] Sabretooth:Welcome to the floor is rising, I'm Sabretooth with me is Kizu. Today we're goingto talk about Brazilian art, Hic et Nunc, was founded by Raphael Lima, who isBrazilian. And some of the most interesting artists on the platform are alsoBrazilian. Definitely not a country that is usually associated with sort of emergingart or very interesting art. But in the NFT world, and especially Hic et Nunc, theyare a, I would say, a dominant presence on the platform. And none other thanprobably one of the most popular artists anywhere, not just on Hic et Nunc butbelting all of NFT is Fiedler, who is a Brazilian artist that from a sales perspective isbasically selling out the moment that he drops anything, his secondary sales isvery, very strong. And not just on Hic et Nunc, but also on ethereum and openseaas well. And I want to throw it to you Kizu. What do you think of Fiedler?[1:12] Kizu:Well, I would dispute what you said about Braziil not being a usual suspect interms of contemporary, I think maybe at the moment, early 2020s 2010s. Yeah,it's been a bit quieter, I think. But I would say that Brazil has always been a verystrong creative force, maybe not in the fine art world, I just want to give that kindof overview. I think that there's obviously a huge country in the pig population, alot of intersecting cultures, he's got a very patchy and checkered history ofcolonialism, very kind of tense divide between haves, have nots, black culture,white culture, kind of that mix. So you know, I think that's very fertile ground forcreatives and artists. But to come back to 2021 where we are, I think that the thefact that the founder being Brazilian has a little bit to do with that. So I think thathelps to know that there's a kind of community that's sprung out of that. But togo to the art specifically, I think that it's an aesthetic that I was trying to put myfinger on. It's reminiscent of many other both Fine Art idioms, as well as moreposter art, comic art kind of styles. The one thing that actually jumps into mymind right away actually was, I don't know if you're familiar with the Australiankind of surf brand Mambo, which started out in the 80s. I think it came out ofAustralian post punk scene. So there was obviously the music influence. And Ithink if you look at a lot of kind of more sub cultural art styles, historically, I thinkthey always encompass something else, like whether it was skate culture, or punk music and stuff like that. So obviously, I think the color scheme is a bit different.The style is obviously a little bit different. Well, it's the kind of thing that like if asa 14 year old with a skateboard and you came back home, with a T-shirt with oneof these motifs, your mom would not be very pleased, it's that kind of thing. Ithink Fiedler, obviously he has a very strong kind of technology or likesmartphone addiction, dopamine kind of thing going on. It's certainly not hypersexualized, I think. But there are some very, like crude facial expressions, the waythat the human figures appear and stuff like that. The colors are very appealing,kind of acid blue, pink, neon yellow. So I think that it's a very kind of appealingand it grabs you right away the aesthetic. I think it also translates very well to ascreen. I think that's one of the key things.[3:39] Sabretooth:How do you see Fiedler as sort of art? How do you think that ages, you know, intothe future? I mean, do you think that him being one of the predominant digitalslash NFT artists, do you think that his works will influence people in howevermany years that we're talking about into the future?[4:03] Kizu:It's a good question. In one sense, it's very contemporary. So in terms of themotifs and things, there's a sense that his characters are being inundated orabsorbed by technology. Some of the characters are like half Cyborg, with allthese smartphones wired into their brain that speaks very much to contemporarykind of digital smartphone screen culture. On the other hand, like his choice ofstyle, like I said, it goes back to kind of this post punk, comic influenced style. Toconnect your question, I think it's on the one hand, it's very backward lookingretro in terms of the visual aesthetic, and at the same time, content wise, yeah,you could argue that it is quite contemporary. I would say that Fiedler is verypopular, but I think that people have not really gotten their heads around what ispossible with NFTs and the idea of tokenization. So yeah, I think that's somethingthat you know, we'll see in the coming months and years, maybe in terms ofwhether It'll age, as you say, well or not.[5:02] Sabretooth:Let's move on to the second artist, this Brazilian artist that we want to talk about.And this is one that I think is one of the more interesting artists, both in terms ofher backstory, but also in terms of her art. Let me set the ground here. So EstelleFlores, she's been interviewed in a lot of articles about Hic et Nunc. And youknow, the story is she was kind of struggling to pay rent. And then she discoveredthe platform, and she was able to sell NFT art on the platform. Kind of created anincome that she was able to sustain herself. That's kind of the backstory. Andthat's, I would say, that's probably one of the dream stories, so to speak for a lotof creatives who sort of see NFT as being an outlet to be able to sort of monetizetheir creativity. So that's one side of it. But the second side of which I thought wasvery interesting is the kind of art that she does. Her art on the platform isexclusively arts generated from inside the Sims Four game. So she knows shetakes her game and she positions a character does like a setting, and then sort ofcreates a piece she sells. So I thought it was pretty unique and interested to hearwhat your thoughts are on that.[6:15] Kizu:Yeah, so there's something there I think that is very powerful. The idea that, youknow, the underdog, or artists that, artists from less developed parts of the worldthat may have been excluded from a traditional art infrastructure, that includesthings like galleries and auction houses, I think that's very powerful narrative. Youknow, I think that first bit about her identity as a kind of more marginalized artist,in terms of her background, I think it's something that's familiar to all of us. Thesecond part, she got her start making pieces entirely out of a game, right, is again,I would say that's a natural extension of how these creative industries work,right? I mean, if you look at for example, I think Japan provides a very goodhistorical case on that fact. So in Japan, there's this acronym, they call it ACG,right? Animation comics game, ACG. And it refers to this kind of trio of creativeindustries that traditionally have always kind of spawned versions of each other inthe sense that you might have an original manga comic, then, you know, someonemade an animated movie feature film, like out of it, and then you know, there's agame that came out of it. And that's not discounting the merch that comes later on or theme parks spawn entire empires based on a few characters from whatwas originally like a comic, right. So I think that now we're seeing obviously, thatartists are well not taking advantage of that, but I think that the logic of NFTs, as alot of people have noted already is has been embedded in gaming, theyincentivize players. So I think that artists that are working within this idiom, itmakes a lot of sense, because in games, you design characters, and it provides aready-made kind of visual style, right? In this age where a lot of people havecommented that I think, with NFTs is that the lack of that local context, but ofcourse, it's not a physical one. It's all the twitterverse that pops up around it. InEstelle's case, the Sims actually is the context in the sense that you know, it existsentirely online. Sabretooth I don't know if you are a big gamer yourself andwhether you agree with that in terms of how games can actually provide thecontext for NFT artists. What do you think of that?[8:38] Sabretooth:I'm not sure that's the thing because in the Japanese animated example, it's allabout, you know, fans of that particular franchise. In Estelle's case, she's notlicensed by Sims Four to create NFTs, it seems to be that the game is some sort ofCanvas for her to exercise her her creativity and that the consumers of those NFTsmight not necessarily be super fans of the game. I mean, this is conjecture so I'mnot really sure.[9:10] Kizu:Yeah, even if you were able to speak to collectors of her work and ask why, whatdrew you to her and whether or not they're aware of the game that she's bornfrom. But I think again, that's really not our business. I think it's, I put that pointacross more to suggest what art scenes might look like, in the age of NFTs. In theabsence of a physical context. So online on Hic et Nunc and all these platforms,what are the kind of references. All these artists that you know, you look at theTwitter and you follow on Instagram and things like that. And then so if she saysthat, you know, she's a visual artist painting on Sims Four, like, Oh, what is thatand you're not familiar with the game you check it out. So it's just one other thing I think that people can, that potential collectors can find out more about andwhether or not it then figures into their decision it's, you know, that's a separatequestion.[10:08] Sabretooth:Let's talk about another Brazilian artist Gio Mariani. So he outwardly identifies asqueer and he's art is probably I would say one of the sort of the most popularforms of art in NFTs, which is pixel art. Right. But he approaches pixel art in apretty different way than most. It's not really into sort of characters or that sort ofthing, but more about using pixel art to demonstrate concepts, emotions, some ofit political and some of it socio-political, what do you think of Gio Mariani's art?[10:43] Kizu:So I think in the traditional art world, a lot of times when we talk about queerartists, the understanding is that these artists make work about their identity, orrather, that they actually center it on their queer identities. So you know, it's hardto run away from that. I think that you have people like Gio here who showcasetheir work on this platform, and I'm not familiar with his work, so based on whatI've seen here it doesn't address those queer specific issues in that sense. And ofcourse, it's not something that is somehow de rigueur or expected of the artist.The work itself, I think, is interesting in the sense that the motifs are a bit moreopaque, I would say in the sense that there are figurative elements. I'm not sayingthat it's abstract, but what I'm saying is that it's as compared to someone likeFiedler where it's more in your face, obviously, and the message is quite clear.There's something very quiet and like, kind of ambiguous about . the way that Giocreates his work. I think it's not entirely clear what the subjects are, what theinspirations are, the motifs are a bit opaque to the casual observer. So yeah, Ithink he's got a quite an interesting style. And maybe it would be the kind of thingthat would reward someone who is interested in decoding what this kind ofpersonal symbolism might mean as an art.[12:05] Sabretooth:Cool. And our final artist that we want to talk about today is Thais Silva. So she's aAfrofuturist type of art, which I believe is kind of in vogue right now. What do youthink of her?[12:20] Kizu:Again, just to put it out there in terms of terminology, Afrofuturism. Sabretooth, Ithink maybe what you're thinking about is more of, kind of 2010s vogue for bothAfrican Americans, black artists, as well as African artists from Africa, that havedone very well in the traditional art world in US and Europe, and was a definitenarrative in the past 10 years. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that ambitiousgallerists were looking for the next big thing. And even though Asian art was athing, they were looking for more, you know, like, artists from the Caribbean,from Kenya, basically, the African countries that were less on the radar. And thatdid happen. And there were many kind of retrospectives that have top galleries,and then secondary sales were strong as well. But that was not really, I think,where the term Arofuturism came from. I believe it dates from the 60s jazz scene,actually and to a certain extent, visual artists that, you know, for example, designthe posters and the visuals for these artists. It's kind of like, well, I think not somuch John Coltrane but people like Sun Ra and more. I think a lot of it was kind ofa mix of jazz and funk. Obviously, this is when the more you had synthesizers andstuff like that, so the kind of sound of music was changing to more electronic one.And I think that the musicians that were active in the scene, were going for asound that to them conveyed a future where, you know, African identity, AfricanAmericans in particular could really fulfill their, you know, creative potential andbecome very successful. So I think that's the context. But again, obviously, in avisual art context, there were all these artists that did produce division, you know,this is a time when the album art was a huge thing, like it made or broke thealbum, if you had very strong. Because the, the consumer would be buying themusic, but who would be buying the LP and then you have this very interestinggraphic design for the poster, for example. So I think that maybe that's where Thais Silva's coming from. I can already see how some of the works on hand heremight make a very strong album cover in terms of the kind of simplifying geometric forms kind of restricted color palette, but very strong kind of graphic,sharp graphic sensibility, I think. So yeah, I'm not sure exactly like what herpolitical position is in terms of like how she sees herself as a black Brazilian artist.And in the Brazilian context, obviously, I think that's a very powerful political, orsocial, economic and political narrative. But just based purely on her work, I think,yeah, it draws on that legacy of historical Afrofuturism.[15:27] Sabretooth:In the NFT sort of crypto context, sort o f Afrofuturism is a more literal thingrecently. I mean, because you know, the dominant, I would say, theme in cryptoart, currently is futurism. Right? If you browse the top sales of any platform, you'llfind most of it dominated by sort of futuristic looking art, whether it's futuristiclooking world, futuristic, looking 3d renders futuristic looking spaceships, or carsalways about futurism, for certain extent. And it's a self fulfilling sort of loop inthe sense that if a futuristic themed art sells well, then it either attracts artistswho were into that kind of thing, or, you know, artists who want to sell, producethose kind of works, and those works definitely do kind of sell. But then at thesame time, it merges with artists who bring their own sort of political slash, sortof social history with them. And part of that is, is a lot of the sort of the racialpolitics of the racial tensions that's occurring, not just in creative world but justalso in society in general, over the past few years, you know, with Black LivesMatter, and Trump and all that kind of stuff. I think Afrofuturism in the NFT worldis just a more literal combination of those two kind of things.[16:58] Kizu:Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I just wanted to point out the kind ofhistorical etimology specific of the term. I think that what's been happening in thepast 10 years and the truth our and right now, as we speak, in the NFT space isabsolutely an extension of what happened in the jazz and funk scene in the 60s,right? Obviously, the mediums have shifted, and it's not always been about visualart, specifically, but I think it's been definitely a very strong questioning of like,what is African and African American creativity, right. And the platforms that are available today, and the fact that we're talking about Brazil on Hic et Nunc today,testifies to that, in the sense that the Brazilian presence on this platform speaksto the fact that, you know, it is the artists from not just like African or countrieswith the kind of considerable indigenous or population of African origin. I think it'sabsolutely about that identity and how it comes to bear in the ways that theseartists engage with their market, with their audience with their collectors.[18:07] Sabretooth:Cool. So let's wrap up this episode about Brazilian artists. Is there anything youwant to say to sort of sum up? Is there a Brazilian sort of aesthetic? Is there aBrazilian style? What do you think?[18:21] Kizu:Yeah, well, I think we mentioned a little bit, especially in relation to Fiedler at thestart. In terms of influences and then obviously Estelle Flores who draws from thevisual idiom of game, and Gio Mariani, the queer artist whose work isn'tsuperficially isn't very queer issue focused, and then Thais Silva obviously has thisafrofuturism narrative. So I think we've looked at a very interesting mix of styles,just within this group of four artists, so it's really hard to generalize. I think onething that's come up, though, is that, and I think, with the last discussion about Thais Silva, and afrofuturism, is that it is very Brazilian in the sense that, you know, it'stied to a lot of issues facing Brazil as a country in 2021. And whether that's got todo mostly with an emerging, less developed country that you know, is rapidlybecoming an international force in, in many areas, or whether that's a coming ofage, or if it's artists that are engaging this as as ties along with with issues of, youknow, the identity of its artists. I think that there are a lot of ways in which youcan see, I wouldn't call...