“I quit my previous job commitments two years ago to fully focus on co-shaping and co-creating this exciting new space,” explains zaphodok – multidisciplinary artist, collector and patron.
zaphodok’s extensive NFT collections had caught our eye for the experimental nature of many of pieces. So we’d expected to find an avant-guarde, irreverent collector behind the collection. Our interview didn’t disappoint….
So, who is zaphodok?
I am a multidisciplinary artist who has been working in the creative sector and in academia for the past twenty years. The advent of tokenized digital artefacts on the blockchain and the prospect of its profound societal, cultural and economic impact eventually led me to quit my previous job commitments. I now fully focus on co-shaping and co-creating this exciting new space as a collector and patron, and in some instances also as an artist.
The first NFT in your collection
A trivial CryptoKitty… sigh! FOMO got me into buying my first JPG on the internet. The first time of whatever is never what it ought to be.
Favourite NFT in your collection
There are so many to be honest. Having to pick one for you I would go with AI generated tulips from the Bloemenveiling project by Anna Ridler and David Pfau.
On killing a flower by looking at it
Using digital technologies such a machine learning and blockchain-based smart contracts, Bloemenveiling is a masterfully executed exploration of the ephemeral nature of beauty and the characteristics of scarcity and impermanence of the natural world.
Only after a week of enjoying the enchanting moving imagery of some AI tulips, I realized that their NFTs got automatically burned by the smart contract and the high-res imagery could no longer be viewed on the platform. I was incredulous and thrilled at the same time. I literally killed a flower by looking at it.
Gladly, I still own a couple of unwatched intangible imaginations of tulips in the form of an NFT.
Best NFT advice you received?
I’ve been my own captain since day one in early 2018. The term ‘NFT’ didn’t even exist at the time – lol.
Advice for new NFT collectors?
In contrast to the entrenched culture of exclusivity in the traditional art world, a relevant collection of this new movement is a drill core through the whole ecosystem. It reflects the forms of expression of an open creator community, spanning from early crypto artists to the latest copy minters, from net-art to trash-art, from the acclaimed to the amateur.
When it comes to the act of collecting itself I suggest a 10% guts, 20% brain, 40% heart, 30% HODL ratio.
More highlights from the zaphodok NFT collection
Kim Asendorf, “C0L0RGRiD SE16“ was a commissioned work, with a color palette based on Gerhard Richter‘s “4900 Colours”.
Robness, “CRYPTOPUNK #2317 BURN FOOTAGE“– In a performative act Robness burned one of his CryptoPunks. See here why a couple of 100k Dollars worth NFT got burned and how it was done.
XCOPY, “Anxiety”.
neurocolor, “Shower” (note: this is my avatar aka pfp).
Sarah Zucker, “5D Fabric”https://superrare.com/artwork/2704 – This is Sarah Zucker’s Genesis NFT (editor’s note – a genesis NFT is the first NFT an artist mints).
See more of zaphodok’s collection at zaphodok.art. For regular collector events, invitations and previews, follow Orica on twitter or subscribe to our mailing list below.