TENDER Insights #13

Letter from the Editor

In the past weeks, generative art enthusiasts from around the world descended on New York City, Austin, and Tokyo to celebrate the medium, make new friends, and catch up with old ones.

Events like Proof of People, Consensus, Bright Moments, and others are a wonderful reminder of how talking face-to-face about the generative art space we love can take your connection with the community to another level. And you don't have to fly across the world: it can be as simple as DM-ing someone that lives near you and finding a time to meet up for coffee. Who knows what will come of it!

All the best, Stephen Stanwood (sandcat)

Movements

Floor and all time highs.

Primary and secondary.

Bulls and bears.

Supply and demand.

We hear a lot of talk about economics ‘round these parts.

This makes some sense. Part of what makes blockchain technology so revolutionary is the fact that it allows for new markets to quickly start, operate, and flourish. Five years ago, could you imagine owning the number of digital assets you do now? What about trading high-value pieces of art with someone halfway across the world who you’d only ever met online? We’re living through a revolution in what we view as art and how we buy it, and that’s no small thing.

We also think that it’s totally valid to consider and care about the market, while also truly being here for the art. The fact is, we are not swapping free jpegs – we are spending real currency to purchase art – and for healthy majority of us, selling works is a necessary means of continuing to collect the art we love.

Here’s a test.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever bought a piece after having the following thought: “Wow, this new artwork is great. Someday, other people are going to see that too, and this series will increase in value… maybe I’ll buy a second and sell it to support other acquisitions?!”

Thought so. 🤝

Well then, isn’t making this approach work a simple matter of supply and demand?

Recently, with the downswing of the market, there is a lot of discussion about the dwindling demand of collectors for the increasing supply of art. We’re hearing a lot of “once we onboard more collectors, the increased demand will outpace the available supply and drive up prices!” The thinking seems to go like this: we can let the current market play itself out – with whatever new platforms come out, whatever artists want to release, and whatever collectors decide to coalesce around – and once more people join the fun… MOON.

Well, yes: we should put massive efforts into onboarding new collectors (actually, we have some ideas about that 🙂). But to think that the available supply of art will be met with adequate demand from collectors is an absolute farce. 

Millions of people around the world create art, and millions more have considered the possibility. Of those millions, a very small subset make money from the art they create, and a much smaller subset make enough money to survive as full-time artists – with even the bulk of those surviving on grants and other means of getting by. The number of people ready and willing to produce art has always outpaced the number of people ready and able to buy it.

There’s no reason to expect this dynamic to change in the coming years, either in “traditional art” or in the burgeoning generative and NFT-based art scene where we’re all collecting. Given that the current collector demand is already exceeded by supply, any growth in demand will then be met with the attraction of new and more active artists looking for success – therefore continuing to outpace collector liquidity with available artworks.

While we have no doubt that the generative art market will continue to grow, and that new demand will help drive that growth, we believe that it’s a mistake to expect liquidity to approach the available supply of art, ever.

So, how does the greater art market sustain its balance, then, let alone grow substantially? And most relevant to us right now, what can turn the tide of this market?!

As we see it, the art market has always been, and will always be, most active when focused on exciting and highly visible works, and most focused when driven by these three things: (1) curation; (2) conviction; and (3) consensus.

We’ve talked about the definition and importance of curation here before. Storytelling is critical to a deeper reception of, and connection to, the artworks we come across – and the space depends on the individuals and organizations who take the time to make sense of the rush of new art all around us, helping us interpret and distill the meaning and value of what’s out there. Curation can be as extravagant as a museum exhibit or as simple as a TENDER Grail Grid, and we suggest that, used effectively, it is a practice that helps identify and focus attention on the most compelling and important works around.

Conviction is equally important. Which series, and individual works truly move you, and why is your ardor so emphatic that everyone else must see this art too? Which artists do you believe in, and why will their work stand the test of time? Articulating these types of conviction is healthy on its own, but when communicated outwardly – genuinely and with altruistic intent – it can be one of the most moving influences on other collectors, and on the momentum that markets gain. Tenders have always had no shortage of conviction, and we love that. What’s most compelling is the sense that they, and so many other collectors out there, truly believe in the works they admire. Keep speaking up about what moves you, and consider focusing your collecting most on those works!

Thirdly, building consensus around works of art is a way to aggregate the sum of individuals’ convictions and curatorial efforts into larger scales of shared beliefs. To arrive at common and positive perspectives, we need an environment where repeated agreements of opinion are catalyzed by collective actions, group endorsements, and community dissemination. This is a challenging process: individual opinions will differ at the outset, of course, and only by truly listening to others’ perspectives can we be open to expanding, shape-shifting, or even reducing our appreciation of a given work. Most importantly, it’s critical for each collector to establish fortitude in knowing when to trust their Convictions vs. when to evolve their point of view. Outside opinions, especially when delivered at volume, can bulldoze intuition and unique opinions if left unchecked. Still, the well-intentioned swaying of opinions and opening of eyes are critical steps in building the consensus that helps further focus the wider gammut of collecting.

The market can be strong or it can be soft, but seeing it succeed long-term is to everyone’s benefit, and a direct result of our actions. This is not a spectator sport: we all have a role in how generative art evolves, and whether it flourishes. We believe that a focused approach to what art we buy and how we communicate about it can create an even deeper level of success for the entire generative art space. And by embracing these three “C”s, we can move from being reactive collectors waiting for market changes to proactive collectors pushing the space forward.

Project Love

Octet by Marcel Schwittlick (objkt)

Can machines sing together?

On March 25 & 26, longtime digital artist Marcel Schwittlick answered that question in front of live audiences at despace in Berlin.

Seated at the center of the room facing a semi-circle of eight huge vintage HP plotters, Schwittlick took in the silence and settled in to begin the show. At his command, all eight plotters suddenly leapt into action, and the room filled with sound as each generated its own colorful output. For the next forty minutes, Schwittlick adjusted inputs from his control-station desk and monitored the progress of his mechanical choir.

After all the performances ended, Schwittlick – via TENDER community member Ben Simon – generously offered TENDER Pass holders the chance collect the resulting works. Our community jumped at the opportunity, and sixty auction winners secured the opportunity to collect both a physical output from one of the live performances and a corresponding digital piece.

We love the way this work shows our space's ability to bridge the gap between digital and physical. Those two days of live events in Berlin are now forever part of Octet, and through the magic of digital ownership, sixty of us all around the world now have the opportunity to own part of that memory and share it with others.

Keeping with that digital-physical theme of all his work, Schwittlick has expressed that, if resold, the physical print and digital work should travel together to to the new owner. That makes total sense to us: while we will hang one-of-a-kind Octet outputs on our walls, each will remain inexorably tied to its counterpart token that proves our ownership on the blockchain. By maintaining the digital + analog connection inherent to these works, their story is carried forward in a way that’s native to both.

Cargo by Kim Asendorf (Art Blocks)

Some digital art strives to imitate traditional physical forms of work like painting or drawing. Kim Asendorf's work is not that.

There's also this pesky fact: it's very difficult to write about Asendorf's work. Same goes for discussing it on a podcast. Or sharing screenshots of it. Or trying to explain to a friend outside the generative art scene what exactly you were so excited about last week.

Really, you just have to experience it.

So do yourself a favor. Click this image and spend a few minutes immersed in Cargo #926 (the project is fully adaptive, so chances are that it will look great on whatever screen you happen to be reading this on!):

Back? No worries if not: losing yourself in the piece is also totally valid. 😉

As Asendorf himself puts it:

Still craving specificity? Ok, here’s a little more context.

Kim Asendorf, like Marcel Schwittlick, is a digital artist based in Berlin who has been creating groundbreaking work for a very long time. His fxhash projects tr4ns4ctions and monogrid 1.1 CE are both TENDER Icons, and our community has long embraced his work as some of the very best that the platform has to offer.

In the brand-new Cargo, Asendorf brings his signature pixel-sorting algorithms to Art Blocks for the first time.

The result is visually mesmerizing. At first, we don’t know exactly what we’re seeing or where to look. But then we settle in and focus on some part of the piece, watching it rebuild and evolve before our eyes – at least until another corner of the work steals our attention away.

So go pick a Cargo piece and spend some time with it this week! If you have an extra monitor or a digital screen, run it on that. We’ve found that once you do, you may well get drawn in.

Tender’s community-based editorials on iconic generative art projects add rich context to those incredible works. If you’d like to write about a Tender Icon that doesn’t have an editorial yet, DM Adam (@ajberni) or Stephen (@sandcathype) on Twitter or Discord and we'll make it happen. 🙌

Don’t Miss This

• Mar 28: Hello Modulo by Nat Sarkissian (Verse; floor: $92)

• Mar 30: Cantera by Jacek Markusiewicz (BM; floor: 1.35 eth)

• Apr 4: fxhash launches collection offers; go try sending one out!

• Apr 6: REWORLD by Roope Rainisto (Fellowship; floor: 1.54 eth)

• Apr 6: FeralVerse - poems by various artists (Feral File; mint: $100)

• Apr 12-14: NFT.NYC, PROOF OF PEOPLE, and the Tezos NFT Summit in New York City

• Apr 12-24: Evolving Pixels (PROOF Curated; mint: 0.25 eth):

  • Exhibition curated by Emily Xie featuring 858 total works by ten artists including Ivona Tau, Lars Wander, & fingacode

  • Available for mint and also on display in New York City

• Apr 20: Reflejos by Juan R. García (Bright Moments x fxhash)

• Apr 11: Dustfold by lunarean (Verse; mint: $300)

• Apr 12: Asynchronous Response by Ivona Tau (Verse; mint: $400)

• Apr 12: Solar Transits by Robert Hodgin (Art Blocks; floor: 0.17 eth)

• Apr 17: Voyager by Disrupted Star (Art Blocks; dutch auction)

• Apr 18: Pathways by Julien Gachadoat (Verse)

• Apr 22: Transmontana by Mutart

• May 12: Ganchitecture x Tender Collab 🕋

• As always, a quick reminder to use your fx(params) mint tickets before they expire! Or read here to learn more about how the mint ticket system works if you’re just getting started.

Collector Spotlight: OTM!

Hey OTM! So first: what's the backstory with the name? OTM stands for Over the Mountain. The part of Birmingham where I live is part of what are referred to as the “over the mountain” communities. When I got into selling sneakers on the side in 2020, I needed a pseudonym so the sneaker kids didn’t know who I really was. So I adopted OTM Kicks, which I eventually shortened to just “OTM.”

What’s your current state of mind? Good? I’ll assume this is asking about the NFT space? If so, I think my state of mind is short term bearish and long term optimistic. I firmly believe this is the future of the way we interact with most things on the internet, and I think generative art will eventually just be one of the main genres of art like painting or photography. But short term, I think we’ve got a rough road ahead. So I’m being a bit more selective about what I mint and I’m not really making any big purchases or in a hurry to buy, as I think floors are going to continue to slide for a little while.

What is your most treasured piece in your collection? It’s probably my Squiggle:

I have it on an Infinite Object frame in my living room and basically always get asked about it by visitors.

If you could own any artwork, which would it be? On the digital side, I'm honestly not really looking to buy anything any time soon. I think the market is largely going to continue to contract for a while, so there are going to be even more steals in the near future. But if price was no object, probably a 1/1 xcopy.

What is your idea of the perfect drop? Is “William Mapan at an affordable price” an acceptable answer? More broadly, I would say anything that: (1) has a sci-fi or architectural theme; and (2) gives me an emotional response.

As a collector, what’s been your greatest success—or your greatest regret? Greatest success is probably my Proof Pass. Liquidating a lot of my other pieces was tough, but doing so ultimately helped me acquire something I’d wanted for over a year. So that purchase was a mix of both success and regret (for selling a bunch of generative art pieces I loved like my September, Screens, Fragments of a Wave, and Solace). But I think I ended up timing things relatively well by selling a bunch of pieces before the market got even worse. My collection now is even more slimmed down, so I’m excited to rebuild it around pieces that I love.

What three artists, dead or alive, would you most want to have dinner with? I’ll go with my two favorite artists of all time: Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet. (Yes, I’m a sucker for Impressionism.) And to continue the IRL theme, let’s throw in Leonardo da Vinci, as I would just like to soak up anything he has to say about anything. On the digital side, I’d probably go William Mapan, Emily Xie, and Snowfro.

What’s the most important quality in an artwork to you? I’m a long-form generative art purist, so seeing collections that are diverse but that also look great in each iteration is always super-important to me. But I think ultimately the most important aspect is that something about the piece draws me in and makes me think deeper about myself, the world, and my place in it.

How do you like to relax? I read this question to my wife and she just laughed. I’m an Enneagram 5, which means I have an insatiable thirst to learn about everything. And I also have a bit of ADD, which means my brain runs 100 mph constantly, and that my attention span is super short. So even when I’m “relaxing,” I’m doing one or more other things at the same time. That’s how a full-time attorney ends up starting a web3 consulting business, starting an allowlist community for Moonbirds holders, and joining the gm. studio curation panel all at the same time.

Thanks for chatting with us! Which two collectors should we talk to next? Cyphr. Cyphr is the head of gmDAO/gm. studio, so a lot of us are familiar with his professional endeavors in generative art. I consider him a good friend at this point, but I’m not sure even I know much about his collecting journey.

Hot Picks of the Week

The Piece: Automatism #304 by Yazid
The Price: 1.25 eth (slightly above floor)

The Piece: Contrapuntos #82 by Marcelo Soria-Rodriquez
The Price: 1500 tez (2 piecesabove floor)

The Piece: September #350 by Tyler Boswell
The Price: 689 tez (just above floor)

The Piece: Fragments of a Wave #397 by iRyanBell
The Price: 455 tez (floor)

The Piece: Solar Transits #145 by Robert Hodgin
The Price: 0.219 eth (near floor)

The Piece: Bravura #49 by dmarchi
The Price: 199 tez (floor)

The Piece: Fields #443 by Erik Swahn
The Price: .117 tez (just above floor)

The Piece: GRAPHEME #241 by Sarah Ridgley
The Price: 150 tez (floor)

The Piece: #78 by ciphrd
The Price: 150 tez (floor)

The Piece: g l a s s #977 by punevyr
The Price: 23.6 tez (just above floor)

TTFN 👋

We’ll see you out there on Discord & Twitter and will be back in a few weeks with another issue of our TENDER Insights Newsletter. Feel free to reach out anytime with comments or suggestions. 🙂

— Adam, Stephen, and the whole TENDER family