NFT art is a growing piece of the Web3 universe, but a lot still needs to be done to increase artist participation in the space. One of the barriers to entry is the lack of opportunity for creatives to partner with developers in creating new, groundbreaking ideas. Animus enables this collaboration process at scale by creating a platform where hundreds of artists get onboarded in the world of blockchain and NFTs. Animus is a collective of artists dedicated to bridging the divide between the traditional and digital art worlds by harnessing the benefits of Web2 and Web3 tech. They are fostering meaningful connections within our community and encouraging exploration and experimentation. Animus co-founder JN Silva talks about this and a lot more right here on the Edge of NFT.
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Listen to the podcast here
JN Silva Of Animus - The Platform That Is Bringing The Artists To Center Stage, Plus: William Shatner’s NFT Release
This is JN Silva, artist and founder of Animus, the platform bringing the artist to the center stage of Web3. I'm here on the Edge of NFT, the show where the art of Web3 can always shine bright.
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Stay tuned for this episode to learn how the Web3 artist JN Silva is taking Animus users on a philosophically rich journey of utility and art on the blockchain.
Plus, the incredible story of how our guest’s first purchase resulted in a robbery at knifepoint.
Finally, read the details behind Infinite Connections, the recent drop from the legendary Web3 voyager, none other than William Shatner.
Before we go, don't forget that our Outer Edge LA event returned to LA from March 20th to the 23rd, 2023. You can now catch up on all the discussions, presentations, and more. Head over to Watch.OuterEdge.live and register with only your email address. You will have access to over 60 captivating conversations and performances. Binge watchers are welcome. See you inside.
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This episode features JN Silva of Animus, the artist collective dedicated to advancing the future of the NFT crypto space. He is a Venezuelan-born photographer with a keen eye for the decisive moment. His eclectic photographic style has allowed him to pursue different avenues in photography, ranging from street and portraiture to live music and aerial photography.
His artwork has been displayed and sold at the prestigious Sotheby's Auction House alongside the all-time greats. With a career that spans over a decade, he has showcased his work all around the world. He has a long history of building and fostering community across mediums. A former educator, JN has taught photography workshops and led photo walks all over the world while working with major brands and photographing iconic images of the world's leading artists.
His entry into the NFT world marked a clear shift for the photography community. He has onboarded hundreds if not thousands of artists in the world of NFTs via his artists collective Animus. Animus is a collective of artists dedicated to bridging the divide between the traditional and digital art worlds by harnessing the benefits of Web2 and Web3 tech. They are fostering meaningful connections within our community and encouraging exploration and experimentation. JN, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. This is going to be fun.
It was great to have you at Outer Edge in 2023 and start to get to know each other. This is event season. We also had a chance to catch up in Austin. I was like we go to have you on the show. We have to unpack your story and what you are up to a little bit more.
I appreciate it. Thank you for coming to our event in Austin. It was a good time. It was great seeing you. I had a blast at Outer Edge as well. My panel was on community building, which I feel is my specialty. I’m grateful for the invitation.
Let's start at the beginning of Animus. How did this platform come into being? What is it all about?
I will start a little bit earlier. I got into crypto in 2017. I'm Venezuelan. Hyperinflation is what destroyed our economy. When someone sat down and explained Bitcoin to me, I was like, “This makes perfect sense. Hedge against hyperinflation.” I'm one of those people who when I get into something, I become mega-focused on learning as much as I can. I spent all of 2017, 2018, and 2019 learning as much as I could about blockchain in general, and even through the bear market of 2018 and 2019.
In 2020, I’m still doing a ton of photography work. It was supposed to be the busiest year of my life with regular client work. In March 2020, I lost all my work and all my creative friends lost all their work because of the pandemic. There was this moment where I was like, “What the hell can I do now?” I figured I could day trade and do crypto. I started paying attention again to what was going on in blockchain. As soon as the government turned the printer back on, I was like, “This is what we have been waiting for. This is the value proposition of blockchain.” I saw this opportunity emerging for creatives. At the time, there were a lot of genius developers and people in the space, but their creative and marketing side of things were lacking.
I found myself having all of these friends who were super creative and amazing artists all over the world that were out of work, and all of these people in blockchain that were seriously needing creative advice. That is when I started to create Animus. At first, we were advising and helping a lot of the projects that were launching in 2020 during DeFi Summer. We were helping them with marketing and making decks. Eventually, a few of those artists were like, "Can you make NFTs for us?" I was like, "We can make NFTs. You have to make the art, and you guys can mint it.”
It started like that. I’m connecting amazing artists with amazing developers. Eventually, as more demand came in, I was like, “Let me start Animus to have an organized umbrella where we can do all these things.” As we grew, I realized we didn't want to have this agency model, which is how we started. I wanted it to be more about empowering the artists because this was a new paradigm. It wasn't like Web2 where I was hiring these artists for hire. I wanted them to be a part of it all.
We shifted to becoming an artist collective. At the same time, I was very vocal on all my social media platforms about Web3 and NFTs. Everyone thought I was going crazy because it was in the middle of the pandemic. They were like, “What the hell are you talking about?” I figured, “Maybe we can use Animus to onboard artists.” I made a lot of presentations and decks. I curated a ton of articles and links. We put it all under this huge Padlet link. I was calling friends every day and being like, “You need to come onto Web3. You need to learn about NFTs.” All of my second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 were spent getting on calls and onboarding artists.
From there, Animus grew to hundreds of artists that entered the space through us. We did a lot of advising for a lot of marketplaces early on. We then started hosting events starting with PTC Miami in 2021. Since then, we have hosted in-person events at a lot of the major conferences. Our whole thing is empowering artists, helping artists grow, and helping them navigate this ecosystem, whether that is through advising, helping with moral support, and mental health things. It has been an awesome and fulfilling experience so far.
As you are talking about the need for creativity in this space, I'm reflecting on my early days in crypto in 2017 and 2018. I'm sure, Eathan and Richard, you can relate. There were some bad cut-and-paste websites out there. Every single project was following the same WordPress templates. I don't even think Wix was around then. There was no culture in this space.
It is all about basic language, basic marketing jargon, and technical teams. What got us excited to start the show about the same time you were getting fired up in March of 2021 is we saw a cultural revolution here where some of the traditional principles of crypto were intersecting with the opportunities that that digital collections had with the intersection of pure culture. It is something we all needed and were looking for in a relatively desperate time in our society.
I commend anyone who saw that opportunity early on. In March 2021, I was a guest on The Joe Budden Podcast. I don't know if you guys know Joe Budden. He is a rapper turned podcaster. He runs a huge podcast. I have been friends with him for over a decade. I have never asked him for a favor before. I was like, “Let me go on your podcast and talk to people about NFTs.” He let me on. It was late February 2021. I went on the podcast, and that clip ended up getting millions of views.
Still to this day, whenever any platform asks, “How did you learn about NFTs?” A lot of people tagged me and they were like, “Through Silva on the Joe Budden Podcast.” I can't even measure how many people got that first hint of curiosity from that. I'm still an advocate for this space. There are still people who don't quite see it yet. We went through this crazy hype cycle. A lot of people are like, “I told you. It was all a fad.” People still have trouble seeing the long-term vision of it all, but we got to keep showing up every day.
At the moment, you are minting your Animus Key Card. That is the NFT entry into that ecosystem. Tell us a little bit about that and how it plays into the collective.
The Animus Key Card is something we have been working on for over a year. We wanted to tokenize entry into our ecosystem. We have an active Telegram chat. We chose not to do Discord because I have seen many people get scammed on Discord. I would be heartbroken if one of our Animus community members got scammed by our Discord. We chose to keep our community on Telegram.
We have been growing. We wanted to tokenize entry into our ecosystem. What that means is becoming the VIP of the Animus community. It is also a way for us to get art into the hands of the holders, the core Animus team like myself, and four of my best friends in the world. We make a lot of stuff and a ton of art. Up until now, we have done it either by collaborations or different personal projects where we release it, but we wanted to have something under the Animus lore.
If you go on our website, you will see that we have this deep and philosophical lore. I studied Philosophy in college. Philosophy changed my life. Everything that I do is in view of philosophy. We created this story behind Animus, which is deeply rooted in a lot of different philosophical concepts. We wanted to get that out. It is almost like a story that we are telling through blockchain. We held on for different reasons. We strategized on how to do this properly.
For me, one major thing that’s halting the release was the gas fees. In 2021, gas fees were astronomical. It didn't sit right with me to release this because I'm Venezuelan. I onboarded a ton of artists from South America and all different underrepresented communities and nations. For us, we might pay $30 or $50 in a gas transaction here and there. For someone in South America, that is food for almost a week. You don't have the privilege to be minting stuff for $50 as you go.
I wanted to find a solution to bring the fees down. That is why after doing a ton of research and talking to a lot of different teams, we entered a partnership with the Arbitrum team. As an aside, I'm a huge gamer. I have been a gamer my whole life. I entered the Arbitrum ecosystem via Treasure DAO MAGIC. I was doing a ton of gaming on there in 2022. I enjoyed what they stand for and what they have been building on Arbitrum.
I'm good friends with a few people on the team. Unbeknownst to me, a lot of them were in the Animus Telegram. They reached out. They were like, “We like what you are doing. This seems like a very organic artist community. How can we help you empower more artists in the space?” I was like, “What do you mean?” He was like, “We want to help artists. We love to have more on Arbitrum because there are a lot of PFPs and gaming projects. There is not a lot of art on there.”
We saw that as a perfect opportunity to enter this partnership and release Animus Key Card via Arbitrum. We started minting a few weeks ago. It is a fairly limited supply of a little bit over 1,000. What the Animus Key Card is going to get you is a lot of art. We are working on a lot of projects. I'm doing some personal projects there. We are going to start airdropping, releasing, and doing claims for artwork. If you have the Key Card, you will be the VIP at our in-person events.
For this event in Austin, the first wave of signups to come were all Animus Key Card holders. We reserved the free merch that we made for the event for the Key Card holders. Once every Key Card holder was satisfied, we then opened it up to the public. We are going to start doing more things like that. Holding a Key Card will have you be the VIP of our ecosystem.
Josh, have you been to one of these events? Did I miss it?
I don't know if that qualified as one of these official events, but there was a said event on Friday before the thunderstorms where it was pretty chill. It is a bunch of artists hanging out, some good tacos, arts, and good music. Am I leaving anything out?
Did you guys check out the laser installation in there?
No, I missed the laser installation.
That covers it. A lot of people in this space always think they have to throw this grand deals mega jam. Everyone is going crazy with the loud pumping music. The artists do not like that. I want to be somewhere where I can't hear people speak. I want to be in places where I can talk to people, connect, have fun, and have a more chill vibe. Our Animus Telegram is called the Animus Lounge. For all our events, we try to harness that feeling of being somewhere with friends and creatives, and embracing the connection there. That is what our event in Austin was all about.
There were good tacos. We had a lot of art. We had these incredible artists. Laser Lou came. He was this in-person laser crystal installation. You don't get to check it out, but they are unbelievable. We partner with this incredible Ally A.L. Grime. She did a whole mural outside of the venue. That same design is what we put on the merchandise for the event.
It is all about getting artists to get together and connect. It is always about the quality of the people at our events and not the quantity of the people. We specifically curate our lists very tight. Our event is never too packed, which for me is incredible. It is a relaxing and recharging environment. I want people to leave the Animus events recharged, and they are not like, “I'm so drained.”
I hate it when I'm at an event where there are lots of cool people but I can't hear anything of what any of them is saying. The only critique I have for you is I wasn't there. In Venezuela, I thought you should have some Arepas in addition to those tacos.
Arepas and Tequeños are a must for any of that. I didn't trust that. I don't want to get someone in Austin and get some Arepas on board. In Miami, we always have that.
There are a couple of things you brought up that I want to go back and touch briefly on. The first is the ability to access. With ETH, someone has to pay $35-plus. During bullish times, you are paying $100 up to $1,000 in peak times. That is a barrier to entry. Being able to go with Arbitrum and having a way to have more access for people is setting up the future for getting more people involved, meeting artists where they are, and finding a way to get them onboarded.
In that same regard, you are working as an executive producer of the Buscando América Project. For anyone who has tried to make a featured film, you know how hard and challenging it is to do that. Access to be able to become a part of that is difficult. Can you tell us a little bit about that project and how you are able to get some of those NFTs featured on OpenSea?
My two biggest projects were Animus Collective and Buscando América. They overlap. We are both families. Animus Studios is under the Animus umbrella. Me and my cofounder Phil Yoon who is one of my best friends. We went to college together. We have been doing short and long-form content for over ten years. That is our Web2 careers. We are doing photography and videography for festivals, artists, events, and music videos. It is storytelling through photos and videos.
We feel that this is still severely lacking in Web3. That is why we have Animus Studios. Under that umbrella, we have made and produced a few short-form storytelling projects. We did this piece with Cory Van Lew and Farokh for Rug Radio for the faces of Web3 mint. We did a five-minute short documentary on Cory Van Lew and his process.
That is the whole purpose of Animus Studio. Animus Studio produced this first short documentary that we are doing with Buscando América. It is a passion project. That was introduced to one of the directors, Nelo. He is a brilliant Venezuelan filmmaker and Emmy nominated. He made a documentary about the Venezuelan protest of 2017 and beyond. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2022. Someone said, “You two should know each other because you are both into the Venezuelan culture and wrapping the flag.
We met and chatted. He was about to enter Web3, and he wanted some advice. He was like, "I and my best friends living in Medellín wrote a script together over the pandemic. We shot a little teaser for what we wanted this film to look like. I want to get your opinion on how I can go about these things and if there is a future for it." He wanted like my thoughts.
I checked out the script, looked at this teaser, and saw the deck. Immediately, I was blown away. I was like, “How can I be a part of this? Please let me in. I want to help you bring this thing to life.” I came out as the executive producer and Web3 strategist. I don't think there is a big Film3 community, and there are different projects at different stages of production.
To this day, there is not one completed full film that is out that can say, “We fundraised the whole thing. We went from zero to this via NFTs.” I respect a lot of the projects. We have some amazing friends in the Film3 community. We are all figuring it out as we go. What we are doing is we broke the stages of making a film into different parts. For every part, we are going to be dropping an NFT project to fund that stage and get us to the next one.
I'm a Sony ambassador. I have been working with Sony on their camera side for over ten years. Sony lent us all this gear to go to Medellín, and we went to Medellín for twelve days in 2022. We did a whole canvas of the whole city, doing location scouting, character scouting, and getting into some places that no one is allowed to go into. I have been interviewing some very interesting people all over Medellín.
We put together a short documentary. It is a twenty-minute documentary. You can watch it on YouTube. It is called IDIOSINCRASIA. We turned all of our scouting and the documentary photography we did into this first collection, also called IDIOSINCRASIA. We turned that into a whole collection. It is 2,500 one-of-one photos from outside of Medellín. The photos are from myself and the two directors of the film, Nelson Nelo and Alex. Alex is also a brilliant filmmaker and music video director. He was born and raised in Medellín.
Our whole purpose is we want to showcase the real. In a lot of our countries, we feel that our culture is misrepresented a lot of the time by other cultures. For example, in Medellín, you have a series like Narcos. When you ask someone in Medellín or Colombia how they feel about Narcos, they were like, “These foreigners came. They rented a deserted village way outside of town. They hired all these foreign actors and writers. They tried to tell a story about our people.” It doesn't feel genuine and there is a lot of misrepresentation there.
Our whole thing is showing what the real culture is like in Medellín. Our film is going to tackle a lot of issues but mainly corruption in South America and how that corruption has been pervasive that it has driven out a lot of the major talent over the last few decades. That is a story of myself. We were forced to leave our countries to chase better pastures because of the overwhelming corruption.
We have had a lot of amazing supporters. We first premiered the film. We did a short sneak peek at NFT NYC in 2022. We threw an event called NFTC. We rented out the whole theater in South Street Seaport. We showed another version of it at Art Basel, and we officially released the actual documentary. We have amazing supporters. Someone from the OpenSea team saw it. They were like, “This is incredible. How can we support you?”
They gave us the full feature drop. We were on the OpenSea front page for two days. It is the first time any film project and a full-fledged photography project has been the feature drop-in OpenSea. We are doing this collaborative thing with them for the long term because making a movie is a long-term project. We have been working nonstop and are excited to get that going.
First off, congratulations. That is huge news. Secondly, this is a great reminder for everyone about the power of going in person. He was able to meet someone that went on to help create this. That’s the power of being in person. Finally, people can resonate with the story, especially when you look at a lot of these NFT projects. You look at the team and everything around it. They try to get into the story of why this is around and why it is here. It sounds like there are a lot of people who are resonating with your vision of what you have for this NFT project.
My main purpose is to get people to watch the documentary because once you see that, everything else makes sense. I'm going everywhere like, “That is an impossible ask in this attention economy, but it’s twenty minutes. Watch this. It is free on YouTube.” What we are doing will make sense.
You convinced the three of us to check it out. I will be tuning into it and looking forward to that. With OpenSea, do they have a Film3 department that reached out to you? Was it the entertainment division?
It wasn't any of their divisions. I had some contact on the photography side. If you look it up, it is under photography because the NFTs themselves are photos. I don't think they have a film category yet. It is very small. There are only 5 or 6 projects. The three of them are the main ones that have gotten funding and have gotten to that next step.
We have had David Bianchi on the show.
He minted one of our pieces. Shout out to David Bianchi. He is a big supporter.
I hope we have a lot more to talk about in this genre in 2024. Outer Edge is all about that intersection of technology and entertainment. It is something that is near and dear to our hearts to celebrate at Outer Edge LA in March 2023. There will be more activity in the space in 2024 than there was in the past year, and you are part of this growing movement.
I wanted to touch on the personal side of you as an artist and a creator. I know you have done some cool projects, including a successful drop with ThankYouX and being part of the Timepiece community. We had Maya on the show. She is another amazing human. What is your personal artwork story and trajectory in this space? What are you thinking about beyond what you have created so far?
I enter the space as a pure photographer. I have been a photographer for twenty years now. What most people have always known me for is my photography. In 2020, over the pandemic, I was already experimenting with different mediums. Music is one of those mediums. I'm a huge music fan. I was doing a ton of music photography before the pandemic. One of my biggest, if not my biggest passion, is music. I have studied it. I listened to a ton of music all the time. You will never see me without these headphones.
Over the pandemic, I started learning how to produce and started learning a lot of music theory. At the same time, I fell down this rabbit hole of fractal art. I saw a documentary on Benoit Mandelbrot, fractal sets, and math equations. I fell down and twelve hours later, I was trying to understand all these math equations and figuring out how I could make fractal art. It was something that was extremely relaxing for me.
While the pandemic was going on, I was experimenting with these fractal programs and looking at the math that makes the universe run in a visualized and colorized form. I found it extremely fascinating. This was all when I was learning about NFT. When I entered the space, I was already excited to be experimenting with new things and new mediums.
I was introduced to ThankYouX, and we immediately got along. We decided to collaborate on our first project because we wanted to do something cool and exciting that people hadn't seen before. We did our first drop in December 2020. It sold out immediately. It did extremely well. At the time, it was the highest-grossing collaboration on Nifty Gateway. We did a second collaboration drop a few months later. That one was even crazier. That was in March. From there, a lot of people heard of us from those two drops because they performed well and they were iconic for that time period.
Since then, I have done a few solo photography drops, but I have also been experimenting a bunch with the diffusion of psychedelic fractal art by itself, psychedelic fractal art fused with my photography, and all those mixed with music. I started doing fractal art photography that was animated via AI with my music on it. I'm all about experimenting, and that is my thing. If you are following along, I'm always about progressing. I’m not staying stagnant. I’m exploring new mediums.
My Sotheby's piece was a combination of fractal and photography. It went close to ten times the estimate that they had given it. I did well at Sotheby's. I have also done a bunch of collage drops for charity. In 2022, I did a project, Doctor 1919. It was a charity drop that gave money to this archdiocese in Caracas, which is the capital of Venezuela, to get money into the hands of their education system. That was all collage work with my fractal mixed in it. I have gotten more into live installations.
For the Gateway, NFT Now, and Art Basel world, I got to build out a whole full-room installation and collaboration with Instagram. That went well. Everyone seemed to love it. I created this fractal meditation room where I made a long fractal piece. I did an eight-hour soundscape. I made the whole room feel like this tripped-out fractal world and asked people to go in there and meditate. That also went well. That is what I'm transitioning into. I love to do more physical artwork. I'm talking to a few people here in Miami to create large-scale physical works.
I was going to say, why not do some live stuff now? We had Jeremy Cowart on the show. He got this live minting experience. You are already onto the next thing. It tells me what an innovator and disruptor you are. Eathan, around the time of that Sotheby's auction, you were saying, “Should I go for this piece? It is going to be ten times more than I wanted, but should I snag it?”
I went for it. It is just money.
What you don't know, JN, is that Eathan is also a polymath that crosses music and math. I'm curious what his reaction is to some of your inspiration.
We got to hang out. That is all I can say. You inspired me with your immersive fractal meditative experience. I have a float tank. I don't know if you have ever done it. I have been interested in them for many years. I always wanted one. You can get a tent version which is a lot less expensive but has a similar experience. I have had it for months, but it has been slow going to get it set up. I'm almost there. I ordered 800 pounds of Epsom salts from Walmart. It all showed up like stacks of Epsom salts on my door. I'm sure you would be into it. Have you checked out Stephen Wolfram?
No, that sounds familiar.
He wrote a book many years ago. It is called A New Kind of Science. It is all about this cellular automaton, the fractal implications, and all this stuff where you see it in nature and biology. He is an advisor on one of our previous guest projects, the SuperWorld NFT project. I believe Stephen Wolfram is involved there somehow.
I feel like I listened to one of his audiobooks. It was The Fractal Nature of Reality or something like that.
He was one of these child prodigies and knew the secrets of the universe by twelve. I do want to hear a little bit more about the charity initiatives. You did mention Doctor 1919, and that sound interesting. You got some other stuff going on. I know there are some themes around the political situation in Venezuela. Can you share a little bit more about what is going on on that side of things?
In 2022, after the big Sotheby's sale, I felt like I wanted to take a little break from personal projects. Even though I'm always making art, I wanted to take a break from releasing art. I also had hip surgery in July 2022. I knew that it was going to be a slower period for me as I recovered. After that, I looked to only say yes to anything that was giving back to communities. I did a bunch of charity stuff. I did the Doctor 1919 project. It was probably the most prominent one. It was produced by Cisneros Media.
The Cisneros family is a humanitarian-focused Venezuelan family who has done a ton of incredible initiatives worldwide. They are some of the biggest patrons of American Art Heritage. They have loaned and given their collection to many museums all over the world. They have the biggest collection of Black Latin American art. I was lucky enough to meet with them. They came to me with the idea to do this project with nineteen different Venezuelan artists.
In Venezuela, we have religious figures that if you are Venezuelan, you grew up with this doctor. His name is Dr. José Gregorio Hernández. He was a real-life doctor that in the 1800s hundreds and early 1900s traveled all over Europe. When he came back to Venezuela, he brought back all of this science from all his learnings. He was a genius. He is also a polymath. He was curing diseases left and right in Venezuela because he brought back all of these new tools to the country. People started to see him as a saint. Eventually, they started to believe in the power of his healing.
I grew up in a deeply Catholic family. Anytime I would get sick, my grandmother would take out the doctor’s statue. She was like, “Come, pray to it.” She said that he saved my uncle from almost dying, and there are many miracles that have been attributed to him. He is in the process of being recognized as a saint by the Catholic church. He is one step right before it.
The Cisneros family had this idea to get nineteen Venezuelan artists. He passed away in the year 1919. That is why it is called Doctor 1919. They had the idea to get nineteen Venezuelan artists and have each artist create 101 pieces of generative art, sell the collection, and have all that money go to the Archdiocese of Caracas. They do a ton of humanitarian outreach over there.
I was born and raised in Venezuela and went to a Catholic school for my first eleven years. The education that I got at that school is what I attribute largely to my success after moving here. I moved to the US, and I was like, “This is so easy.” It was because the school over there was difficult. It prepared me for everything they were teaching here.
It was dear to me that a lot of the money we were raising from this NFT collection was going back to the archdiocese and the education program over there. Besides that, I donated a piece to Emonee. She is an incredible artist. She did a charity drop in November. That is called JumpStart Designers. That piece went to getting kids in lower-income communities outfitted with iPads and creative programs, and Adobe was a part of it. That one meant a lot to me as well.
Lastly, I have my super rare Genesis piece. That is one of my favorite things that I have ever made. It is a piece that I shot here in Miami in 2022. It was an all-Venezuelan production. We rented out a photo studio that was owned by Venezuelans. We had seven Venezuelan immigrants serve as the talent for the photo. The makeup artist is Venezuelan. Everyone on set was Venezuelan.
What I did was I got a word cloud of the results that you get when you search Venezuela across all social media. The word cloud that you get, you will see in the piece. It is words like inflation, shelter, corruption, hunger, and food. Amongst the words, there is probably not one positive word. It is like this is what you search for when you search for the name of the country. Nothing else. Everything you get is all of these words that are essentially seeking help. I got all of those, and I projected it over the seven immigrants. For a very long time, there are seven stars on our flag. That is what it represents.
My piece is a politically heavy piece that caused a lot of the issues that have plagued Venezuela for all these years. We have the second biggest migration of people from our country in the world, first in the West. We get almost no aid from any country. Every other country you see in the top ten that had this migration gets a ton of help from all the big nations. Venezuela gets almost nothing because our president has talked badly about the US a few times. Because of that, there are all these sanctions that are put on our people.
I put that piece up. It is my Genesis that is super rare. If it ever sells, I'm donating 100% to various Venezuelan humanitarian efforts here in the US that get more food and legal counsel to a lot of immigrants. I'm an immigrant myself. I come from a family of immigrants. I was dealing with legal problems for twenty years when I came to the US. I know a lot of people are still dealing with it. It is something I'm passionate about.
It is a great way to take something negative and turn it into something productive. I appreciate that.
That is extremely powerful. What you have been able to do and accomplish so far is extremely reputable and commendable. I know that you have a lot more going on. How about you tease up some of the things on the roadmap that you want to share that might also be keeping on people's radar?
I haven't done any straight photography drops in a while. There is a lot of demand for that because a lot of people enjoy pure photography. I have this collection coming out, hopefully, very soon. As I mentioned, I majored in Philosophy. That is what made me who I am now. One of the best decisions I ever made was switching my major and studying the different classic philosophies from different cultures, languages, and arts.
My dream was always to go to Greece. That was my Mecca. It was the motherland and the birth of a lot of the philosophy I studied. As soon as I could after the pandemic, I took a trip to Greece, went to a bunch of the islands, and shot a lot of documentary photography in a ton of different philosophy sites. I'm making that into a small photography collection, all black and white photos from Greece. I will be doing that soon.
Besides that, I have a piece coming out on a project curated by Colby. He is one of my NFT heroes and absolute OGs. He is curating different artists to do a drop on the concept of transcendence. I have a piece on there. I think I'm allowed to say this. I hope I am, but I'm doing something for Frieze New York, the art fair. It also has to do a lot with spiritual art. I'm interested in where all of these things meet like art, wellness, consciousness, and spirituality. I have gotten very much into sound healing and different frequencies. I have been making all of these soundscapes for all of my new pieces. I'm doing something at a free art fair. I have been talking to a few people in the City of Miami about creating a large form of public installation. There are a few more things, but those are good.
It’s interesting to see where art, wellness, consciousness, and spirituality meet. Click To Tweet
Next time you are in LA, we will be grateful to be members of Rafi Lounge. He came on our show. He did a Web3 NFT drop for his meditation version of Soho House in Malibu overlooking the water. I went over to his spot for a sound healing mix with Qigong. It melted my nervous system away. We got to go over there together the next time you are in LA. Just let me know.
We want to move on to our next segment, Edge Quick Hitters, which gives a little bit deeper insights into your history and soul there. Edge Quick Hitters is a fun and quick way to get to know you a little bit better. Ten questions, we are looking for a short, single, or few-word response, but feel free to expand if you get the urge. Are you ready?
Yes, let's do it.
What is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
That is an unpleasant story. I was not allowed to leave my house in Venezuela because we lived in such a dangerous neighborhood. The first time I was allowed to leave was to buy my mom medicine. She has a lot of back problems. I was super excited to leave the house to buy something. I went to the store that was two blocks away. I got robbed at knifepoint. I bought some drugs from my mom's back, and I got robbed right away. That was the first thing I ever bought.
This is a unique first purchase that certainly isn't a Snickers bar or a Pokemon card.
That is my first memory of ever leaving my house and buying something.
What is the first thing you ever remember selling in your life?
It is probably school supplies. I was trying to make money. If you don't bring a pen, I have something extra. I try to make some quick bucks at school.
The umbrella salesman in the rainstorm.
I'm that guy that never remembers to have an umbrella. I’m likely the target there. What is the most recent thing you purchased?
I got a mood ring right here. I went to this cool toy store in Austin. They have a lot of nostalgic things like action figures. I saw a mood ring. I was like, “I haven't seen a mood ring in so long. I’m going to buy it.”
What is the most recent thing you sold?
We sold a bunch of Animus Key Cards at our event. People came, and they minted a bunch of that. They also minted a bunch of the Buscando América NFTs. Someone offered to buy the merch but we said, “No, not yet.”
What is your most prized possession?
This is one of the first things that came to my mind. I have a lot of photos that mean the world to me. I have a lot of photos of my mom and my dad together. You can't recreate those, and I have those. I have a collection of philosopher busts that I got in Greece that I love. They are at the entrance of my house. When you come in, it is Homer, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. They are all my favorite philosophers. I got all these busts from these sacred sites in Greece. I love those.
If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or experience that is for sale, what would it be?
It would probably be an epic house with a bunch of guest houses, studios, and places where I could be creative and bring my friends and have them be creative. Maybe a big house that has art studio complexes with a basketball court attached.
I have been having visions like that too, where it is like a central location that has all the cool things that you want. It will attract others. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
I would say empathy. A lot of people say I'm deeply empathetic, and I tend to agree. I'm always feeling how other people feel and thoughtful of others' emotions. A lot of people lack empathy. Besides that, maybe my ability to focus. We live in a society where people lack attention spans. No one can focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. I'm one of those people that if I'm focused on something, I can focus on it for a long time. I can read a whole book in one go. I can watch a TV, a movie, or a long film and pay attention, and not always be on my phone. One of my pet peeves is when you are talking to people, and every three seconds, they are glancing at their phones. It is one of the detriments of our society. It is empathy and attention span.
I'm impressed with this balance between the explosion and creativity you have with your ability to get shit done. That is a cool combination.
You thank my mom. My mom would lock me up in a room when I was growing up. She was like, “You have to do all your homework. You have to read everything and you cannot go out.” I would have to sit there and focus. I'm that last generation where we were still analog for a long time before cell phones and computers. Shout out to that.
It reminded me of when I started getting into my PhD. I forget how long the lectures things were. It was four hours straight of watching someone talk about action potentials. It was quite an exercise.
I was going to sit there and listen to people talk about the most dense philosophy topics for hours.
Next question. If you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would it be?
Believe it or not, it takes a lot to get me going. I have low energy. I'm an extremely low-energy person. I see people wake up, and they are like, “I'm ready to go.” I love sleeping. I could sleep ten hours every day and be happy with that. I'm a little bit better about caffeine, but for a long time, I was ten cups of coffee a day. I need more energy.
What did you do before joining us on this show after your long nap?
I was looking at all these damn meme coins. I was like, “What is going on?” I was looking at a bunch of charts for the meme coins that are taken off. I’m catching up. I got back from Austin. I had a lot of Telegram chats to catch up on. Everyone is a Pepe billionaire now. I'm like, “I missed everything. I have been traveling too much.” I’m catching up on all my chats, emails, and all the news that has happened while I was gone.
It is like meme coins are back.
Anytime that sentence is uttered, I'm like, “This feels like a local top.” Anytime someone says, “Meme coins are back,” that is when the dark small candle comes in. We’ll see.
What are you going to do next after the show?
I'm going to do everything in my power to get a workout in. Normally, I workout as soon as I wake up, and I do this good sun, meditate, workout, and go to the sauna. Now I had so much stuff and I had a few calls going before this. I said I was going to do it after, but working out late at night is another step of dedication. I'm going to try to do it.
I got into an F45 class. It is my first time doing that in a long time. Normally, I would workout with my trainer at the gym. It was a good way to start my Monday. I'm right there with you.
If it is not windy, I will shoot some hoops. There is a basketball court outside. I can get some shots in.
If you ever get a chance to hang out with me and Richard, you will get your workout in. We discovered during Outer Edge that we could get the workouts taken care of.
For your final and fun bonus question of the day, since you brought up meme coins, we got to go there. What is the dumbest-sounding meme coin you have ever bought?
I'm fairly certain that once upon a time, I bought something called Cheese Rocket or Come Rocket. It was the most embarrassing thing I have ever done.
That thing made a 10,000 extra turn.
I did well on the Cheese Rocket. I'm a DJ. I dabble in the art of shit coinery for sure.
Let's hit the next segment. We are going to jump into a recurring segment that has been fun, the Swoops-sponsored segment. We get to act like we are owners of a professional basketball team. They are robots, and it is all on Web3, but it is super fun. Swoops is a blockchain-powered basketball simulation game that allows users like us and you to own and operate a 100% unique team. We can enter real money contests with our squads and win daily cash prizes. If you have ever dreamt of owning, operating, and profiting off your own basketball franchise, this is your chance.
Swoops users are able to experience a play-and-earn game. It looks like a fantasy basketball but with its own IP and a world of Swoopsters that are robotic players. They are each one-on-one. They evolve and age over time. Let's check what is going on with our team. We are going to check in on the Outer Edge Travelers.
In previous episodes, we have established our logo and branding. This time around, we want to start to talk about the first many games we have played. We are at about 83 games here on the record. Last time, we were less than 50. We are not necessarily doing excellently. We are 31 and 52. We are at less than 50% game-winning percentages, but we are doing our best. What do you think, Josh? Do you think we got a chance here at the Super Bowl? What do you think?
We are at a 37% winning percentage. It is not a great number to sail at. I don't love that number, but it is above Larry Bird's number 33. I feel good about that. It is a tough doggie dog division here. Even some of the best teams, which we have beaten, have below 500 records. I'm not cutting us out yet.
We could look at the leaderboard. It is true that we did win three games against Chef's Kitchen, who is the number one team right now.
They are not happy about their last ten. They are 4 and 6 in the last ten. Why? It is because of the Outer Edge Travelers. We whoop them. That is the bottom line there.
They might also be getting a little bit lazy, resting on their laurels, drinking too much champagne at those Hollywood parties. When you get good, everybody is watching you, and you are number one, it is easy to let your guard down.
It might have to do with our star player Tron Stockton. He is balling out. His free throw percentage is under 80%, which has been invested by two other players. It includes Swoopster at 846, which is right below 82%. Swoopster at 982, which is almost at 90%. Swoopster at 987 is doing best on assist. I'm providing some dynamic support for Tron because we have to feed Tron as he is helping to dominate for the wins that we do have.
Richard, you're a natural board basketball announcer. I didn't realize it. It is amazing.
Sometimes, you are ready for these types of things. Being a guy that loves sports, this is that moment to shine.
Richard, joining our coaching team is probably a signal. We can't bet on ourselves. We can just play the game. For our audience out there, we have a new coach in the mix. He knows the game of basketball a little bit. This might not be a bad thing.
Don't sleep on us yet.
Let's check our ranking here toward the Super Bowl. We are at 102 out of approximately 210 teams. The last time we checked, we were at 113. We are rising in the rankings. We are beating the number one team. There is hope for us. Let people know about the mint that is coming up. SSN1 Mint is fast approaching. The minting price for these Swoopsters will be 0.05 ETH. There will be three days of minting. The first is on May 17th, 2023, for only existing owners. On May 18th, 2023, the mint day for the presale list, which you can get onto. We will let you know how to do that. On Friday, May 19th, 2023, there will be a mint that is open to the public.
Swoops are announcing a sweetening of the pot here. They were giving away some limited edition five-star Swoopsters that are randomly hidden somewhere within the first two days' worth of supply. In addition to that, they are going to be doing something they are calling the Sixth Bought Special. If you buy five Swoopsters on day 2 or 3, you will get a sixth Swoopster for free. Users must buy five during the same mint day to earn the bonus. That means you buy five on day two and five on day three. You could walk away with two free Swoopsters. It is your chance to build a full team with six Swoopters in the mix and keep that lineup padded with excellent players.
To recap, sign up for the SSN1 pre-sale for Swoops. Day one of the mint starts around the 17th of May, 2023. You can improve your chances of getting your hands on some of those never before seen players by going to Swoops.com and clicking Pre-Sale. You fill on the form to sign up for the SSN1 pre-sale event. They sold out of their SSN Zero Mint in 35 minutes. Keep your eyes open, pay attention, and make sure when you do sign up for the pre-sale, use the code Edge of NFT when you fill out that form. Should we hit one hot topic before we move on?
Yes, let's do one.
The first one has to do with our good friend Billy Shatner, who was at Outer Edge. William Shatner warps into Web3 with Infinite Connections NFT release. The original Star Trek captain and longtime Twitter crypto guy officially dropped the release of Infinite Connections during CoinDesk Consensus 2023. It is two collections, Cosmic Explorer, with 2,500 NFTs. That feature a Shatner 3D avatar paired with artwork that explores scientific themes like quantum physics and sonic vibrations.
Each one also includes a physical action figure of Captain James T. Kirk, the role for which Shatner is best known. Each is hand signed by Shatner with a quote from the character. The other collection is the Timeless Voyager, which has 1,000 NFTs of 2D artwork, future tech, and the cosmos. No action figures are included, but selected holders will have access to unspecified real-life opportunities. That sounds fun. We got deeper into the mind of Bill Shatner during Outer Edge. He is a deep guy in deep space.
It was cool to see some friends of his like Anthony Hopkins get on Twitter to support him. I love the fact that he continues to push the limits of what is possible. It is a great partnership. We appreciate the amount of technical acumen, creative acumen, and aesthetic acumen they have put into each of their projects. They are extremely precise and thoughtful with what they do. With someone like William Shatner, you could easily botch that if you go too far south or too far north, but it seems like this one has been relatively well-received by the community.
Shout out to him because he has been at every iteration of technology. It is an iconic role in an iconic series. His fan base has always been through it all. I have heard him speak. I saw him Outer Edge, and I heard a bit of what he said about consensus. It feels like he is genuine. Even if he is not, at least you got a physical object that is signed. There is a memorabilia aspect to it. He cursed out some people that I disliked in my time. I'm a fan.
He has been in blockchain for a while. This is not like he is joining the space all of a sudden. He is not doing it for the money. He is just having a good time.
That is enough for hot topics. Next, we want to make room for a little bit of a shout-out. JN, if there s anybody that you have in your circle or any projects you think would be worth giving a little extra attention to, you could shout him out. Do you have anybody in mind?
The Cofounder of Animus, Phil Yoon. He is my right hand and partner for a lot of things that I do. I wouldn't be able to do all this stuff without him. He is incredible. You can find them on Twitter @PhilYoon_. The other one is one of the Directors of the Buscando América film, Nelo. On Twitter, he is @NeloGGN. He is a brilliant filmmaker. We are truly going to disrupt storytelling and Web3 together. Shout out to those two, Phil and Nelo. Much love.
Let's start to close out here, but before we officially wrap, let the audience know where they can go to learn more about you and the projects you are working on. What is the best way?
I am @JNSilva_ on all social media platforms. I have the mythical and now controversial verify blue check on Twitter. If you are looking for my Twitter, I have the check. Animus is @MadeByAnimus. We are that on every social media. For the movie project, it is @BuscandoAm3rica. We could not secure the other one. We tried. You should go to my socials. Everything is pinned in my bio. If you find me, you will find all the other ones.
We also understand you are doing some generous giveaway items. We will let people know about those on the socials and how to grab them. Were you interested in sharing?
I'm going to give away a few of the Genesis collections from Buscando América and a few photos from our explorations in Medellín. They are all one-of-one. The photo is taken by either me or the two directors of the film. These are raw and gritty photography from Colombia, which I think is incredible. A lot of people like them. If you are into documentary street-style photography, you will dig them too. A lot of those locations or characters might make it into the film, which is cool. On top of that, we will be giving a few Animus Key Cards. We will get people hopefully excited to join the Animus ecosystem. That will be on Arbitrum. Make sure you have some e-bridged over in Arbuntrum to claim it.
We have reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFTs for today. Thanks for exploring with us. We got space for more adventurers on this starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool 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 with no spaces, and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for great NFT content. Thanks for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- Animus
- Infinite Connections
- Outer Edge LA
- Arbitrum
- Animus Studios
- IDIOSINCRASIA – YouTube
- David Bianchi – Past Episode – Apple Podcast
- Maya Draisin – Past Episode – Apple Podcast
- Jeremy Cowart– Past Episode – YouTube
- A New Kind of Science
- JumpStart Designers
- Swoops
- @PhilYoon_ – Twitter
- @NeloGGN – Twitter
- @JNSilva_ – Twitter
- @MadeByAnimus – Twitter
- @BuscandoAm3rica – Twitter
- Spotify – Edge Of NFT Podcast
- iTunes – Edge Of NFT Podcast
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