening with like these big artists unless they truly interact with the community. I think up and coming artist and like independent artists has maybe advantage over big celebrities, for sure.
That’s a solid take. I think that it could change really fast if these more mainstream people took more consideration of what community building is at its core and engage with fans beyond streams or beyond likes or, and really like, like not being afraid to come down to the level of an everyday person and being one with everyone, you know?
Exactly. Yeah. At the end of the day, like these guys were the same as us few years ago, like we’re all drinking the same water. We’re all casting the same shadow. Something that I don’t understand though, is they are way more busy than up and coming artists, which makes total sense that they don’t have time to chat with everybody on discord and stuff like this. But I truly think that spending one hour a week going on discord and chatting, could have such a beneficial impact for big artists.
Well think about this. I don’t think it’s that they don’t have time, they don’t prioritize it. Right. Because there is immense value, if you prioritize the time to build a community, right. Some people like to say 1000 true fans or 1000 true owners or whatever it may be. Right. Like if you prioritize that time, you build a community, you engrain yourself and get level-headed with everybody that loves and adores your craft. There’s value in that.
A hundred percent yeah. Saying it that way. That makes sense.
Who are the three people that kind of influenced you the most throughout your early artist’s career and then now you’re NFT career? And is there overlap between those people?
FVCKRENDER influencers
I’m going to sound so boring, but I don’t usually try to get inspired by people because I when I started, I was really inspired by what I was seeing, like on Instagram and other artists and this makes my work going in the direction that it’s not truly me. So I’m going to be more inspired by like the environment and seeing in real life and like reflection sometime like the window will do with like a curve of a lamp and stuff like this. I’m more inspired by this. I would say though, like Mobius has always been one of my biggest inspiration for sure. I think you can see it in my work a lot. I don’t like to be inspired by other people because it’s derailing me from my own vision, if you know what I mean?
Okay. So I have another question. What’s something that people seem to misunderstand about you?
People’s Biggest Understandings about You
So I think because of the FVCKRENDER people think I’m like rough and like always angry. I think that the name there really show something that is like aggressive a little bit. Like it’s the total opposite of me. I’m the smoothest person. I do flowers and trees/ I think like this might be like a misconception. I’m just like chill and I really love my artist name. I think it’s really catchy and people love it. I was in a conference four years ago and I met someone who is like, I’m 5 ft 7″ a little bit more, I’m not really a big guy. And I met this guy and I was like, Hey, I’m, FVCKRENDER, I love your art. He was like your FVCKRENDER? I was like, yeah, for some reason, I thought you were six feet, five and six refrigerator large. And I was like, why? I don’t know your name. I was like, okay. That’s so weird.
Yeah. Interesting. What do you want FVCKRENDER to be five years from now? What’s the vision?
FVCKRENDER’s Long Term Vision
I just want to do cool shit, man. I want to build a [inaudible]. I want to create my own shows. I want to do cool shit, man. As much as like I would like to sell a piece for a million dollar, like my, my ultimate goal is just, I want to be able to keep doing what I’m doing right now and keep experimenting and have fun. And the amount of love I’m receiving right now from like discord and Twitter. If I can keep having this and people like supporting my art, I’m I’m winning. Literally.
I love it. Final question. Okay. Before I let you go, where can we find you? This has been a lot of fun FVCKRENDER. Thank you so much for being on. Where can we find your work? Where can we find what you’re doing? This Christie’s auction, like throw some links, shout yourself out.
How do folks find you?
So you can see my work, I think on Instagram, which is FVCKRENDER I think this is where you can see all my art. If you want to see like all my NFTs, I have some on super air nifty gateway. Christie’s. Sotheby’s, that’s so sick to be able to say that like open see I’m currently minting all my shit with Manifold. Manifold is the best team out there. And there’s literally no one that can take Manifolds place. And I know like some other people are trying to build stuff that are literally copy paste of manifold, but it’s, Manifold only, I just wanted to shout them out. I think it’s important. Twitter is where I do my posting and I ask stupid questions and I complain about stuff. So yeah, it depends on what you’re looking for.
Amazing, amazing. And the Christie’s thing that’s coming up at art Basel, where can we learn more about that?
Yeah. So it’s, I think it’s going to be on the front page of open sea, which is really sick. Like I’m so stoked for this. There’s so many amazing artists part of this. There’s Victor Askira, there’s Beige, which is my fiance. I’m so stoked. That’s her first Christie’s she’s an amazing artist. There’s Blake Katrin. There’s praise station. There’s Mad Dog Jones. There’s so many amazing artists. I’m sorry I can’t mention them all because my brain is too small. I think the auction started December 5th or around December 5th I’ll be like spamming everybody. I’ll be really annoying about this one because it’s one of my favorite piece and like the physical pieces are actually completely insane.
Thank you so much. We will do this again when it Ellipsy’s out right and everything’s coming out and coming into place, we’ll do a live Twitter session, but in the meantime, guys, go check out everything that he’s working on and thank you. We’ll see you soon.
Thank you so much, man. For real.
