Hi Jon,

Apologies for the dead link. I've learned, forgotten, and been dismayed by
a few things in the Tezos art world since that initial post at the
beginning of the month.

The gallery of those NFTs is alive and well at https://teia.art/erictheise
and the series will wrap up next week when I post the 16th in the sequence.

Update on my two months in Portugal: I shifted emphasis mid-April and last
Thursday presented the first public performance using tools I've built for
real time/performance cartography. I've just finished posting excerpts from
a 45 minute collaboration with cellist Helena Espvall in Lisbon to
https://vimeo.com/showcase/9472177

Jon, I hope you and others find that work intriguing, too, and I'll welcome
any feedback.

Eric


On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 12:18 PM Jon Jablonski <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Well. For what it’s worth: It took me this long to read these two messages
> and finally click on the link that so intrigued me.
>
> Apparently those tokens are totally fungible, because the link to the art
> is dead.
>
> In cartographitude,
>
> -jonjab
>  UC Surf Board
>
> On Apr 6, 2022, at 11:08 AM, David Medeiros <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> As a cartographer, occasional “map-artist”, AND a photographer, I’ve been
> following the NFT art trend for a while now and have been wondering when
> more map projects would show up.
>
> I’ll say from the start that I am definitely in the NFTs are a racket
> camp… so take this all with a huge dose of sodium. My first thought here is
> that the biggest issues with NFTs are not the ones most people have been
> talking about, specifically the energy and environmental costs. A move from
> Proof-of-work to Prof-of-stake in my opinion is a minimal improvement to
> the risks and downsides of selling and buying NFTs. The market is awash in
> scams, “toxic positivity”, and outright theft of many kinds. The best
> explainer I’ve found on all of this is Dan Olson’s video “Line Goes Up” (
> https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g). Anyone even considering entering the NFT
> market should watch it, but beware it’s 2 hours long!
>
> As someone who sells creative work online, I see the appeal of NFTs to
> small artists. The promise of NFTs is valid and potentially positive, but
> the current reality is very few smaller or unique art projects are making
> any headway, the market mostly exists in a speculative state right now. The
> biggest earners appear to be sequential-generative “art” projects like the
> Board Ape Yacht Club. Or digital artists who already command large
> followings through social media to whom they can market directly.
>
> About the maps themselves, I like the idea of applying outside domain
> influences and aesthetics to map making. I am decidedly not a
> traditionalist in cartographic terms! So experimental film influences in
> maps sounds awesome to me. But, and I apologize for the frankness of this,
> on the surface this project feels a lot like another sequential-generative
> NFT project, just with map data. I know there are many real-world examples
> of art in series or collections (digital as well). I’m not sure what the
> line is between creating a legitimate expressive art series and what many
> sequential NFTs projects are doing, I think in some ways NFTs have blurred
> these lines extremely. I’d be interested to see how this series develops
> though. And I definitely hope you're able to make the NFT mechanism work
> for map-art sales!
>
> Best,
> David
>
>
> *David Medeiros*
> Geospatial Reference & Instruction Specialist
> Stanford Geospatial Center
> 650.561.5294
>
> @mapbliss
>
> SGC website: gis.stanford.edu
> GIS cartography: bit.ly/giscart <http://bit.ly/giscart>
> <http://bit.ly/giscart>
> GIS email list: bit.ly/GISlist
>
>
> Olá de Lisboa,
>
> At some point, someone may inquire of you about maps and non-fungible
> tokens, or NFTs. I've searched the archives of the list and the only use of
> "NFT" is from a 2002 listing of maps for sale where NFT is an abbreviation
> for "Not For Tourists" (!). "fungible" is not (yet) in the archives at all.
> So my email will be on a more contemporary topic than most.
>
> (I have been on MAPS-L for decades, mostly as a lurker, but I appreciate
> the occasional inquiries about "what's new?" and I hope you'll indulge my
> writing today about something that's new even if puzzling.)
>
> I'm in the middle of a two month (March & April) international artist
> residency at Hangar: Centro de Investigação Artística. I'm working on three
> projects, all related to digital cartography, and I've started issuing the
> first one as a sequence of animated, monochromatic maps, "minting" &
> "swapping" them on the Tezos blockchain. Tezos is a "proof-of-stake" rather
> than "proof-of-work" blockchain, the energy costs of the former not being
> as inconceivable & inappropriate as the latter, and the resilient Hic Et
> Nunc marketplace that's evolved around that cryptocurrency is allegedly one
> of the most artist-friendly. This is all new to me and I likely share many
> of your suspicions & cynicisms. I will recommend Brian Frye's entertaining
> and thought-provoking presentation to you, especially for his observations
> on how NFTs relate to provenance: https://youtu.be/c7N1nX7VmEY
>
> There are a few art historical influences that nourished my sequences –
> 16mm experimental flicker films, of which Paul Sharits is the most
> closely-aligned practitioner; op art (e.g., Bridget Riley); light and space
> art (e.g., James Turrell, Carlos Cruz-Diez); concrete poetry and the
> constrained wordplay of the Oulipo. I've also lifted ideas and inspiration
> from painters Patrick Caulfield, Michael Craig-Martin, and Ed Ruscha. You
> may recall that Daniel P. Huffman, a cartographer with strong ties to
> NACIS, issued a call for monochrome maps in 2018. These sequences can be
> thought of as a "long tail" response to that call.
>
> Each sequence is a numbered "If Map", e.g, "If Map 9.5 (Monochrome:
> Honeydew)", and the whole cycle, which will be compiled and released in a
> slightly different format for gallery installation/theatrical projection,
> will be "If Map #9" with a longer title yet TBD. The plan is to release a
> new sequence every two days for the remainder of April, populating the
> gallery at https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/erictheise
>
> I advise that these involve strobing so if flashing light causes you
> headaches or worse please be forewarned.
>
> I'll add that the experimental filmmaker, even when working digitally but
> especially when working with analog small gauge film (8mm, Super8, 16mm),
> faces a great many expenses in production (filmstock, equipment, lab work,
> time) and distribution (e.g., festival entry fees), and often receives no
> rental income even when their film is accepted for exhibition at a festival
> or microcinema. In light of these dismal & long-standing circumstances the
> possibilities of the NFT art marketplace are appealing, even irresistible:
> a new audience, geographically dispersed, allegedly with a budget for
> acquiring art (or simply provenance), plus enforced resale royalties.
>
> If you've read this far, thank you. This is the most I've written and
> revealed about the project in one place. My posts to social media have been
> terser, more mysterious & stingy with information, or perhaps going into
> greater detail about one facet. I still haven't told you everything you
> might want to know and I welcome your feedback or questions, although I may
> not answer them until more of the sequences in the cycle have been released.
>
> Obrigado, Eric
>
> P.S. I invite you to follow day-to-day progress on my Instagram or other
> social media feeds, I'm not hard to find. Wordier but far-less frequent
> updates go out over my Mailchimp list,
> https://erictheise.com/mailing-list/ <http://erictheise.com/mailing-list/>
>
>
>