INTERNATIONAL PANELING/July 2022
Image by Horster
Quick Summertime Notes from NYC
by Leo Kuelbs
Brooklyn
The end of Roe v. Wade was announced this morning, clouding an otherwise typical sunny summer day in Brooklyn. Just the practical reality of repealing it makes for uglier division and ungainly issues for individuals in already precarious circumstances. There has been a lot of talk about finding some kind of middle ground (number of weeks, for instance), but with the social/political climate as it is, compromise seems not entirely possible.
And the guns.
And the war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, we are all trying to have some normalcy this summer. In spite of ridiculously high prices for everything. Cocktails in NYC at many normal places are $25. One feel certain that there’s large-scale gouging going along with all of the “supply-chain” issues caused by the war and the ongoing virus.
Ah, the virus. People are still getting sick all of time. But they are not dying in such numbers as before, so I guess we are all okay with that? This desensitization to everything from war, to kids killing each other with guns, to white guys telling women across the country how to handle their lives, to a narrowly averted coup only 18 months ago, to an increased bleeding of the middle class on down….It’s a brutal road unless you are untouchably wealthy. And if you are that rich, you might be a little bit worried about increasing homelessness and anger in and towards a system already so polarized that each new instance of financial and/or social unfairness means another big vulnerable slice of the population sinking fast towards greater mental distress, and lives on the streets. It’s playing out right before our eyes, my friends.
Kiss up, kick down. Is it our new mantra?
If the political right is so powerfully motivated by Christianity, then why is it that the basic tenants of loving your neighbor and “doing unto others” is so thoroughly ignored? Is one religion always better than the other ones? Do we kill and legislate over a certainty of beliefs shared in an self contained online echo chambers? Or is it that “strength and power,” thoughts the Russian leader shares with our last President, are the real motivator? Kiss up, kick down. Is it our new mantra? I have had a lot of discussions about the Asian bashing that has been happening in NYC recently. It's noted that most of the perpetrators are very large men and most of the victims are very small women. The most vulnerable victim is selected. What I submit is that the mentality causing this is what’s been demonstrated oh so openly these past years. If you can take it, you deserve it. If you can do it, then it is your privilege to do it. Beat up those weaker than you. Strength, power…Ugh.
Meanwhile, I have noticed that many of the citizens in NYC get going in these difficult days. Just lately, I have encountered a lot of people being normal; cool people with enough self confidence that they do not feel threatened by someone with a different outlook on gender or politics. The tiny ember of hope hasn’t gone out. Though it took another blow when I read that Justice Clarence Thomas (remember Anita Hill?) wants to revisit gay marriage-- just as Pride Weekend gets going. This is the world we are living in. Let’s remain supportive of positivity and keep trying to keep hope alive.
Shorty of the Month! “Subliminal” by Nina Sobell with Laura Ortman
Nina Sobell describes this 2016 offering from the show “Earth Resitied,” as…” ‘Subliminal’ draws upon idiosyncratic symbols to reveal meaning from memory as it rides below the depths of time and opens doors to the dwelling of dreams when Earth is revisited….” Memory, history and the impact of lived experience through time are explored in this tasty treasure with a soundtrack by the amazing experimental musician Laura Ortman. This video was shot in a spiritually rich mountain range in the Southwest (kind of secret) where geology and humanity have collided for thousands of years.
Next Stop! Poetry Place!
by Nicole Callihan
Brooklyn
Elegy
I don’t know how I’ve ended up with the halves of two lemons, but here on the wooden cutting board, the warm sun coming through the unwashed window and settling on the blade of the knife, I thumb the rounds of pulp, take in the smell, strip the stickers with their identical sku. What does it mean to be intimate? To know, or be known, have known, have been known? An airplane flies overhead, many bodies inside its steel vessel, and inside the bodies, hearts contracting. I’m of half a mind to squeeze what’s left of this one into my tea, but I’m not ready for it to be gone, like winter went, like spring is going. Could I have loved better? Could I have been better loved? And does it matter, really, that the halves are not of the same whole? The reconciliation of two bodies. Is this a poem of serious reflection? I keep thinking I will make the thing which will make things better. Across the alley, a man in a t-shirt drinks what seems to be water. What seems to be water. What seems. What’s water.
Image by Juliane Pieper
A Tale of Two Blockchains
by Mark Bailey
Minneapolis
Cryptocurrency markets haven't yet recovered from their recent downturn. While the crypto industry remains as upbeat as ever, some projects have been scaled back or canceled. I worked on an NFT project that was scheduled to launch on the Terra blockchain in May. When Terra collapsed, triggering the market downturn, this project was suspended indefinitely.
The EOS community seems relatively unaffected by the downturn. As of this writing, EOS was the 46th largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of about $1 billion. EOS token holders are accustomed to holding through price turbulence, and many directly participate in blockchain governance. This participatory nature of the EOS blockchain contributed to a recent shakeup in EOS leadership. By a long and boring process, an opaque corporation was replaced by a transparent foundation. The end result was that the EOS Network Foundation (ENF) was awarded control of significant network resources.
Brandon Lovejoy is the Communications Manager at the ENF. I asked him for clarification about what this leadership shakeup means. "The EOS Network Foundation is really a heroic response to a very long struggle by the EOS community for the means of self-determination and development that serves the needs of developers, token holders, users, and businesses that are building on the EOS network," explained Lovejoy. "The ENF has come to embody the spirit of Web3 as a vehicle by which the EOS community has broken free of self-serving corporate interests and taken control of its own destiny to become a truly decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO."
Between ENF activity and funds made available through a grant-making organization called Pomelo, many new EOS projects are being funded. Although most of these projects involve software development, some involve entertainment for community building. For example, an illustrated zine about EOS recently received funding. Titled 'Immutable Realms,' this zine will likely involve several contributors under the creative direction of popular NFT artist Lars Kommienezuspadt. Kommienezuspadt has said that the zine will honestly portray the EOS community, faults and all.
One area where EOS may be falling behind is NFTs. EOS is integrated with the AtomicHub NFT marketplace, but this is primarily geared towards digital collectibles, not fine art. And I'm not aware of any EOS NFT marketplace that does cater to fine art. So when I was deciding on which blockchain to use for a trio of recent NFT projects, I didn't choose EOS. I chose Tezos.
As of this writing, Tezos was the 37th largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $1.3 billion. The Objkt.com NFT marketplace runs on Tezos, and Objkt.com supports fine art. While Ethereum also boasts fine art NFT marketplaces, when I minted an Ethereum NFT last year, the fees amounted to about thirty dollars. On Objkt.com, the cost to mint an NFT is under a dollar.
Interacting with Objkt.com involves connecting a crypto wallet to the site. I used a wallet called Temple, which is basically the Tezos version of Ethereum's MetaMask, and found the experience of minting my NFTs to be simple and intuitive. The minting process was a little idiosyncratic. The site kept showing me an error message saying, "Something went wrong. Please try again." But nothing was going wrong. The tokenization of my work was proceeding without issue.
Once I made my Tezos NFTs, I started sharing them on Twitter. The response I got from the Tezos community was positive and encouraging, which I found surprising.
Once I made my Tezos NFTs, I started sharing them on Twitter. The response I got from the Tezos community was positive and encouraging, which I found surprising. Had I tokenized my art on another blockchain, I'm not sure it would have worked out so well.
Having put money into the initial offerings of both EOS and Tezos, I've been mostly satisfied with how both ecosystems have unfolded. Perhaps my opinion would be different if I considered myself an investor. But I don't consider myself an investor. Instead, I'm a technology enthusiast who values community. Both EOS and Tezos have impressive tech and thriving communities.
“A Table”
Image and Text by Stu Spence
Sydeny
June 1952, Martin Place. Kovacs meets William at Prego for lunch, which then turns into dinner. There is tension, obviously, Bill’s wife is an issue, a substantial one, ‘The Lie’ he calls her, but after the second bottle, she fades, easily. “Could I…”
“Don’t even think it,” Kovacs snaps, throwing a quick glance over to the waiter and back. “You know the dangers, Billy boy.” He looks again, and seeing the waiter is attending to another table, reaches over and quickly runs his fingers across the back of Billy’s hand. Billy feels his face burn, body coil, suddenly ready to move, to go, towards, rather than away. Maybe he’d always been ready. Could such silly things be true? How many years had he thought them? Jesus. He flips his hand over and grabs for Kovacs’, but the hand has already been withdrawn, swiftly. “Soon darling Billy, soon.”
“But, love knows how to wait, Billy,” Kovacs says, his foot now touching Billy’s, safely under the table, a table that is growing ever so smaller as time moves forward, away from the wastelands of history, and into a new night.
A younger woman at the corner table turns to her companion and whispers something, never taking her eyes off Kovacs and Billy. They laugh. “I think of time,” Billy says, his fingers pressed flat on the base of the wine glass, pushing it gently in tiny circles on the crisp table cloth, “wasted time. Gone…” He turns and looks out of the huge window into the last of the day. The lights are just coming on in that grand mall; office folk scurry for buses, suits, cold, overcoats, hats, fountain, a gull, fear, fleeting joy, heat, he feels it all. So clearly. “But, love knows how to wait, Billy,” Kovacs says, his foot now touching Billy’s, safely under the table, a table that is growing ever so smaller as time moves forward, away from the wastelands of history, and into a new night.
It’s Time for a Special Replay of 3 Questions with…Artist, Musician, Designer and all around Awesome Fellow, Josh Graham!
Intro by Leo Kuelbs
If you haven’t seen this amazing interview with Josh Graham, or are unfamiliar with his work, you gotta check it out! Mark’s music, design, artworks, along with his partner Julie Anne Mann, are wonderful, generous and loaded with experimental energy and spot on execution. International Paneling is a big fan lof Josh and Julie Anne’s practice!
The Questions:
1. Josh, you do all sorts of digital art stuff, including making music, can you give us an overview and tell us what you are working on these days?
2. You do more than just create digital magic. You and your partner also fix up houses and travel around quite a bit. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
3. You’ve been involved in the development of digital platforms/media for a while now. What do you see as the next big thing? And do we need to worry about our shared digital futures?
Image by Tom Rotenberg
Is the Art World Discovering Tezos?: How to become an NFT Collector before it's too late
by Adrian Pocobelli
Berlin
Did you see the Tezos NFT panel at Art Basel this year? Or did you hear that Marina Abromavic announced an NFT series on Tezos that will be released this summer? For those in the know, the environmentally-friendly Tezos blockchain is home to one of the world’s most exciting digital art movements, which, interestingly enough, developed completely independent of the so-called ‘art world’. In fact, if you’re just clueing in and have never heard any of this, don’t worry dear reader, the art world itself is just beginning to figure this out. And, having spent time in the depths of the mandala, let me tell you, collecting opportunities abound, so do not fear, if you act now, you are, in fact, still early.
But how to begin, you ask. Let me bring you up to speed on how you can participate in this low-cost ecosystem. First you’ll need some Tezos tokens because all of the artworks are denominated in the currency of the blockchain. And maybe you’ve heard the headlines that crypto is in a historically brutal bear market, so it’s cheaper than it’s been in some time (Tezos hit a high of $9.12 last year and currently trades at $1.50, i.e. artworks that were previously $91.20 are now $15). As a major cryptocurrency, Tezos can be bought on the largest exchanges such as Binance (my personal favourite) and Coinbase (renowned for its high fees). Both have smartphone apps, and if you need more information on how to use them, visit YouTube, the native home of crypto education.
These are open marketplaces where anyone that has a Tezos wallet can post…if you dig you will find. Just be careful out there—once you get started, you may find it hard to stop.
Next, you’ll need a Tezos wallet. My personal favourite is the Kukai app, which can be found here: https://wallet.kukai.app/. Once you have your Tezos from Binance, send it to your Kukai wallet that you’ve previously set up. This wallet enables you to connect to websites to buy and sell NFTs. Once you have the Tezos in your wallet, you’re ready to do business. It might take you a day or two to get familiar with the wallet and the general functioning of the ecosystem, but the learning curve isn’t as bad as you might think. Think of it as the price of admission.
Next, you’ll need a place to shop for art. The main marketplace is objkt.com, which acts as an aggregator of all the other marketplaces, so it’s a good place to start. There are two other marketplaces that you’ll need to visit on their actual website: versum.xyz, a site that aims to cater to higher end artworks, and fxhash.xyz, the post popular generative art marketplace. Other mentions include teia.art, which can be purchased on objkt.com, and newcomer, type.art, where you can buy and sell type-based art.
As far as collecting works is concerned, don’t be thrown off by what you see on the surface. These are open marketplaces where anyone that has a Tezos wallet can post (including you), so some digging is required. But coming from someone who’s been neck-deep in this for the past three months or so, if you dig you will find. Just be careful out there—once you get started, you may find it hard to stop.
Image by ANINA
The Steaming Cheater of Boogerville
by Ion Immot
Northern California
The first hour bell'd come and gone, as had all the other students. Even the lingering baddies gone after toughly inhaling their illegal smoke. So then it was just me there. Alone, outside in the parking lot, mind churning, watching my steamed breath roll across frosted sky. Principal will bust through those double door soon to bust the lingering me. I could still play it safe and go into the warm-safe-inside. Might even get only a warning too. After all, we're all allotted a certain amount a “slippage” in our mandatory continuous evaluation. You see the thing is, in my hometown it was so small, everyone knew everyone elses business, and you were never allowed to question certain dubious facts and community standards. To do so's considered rude, disrespectful. Might even be deviant, criminal, and even proof of treachery, or insanity to some. So I could have gone inside and not blemish my permanent record again... or... or, yeah, that's right.
There was this rippin song in my head, an it put my feet in motion down the road. It made me, feel, ablaze. Like fire that spreads on long dead dried thorny brush, feeding the soil so new life can take hold. And when that freezing rain kicked in, I kicked it back harder. Shattering air in ice with heels of stone. Then, after six miles of fighting colds pains, I reached the edge a town. The last bit of civilization for thirty two miles: The gas beer and fix it station.
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My mom had pulled into er nine years back, when her second-hand hand-me-down status-symbol broke down. Cars barrings were shot, but it was mom who threw a rod that day. Snatching her reactive trunk-jug, she guzzle-muttered as greasy men tinkered with her lemon. She whined and wined and smoked away everything, including her kids. So us three boys made a break for it. Bolting waste deep through snow towards the towns “Now Leaving/Welcome To” sign. That snow plowed up so high we could climb up an finally touch a real road sign. To celebrate, we hung from it, shook and punched it, threw snowballs at it, and spit loogies at it. Dripping with freezing phlegm, we christened it the “Welcome to Boogerville” sign. Then my oldest brother devised a game. One try each to see who could reach the furthest into “Boogerville”, while keeping one foot in our (far cooler) hometown, without fallin over. Furthest mark in the snow wins, and all the other “weird-smelly-loser-dorks” are banished to Boogerville forever. Going first, he held the sign pole, and left a print with his other hand about a halffa yard in. My other older brother had shorter limbs like me. Still, he tried, and failed, and was humiliated along with initially being shoved during his "try" by the games inventor. I had long since made my break for the gas stations torlet, only to be chased through the snow, and then tackled on the ice in the fix-it-station parking lot. Seems if I wanted the privilege of dispelling urine, I'd have to face certain humiliating defeat first. Dragged back, and commanded to “go”, I manged to figure out another way. Oh sure they said I'd cheated, an maybe I did. Who knows? But I do know, I didn't loose, because that day upon that snow mound, I found me a new set a rules.
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So there it was still, a little worse for nine years of wear, but the same ol' sign. I'd grown enough that I didn't need a snowbank to slap it as I walked past it. Then I thought, “Where am I goin?” I knew I wasn't ready yet. Cept I also knew that if I was going to linger even another single day, it'd have to be ME that stayed. The me I wanted. I was unsure if I'd hide or lie about myself to others, but I knew I wasn't going to pretend to be that conformist.. that closed minded anymore. I won't try to lie to myself anymore about myself, and the area I lived. I had me a new set of rules. Rules consecrated by my second edge-of-town snow-melted yellow-signature. Another for the ages, only that time around, the stream fell from Boogerville into my steaming fleeting hometown.
More Images from Ukraine Artist #headacheeartlaboratory
Kiev
Warning: Some images are pretty graphic.
#headacheeartlaboratory
#headacheeartlaboratory
#headacheeartlaboratory
Meanwhile, on the USA/Canada Border…
Thank You for Reading International Paneling's July 2022 Issue!
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Thank You for Reading International Paneling's July 2022 Issue! 〰️
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