simondlr #27 - Exploring NFT Collectibles for Authors

Growing up in the 90’s, Power Rangers, was a staple on TV.

One of the first action figures I remember owning was a Power Rangers toy. It’s a unique experience, having that tangible action figure and playing with it while Power Rangers also blared its 90s guitar solos on TV.

We’ve all been there. We’ve bought some merch of our favourite thing: from the lightsaber to your favourite band’s t-shirt. It’s a tangible thing to connect us to a feeling.

With NFT Collectibles growing increasingly popular, these blockchain-based digital collectibles allows new avenues for creators to earn from their content. It’s a subversion of how content is usually exploited. Instead of restricting and charging for access, the goal is that the media should be freely available and an attached collectible is sold instead.

Digital artists have enjoyed this new paradigm and I wanted to explore what this could look like especially for authors and storytellers. I used my own, Hope Runners of Gridlock, as testing ground. Particularly, I try to merge the ideas from traditional merchandising with new, digital merchandising.

https://blog.simondlr.com/posts/exploring-nft-collectibles-for-authors

Alongside this blog post, the collaboration with Metsa for Hope Runners of Gridlock is now available on SuperRare for bidding!

https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/a-hope-runner-19155

It’s an exciting industry, and the possibilities are endless!

Links!

ETHDenver

ETHDenver has had so many amazing speakers. I gave a talk on Generative Art on Ethereum. Had a few hiccups to my router. Also, check out the rest of the great talks! Tangential to this is a great article from the Treum team on on-chain artworks and how they differ.

Metaverse Billboards

One of my favourite projects is CryptoVoxels. Recently, a team acquired access to a few spaces to throw up billboards. All emergent and organic. That’s why I love decentralized virtual spaces. CryptoVoxels is littered with art galleries, and know, you can create billboards too, because why not.

Hidden Patterns

I’m enamoured with hidden patterns and numbers. Here’s some interesting recent rabbit holes I went down:

Chargaff’s 2nd Parity Rule for DNA N-Grams:

There are several patterns in how DNA encodes itself, some more surprising than others.

Prime Spirals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam_spiral

By plotting prime numbers in a specific pattern, it exhibits unique patterns that is tied to as-yet unresolved problems in number theory. What mysteries about prime numbers are yet to be discovered if we figured out a different way to look at it?

Logistic Map + Feigenbaum’s constant

It’s mind-blowing how with simply using mathematical models, we can uncover periods of ‘chaos’ and relative ‘order’. Really great and informative video.

Chris Isaak’s Wicked Games

Been binging some classic hits lately, chief among them, the soulful and sexy Wicked Games from Chris Isaak. Nothing beats the original, but I asked on Twitter what everyone’s favourite cover is. Enjoy!

Enjoy the sunset!

Cheers,

Simon