The Interview I Art Collector @NGMIoutalive
"If you don't enjoy making your own decisions, you're never going to be much of a collector." – Charles Saatchi
Kate Vass continues her exploration of the perspectives of a new generation of art collectors. During our interview with @NGMIoutalive, the above quote came to mind, as it resonated with our conversation. Our guest reflects on how digital art connects to his values, lifestyle, and taste, emphasizing that for him, collecting is primarily about "having fun."
The conversation explores further the importance of community, with Bright Moments playing a significant role in merging digital and physical experiences, as well as the evolution of trends in digital art and the most cherished artworks from the collection.
It’s truly impressive that, through this playful approach, our guest has built a remarkable collection, including early GAN works, pieces from iconic artists, and captivating works by XCOPY. Perhaps "having fun" and "enjoying making your own decisions" are the secrets to staying perpetually connected to and excited about your collection.
We hope this interview provides further insight into @NGMIoutalive's journey. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed conducting the conversation.
Artonymous, ON FIRE, 2020
KV: Can you tell us a bit about your background? How did you first get into collecting digital art? Were you already involved in art collecting before discovering digital art?
N: I have been involved with blockchains on the infrastructure side and try to balance that by building things with my hands that might actually be useful to someone. For the most part I have lived a nomadic lifestyle going back to my early childhood. My parents had a small art collection which they took along wherever we moved. So, although I grew up around art, it was not until my early thirties that I became interested in collecting myself. Discovering NFTs played well into my lifestyle preferences, as I really enjoy being able to own something without having to amass physical items. That being said, my desire for more physical art and the concordant wish for having more wall space to enjoy it have unfortunately also increased since I have grown older.
Robbie Barrat and Ronan Barrot, Infinite Skulls, 2019
KV: Your collection includes crypto art, generative art, and AI art. Do you find yourself drawn to one of these more than the others?
N: I don’t have any preferences there. However, I do recognize that they each have their own narratives to which I relate in a particular way. I love generative art because I can appreciate how difficult it is for a computational system to creatively explore the randomness and grit inherent in the natural world. I love crypto art for introducing an emotive and human connection aspect to sovereign digital ownership, that was hitherto unimaginable in the digital asset context and I love AI art for challenging our ideas around aesthetics and what is considered to be “real”.
William Mapan, Naufrage II, 2022
KV: What do you look for when deciding to acquire a new piece?
N: I think the main underlying thing I am looking for when buying art is a connection. An aesthetic connection, a connection to the story of a particular work, or of a particular artist, and now with digital collecting also the connection to a particular community. I don’t have a specific strategy or end game in my mind when I buy art. It is an evolving process where I often end up surprising myself. I kind of hope it will always stay that way.
Max Osiris, Point of Contact, 2020
KV: You mentioned that, at first, you didn’t quite understand the appeal of GAN art but eventually grew to appreciate it. What was the turning point for you?
N: I guess the real turning point came with me spending more time reading about the ideas and processes behind how these works were created. Looking purely at the aesthetics, I often found them tough to swallow. They didn’t readily fit into my pre-conceived ideas of what art is or should be. They rubbed me up the wrong way if you will, and I wanted to understand why that was the case. When I realized the major technical breakthrough behind them, I became fascinated. People had created a synthetic neural network that was able to represent categories through an abstraction, rather than images themselves and utilized this as an artistic tool. It was a very brief moment in time that is somehow appreciated by a few for its significance.
DeepBlack #5388, 2019
KV: You now own quite a few AI-generated works, including early pieces by David Young, which often feature elements from nature. What is it about GANs’ interpretation of nature that resonates with you? Do you think AI can enhance our perception of the natural world?
N: The reason I like GAN art is because it often highlights a lack or “misinterprets” something that our visual conditioning would ordinarily take for granted to be represented in a particular way. Nothing is so close and familiar to us as the random complexity of the natural world. Experiencing a disruption of that can make us take a step back and re-evaluate our point of view. We are generally very quick to think that we have understood something or know something, but if we get a chance to take a different perspective, we can discover worlds hidden within worlds. So, what I think we can say is that the alchemical process of dissolving and coagulating that happens in machine learning is ultimately a diminished reflection of our own neural processes and can give us some interesting clues about how we operate.
David Young, Learning Nature (b63h,4000-19,4,9,8,16,17), 2019
KV: You also own several pieces by XCOPY. What is it about his work that stands out to you?
N: I think XCOPY understood very early on how powerful memes can be. His decision to store and proliferate his work, in what back then was still a very much anarchic and disintermediated context of the blockchain, was nothing short of revolutionary. His brilliance lies in capturing some of the ideas that users of a highly interconnected, online-society mutually believe in, while simultaneously putting them up on the stake. The hypnotic loops hold a mirror to our face and say: “Take a look”, without necessarily passing judgment and it is hard to look away when we find ourselves reflected so clearly in our wanton state. Besides all that, I just find the aesthetics of much of his work incredibly captivating and unique.
XCOPY, Deathless, 2020
KV: You’ve been part of TheDoomed DAO. How has participating in these communities, as well as engaging with other collectors or figures in the space, shaped your perspective on digital art and collecting?
N: I think one of the key differentiators with digital art is the networked aspect. Although I have collected physical work by well known artists, I do not know anyone else who has, let alone have any insight into what other art they have collected, what interests them, for what particular reasons, etc. Even being loosely part of a community, like this one, creates the sense of sharing a passion or interest that appears hard to replicate in a trad art context.
XCOPY, Grifter #400, 2021
KV: How important is the physical aspect of blockchain-based art to you? Do you see a growing role for hybrid experiences in digital art collecting? Have you collected physical works alongside digital ones?
N: If I am perfectly honest a lot of my favorite pieces that I collected during the last years sit somewhere at the crossroads of digital and physical art. That has perhaps also something to do with the fact that I truly enjoy creating physical objects myself. In terms of blockchain-based hybrid experiences, Bright Moments has done some pioneering work, which I was lucky enough to attend on several occasions, at some truly spectacular locations around the world. I think there is still a lot more potential to create a unique sense of value for people, by combining the excitement of digital ownership with physical pieces and extraordinary IRL experiences.
OxDEAFBEEF, Hashmarks #90, 2023
KV: You're quite active on X, sharing your thoughts on art and the pieces in your collection. Do you think collectors play a broader role in shaping the digital art space?
N: I do find it very special to engage with other collectors on socials and feel that the public forum represents a great opportunity for sharing the stories of art, artists and collectors in a defining way. On the flip side, that can also accentuate the same social power laws under which we are used to operate IRL, where influential figures are able to dictate tastes and preferences. While there is nothing unusual in that per se, the nature and speed with which socials operate can make people vulnerable to manipulation and impulsiveness and I am not one to be immune to that myself.
Harvey Rayner, Fontana #128, 2022
KV: Which artworks in your collection do you consider the most iconic, and why?
N: If I had to pick three it would probably have to be:
1. NO FAVOUR (COLD) by XCOPY
2. Meridian #87 by Matt des Lauriers
3. Head in the Metaverse by Popwonder
The first, because it is such a quintessential example of XCOPY’s work that has its origin in the Tumblr days and has 1/1 incarnation on Superrare. The second, because Meridians to me are just one of the most beautiful examples of blockchain-based generative art and this particular one has been featured at several Exhibitions in London and Taipei, and finally the Popwonder piece because it captures the vibes of JPEG summer like a few other pieces out there.
Matt des Lauriers, Meridian #87, 2021
KV: If you had to describe your collection in three words, what would they be?
N: Me having fun.
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*The responses provided in this interview have been preserved in their original form, with no alterations to the interviewee's stylistic choices or grammar. - Kate Vass
@NGMIoutalive on X: @NGMIoutalive
@NGMIoutalive’s collection link: https://opensea.io/0x5078d1e25a84a3aa133c9c5de5c46c84384ddd93