Crypto’s ‘pro-rioter’ glitch artist sparks controversy – Patrick Amadon, NFT creator

Patrick Amadon combines a passion for art and activism, and is articulate about how he wants his work to have an impact.

The Los Angeles-based glitch artist, who describes himself as a ‘digital disobedient’, is no stranger to controversy, having made international headlines with his digital billboard ‘No Rioters’ which was displayed during Hong Kong Art Week in March and was eventually removed. because of its political undertones.

He also made headlines when he withdrew from Sotheby’s first glitch show, opposing a lineup of performers that did not include women or non-binary people.

(For the uninitiated, glitch art purposefully involves digital or analog errors.)

Like many other artists, Beeple’s historic $69 million NFT sale in March 2021 caught Amadon’s attention. He had been making digital art for more than ten years, but could not attach any value to it.

When I saw all the press from the Beeple sale, I went past the $69 million figure, which wasn’t that interesting to me, but I remember thinking, wait, someone was selling digital art, how does that work,” says Amadon.

I’ve been doing it for ten years, but I got stuck in a kind of no man’s land. I would make physical work, but I liked digital work better. My audience liked the digital work much more, but in the art world you couldn’t really do anything with it.

Digital disobedience

Amadon is a deep thinker and puts an incredible amount of effort into making his art purposeful. He also embraces a lot of the crypto ethos and believes that those who participate are all a bit digitally disobedient in one way or another.

I mean, if you’re in crypto, it’s because you turned something down. You have rejected something in the financial world, you embrace sovereignty, you embrace self-control, self-reliance. There is a social element that you rejected that brought you here.

I think we’re really disrupting a lot of these existing structures. Caused hell for many gatekeepers. We open the doors to many artists. None of us here obey what we are told to do.

I feel like we’ve all embraced disobedience in many ways because no one in traditional finance wants you to think crypto is valid. No one in the art world wants you to think crypto is valid. Because we are here, we are all disobedient if you look at what society considers normal and acceptable.

WAGMI by Patrick Amadon (SuperRare)

Art is a medium that Amadon values ​​as a way to express his passion for activism and for its ability to point out social issues he cares about. He puts an incredible amount of effort into giving his art a purpose.

I like doing something that has a purpose. I often like to use art as an outlet to comment on a socio-economic or political situation. Or cultural nuance or just something to spice up the space a bit, says Amadon.

I think the story of the story is the art and I think the aesthetic is really just the voice you use to tell it. That’s why I think the concept is the most critical element of a work of art. It must say something that many of us can say the same thing. I mean, the aesthetic kind of becomes the voice of it again.

‘No rioters’ bee Hong Kong Art Week

Embracing his digital disobedience and his desire to use art for more than aesthetics, Amadon boldly displayed his piece ‘No Rioters’ on a giant digital billboard above the Sogo Causeway Bay store during Hong Kong Art Week.

The glitch art is centered around a surveillance camera moving back and forth, but the main provocation was showing the names and prion terms of activists in the 2019 pro-democracy movement.

It was a billboard the size of a city block in the middle of Hong Kong Art Week, sponsored by the government. I thought, let’s be a little disobedient. I had closely followed the protest in Hong Kong in 2019. I’ve been a news hawk since the dawn of the internet, so I wanted to start something to honor the protesters, Amadon says.

I placed a giant security camera there and then every ten frames flashed the names of the protesters, their sentences, and examples of how the government beat up protesters and threw them in jail. Under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, it’s all illegal to post that in public and I had it up on the biggest billboard in Hong Kong for three days during Art Week, which was amazing.

Because the names were subtle and difficult to see in real time through the artwork, the billboard remained up for 72 hours before Art Innovation Gallery, the gallery Amadon had worked with to exhibit the piece, told him that Sogo’s owners were concerned . about the hidden political content behind the work.

The Hong Kong free press found out about it, so they wrote an article about it and the next day it was the BBC and the Global Press that reported on it, and the Chinese press counter-programmed it and said I’m pro-rioters, which I I like it because I am absolutely for rioters.

So it was taken down by the government and I joined the list of Winnie the Pooh in terms of freedom of speech being abolished.

Gate guards get out

Amadon believes the Web3/crypto space still has a long way to go, but he is equally optimistic about the technology’s potential to democratize the art industry, for artists and collectors alike.

From a collecting point of view, from a point of view of experiencing art, from a point of view of creating art, it’s huge. You no longer need a brother, sister or cousin to work at the Gagosian to have a shot at physically selling and sitting at the head table of the art world, Amadon says.

It is very difficult to participate in the art world if you come from a marginalized community or a third world country. What we’ve done with the technology is we’ve flattened the space tremendously and we’ve allowed people like Osinachi and Ix Shells to participate meaningfully in the art world that previously would have been very difficult to access. We are very accessible and very inclusive.

Doppelganger innovation with smart contract

In May this year, Amadon launched something unique with its Doppelganger drop in collaboration with Transient Labs. As an artist fascinated by the convergence of art and technology, Doppelganger explores what it is like to link a non-fungible sign to a series of art rather than referencing a single image.

Since we’re just beginning to discover what’s possible in digital art and what’s possible in digital art when paired with smart contracts on the blockchain, I contacted Transient Labs and had them build a token that maps to an array refers to a token that points to a single link. Doppelganger is built on that.

Doppelgänger by Patrick Amadon (OpenSea)

The contract is owned by the artist and can essentially include multiple images in one NFT. Users can choose which artwork they want to reference, with the artist having the ability to add new artwork, but never delete it.

Essentially, think of them as frozen metadata. They will never change and only the collector has control over what it refers to. As a collector you can select which art you want to show. I think there are about 12-13 different pieces currently. I’m going to add another one soon. I just keep expanding it, because I can always add something to it, but I can never take anything away from it, he says.

Notable sales to date

Amadon’s first Ethereum coin was ZoFo and his inaugural coin on Tezos was RGB Glitch 2013.

Notable sales include:

BRAIN.WASH by Patrick Amadon: Sold for 8.69 ETH (equivalent to $26,300 on sale date) April 15, 2022. (SuperRare)

Unknown and a Train: Sold for 10 ETH (equivalent to $15,637 on sale date) October 18, 2023 to Sartoshi. (Super rare)

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Rodeo Drive: Sold for 8,469 ETH (equivalent to $24,900 on sale date) March 3, 2022. (SuperRare)

Quick questions and answers

Influences

I really like Edward Snowden and Banksy. Aesthetically, I grew up around all abstract artists, so that’s how I first started making art. I really like texture and abstract art. People like Richter [Gerhard].

From the inside [Web3] space there are some people like XCOPY, Max Capacity and Kidmograph. There was a community on Tumblr making glitch work, that’s all still here, so it’s cool to see. I’ve known about Pak since 2013 as the Twitter art community has turned to NFTs in many interesting ways.

Grifter #098 by XCOPY (OpenSea)

Personal art style

Errors. But my background is in street art. I photograph it, I contribute to it. I’ve always loved graffiti. Glitch mixed with graffiti.

Banksy was always the artist I looked up to the most in terms of how they approach the art world and how they approach the message from their art.

Well-known collector

I have to say Anonymoux. Anonymoux has become like family during this process. He picked up some of my 1 of 1’s. The relationship between collector and artist can be very strong. The amount of support you get from them really makes it possible to do this at a higher level. Just the amount of support I’ve received from Anonymoux over the years has honestly been life-changing.

Which popular NFT artist should we keep an eye out for?

I would say one of the biggest initiatives I’m working on right now is the 404 catalog. It is a quarterly exhibition, everyone can submit one work per artist. It’s an opportunity for artists to take away every change and platform. I just wanted to be completely agnostic, social media and presence don’t matter, just art and giving artists a chance to be seen just for their art.

Favorite NFTs in your wallet that don’t belong to you

Ana Maria Caballero, 1 of 1. I picked up her Ethereum genesis piece. She is an incredible poet. We became friends early on in the NFT space

MUJERES by Ana Maria Caballero (SuperRare)

What do you listen to when you make art:

I work completely in silence. If there is sound, I put the headphones in noise canceling mode. If there’s something distracting, I get distracted.

That said, in terms of music in the space that I like, I would mention Mariana Makwaia. I think she’s an incredible musician, but also does some really interesting technical things in space. She used a Doppelganger contract to build her album. Each song has its own metadata, all on the same token, which I think is a fantastic use of the technology.