Latest Art Blocks-Curated News
Art Blocks shared the RSVP form for the third annual Art Blocks Marfa Weekend that takes place September 21–24 in Marfa, Texas, via Twitter.
The Deets
- The Art Blocks Marfa weekend will be hosted in Marfa, TX, at the Art Blocks House, located at 109 W. San Antonio St.
- The festivities will start on Thursday, September 21, in the late afternoon and wrap up on the morning of Sunday, September 24.
- In order to have the most accurate headcount this year, Art Blocks is asking each member of your party to complete the RSVP individually.
❗ Why It Matters
Art Blocks is responsible for some of the most expensive NFT generative art in the space, and it will be n weekend full of art, conversation, and friendship, with the added bonus of the unveiling of a new art exhibition in the gallery taking place as well.
The feedback from NFT NYC was that the IRL aspect was a great change of pace as far as making connections and meeting new people, so this Art Blocks gathering could promise that same type of positive energy and enthusiasm.
🎬 Take Action
Those interested in attending should fill out the RSVP form here and consider booking their accommodations sooner rather than later, as Marfa is a small town and hotels, rental properties, and campgrounds are filling up fast.
🧠 Learn More
More information regarding check-in and the weekend’s schedule will be shared in the Art Blocks Spectrum article as we get closer to the event.
Art Blocks announced the launch of its own secondary marketplace to address security, authenticity, and royalties.
❗ Why It Matters
The new Art Blocks secondary marketplace is meaningful because it's safe, ensures the buyer is getting the original artwork, and protects the creator royalties that have been a bedrock of the web3 space (that is, until Blur and OpenSea both opted to make royalties optional above 0.5%).
The Deets
The Art Blocks secondary marketplace addresses three primary pain points:
- Security: The Art Blocks secondary marketplace is safe, "built on top of the battle-tested Seaport protocol for in-product listings while aggregating other marketplaces with Reservoir so that you know you’re getting the best price."
- Authenticity: All listings on the Art Blocks marketplace are from legitimate Art Blocks projects and artists.
- Royalties: The two largest secondary market platforms have both made royalties optional, so Art Blocks is making sure to honor them on its own marketplace. Art Blocks has consistently been committed to royalties and views the trend of declining royalties as harmful to digital artists’ ability to make a living.
🎬 Take Action
- See the new secondary marketplace in action with Art Blocks' latest Curated release, Cargo, here.
- Read Art Blocks Editorial: Our Secondary Market is Kind of a Big Deal
🎤 Community Quotes
This is huge. Everyone has an opinion on royalties. It's awesome to see @ArtOnBlockchain and team actually do something about it all.Axu.eth
The Art Blocks secondary marketplace will boast lowest fees whilst fully honoring artist and creator royalties, says purplehat.eth.
❗ Why It Matters
Art Blocks has made it known that creator royalties will still be protected for purchases made on its own marketplace, amidst the backdrop of the ongoing feud between Blur and OpenSea that has targeted those very royalties.
This move comes less than a month after Art Blocks added support for secondary purchasing directly on its website, a move that was also designed to enforce royalties and support creators.
What It Means
- The secondary marketplace functionality has been expanded to include native listings/delistings, removing the need for another marketplace at all.
- Aggregated listings that don't include creator royalties will be royalty-normalized to properly include them.
🎤 Community Quotes
And there it is. If I read this right, we now have a place where we can actually see the art (unlike how it doesn't load on OS and Blur) AND support artists by honoring royalties AND no marketplace fee.harristotle
Art Blocks has added support for secondary purchasing directly on the Art Blocks website, according to a developer announcement in the community Discord.
❗Why It Matters
Art Blocks adding secondary support for its NFTs ensures that the platform will no longer need to rely on any other secondary marketplace or third party for its sales. Additionally, all sales on the Art Blocks marketplace will automatically enforce royalty payments, supporting creators whilst removing any anxieties from purchasers about whether or not royalties are being supported.
The Deets
All NFTs will be listed at the lowest price based on listings from the following NFT marketplaces: "OpenSea, LooksRare, X2Y2, Sansa, Zora, Foundation, CoinbaseNFT, Rarible, Sudoswap, and Reservoir." At this time, Blur is not supported but the team is hoping to add it soon.
🧠 Learn More
The next Art Blocks Curated project, "WaVyScApE" from artist Holger Lippmann will only boast 315 total NFTs, according to the newest listing on the platform's website.
❗ Why It Matters
As far as Art Blocks collections go, this is a very limited edition with only 315 NFTs available. The Dutch auction for the collection will start at 13 ETH, a higher-than-normal starting price, likely as a result of the collection size and perceived demand.
The Deets
Holger Lippmann is a German digital artist with multiple exhibitions at notable museums worldwide. A full list of his works can be found on his website.
⏭️ What's Next
The auction is happening on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023, at 1:00 PM ET.
🍎 Learn More
Art Blocks and Bright Moments will launch an official partnership, according to announcements from both organizations on Twitter.
What It Means
This collaboration will pair the best of both organizations, from artist curation and minting technology from Art Blocks, combined with Bright Moments' unique IRL minting experiences.
❗ Why It Matters
This marriage of the vaunted Art Blocks minting technology, and the Bright Moments IRL minting mechanism is likely to lead to unique innovations in generative art and the continued physical manifestation of web3.
⏭️ What's Next
Art Blocks tweeted, "The first collaborative release will be Metropolis by @mpkoz. Metropolis is a long-form generative art collection exploring the node-based systems that enable modern society."
Metropolis will feature on-chain traits tied to each of the Bright Moments locations around the world, adding a unique facet to each piece.
Formal details are yet to be announced.
🍎 Learn More
The third annual Art Blocks Marfa weekend will take place September 21–24, 2023 according to a tweet from the platform.
The Deets
The Art Blocks Marfa weekend will be hosted at the Art Blocks House in Marfa, Tx starting on Thursday, Sep. 21.
Opening night will be followed by two full days of activities on Friday and Saturday, Sep. 22-23.
⏪ Back it Up
At last year's event, Squiggles came to life with dance music from talented British beatmaker and producer, Jamie xx and OpenSea held a backyard barbecue. The Art Blocks Engine was also at work in partnership with artist Steve Pikelny who provided a 48-hour open edition, live mint of Instructions for Defacement.
🎬 Take Action
Although more details are still expected to come, Art Blocks users interested in attending are encouraged to book their accommodations shortly.
🍎 Learn More
Art Blocks will update its event guide as more details are released.
Art Blocks has started a 24-hour Twitter Spaces referred to as "Blocktalkathon" at 1 p.m. ET today, in celebration of the generative art platform's 2-year anniversary.
The Blocktalkathon, named after the primary chat channel in the Art Blocks discord called Block-Talk, is meant to celebrate two years of generative art and is kicking off with none other than the CEO, founder, and Squiggles artist Erick Calderon (a.k.a. Snowfro) and CCO Jeff Davis.
The Spaces will feature 1-hour blocks of programming spanning a full 24 hours, hosted by a variety of community members, Art Blocks staff, and artists around the globe. Some notable topics include:
- On-Chain GenArt: Past, Present, and Future (3 p.m. ET)
- Art Blocks Engine (4 p.m. ET)
- Data and Analytics (5 p.m. ET)
- 日本語でブロック (Block in Japanese) (2 a.m. ET)
- Punk6529 (5 a.m. ET tomorrow)
- Friendship Bracelets (12 p.m. ET tomorrow)
Find the full schedule and more details in this Art Blocks blog post.
Today's Art Blocks Curated project "Pre-Process" by Casey REAS is up ~20 percent from the resting mint price after 3 hours of post-mint trading.
The project with just 120 NFT supply minted out at 4.78 ETH and is holding at 5.74 ETH this afternoon.
Pre-Process was notable for two reasons: 1) this is Casey REAS's second Curated collection, making him the first artist to launch a second solo Curated project, and 2) the supply of 120 is now the lowest in the history of Curated releases.
With the low supply, expectations were high for where this might mint out at, and it did not disappoint. The 4.78 ETH mint price is the highest in recent Curated action and for all of 2022, with just a handful of projects minting above that price back in the peak summer '21 bull run.
The set has seen top-end sales of 8 ETH and several at 7 ETH, and it has seen 362 ETH in total volume. A few other key metrics:
- Percent listed: 40%
- Owners: 92
- Unique owners: 77%
- Market cap: 688 ETH ($878,220)
Casey REAS's first Curated collection, Century, holds a 2.6 ETH floor with a 1,000 NFT supply. This represents an implied market cap of 2,600 ETH (~$3.3M), thus the set is nearly 4 times as expensive as Pre-Process on a per-NFT basis.
The Art Blocks team has announced its next Curated release, via discord announcement this afternoon.
The project is called "Pre-Process" by Casey Reas and will debut next Wednesday, Nov. 30th at 1:00 p.m. ET. The final details on supply and price have not yet been released.
This will be a unique release for a few reasons: 1) Reas has already released a Curated project "Century" and thus will be the first-ever returning artist and 2) he is on the Art Blocks Curated board, meaning he had to abstain from the vote reviewing his project.
In the past, once an artist has completed a Curated project, all future releases are in the Playground (now Presents) collection. Thus, this will be the first-ever "return" to Curated (it should be noted that artist Rafael Rozendaal has returned before but in a collab, not solo).
A bit of background on the project, from the artist:
"I can trace the origin of Pre-Process back to a Saturday afternoon in 2003 when I was sketching—first on paper, and then with code. I began by drawing circles, then connecting their center points, and then placing the circles in motion as coded animation. At that time, I was focused on ideas and not images."
The outputs of Pre-Process certainly display that inspiration, as the visual theme appears to be connected, animated circles. Reas does not appear to be using color palettes in the ouptuts, opting instead for black and white. View sample outputs here.
The artist goes on to describe the coding mechanics as being based on a combination of Elements, Forms, and Behaviors.
The Forms are circles, and the 4 behaviors include moving in straight lines, constrained to a surface, changing direction upon touch, and moving away from overlapping elements. The Element is the combination of the Form plus the 4 Behaviors.
Reas' previous Curated release Century holds a 2.9 ETH floor with a supply of 1,000 NFTs, though none have sold on the news of his new release.
