The further Web3 evolves, the more challenging it becomes for artists and builders to innovate within its walls. gamified drops, unique fire mechanisms, and more are all now commonplace in the NFT ecosystem. Each new groundbreaking dynamic raises the bar just a little bit higher.
This is a boon for collectors, but it puts a responsibility on creators to stay sharp and do something, well, new. Fortunately, even in the depths of one increasingly brutal bear market, there is no shortage of creatives willing to take the stage. Enter visual artist Jeremy Cowart, a painter, illustrator and photographer known for his collaborations with celebrities such as Barak Obama, Taylor Swift, The Kardashians and a litany of others.
Cowart has been involved with Web3 since August 2021 and has brought a truly unique aesthetic to the crypto art world with Cowart’s dynamic and interactive NFT projects. Now he’s trying to push the space in a direction it’s never been before by creating Aura’s, a 10,000-piece NFT collection, live in front of a Nashville audience. Oh, and he plans to make it in 20 minutes without any kind of generative code or software.
We spoke to Cowart ahead of next week’s performance about what (he hopes) will be a historic moment in Web3’s annals.
A performance like no other
On May 2, 2023, Cowart will take the stage at Vū Nashville for less than half an hour. The photographer uses himself as the canvas for the project, donning a white mask and projecting hundreds of images on himself from different angles to create 10,000 NFTs in the span of 20 minutes. The location is key to the project. Vū features a massive 123-foot LED screen that the artist will use in the creation of the project, revealing a never-before-seen creative methodology that he has developed in the process for most of the last decade.
Cowart takes place in collaboration with Transient Labs and OpenSea, making every effort to physically recreate the rarity and variety of NFT features, in a nod to the well-known 10K PFP tradition in the Web3 space. That’s no mean feat, given that the properties of PFP projects are often computer-generated.
But perhaps the most compelling thing about the ambitious live performance is that it almost never existed. After entering the NFT space in early 2021, Cowart became disillusioned with NFTs and decided to retire from Web3 in August of the same year.
However, while in Miami’s Art Basel in the fall, he stumbled upon the generative NFT art scene by chance at the recommendation of a friend. He spent the next two months obsessively reading space and decided to try again. “My abstract painting brain understood what I could do with that,” Cowart now told nft.
Cowart’s return to space came in February 2022 with the release of the 999-piece Block Queens, a generative collage project that the artist was able to build to scale with the help of the Transient Labs co-founders. Ben Strauss And Marco Peyfuss. The pair encouraged Cowart’s experimental ideas, namely to make the NFTs in the collection three-dimensional, interactive concept pieces.
Block Queens sold out within seconds of its release.
From there, Cowart turned his attention to making 1/1 pieces, with pieces from his unique Lightographs series selling on SuperRare for over 15 ETH ($30,000 at the time). Fast forward to January 2023, and Cowart began developing the idea for what would eventually become the Aura’s living coin.
Cowart has always been a fan of happy accidents and was never satisfied with what he sees as too much control in creating a work of art. This tendency is reflected in his soon to be revealed artistic methodology, which he has been tinkering with for years.
“My process in the studio has become exponentially more experimental and weird,” explains Cowart. “Especially in the past year. Most photographers want control while shooting. I want chaos. I call [my work] a contrived happy accident.
“Most photographers want control while shooting. I want chaos.”
Jeremy Cowart
When asked why he’s drawn to this particular element of chaos, Cowart says it reminds him how he works in mediums like painting.
“If you paint quickly, you can’t control where the paint splashes or drips, but you’re generally in control. You have a vague feeling, but things just happen. It’s the exact same process for photography, I paint in a very abstract way with my camera. I invented these systems that allow accidents to happen.”
Because 10,000 is such an iconic number in the Web3 space, Cowart was initially fascinated by the possibility of creating a collection of 10,000 in 10 minutes. In testing the methodology, he realized that despite the lightning-fast capabilities of the camera technology involved, it would take him somewhere around 15 or 20 minutes to reach the exit threshold he’s aiming for.
“The hardest part of this is after the shoot,” Cowart acknowledged of the process it took to fully realize his vision. “In three or four days, we’ll have people manually assign the rarity attributes to 10,000 photos. There are eight or nine property categories. It takes about 500 hours with a team of about 16-20 people.”
The NFTs will go live on OpenSea on Tuesday, May 9. While the coin price has yet to be determined, Block Queens holders are entitled to a free coin from the project (the floor price for collections has been slowly rising since news of Cowart’s appearance broke last week). 301 pieces will be held in Cowart’s artist’s vault, with the remaining 8,700 up for grabs.
A commentary on AI art
A conceptual centerpiece of the project is how Cowart exposes the front-to-back creative workings of his human-centered methodology, as opposed to using AI art tools of any kind.
“I don’t think you can argue with the idea that a year from now everyone in the world will have the most amazing AI apps on their phones, which means we’ll be so inundated with incredible visuals,” Cowart offered in response to the rise of AI art over the past year. “What that means to me is that on the surface, human art just won’t be impressive anymore. I’m not here to be a hater. I just think there’s a lot of sadness and heaviness comes with it, as well as some really interesting possibilities.
As for its usefulness to the collection, Cowart says he’s less concerned with providing perks for holders of Auras than with creating intricate and well-constructed art whose value will be apparent simply as art. High-value art projects like those by Claire Silver, Tyler Hobbs, Justin Aversano, and more, he says, have more long-term value than projects that offer explicit utility.
“My goal,” Cowart stressed, “is for this to be considered a historic art performance that we’ve never seen before.”
Interested collectors can register for the project’s admission list and reserve a ticket for the live performance. Now pass holders can reserve their place on the admission list here.