NFT is a topic that has disrupted the world of art and has launched divided opinions from both creators and collectors. Today, hosts Eathan Janney, Jeff Kelley & Josh Kriger bring in renowned guests, British contemporary artist Chemical X, and CEO of Risidio, Peter Ponton, to delve into the infinite possibilities that NFT art has to offer. They share a bit about their collaboration project, This is Number One, which has brought in the likes of Cara Delevigne, Fatboy Slim, Orbital, and more famous names as the world’s first Bitcoin NFTs. They also talk about electronic ink and interactive art displays that change along with your mood and discuss the numerous opportunities to be found in digital art and NFT.
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NFTs And The Future Of Art With Peter Ponton Of Risidio And Artist Chemical X, Plus: The NFT Metaverse Fashion Frontier, Hotwheels NFT And More…
This episode features guests, Peter Ponton, the CEO of Risidio and Contemporary Artist, Chemical X. Risidio is a company working to create a sustainable and artists-centric model for blockchain technology. Peter brings over many years of experience in launching, growing and serving high-tech companies all over the world. His passion for supporting artists, musicians and filmmakers is matched only by his concern for the environment and its relationship to technology. He’s been inspired to rethink what innovation means by integrating sustainable and environmental measures into the crypto world. Peter’s impressive list of international clients and strategic partners includes Fortune 500 companies and high-tech industry leaders.
Chemical X is a British contemporary artist who keeps his true identity hidden. His work has never been exhibited in a gallery and does not appear on the secondary market but is regularly collected for prices in excess of $100,000. Within dance music, he’s designed the Ministry of Sound logo and the Paul Oakenfold Perfecto logo many years ago. Since then, he’s developed art projects involving Banksy and Damien Hirst. He was behind a Berlin street installation involving 100,000 ecstasy pills. His subject matter has covered the culture of ecstasy, juxtaposition of the rich and poor in Los Angeles, and he’s developing work referencing the plight of refugees in the UK. Chemical X worked on the world’s first Bitcoin NFTs in collaboration with Fatboy Slim, Orbital, Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and Cara Delevingne. Welcome, guys
It’s great to have you guys.
We’ve been looking forward to having you on and we’re super excited. Let’s start with This is Number One. Tell us about this collaboration. How did it come together? What’s it all about?
When you hear about that profile of Chemical X, you’ve got to say, “How could you not want to work with this guy?” What it was all about was the collaboration. That was all set out to raise money for good causes. How can you not want to do that? To work with great artists on something unique was a tremendous opportunity from Risidio’s point of view. You’d better ask Chemical X why he did it.
Essentially, I knew all about NFTs when I started. Somebody else had been talking about the blockchain. It wasn’t so much about NFTs. I spent a long time out in LA. Somebody had an interesting idea which I’ll come to later on, it’s valid. Somebody came to me and said, “NFT is blowing up essentially. You need to do something. You’re friends with Fatboy Slim. You two should do something.” He explained what NFTs were. I thought that this is an interesting thing because there’s a journey between the Ministry of Sound. It’s an interesting one because it has been 30 years since that logo was designed. That was the last logo that I designed in the way that logos had been designed for decades, using artwork and all these ways that things have been done. The Oakenfold one, that Perfecto logo was done six months later on a computer.
The Ministry of Sound logo is pretty much still one of the rarities in these things. It’s pretty much still being used many years later. The V&A, Victoria and Albert Museum in London wants that piece of artwork because not only is it iconic, particularly in the UK but because it represents the end of something. Here we are years later and people were talking about, “Are you sure that’s the end of original artwork?” That’s the end of something being original because now we’ve gone digital. NFT’s came along and that’s what they represented. Suddenly, this opportunity came along to identify something as the original for the creator to decide this thing. This is what I consider to be the number one, the first and the original. That can be done through technology. It can be identified as a thing.
Weirdly, even in the way that artwork or music is even made, often you’re working on the same file. Only the ease with which these things can be replicated that devalues them, but you still have the original. Because it then becomes assimilated into the digital world, it has no value as original and that’s what interested me. Firstly, was this ability to identify something. Secondly, what it meant in terms of being able to give value to a digital and moving image. It’s a weird place. Long story short, somebody approached me to do this to Risidio. Me being a complete control freak, we ended up going, “We can’t just take this and we’re also doing this a completely different technology,” which will also come to and swimming against the tide which is up to my street.
There were originally inaugural five Number Ones. Can you paint a picture of what they look like and what inspired them?
The One thing is a digital 3D image that slightly moves a little bit. I love the fact that all these digital and 3D artists that have been in the space for a long time have never been able to monetize their work well as artists. That’s what NFT meant and they were there. Those are the first people to capitalize on it. As an artist, I have to tell my story in a single frame. I have to tell whether it’s like telling a joke where you’re telling the punchline at the same time. If you want to add in any narrative or layers of meaning, you’ve got to do it within the piece itself. That’s the skill itself that’s interesting. That’s one of the things that makes it a standalone thing and it means that it won’t disappear.
All these other artists, the people working in the arts, musicians, dancers, poets and everybody else had time and chronology. The best thing about a joke is its timing. It’s about sending you one way and then giving you something else. For me as an artist, my work is a lot about juxtaposing something. The stuff I did with Skid Row Rodeo Drive was about putting homeless people’s tent, covering them in aspirational brands from Rodeo Drive. I’d say that Louis Vuitton-Supreme collab tent, I want that but it’s also a homeless person’s tent in the middle of Skid Row. How do I feel about that? I love all of that.
The idea that you create something where you can start to tell stories. I’m interested as a medium in a way that opened things up a notch. I wanted to do something that wasn’t decorative in the way that a lot of art is. It was powerful, engaging, meaningful, as well as entertaining, frivolous and fun. All the things that art is, that it’s not just a picture to look at. You want some emotive engagement with something. I started when I made the piece with Fatboy Slim. That was the one where he wrote a new piece of music and everybody’s on it about his new piece of music. There is a piece that’s engaging, ambiguous in terms of it having no particular lyrics. I loved all that. We made it very simple.
Dave Stewart had a piece that he was keen to do. We did this and we told another story, a three-minute-long one. Orbital wanted to do something that was engaged around the idea of the way that TV idents work. All these things were almost like a visual jingle that gets stuck in your mind. We did something around that. I spoke to Cara and said, “You need to do something personal.” All of these things were called Number Ones. The brief to everybody was, “This is number one. You break down what that means to you. Is it the most important thing? Is it the biggest thing? Is it the first thing? What is that?”
Everybody is going to have a different view of what that is. That’s the thing about This is Number One. The idea is it’s an open creative greatness. It’s almost like an ice bucket challenge that people will come along and always have a different answer to it because art isn’t like Math. It’s not 2 + 2 = 4. It’s 2 + 2 equals whatever is most attractive about a particular time and relevant to the person that’s asking the question.
NFT Art: As an artist, you have to tell a story in a single frame. It’s like telling a joke where you’re telling the punchline at the same time.
The potential for what you’ve started here is unlimited.
It’s a space for people to share stories. For instance, one of the people that we’re going to be doing soon is somebody called Erica Lost. It’s not her real name. She is somebody who does TED Talks and has been painted around the world as somebody that’s making pornography but isn’t the mechanical male version of misogynistic white-fest. It is something that tells stories, has real people, has real characters of feature-length. It has a whole lot of women in the production. It’s growing up. It’s addressing the fatness. That goes beyond the idea of what is pornography. It goes into what is the way that women are seen, treated and about the patriarchy. I’m working with something like that. I’m working with them to try to drill down into making these particular Number Ones that I want to do. The word I would use is legacy. A piece of art is something that you put out and it’s a statement that starts conversations. Think about what that is. It’s not a decorative thing. You have to think about it.
If this isn’t the edge of NFT, I don’t know what it is.
I see the technology as the quickly moving ducks’ feet under the water that nobody worries about. You want to see a swan gliding across a lake. You don’t care about how it’s doing it. At the moment, there are a lot of people and assumed knowledge. That’s the reason that to a sense we’re on the cusp. I want This Is Number One to be Apple coming along when everyone has been treated like Microsoft as the understood code. Apple came along and although they were using IBM, they took, “Here’s a picture of a piece of paper and a folder. I take it over here and drop into that. I’ve moved that over there.” I don’t go, “Save,” or whatever all the rest of the stuff that they assume things. We need to make this whole industry seamlessly easy for everybody. All that complicated stuff, nobody cares. Everybody cares who does it as all programmers do. They care about what’s going on in the background. To make something truly popular is to make it invisible.
We’ve seen that time with the most successful, impactful projects out there. Let’s talk about what makes some of that happen. Peter, what makes Risidio and Stacks the right technology to drive these kinds of collaborations and projects?
The first thing is my personal mission is to do what Chemical X was talking about. It’s to make the technology disappear. That’s always a challenge with emerging technology. It’s a challenge with this space that we’re in at the moment where the technology ends up being a barrier to entry and where we’re still in an early adopter market. Where we want to be is in that place where anybody can be there, where the friction is gone and the barriers to entry have been removed, where people can just go and have an amazing experience. That’s the first thing.
Why Stacks? We love the Stacks project. We’ve been building on Stacks since before Stacks went mainstream and went on the Mainnet. It’s been a challenge and a journey of passion and love. The question that we ask is, “Why Stacks?” The answer we say is, “Because it’s Bitcoin.” We chose the Stacks platform because it’s secured on Bitcoin. Bitcoin in our view is a stable, very secure, long-term store of value. The other thing for us is that if you look at the Stacks positioning of, “Can’t be evil. That can’t be bad.” That’s something that we love. We look at it and go, “You can’t be evil. You can’t go there.”
The other thing that is important for us, for Chemical X and the project that we’re working on is to make sure that there are no additional energy demands in the creation of these NFTs. In Stacks, we’re reusing the energy and the security that’s provided by Bitcoin. We’re creating low-energy NFTs with no additional proof of work that’s required. That’s important when we think about the environment, efficiency, sustainability and all the opportunities that these NFTs and this industry open up. It opens up unlimited possibilities for charities. That was key for us. It opens up huge opportunities for environmental work. That’s where we are with this.
I am a terrible one for analogy. You’ll probably find that as this thing goes on. The way that I describe it is instead of digging up gold and destroying the planet, we go into a bank vault. We take a dusty ingot from a dark vault. We turn it into a piece of beautiful jewelry. People wear it, appreciate it, engage with it and we add value to it. If we take some of that value and we use that to invest in long-term storage, sustainable solutions to environmental issues then we’re doing something good. The idea of standing like King Cnut and trying to make the waves go back. That recognition of, “Now what we need to do is add as much utility to what exists and as much more of a reason to dug out the ground in the first place. Give it more utility and understand about adding perceived value.” Wherein NFTs at the moment and art, in general, are always about perceived value. You don’t buy a painting based on how much canvas and paint is involved.
We talk a lot about the glory and this is an amazing collaboration. It’d be great to know one pain point or lesson learned from this first process that you’re never going to repeat for the rest of your life.
Before I went in, I knew if I wanted to make a quick buck or make something easy, I’d have done it a different way. I was into the idea of what Stacks, Web 3.0 and Open Source are. “It can’t be evil,” I love that idea and Risidio. None of us doing any of this at any point talked about money. It wasn’t about it. It was about doing this thing in a particular way. To a certain set, that lovely blind thing of, “Let’s just make it.” Ignorance is bliss. For me, it was about how I wanted it to work and how it worked. Therefore, you went back and went, “Okay.”
A long time ago, I used to have an agency. We used to do brand development and creative work. We moved from console gaming into mobile gaming in the ‘90s. Long before you’re going, “It’s what everybody needs.” What I realized then was what they needed to do was get together and sell the concept of mobile games to people. When they sat on a train somewhere else, you’ve got a game on your phone. It might be Snake or whatever it is, just play it. They weren’t getting together to make people engage with it. From my point of view, what I realized was this is about onboarding. If this thing is ever going to work, it has to take people outside of the crypto world who know nothing about any of it, create a seamless interaction with it, find a way of giving something away for free so they end up with a wallet then you’ve got an install base.
We talked a lot about this transitional present we’re in and the problems we’re addressing to try to make things better. Thinking a little bit further into the future if we can even pretend to do that with the topic of NFTs. We discussed programmable, evolving, exploding time on NFTs, digital goods and lots of stuff like that on the show already. Anything you guys think that we or the general populace is missing about the future of NFT powered art?
My first introduction to Blockchain Art was a few years ago. They weren’t there yet. They were talking about, “Let’s do the blockchain-related art,” because they loved the idea about all the other stuff behind it but the art itself didn’t matter. You can get an HDTV and turn it into what thing sticks on the wall. The issue that we’ve got at the moment and the same way that I’ve been around for a long time, pre-internet, pre-digital photography, pre-people walking on the moon and colored television. All these things that come along. It existed for a long time to display digital art. It’s never been the issue. We’ve created a way to give it value but we still don’t have a way to display it. I believe that digital art is going to have its own particular thing and NFT is going to have its own thing. The encroachment of actual art and the advantages of NFTs and digital art will come from screens that use electronic ink that does not have a high refresh rate and have no illumination. They look like a piece of art on the wall. They do nothing else. You switch off the light, that’s it. I’m speaking to a few different developers around this.
They use tiny amounts of power to the point where you spend a day charging up and it’s charged up for a year. It’s connected and it changes. It can change incrementally like the hands of a clock for over a day. A piece of art that looks like there are sunrises in it. By the end of the day, the sun is setting. A bowl of fruit rocks in real-time. Colors change, whatever it might be. Something incremental and therefore you can live with it. You don’t need it. Art isn’t a distraction.
I’ve got my girlfriend a Vladimir Kush piece for her birthday. It’s an egg overlooking a skyline. As the day progresses, it looks like a different scene. It’s casting light in a very different way. The ability to do that powerfully with interactive art is amazing.
Imagine that it knows what the weather is outside because it’s connected to the internet. It knows what weather is happening outside your house. When it’s raining, it’s raining in the picture. You can change it. You decide that you can change the color to match your room. You can swap things out around there. The idea that a frame is able to understand which picture it has in there and that NFT cannot be displayed anywhere else at the same time that’s being displayed within that frame.
What if it’s connected to your brainwaves through one of Elon’s projects or your Apple Watch and it evolves based on your mood and your energy? It helps the highs be higher and the lows balance out.
Ultimately, all that works. It feeds into what your texts and emails have been for the day, understand it, read it. The AI reads into what you’re doing, what your mood is and what might it be. It knows enough about you to be able to go, “Here’s a pretty sunny picture because I think you’re feeling a bit down. Here’s a romantic picture. Here’s something cool and relaxing because you need to chill,” or whatever the idea about something can be interactive. Also, all the things about NFTs. You can sell it, own it, adapt it, the artists themselves. The idea that you’ve got this direct connection to art. Banksy wants to shred a picture. If Banksy wants to create a way of doing it by writing smart contracts or ownership, that’s the thing that makes it very interesting. I know that he’s not into NFTs. He doesn’t like NFTs but he doesn’t necessarily understand the potentials so I’m working on that.
For people that are looking to launch projects, we’ve seen tons of opportunities through various organizations that support these platforms, lots of money going into grants and access to funds to build things. My understanding is that you were able to access and won a grant from Stacks. Could you talk about that a little bit for people that are interested in launching projects? What that process was like and how that helped you?
There are many grant programs out there. Pretty much every blockchain has probably got one. The Stacks Foundation put one together. It started around 2020 when that was all set up. We were one of the first companies to apply for a grant. The process was incredibly smooth and very easy. We’ve done a lot of our research so by the time we put the grant application in, we were over-ready or super ready. The grant application went in, they reviewed it, we got feedback, we got it approved, were up and running. It was so good and part of the process was the money hit the account within 24 hours. We were funded quickly which was amazing. It’s a great process. We’re a little bit further along now. They’ve put together an accelerator program that’s aligned with a fund. Investors are lining up. You’ve got projects that can get grants, get funded and go forward with investors. It’s a pretty good system. We love it.
We wanted to elevate that because there are a lot of people that require resources to bring these projects together. Team members, capital and relationships. If you’re interested in doing something from the ground up, there are some amazing grants out there.
Probably a lot of organizations and different blockchains, there’s an incredible ecosystem there. You got a great community. You got people with pretty much every skill from all over the world and that’s something very powerful that you can draw upon. It’s more than just money or technology. There are support, help and resources in terms of people advisory. Also, if you don’t have a team, there’s an environment that you can go and pull a team together.
Thanks for filling us in on that. I appreciate it. We’d love to get to a little bit more of who you are personally without exposing any identities. We have this segment called Edge Quick Hitters where we have ten fun and quirky questions to learn a little bit more about you. We’re looking for single or few-word responses. If we feel the urge, we can expand. Do you want to jump in on that segment?
Yes.
Peter, let’s start with you. What was the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
The first thing I remember purchasing was probably sweets at the sweet shop. The first thing I remember going home with was when The Stones released Beggars Banquet. I went home and played it. That was was an incredible album. It looked good getting it on the record player. That was an amazing experience.
There’s something about listening to albums for your own the first time. That’s a whole other world.
Chemical X, how about you?
NFT Art: Technology is the quickly moving ducks’ feet under the water that nobody worries about. You want to see a swan gliding across a lake. You don’t care about how it’s doing it.
Mine was weird. Funnily enough, he was talking about sweet and records. The first thing that I remember was a record by Sweet, Blockbuster. It’s a 45 record before I even could afford to buy any album. In America, they used it for something and it became quite famous.
Chemical X, what was the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
Weirdly, my mother eventually became a farmer. Before we ever did, we were living in a house with a garden. They bought orphan lambs. We’d have to raise them and sell them down to the market. You go, “That’s my pet.” They went, “We got to keep the money,” and I’m like, “I quite like money too.”
The first live animal that’s made it into these questions. That’s awesome. Peter, how about you?
That’s a dangerous question. I would say apart from sweets or cigarettes, selling them at school. Probably the hardest stuff, I lived in the Middle East and I got in a lot of trouble for what I was selling. Let’s leave it at that.
Question three, Peter. What is the most recent thing you purchased?
I have not purchased anything much since lockdown. Mostly presents for family.
Chemical X, how about you?
A chicken. This time, it was dead.
What is the most recent thing you sold, Chemical X?
Weirdly, it was an NFT with a dead mouse on the foundation. It was a horrible experience.
Peter, how about you on that one?
What I remember selling was all my office furniture when we went virtual before lockdown. It was like, “Let’s get rid of all this stuff.”
Question five. Peter, what is your most prized possession?
My company, Risidio. It’s got the power to do something good. I love that.
Chemical X, how about you, most prized possession?
I don’t like possessions or the concept of them. I don’t own anything. I don’t put any value into things. I put them into people and experiences.
If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical service that’s for sale. What would that be?
Nothing.
I thought about that question and all the things that I want, money can’t buy. I know it’s supposed to be one question answer. You know how difficult this is for me. There is a philosophy that’s weirdly based on the Bible. For somebody that doesn’t believe in God, there’s the idea where Jesus was tried to be called out about who was popular and the Pharisees were saying, “Let’s get him on taxes. If he says we should pay taxes, people will be against him. If he says that we shouldn’t, then we’ll get him for treason.” They said, “Should we pay taxes?” He said, “Somebody, give me a coin,” and he picks up a coin. He said, “Whose head do you see on this coin?” They said, “Caesar’s.” He said, “Pay to Caesar, what is Caesar’s. Pay to God what’s God’s.” The lesson from that is money creates and resolves its problems and everything else is outside of that. I spend money on experience but not a thing.
What would be the experience that you would love to spend money on?
In the end, money creates freedom and it is the thing. The idea about not having to worry about how to put a roof over your head, feed your kids, pay your taxes, do everything else, and the idea of being open to being able to do whatever you want to do and follow your creative dreams or ideas, whatever it is, that will be it. Freedom is the thing that you see people wasting all their time.
Peter, how about you?
My daughter is doing a Master’s in Sustainability. She’s doing her dissertation on forest gardens. If I was going to buy anything, I would buy a beautiful piece of land that she could make a forest garden. I was reading the story about Mandy Lieu who bought Ewhurst Park in Hampshire to turn it into a rewilding project. The guys from BrewDog that buying land for rewilding. That’s a pretty cool project. That’s a that’s on my list. Apart from that, probably a large piece of the Amazon and save it. That’d be pretty cool too.
Ethan Zohn in one of the augmented world is buying up the augmented version of those locations. Question seven, Peter, if you could pass on one personality trait of yours to the next generation, what would that be?
Positivity. Seeing the glass is always half full.
Chemical X, how about you?
I have four boys. I see that I have passed on creativity. One’s a techno DJ in Berlin, the two are game designers, the younger one’s a fashion designer. That’s already happened.
NFT Art: Instead of digging up gold and destroying the planet, you go into a bank vault. You turn it into a piece of beautiful jewelry. People wear it, appreciate it, engage with it and you add value to it.
Mission accomplished.
Peter, how about you?
I’ve got boys. Dave Stewart sent me some pictures from his Bohemian island where his daughters set out this whole thing. I was going, “Daughters are good at Father’s Day but at least my sons won’t come home pregnant.”
Chemical X, question eight, if you could eliminate one personality trait of yours from the next generation, what would that be?
Weirdly, I’ve already done that. I’ve spent my life examining the stuff that I do and the way that I do things whether I could do things better and hopefully, it makes me a better person. I’m happy with the person that I am and the reason why I do things. I’m not looking to fix myself. Therefore, I don’t think I’ve got anything that I haven’t passed on that isn’t positive to my kids.
Peter, how about you?
I thought about impatience but impatience is justified. I’m not sure.
Peter, question nine, what did you do before joining us on the show?
I had an interview for someone to join our HR team. Immediately before that, we had our end of the day which we have pretty much at the end of the day. When it gets to 5:00 PM, we have a fifteen-minute catch-up with everybody from all over the world, providing that’s in their time zone. We have people from West Coast, East Coast, all over Europe, Africa, Morocco, Middle East, India. They try to hook up at 5:00 PM for ten minutes and do a quick recap. What kind of day did they have and they pass the ball. It’s a great way to finish the day.
Chemical X, how about you?
I cooked lunch for Fatboy Slim in his house in the woods which is where I’m staying. I left and was like, “I’ve got a podcast to do.”
What are you going to do next after the podcast?
I’m going to digest that dinner and I’ve just eaten.
Peter, how about you?
Money creates and resolves its problems. Everything else is outside of that. Click To Tweet
I’m going to start preparing for the next day, plus I’ve got a bunch of financials to do for my accountant, unfortunately.
There is a slightly more interesting answer. I’m possibly going to watch everybody else in the house dance around naked outside because it’s the solstice. They seem to be dressing themselves up in leaves.
That was Edge Quick Hitters. That’s lots of fun. I appreciate the honest answers. It’s great to get to know you a little bit better. Eathan, let’s jump into a couple of hot topics.
Let’s hit some of the hot topics and see what we got to say about those. The first headline, “Non-Fungible Tokens and the Metaverse are Digital Fashion’s Next Frontier.” We’ve covered this a little bit on our show. We had Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee from DIGITALAX. It does seem to be a burgeoning place to be. Peter, Chemical X, have you seen anything specific in this realm that you’re fascinated with?
For me, this stuff isn’t base essentially on collectibles. The sneaker stuff is still collectibles. What was interesting is the idea of being able to connect an NFT to a physical garment. Particularly in the higher-end luxury brands, the ability to be able to know the counterfeit stuff, the devaluing of that, how much that costs everybody, including the people buying the genuine stuff. The idea that if you can have a garment that has some identification that you can go and see who was the last owner and if that isn’t the person you’re buying it off then you’re buying a fake. NFT’s security is a longer-term value.
Peter, did you have any experiences or thoughts?
Increasingly, this whole idea of having a digital twin saying this is the whole point. The opportunities for that are incredible. Being able to tie what you’re doing in the physical world with what you’re doing in a virtual world makes it complete. We’re looking at all those areas.
Here’s an interesting trend there around creating something, burning it, Burning Man style and then only the digital version exists. In the spirit of this conversation, it would be nice if people think of ways to recycle some of these objects as opposed to burning them or sustainably doing that burning process.
Capture the carbon. Interesting little piece from that article that I don’t know that we found out yet that Zed Run is partnering with Atari. Did you guys hear about that?
Yes. We tried to get one of those horses guys but they’re overwhelmed. Everyone wants a digital horse to race.
I like the idea of the horses. A few years ago, I don’t know if you’re aware but there’s a big horse race in the UK called the Grand National. They ran it as a virtual race which is amazing. The biggest is the one where all the people that don’t bet on horses bet on horses. They ran this virtual race and what I like about that is when they don’t make it over the fence, nobody shoots them.
We will talk to you more about this but we interviewed Seth Goldstein from Bright Moments. They have an NFT gallery in Venice, California with a dow attached to it. They’re about juxtaposing everything they do to celebrate all forms of art and music. On some days, they’re going to have some high-end artists like Jeff Davis. Other days, they’re going to all hang out with their virtual cigars and bet on horses. We’re pushing the boundaries of what that experience is around art, music and entertainment.
A guy I know bought an ex-official nuclear bunker in the UK. This guy runs a company that makes all the digital outdoor advertising screens in the UK and a lot across Europe and Southern America. They do all the football one’s around football grounds or in all other places. He’s a multi-millionaire. He’s bought this thing but he’s quite interested in the idea of it. I was saying, “This is such a great opportunity to create a proper digital art gallery that isn’t just where all the walls are screens.” The idea is that everywhere you go is screen. All the things you can play with in terms of people’s perspective, the way that people think about stuff as well as hanging stuff in there, as well as creating AR, VR, AI and all of that. Imagine all the stuff is digital and you watch somebody creating or sculpting something in VR in there. That isn’t there but he also wants to go, “I want it to be a great place for people to store their NFTs in a nuclear bunker.”
We’re going to go back to our thoughts about things we purchased when we were young, “Mattel has bids into the NFT world with the Hot Wheels digital collection.” This is interesting. We’ve seen brands that are jumping into NFTs pretty rapidly. NBA and Topps. We’ve seen the Garbage Pail Kids, I don’t know if that was official through the makers of those or how that was created. We’ve got Hot Wheels now with their digital collection. What do you think about this?
It’s a perfect fit for them because people that collect Hot Wheels buy them. They keep them in the boxes and this is the collector element that isn’t the art bit. People want a thing, they’ll put it away and they won’t play with it. They like to own it and want to have everything in that collector thing. Hot Wheels have always been part of that. Imagine Panini stickers getting into NFTs.
NFT Art: We’re waiting for the next thing that integrates VR and AR into our everyday lives. All this ownership of these digital assets becomes a real thing because we start to exist in a hybrid world but we’re not there yet
Peter, what do you think? Would you collaborate with the nostalgic brand? Maybe do something for social good? What are your thoughts on this?
Yes. We would do that in a heartbeat. If you look at This is Number One project, every one of the artists was aligned with a charity or with an environmental initiative. That’s baked into pretty much everything that we do. All the projects that we’re doing are along those lines.
We give out to charity but we don’t like to talk about it.
It’s all signals that the train has left the station on NFTs and what’s possible is so much more than what we’re seeing.
That’s the thing in terms of somebody that’s come into it in a very particular way and certainly from one particular angle is that the first thing you see is, “This is what it is now, but this is a fundamental bigger change in terms of what the technology is.” We see it all the time. We’re still waiting for the same way as the smartphone, particularly the iPhone came along and changed the way that we did everything. That could only happen on top of social media and the internet. We’re waiting for the next thing that integrates VR and AR into our everyday lives. Once we start doing that, then we start to live digitalized. All this ownership of these digital assets becomes a real thing because we start to exist in a hybrid world but we’re not there yet. All these early adopters are around them and this is where it’s going to happen but it’s something else that’s going to come along and push that thing through. It’s some unknown technology that we don’t know, be it a pair of glasses or whatever it is.
We’re looking forward to it. We hope to have talked about it here when it comes and be part of the journey. We appreciate your perspectives on these things. It’s been amazing knowing about your projects, insights and a little bit more about you personally. Where can people go to learn more about you and follow what you’re working on?
Come to the website, go to the blogs, go to Instagram, follow us on Twitter, all the usual.
What handles should they look for you, Peter?
Risidio.com and ThisIsNumberOne.com.
As an artist, I have ChemicalX.co.uk. If people want to know what I’m thinking on a rare occasion, I share it on Instagram, which is @Chemical_X_Lab.
Thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it. For our readers, be sure to tune in as well for our next episode. We’ve reached the outer limits at the Edge of NFT. Thanks for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventures on this starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey so much better. Go to iTunes, rate us, say something cool and then go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. It’s an amazing time. Thanks again.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- Risidio
- Chemical X
- Ministry of Sound
- Stacks
- Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee – past episode
- Zed Run
- Atari
- Instagram – Risidio
- Twitter– Risidio
- Seth Goldstein– past episode
- ThisIsNumberOne.com
- @Chemical_X_Lab – Instagram
- iTunes – Edge of NFT Podcast
- EdgeOfNFT.com
About Peter Ponton
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Born in Gibraltar, educated in the UK and living and working between Europe and USA since 1990, Peter is a truly global citizen, visionary, and out-of-the-box creative and strategic thinker, with a uniquely integrated perspective. He has extensive global expertise in launching, growing and serving high-tech companies and brings over twenty-five years of highly creative company, project and team-building experience. His impressive list of international clients and strategic partners includes many Fortune 500 companies and high-tech industry leaders such as Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, NEC, PictureTel, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Microsoft, Olivetti, Autodesk and Intel to name a few.
About Chemical X
Chemical X is a British artist whose work is based on the world of the pixel and the human brain’s ability to fill in what it wants to see, in order to add detail that never existed. The proximity of the viewer to the subject can mean that one studies the detail at the expense of the bigger picture or, from a more distant perspective, one is forced by one’s own subconscious to bring order to the seemingly chaotic mix of thousands of pills, each charged with their own power to polarize opinion.
Artist Chemical X is not a newcomer to the art world. Working for more than two decades, the artist did some amazing design projects in the early 90s (the most famous one is undoubtedly the logo he did for Ministry of Sound), but he also collaborated with some impressive names like Banksy, Damien Hirst and Jamie Hewlett.
Chemical X lives and creates somewhere in the United Kingdom.
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