The NFT space is evolving at a rate unlike any other. Each area continually grows and evolves to keep up with innovations. In this episode, we sit down with Andrew Choi, CEO at SuperNormal, a premium art-focused society that challenges what it means to be extraordinary. He chats with hosts Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger to discuss the ever-evolving progression of NFT art. There's an art revolution happening right now, taking everything we know to the next level. Andrew also imparts some wisdom on the success of SuperNormal and why being challenged by your team can sometimes bring about the greatest possible results. Also, catch our Hot Topics section with special guests Jeff Daubney, Austin Yavorsky, and Dallas Santana, representing Pepe Soho, an award-winning nature and landscape photographer from Mexico. All of today's guests are amplifying human connection and expression through art and NFTs. Learn more by tuning in.
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Andrew Choi Of SuperNormal - Leading Korea In NFTs And Web3, Plus: Pepe Soho’s Coming Home NFTs, And More…
This is Andrew Choi of SuperNormal, the premium art collectible society. I'm here on the Edge of NFT, the super podcast that's always bringing you to the edge of what the new normal will be in the future of tech. Stay tuned.
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NFT curious readers. Stay tuned for this episode to learn how all of our guests are amplifying human connection and expression through art and NFTs and why being challenged by your team can sometimes bring about the greatest possible results.
Plus, hear all about Pepe Soho and the badassery happening in Art Basel in Miami. Don't forget that we put together a gathering called NF TLA that brought out thousands of the world's most innovative doers in the Web3 space. Head to NFTLA.live to get tickets to our newer, bolder, and better but as intimate and impactful event happening in Los Angeles from March 20th to the 23rd, 2023. See you there.
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Our guest is Andrew Choi, CEO of SuperNormal, a gateway into premium luxury, art, fashion, and more in Web3. Andrew was previously Tech Lead and SWE at Coinbase, Microsoft, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and IBM. SuperNormal is a premium art-focused society that challenges what it means to be extraordinary. SuperNormal values art in all forms and cherishes diversity across all areas. Andrew, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here to talk about SuperNormal.
Thank you, everybody, for the welcome.
Andrew, it's so good to see you again. Speaking of extraordinary, I am still dreaming about that Korean barbecue. That was the best Korean barbecue I've ever had in my life.
I can't exactly recall the restaurant's name but it was one good restaurant.
It was great to meet you and start to build these bridges. We talked about the importance of everyone understanding what's going on in Asia and folks in Asia understanding what's going on in LA given your roots in LA and what you're up to expand the understanding of this amazing technology in Asia. We couldn't be more delighted to have you here.
Likewise. Thanks so much for the welcome and hospitality.
It's so great to have you. We always like to start with a little bit of background on projects. You have a pretty bold vision for SuperNormal. You're willing to execute against it but give us a little bit of the origin story. How did this thing evolve?
That's one of the most commonly asked. I met Zipcy who is also the co-founder and the chief illustrator of our Web3 brand. It's so fascinating. I met Zipcy who is the artist through an audio social media platform called Clubhouse. Clubhouse was very big in 2020.
I like how we get to talk about Clubhouse like it's retro.
Time flies. It was early 2021. I was in a lot of rooms in the application but one of the rooms or sessions that I was talking in was Zipcy telling her story of how she was suffering through her artwork, her illustrations, and her illustrative products being used in some parts of Asia for commercial reasons in an illegal way without giving her any permissions and without giving her any credit.
Back then, the NFT boom and Web3 boom were also kicking in. Me having this technical background from Coinbase, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, and seeing that Zipcy has a very extensive creative and illustrative background working with companies like DC, Marvel, and Netflix, I thought there couldn't be a better way to form synergy between this technical aspect of myself and the illustration background of Zipcy. That's how we got started. When we launched it in February 2022, I honestly didn't think it would it would be this explosive.
It's always interesting to hear people who have things be explosive talk about how they weren't expecting it. It reminds you that a lot we have a lot of hustle themes on this show within the people involved. It's a matter of hustling until things roll. You have five subdivisions, NFT, Couture, Atelier, Metaverse, and Editions. That's an interesting way to subdivide things. Could you walk us through each of these and tell us what they entail?
NFT is our Genesis NFT collection, which fundamentally started the roadmap of SuperNormal back in February 2022. The NFT sector, subdivision, or vertical is what people typically know SuperNormal as, which is the 8,888 NFTs, which is our IP. Couture is our studio business where we very closely work with Web2 brands, Web2 celebrities, as well as Web2 conglomerates and companies that are not very familiar with Web3, especially with respect to understanding the meta and the flow of the ever-changing Web3 marketing tactics.
I have seen so many companies in Web2 coming into Web3 not knowing the marketing strategy and how that Web2 tactic has a huge disconnect with the NFT collectors' and NFT followers' views. I found that there's a big gap between the two. That's is exactly where we understand especially in the Asian Korea zone the marketing aspect as well as developmental services like smart contracting, minting optimized gas contracts, and more importantly, the customized way of your launching your NFT collections if you're going to do a Dutch auction, a white list, or a multi-faced minting process in a most optimized way.
The premier option in the Atelier is that you can use our art IP. What a lot of brands like to do with SuperNormal is they want to take SuperNormal's art IP and then co-brand it together. Instead of us providing the developmental service, they use our IP and art to co-brand it so that it becomes SuperNormalX or that company name, and then we launch.
The Metaverse is our gamification and metaverse platform. We are currently half-partnered with quite a few big-sized metaverse platforms to build our universe. One of them is the Worldwide Webb and then the other one I cannot name yet. The addition is our IP contents business where we're going to monetize the IP of our brand into the Web2 aspects like webtoons, webcomics, web dramas, and ultimately even animation series in a video drama format.
There's a lot going on there. It is interesting for you to also deliver that. I'm noticing there's a combination of having a specialty in Asian markets and the Web3 market. Trying to access Asian marketing is different than in the West or other countries. It sounds like you've got a one-two punch there, which is interesting where you can both address the problem that people have but also address the Web3 problem. I'm sure there's an intersection of how to market to that audience within Web3. It's interesting to learn about that from you.
I forgot to mention our Couture business vertical, which is our third business vertical. You are all very much Web3 experts and connoisseurs but many if not most NFT "projects" claim to say they're bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3. That has become the cliche and quote that everybody says to make themselves look differentiated from the other projects. The way we're structuring our Couture business is that SuperNormal is known for having luxury premium art that is loved by virtually everybody because they can find an avatar or PFP that they can resonate with.
Among this these NFTs, we have thousands of traits that are unique, high-quality, and premier and have that luxurious feeling. In these NFTs or SuperNormal avatars, there are certain ones that are very much in high demand, and there are certain ones that are more popular than the others. For the most popular ones, we are translating these digital traits into physical products that become fashion and clothes. We have our internal designer and manufacturing and producing pipeline so that this physical bridging becomes a reality.
Thanks for elucidating that. That's fascinating. I'm on the website. I see what you're saying about the themes of it. It's very pleasing and inviting. It's got a certain pedigree to the feeling of it, which is fun.
I'm trying to put myself in your head, Andrew, as a guy that comes from so many traditional businesses and how they have reached the masses and scaled. You're doing it in such a unique way where art is part of your life every single day in such a meaningful way. It's a grandiose vision that you have. You have the chops from a technical background given all these companies that you've worked for to make this happen. I would love to understand how this vision came about, how you and Zipcy collaborate, and how big is your team now. Give us a sense of what came together here.
The aspect of art and respecting and appreciating illustrations and artwork has become exponentially higher than when I was working in traditional firms and tech companies in Silicon Valley. I come from an engineering background in Silicon Valley where everything is techy and non-creative. We have a team of between 12 to 15. Our vision is that high-class art always prevails. The NFT scene over the course of the past few years has become a more speculative investment type of medium but over the next 5, 6, or 7 years, the element of art, especially high-class premium art, is going to settle in. That's going to take more share and more percentage of the NFTs.
That's the reason and the motivation why I want SuperNormal to be an art narrative brand rather than just an NFT project that has mediocre art but has all these promises behind because even if we have this art, which is drawn by Zipcy and our generator of art that can replicate it to 8,000 pieces, people are going to still appreciate the art, especially the collectors who come here for the sake of art and the buyers who come here to appreciate the artwork of Zipcy.
We talked about this at an event we hosted in LA. You have to separate the market conditions from the fact that we have had an art revolution in the last few years. It changed everything about digital art, the value of digital art, and the application of digital art in society.
It's a whole other level. One of the things that's interesting is you're not just exclusively focused internally. You're working with other brands to help them establish their presence in Web3 on the foundation of this ethos we're talking about here. How does that work?
That question can be best answered with actual concrete examples. We launched in February 2022. In the past, one of the types of brands that we worked with is a big is a huge celebrity in Korea. The level of his presence in Korea is the Tom Cruise of Korea. He was the main actor behind Narco-Saints on Netflix, which was a huge hit. His name is Ha Jung-Woo.
His agency reached out to SuperNormal wanting to use SuperNormal's IP. We licensed our IP to his company. He would reidentify, redraw, and reillustrate on top of SuperNormal's art. That would become the derivative collection of his NFT. That was a huge hit in Korea because he is one of the most respected actors in Korea but he is also an artist.
The second example I would say is Waterbomb. Waterbomb is the Coachella of Korea. It's the biggest offline festival in Korea where you have these singers, K-pop idols, and celebrities performing on the front stage. Tens of thousands of people would come. What we did is it's a hugely high-demand festival. You cannot get in with simple ticketing. What we did is we created a collaborative NFT collection with Waterbomb, SuperNormal x Waterbomb. The entrance ticket would be the utility behind it as well as food and beverage, merch, and other offline benefits.
We also collaborated offline where we held a large booth in the Waterbomb festival scene called SuperNormal. We would attract tens and thousands of people for SuperNormal. The next brand partnership that we're going to have in the next quarter, which is in December, January, February, and March, is going to be very differentiating and large. It hasn't been seen in the NFT scene before.
It's going to be massive. Andrew is being modest. It's going to be mega.
I'm very careful not to reveal everything because we haven't formally announced it yet. It is with a unicorn company and also an IP brand that holds more than ten million fandoms around the world. To my knowledge, the NFT scene hasn't seen this before. We're framing this very similarly to how RTFKT and Nike did it and how Gucci and 10KTF did it. I'm happy about the progress. I cannot wait to share it with you all.
That's exciting stuff. We have such a valuable moment here with you on the show. Being so integrated into the development of Web2 within the Asian economy, I would love to get your comments on the distinct developments as well as the integration and your vision globally moving forward in tech, entertainment, art, and all these things. How is the globe evolving from your perspective of all this stuff?
NFT and Web3 in general are ever-changing. It's evolving at a rate that I have not seen before. I come from a tech background. Even tech in Silicon Valley is considered moving very fast but when I entered the blockchain space after joining Coinbase, I learned that the NFT space and the Web3 space are changing and evolving at a rate that I haven't seen in any other sectors and industries, including in the areas of marketing, development, social engineering, and all these aspects, not just in minting meta.
I say that because companies like Azuki launched these revolutionary new smart contracts and all these new technologies for the benefit of the entire Web3. Companies like RTFKT are showing the world how actual digital can be done in a very global sense. Companies like 10KTF are showing how a proper Web2 partnership can be done with a luxury brand. My vision with SuperNormal is that we can send an example of how Korean and Asian NFT brands can partner with such brands to show an example of how this can be the future roadmap for projects that want to take this path.
Andrew is coming to NFT LA. Let's bring this brand with you. We will tell the story there.
At that point, you will understand why it is such a tough thing. The point is that from a technical standpoint, a marketing standpoint, and also a trend standpoint, it's changing so fast. In SuperNormal, we identify this and understand that our company and our team have to move at this pace, especially with a Web3 development service for Web2 brands. We try to customize everything the way that they want to and give advice, "This is the right meta to follow. This is the technical component that needs to be coupled with."
That's very exciting. You aren't stopping there. Given your comprehensive approach to this space, you're also messing around with the metaverse. You've acquired some land on different platforms. What's your strategy when it comes to the metaverse and your thoughts on where that fits in? There are always these conversations in the ether about whether or not we're ready for the metaverse. How do you activate the metaverse in a meaningful way? What are your thoughts there?
The question around the metaverse has been one of the hottest topics in the space. I met the founder of Spatial, which is a 3D metaverse exhibition space. They're tackling the metaverse space with the narrative of showing and displaying your NFT art in the most convenient and extensive 3D space. We don't want to stop displaying our beautiful artworks although that itself is a huge value. We purchased a Penthouse, which is the most expensive land plot within the Worldwide Webb.
We also purchased Sandbox, Decentraland, and NFT Worlds metaverse plots, knowing that there are going to be multiple winners in the metaverse space in the next several years. Specifically, we want to position ourselves as the premier luxury Web3 brand. We want to build a universe in Sandbox, for example, but also because we have such huge Web2 partners in the form of fashion brands or entertainment companies, we're going to work with them and then build a co-hosted universe together.
Both our fans, SuperNormal fans, and then their partner fandoms or communities can work together and then build economic activities, a virtual playground, and then also a fashion game within the metaverse where the holders of SuperNormal NFTs can dress up with the traits from SuperNormal but also with the traits from our partners' IP. That's the ultimate vision where we have integrated the fashion aspect of the metaverse, NFTs, collectibles, and wearables as well as the partner companies.
It makes a ton of sense for that to be the hub of so much activity. You mentioned earlier this partnership with Worldwide Webb. What was that about? What was that story there? What else should we expect from that collaboration?
One of the most popular traits at SuperNormal is something called Candy Hoodie ZIPS. Candy Hoodie is a very colorful ZIP avatar. It's a ZIP with the Candy Hoodie design embroidered. We took that design and made it interoperable within the Worldwide Webb. Whoever holds the SuperNormal is now playing with that character. We also bought a Penthouse in the Worldwide Webb.
Only our holders can go to the Penthouse, decorate, build, construct, place items and accessories, and do all the things that they can imagine within Worldwide Webb. There's the aspect of decorating our Penthouse on a community scale. We also have this 3D avatar or character that holders can wear in the Worldwide Webb in which the Worldwide Webb team also hosts mini-games and contests.
You announced the beginning of a new chapter here with your Mystery Box. What's in the Mystery Box? Tell us about the Mystery Box.
This is also something currently in the unrevealed stage but it is very tightly connected and tangled to our vision of season two. We also hinted at the element of Han Yak. Han Yak is a Korean way of saying herbal medicine in traditional medicine. The way it works is if you consume the Han Yak, you get this new superpower and new ability to do extraordinary things or SuperNormal things. Mystery Box is very much connected to season two Han Yak. We will be rolling out the specific roadmap.
There's nothing like superpowers. My five-year-old is all about superpowers and bestowing them, "Papa, do you want to be able to fly?" Magic never dies on superpowers.
It doesn't. I was talking to someone about what Marshmello did for an NFT. He did a live concert where there was a certain dance move that was unlocked with an NFT. Suddenly, he's flying on stage. If you had the NFT, you could fly around watching his show, which is such an amazing example of putting this type of magic into existence. If there's anything to do with flying, which you're not going to tell us, that would be pretty cool. I'm sure it's going to be a fun superpower.
Speaking of it, growing up, my dream was to be able to fly. It's funny you mentioned that.
When we look ahead, we have talked about a lot. You've got a massive project with all these verticals. You're executing against them. Is there anything that you can tell us about what's next on the roadmap that we haven't touched on already? We know there are a lot of secrets but what else is out there?
To give some context to our historical timeline, some of our partners included Twitter, Casetify, Cider, Shinsegae, which is the largest department store in Korea, Waterbomb, and Tatler. I believe we were the first NFT project ever to partner with Twitter to do a livestreaming show of the actual artist drawing live in front of 300,000 audiences and things like that. In the past, we have done Coachella, an offline activation event.
Would it have been easier to achieve that partnership or harder with Elon Musk involved? That's my question.
To my knowledge, Elon Musk is the biggest fan or follower of NFTs. Honestly, it's either yes or no.
That's a good answer. I do remember when Elon did release an NFT early on. Check that out. It was very early on when things started to get buzzy. He had some ridiculous asking price and then immediately withdrew it. He fell in over his head on the NFT space. He's sticking to Dogecoin.
I have to imagine though that the digital collectible NFT division of Twitter is begging him not to diss NFTs because this is a community that will quickly and radically move platforms. There's a lot of activity on Twitter around NFTs. It would be a big move for us. We enjoy Twitter. We like it. We have our little NFT bubble on Twitter.
I can say this because you did your partnership before Elon jumped into the bubble. I know someone who works at Twitter. They're dealing with all of everything. Number one, they think that he may be trying to destroy it actively, which I have no idea why he would but that's the way it feels, and things are not going necessarily very well internally.
Were you going to say something, Andrew?
I was going to continue saying that these value-adding partnerships with actual Web2 companies and Web2 brands are all dedicated toward achieving our dream of giving back the values to holders in a both digital and physical way and also providing a fun and interactive experience because it's all about flexing, working together, and having fun as a community.
Twitter Korea was one instance. With Casetify, we did a blue ring partnership. The cases are free to holders. Waterbomb was also a success like NFT NYC. In Korea, there's also a physical exhibition and a museum-style place called Seoul Arts Center. It is the biggest opera house and art center in Korea. We were the only and the first NFT project to be featured in the Seoul Arts Center offline.
That was also a very proud moment for our community. We did conferences at NFT ART Tokyo and NFT Asia in Singapore. I was invited to Blockchain Week Busan to talk about SuperNormal and the success story behind it as well as the interoperability of NFTs in the Web3 space alongside speakers like CZ and SBF, which could have been awkward if the accident happened back then, not now.
We always ask that question about what's moving the needle for you or what's inspiring you. Everything that you're doing and executing is inspiring for us and our readers. It's so cool to hear from you across all those different verticals and how you're working toward this vision that you laid out. In a short period of time, you've accomplished a lot. We're excited to see what's next.
What's next for us on the show though is a different segment where we want to shift gears a little bit. It's called Edge Quick Hitters. What we like to do is to get to know you a little bit better with ten set questions that we ask every guest looking. We're for short responses but we may dive a little bit deeper here or there. Let's head to question number one. What is the first thing that you remember ever purchasing in your life?
It depends on where you live. It has to be a soccer ball or football and a Yu-Gi-Oh! collectible card. There was back then a little bit of an aspect of NFTs in Yu-Gi-Oh! collectibles.
It's in your DNA. Question number two, what's the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
I'm not a big seller. I don't remember anything except maybe stock, which was at the S&P 500 Index Fund.
That's awesome. I don't think we have had that first sale ever.
That was the moment Andrew went all-in on crypto.
Question three, what's the most recent thing you purchased?
The most recent thing I purchased was ZIPS, which is the SuperNormal NFT. It's 100% not because of what I know about the company but it's more because I have a huge collector's mindset. I love Zipcy's artwork.
Question number four, what's the most recent thing you sold?
I'm not a big seller, so I don't remember selling anything offline but there's something I sold digitally, which has to be stock, crypto, or an NFT. In NFTs, I haven't sold anything. I'm not planning to. It's going to be a stock. It's some random stock that I bought in 2018 cluelessly that is non-FAANG.
You had a blue chip. Question number five, what's your most prized possession?
This is a more open-ended question because possession can mean a physical thing, a conceptual thing, or an abstract thing. My most prized possession is the experience that I built over my career, which fundamentally led to successfully building a team around SuperNormal and the teammates that I dearly appreciate.
That's one of my favorite answers ever.
Although I thought he was going to say the experience right here on the show. That's what I wanted him to say. You turned the corner on that one.
I'm not media-trained.
That's part of the experience though because he is here. Question number six, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or an experience that's currently for sale, what would it be?
If I could buy anything in the world, I want to buy time with the most not necessarily successful or rich billionaires but very deep-minded and entrepreneurial CEOs, founders, investors, and incubators who have overwhelming vision around empowering the world and underserved communities and tackling the most edge technology.
There's so much to learn from those guys. Question number seven, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
I would not even say, "Learn to accept mistakes and criticisms," but love to accept criticisms and feedback and even love to be hated sometimes because if nobody is going against your opinion, then what you're doing is not innovative at all.
I'm not so sure about that answer, to be honest.
Here's the flip side of that, Andrew. Question eight, if you could eliminate one of those personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
If I could eliminate one personality trait that I have is being too much all-in on work. It's something I'm addicted to but I know for a fact that work-life balance has to be there to bring a higher performance.
We know the feeling. Question number nine, what did you do before joining us on the show?
I had a terrible cold. I don't even know if it was a cold or a minor virus that I caught but I recovered. Before the show, I went to a networking dinner with the Global Head of Operations at Sandbox as well as one of the partners at ROK Capital, which is one of the largest crypto funds in Korea.
Those guys are great. I also had a Korean barbecue with them. I had a Korean barbecue with the team from Sandbox too. That was the theme of my trip to Seoul.
That's what I thought, "Josh must have seen these guys."
That sounds like a lot of fun. The last question is question ten. What are you going to do next after the show?
I'm going to let you answer that.
You want us to decide what you get to do after the show.
I don't think it's fed because you're staying up, getting back to work, or having some great barbecue.
I'm going to sleep.
It looks like we may have a bonus question in that mix too.
I got one. I was going to ask what superpower would you pick if you could pick one but you already revealed that earlier. Your dream superpower is flying. My question is this. How close have you come to achieving your dream superpower of flying? You've probably been in a plane but have you done a jet pack, a flying car, one of those squirrel suits, or something?
I used to and I still do go on Instagram Reels and occasionally TikTok on the feed page. I love watching people do bungee jumps, skydiving, and all these aerial activities. I'm very jealous. I'm sure I'm going to do it sometime before I die. Even watching Tom Cruise do these scenes without CGs is pretty amazing. I haven't come close to that.
The first time Andrew is going to do it is when he's in a movie about SuperNormal, and they force him to do it in the movie.
That's Edge Quick Hitters. We appreciate you sharing with us good stuff, good answers, and lots of fun. The word on the street is we have a very special Hot Topic. Eathan, let me kick that over to you.
Jeff, you don't need to go out to the street to find this stuff out. We have it in our notes for the show that this stuff is going on. Hot Topics is next. Our sponsored Hot Topic is about Jeff Daubney, Austin Yavorsky, and Dallas Santana. You can all come on and be part of the conversation. They represent Pepe Soho, an award-winning nature and landscape photographer from Mexico who following a series of life-changing events developed a love for photography in his early 40s. During this therapeutic process of framing and capturing nature's purest moments, he discovered a path to healing and self-discovery. Welcome to the show.
It's great to be here.
It's thematically appropriate. We're talking about flying a lot on this episode and breaking new ground from a technological perspective with this incredible digital art revolution that we're in. What you are doing with Pepe Soho is cool. I'm so excited to hang out with you in Art Basel and get to know more of the inspiration behind this project. Austin, maybe you can kick it off and tell us a little bit about Coming Home, which is the first NFT art collection that lives both in the metaverse and on the moon, another place for Andrew to visit.
There you go. Thanks for that. We're all career technology and crypto people for a very long time. We were exposed to Pepe through a wonderful network of people that we know in Latin America. He's a world award-winning photographer and has a tremendous focus on capturing nature in ways that I've personally never seen any artist do to the point where when you look at a lot of his photographs, you second guess whether or not they're real.
Through a series of conversations, we went down this path, "There are a lot of artists that are trying to do NFTs but they're effectively not good at it because they're taking 2D representations and making them other 2D representations. There are a lot of programmers trying to do art but they're not artists. How can we not only bridge the gap between those things but also create a new experience that allows the artist to step into a new medium?" This is when we went down the path of the metaverse and the experiential side.
It's an interesting collection. We're combining physical pieces with NFTs and a metaverse experience. To top it all off, we were selected from a very small group of people internationally to have this represented on the next lunar mission through the Artemis mission of SpaceX and NASA in a foundation called the Arch Foundation, which is effectively responsible for capturing humanity and any evidence that we might have of our existence to future generations or other species. That's where it came from and where it's going. We're super excited about getting ready to launch here for the first drop.
I'm on the Pepe Soho NFT Twitter. Andrew, I saw you googling. Maybe you're over there too. This art is breathtaking.
It's amazing. A lot of it was, "How do you capture the experience that he felt in the moment to capture those images through his lens and allow other people to get even relatively close to that?" The way that we did it was by creating these very in-depth metaverse environments using some of the latest graphics engine technology, including sound, feelings, and so forth. It turned into something quite interesting in that you're stepping into the pieces that were captured.
You could see how special those are if you had a chance. For any readers, poke around there. There's some amazing and breathtaking stuff. We want to also get some more background on Pepe Soho because it is an interesting story and compilation of experiences that have articulated themselves in these images. It's an exceptional story. Give us some background.
I would be happy to. Thank you. Pepe is a dear friend of mine and an amazing human being. He has been living this healing journey for years. Previous to that, he always lived a life of arts. He was a nightclub owner, a fashion designer, and a drummer in Los Angeles. The Pepe Soho story starts there but the healing journey started years ago when he found himself wildly successful and struggling to find his happiness. He has won two World Photographic Cups and a gold medal in the Photographic Cup.
He's also educated at the International Center of Photography in New York City but Pepe is an open-hearted, beautiful, sensitive, and vulnerable human being. You see that in his artwork. He dedicated the last few years to this journey of healing and helping others heal. Through that process, he opened up an immersive museum here in Tulum, Mexico called Mystika. Mystika is an immersive, meditative, and experiential museum. About 50% of the people who enter Mystika leave with goosebumps, tears in their eyes, and a pure, visceral, and deep experience.
That's Pepe's goal. Pepe is 52 years old now. His goal for the rest of his years is to help people have feelings and help them to feel better on their journey of healing. Knowing him so well, he never likes to talk about those things but highlighted in Forbes, Huffington Posts, and countless other things is a huge Dubai expo called Expo Dubai 2020 where he did a popup. About 300,000 people entered his immersive sanctuary installation over the course of six months. If Pepe were here with you, he would tell you he's got one sole journey moving forward. That is to help people feel good.
I looked at some of those images of Mystika and even the images of people responding to it. You can see exactly what you mean, the looks on their faces and the raw motion. That's super powerful.
He's such an amazing human being and one of the most humanitarian artists that I've met. When he's here at the museum, he's there from open to close. He's greeting people and even running tours. He's in the gift shop. He's conceptualizing the next shoots and sharing that with everybody. That's what makes Pepe so interesting and accessible. If you're ever in Tulum, New Mexico, he's not a hard person to find. He doesn't hide from people. He loves to have heart-to-heart conversations about their journey. On top of being an amazing artist, he's an amazing listener. He does it all day long when he's at Mystika.
I'm reflecting on a lot of differences, Andrew, but also some similarities with Zipcy in terms of her curiosity and focus on humanity and relationships.
I resonate with that because when I was formulating the conceptual aspects of SuperNormal artwork, she wanted to emphasize the elements of human emotions, human connections, and how females, males, or lovers express their feelings and emotions. Every aspect of that has been reflected in SuperNormal's 8,888 avatars, which is why people can always find at least one character from the collection that they resonate with.
I'm sure there are similarities with Pepe's work. You go to this gallery, and there's one piece that moves you because it speaks to you personally.
You oftentimes see when you're inside of the gallery people for 15 minutes or 20 minutes standing in front of one of the large format pieces before they went into the immersive event or the immersions. They're looking at his 2D art. Their mouths are open. Their eyes are wet. They're usually talking to the person next to them about how they're having true feelings from their heart and their soul. They're feeling it down the back of their neck. This is common. That's probably Pepe's superpower. He's able to evoke that emotion through his work but in a massive amount of people.
In this theme of healing through art, music is included. I know very well as a musician and a creator that feeling of almost needing to do art or music therapeutically. It makes me feel better. It helps me cleanse and things like that. I don't know what the experience is for non-creators. I had a conversation with a friend of mine. He was saying it's difficult for him to feel emotions but one of the things he does is put on music. He has these go-to songs. If he's feeling sad or happy, he puts them on so that he can access those things.
That's the way I envision it. It's a partner relationship between creators and those that are consuming or experiencing art. It's a human necessity in varying degrees of people to access emotions around art. It's very cool. I wanted to touch base here with Dallas who we have here because you might be able to tell us a bit about the Space Blue Lunaprise Art Museum mission to the moon. Miami Art Week - Art Basel is coming up. Is the NFT call to action here for that?
We will be there during Miami Art Week in Art Basel. All of us will be gathered there. We're going to have Pepe's artwork on display. You can learn more about that and get on the guest list. We do have a VIP guest list. You would want to email VIP@SpaceBlue.Club to get on the guest list and be a part of the experience there. We're excited. We're going to have some of the engineers and scientists who are behind this project at Arch Mission who are going to be joining us, Galactic Legacy Labs, and Space Blue.
We have all come together. We're excited about working with Pepe. He represents the ultimate artist that represents humanity. This project is about bringing digital art and engraved art, which ends up being put on a payload on a lander. This lander will be sent on SpaceX in the first quarter of 2023. It will land on the South Pole. When the Artemis mission left to go to the moon, it was a big deal. It was part of a $50 billion program with NASA. During that Artemis launch, they mentioned that there is going to be this project coming up on this lander, which will land there on the South Pole.
It has a scientific mission but it also has a very historical art mission. We're taking art to the moon, not physical art but engravings twin copies. With Pepe's beautiful artwork, what's going to happen is that the engravings will be made into twins of this onto these plates and put into the payload onto SpaceX on the Nova-C Lander that intuitive machines have created. That will be sent to space. The testing on it has indicated that this should survive for about a billion years.
If you think about art in the world and all the great excavations of art in the world such as in Egypt and so forth, which goes back 5,000 years, can you imagine a time capsule on the moon that's going to house Pepe's artwork for over a billion years? It's exciting. It provides something very valuable at this time in the NFT industry to have this utility that's added to projects. We're excited about working with Pepe. His artwork is beautiful and stunning. It represents Earth and humanity. It's a good fit for our mission. We're excited about working with him.
Can we get Andrew on this ship though to the moon too because he wanted to fly? We're getting him closer to that goal. Let us know.
We will talk about that. We would love to know more. We do want to represent everyone in the world that we possibly can represent from different regions. South Korea is very important to all of us in the world in technology and NFT innovation. That's something we should chat about. Thank you.
You didn't mention that we will be there as well. Some of the Edge of NFT crew will be onsite hanging out with these folks in the Wynwood area, which is a special part of Miami. Arielle, Audrey, I, and Eathan will be making our way to Miami right after Thanksgiving, hopefully, shake off that food coma, and experience some beautiful art. I appreciate the invitation.
One other thing I wanted to mention to make sure we touched on was the Coming Home minting and presale and how folks can get involved there. We wanted to make sure we got that out as well. Is that something you could share?
If you go to PepeSoho.io, which is the one dedicated to the NFTs, there's a countdown and a sign-up going on there. We will have at Art Basel the actual experience. This is with VR headsets. If anybody wants to come by and have that experience firsthand, you're welcome to. We have a lot of private collectors. We have already shown them early-stage things. It looks like it's going to be a pretty substantial event. We encourage anybody to either go to the website or if you're in Miami, come see us there. We will be there for Art Basel. We're also staying on for TechnoArt, which happens from the 8th through the 10th of December 2022. It's going to be about 2 to 3 weeks there in Miami.
I did want to touch base because I wanted to make sure we didn't miss it if we had one here. Do we have a little giveaway that we had queued up? I've seen it in the notes before but it might have slipped through the cracks here. I wanted to check in with you on that.
There's some stuff on socials. Check out on Twitter and Discord to see what that's going to be. It's going to be interesting.
Speaking of that, where should we send folks for your various social handles? We want to make sure they have it dialed as far as where to follow you, the project, and everything you've got going on.
You can find us at Pepe Soho NFT on Twitter. The Discord channel is linked there as well. It's a big community. The project has been going on for a bit over a year. We're finally getting to that point where the drop is coming. It is very interesting. We have had to shift around a little bit with launch schedules and whatnot but as it's coming, it's getting down to the wire. We're excited.
Andrew, I'm sure you're familiar with that emotional state before the first drop.
I could talk about this for hours but the TLDR is that it is very heart-wrenching in a positive way. It is an exciting and enthralling moment.
Austin, Jeffrey, and Dallas, thanks so much for joining us and sharing all the fun stuff you have going on around Pepe. We're looking forward to experiencing more of it here soon.
Thanks so much for having us.
Catch you on the flip side.
Take care.
Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you.
Thank you.
See you soon.
I wanted to move to our next segment here. It's one that we added relatively recently. It's an opportunity for us to give a little bit of love to people who are making a difference in our world. It's a little shout-out section. Andrew, we wanted to give the floor to you to do that.
I'm probably not going to do a favor for the show if I say it's my whole team.
Let's acknowledge the extreme awkwardness of that and say, "Let's give a shout-out to your whole team." That's within reason because there are a lot of people involved. Your consternation at making that decision shows that everybody is playing such a key role in what's going on with what you're up to. That's fair.
That's a given, the fact that the team gets more credit than I do. The more important distinction that I want to express is that the more scalable your business, your product, or your brand becomes and the more awareness your NFT project increases, the more you appreciate the teammates, especially the ones that I can delegate my work to because there's the operation side and the other side but everything if I try to do everything myself, it's an automatic burnout. That's the reason I daily feel gratitude toward my teammates.
No one is an island.
That's a big shout-out to the team for making it happen. Before we let you go, we also wanted to make sure that we knew where to send our readers to follow you, the project, and this amazing team that's doing so much. Where should we send them?
For the SuperNormal brand, it's going to be www.SuperNormal.art to celebrate art. We put our domain as SuperNormal.art. To learn more about me, it's going to be AndrewChoi.club, my first name and last name combined.
We also heard that we have a giveaway around SuperNormal NFT. What's the scoop on this?
SuperNormal is our genesis where all the utilities and the rewards are. The artwork itself we believe is the utility too. The artwork utility, the rewards utility, and anything that relates to our future crop for utility is all funneled into SuperNormal NFTs. We're giving away SuperNormal NFTs.
Keep an eye on our socials, all of our readers, to get all the details on how to enter the contest to have a shot at winning that super valuable SuperNormal NFT. We appreciate it. That's very gracious of you.
At this moment in time, there are only 3,698 owners in the world of this prized NFT that continues to hold value and create value in the world.
As we mentioned earlier, we have the Pepe Soho giveaway. Keep an eye on our socials for that too. This is a special episode of very generous giveaways. We appreciate it. We have reached the outer limit at the show. Thanks for exploring with us. We've got more space for adventures on the starship, so invite your friends and recruit some close strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us, and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing EdgeOfNFT and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- SuperNormal
- Pepe Soho
- Art Basel
- NFTLA.live
- Zipcy
- Worldwide Webb
- Waterbomb
- RTFKT
- 10KTF
- Azuki
- Spatial
- Sandbox
- Decentraland
- NFT Worlds
- ROK Capital
- Arch Foundation
- Pepe Soho NFT - Twitter
- Mystika
- Space Blue Lunaprise Art Museum
- VIP@SpaceBlue.Club
- Arch Mission
- Galactic Legacy Labs
- TechnoArt
- AndrewChoi.club
- Spotify - Edge of NFT
- iTunes - Edge of NFT
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