Shine On You Crazy Diamonds
formfunction is dying
One of my favorite movies of all time is “The Neverending Story”.
As children my siblings and I watched it probably 100 times, nervously laughing every time Bastian dramatically stops himself from eating his entire lunch and decides in a super corny way to instead save it for the journey ahead.
In case you never saw it, the main enemy in “The Neverending Story” is The NOthing.
The Nothing is this formless cloud of darkness that is sweeping over the land and destroying everything it comes into contact with. The only way for Atreyu, the hero, can save the world is to find a cure for what ails the Princess, but he discovers that it’s impossible, that the only thing she needs, he cannot give her - the love and attention of a human child. After overcoming so many obstacles to reach the Princess, he is devastated to have still failed.
Ahhh. But that is where he is wrong. He hadn’t failed after all. The love and attention of the human child is the boy reading the book, and by believing in the Princess, by caring enough about her to risk his sanity Bastian bridged the gap between reality and fantasy, and Fantasia was born anew.
With the same mechanism, though Formfunction may die the “Moon Child” shall live.
FOUR
I was going to try and profile or write about every artist I met during the past year, but it would be so long no one would read it. So I am only writing about the first four NFTs I bought on Formfunction and the artists who made them, sharing my love for what they have done as a former human child.
1. Singpentinkhappy
This was the first 1/1 NFT I bought:
It’s called “Reality Is An Illusion” and it’s by Yahya Rifandaru, an artist who can never seem to fit inside any form, and who’s every work is bursting with what seems like some kind of primal goo from the mysterious processes at work in his brain.
In the whirl and fun of NFTs I ended up selling the one above, though I still have a three of his works and I always look forward to seeing where he goes, everything he touches turns to bright beautiful ectoplasm.
“NDASASU #19 - The Life Cycle”.
“Under the Shadows”
2. Metadreams
I first saw Metadreams work on objkt, on the tezos chain, and on Formfunction I bought this:
“Futura Salvation”. The detail is incredible, and the detail carries you with it down the path. If you want to see the piece in it’s original form animated with music, you can do it for a limited time here. I love the sure-handed lines and the strange, unique sensibility. It makes me feel a little like I’m looking at someone else’s dream. Metadreams has a talent for seeing the absurd all around us, for showing us that if we only just kind of tilt our heads a little to the left and imagine and squint our eyes we can see we already live in the world he is showing. It’s too strange and troubling to think about it too much, so you can look at something else, but the feeling stays.
3. Artsyryo
What did I know about art? Nothing. What is there to know? Either you like it or you don’t. However what I started to realize was how much sharing and borrowing there was between artists, which makes sense. I started to look for artists that were doing their own thing, that didn’t look like anybody else, that stole more than borrowed and I found artsyryo (though I guess his style does look a little bit like Moebius - one of our modern dream fathers)
I just thought this was awesome. The colors, the lines, the way his lines make each of the sections different but still part of the fabric of his world, the bizarre, tragic, fairy tale space story implied, the light, the snapshot of a desperate situation. I thought it was amazing and I still do.
4. Vhadel
The reason I started buying 1/1 NFTs in the first place was to make new friends. I started out messaging artists on twitter to see if they wanted to collaborate with me, but I quickly realized that I looked like just another spammer and possible scammer. Some wonderful people did reply though. People are the best.
Vhadel was one of the people who did write back, and he even provided me with one of the earliest plebs - the electric concept “Grandma’s Boys”. (don’t worry I’m still going to use it!).
What I ended up buying from him on FF was this piece (animated), which puts the viewer in an endless bright green technology funnel, watching a figure infinitely switch between masks that display happiness and sadness.
“Poker King” by MasroemX.
For a while Vhadel and I connected, we chatted and made jokes and planned for future collaborations. It felt like being a kid on vacation, making vacation friends and hatching all kinds of crazy plans with the other kids instead of being a responsible adult.
Then as the summer ended and crypto autumn set in we lost touch. I hope he reads this. I’m still working on my game by the way, it’s really almost ready to show to you :)
The Three Whos
I still honestly don’t know anything about NFT art. I don’t know why some artists are highly valued while others are ignored, but in that way the NFT art world seems a lot like the normal art world. Who knows? Are there any rules about who is allowed to have an opinion on art?
But an even better question is, who cares?
Who cares what people think about the art you like? Ok I do care. When other people appreciate the same things I like it makes me feel good in a fuzzy way. In a similar way to how show-and-tell made me feel. I admit to enjoying the positive attention, but it’s really the negative attention that holds people back.
When someone else doesn’t like what you like, it instinctively feels bad. It is worth asking: why does that matter? Either they can see something you can’t see, in which case maybe their opinion will enrich your aesthetic navigation system, or they have a temporarily incompatible worldview. In the worst cases people use your opinions about art to draw negative conclusions about you as a person, about your education level, about where you grew up. I think this actually happens in many cases and in many parts of the world, but fortunately the solution is universal and available to all of us when we really think about it.
Don’t wear someone else’s clothes unless they fit.
To recap, the '3 Whos' which are fundamental to understanding and appreciating art are:
1. Who knows?
2. Who cares?
3. Who gives a sh*t?Art in an Abundant World
Just because now that there is so much art at our fingertips doesn’t mean it’s not amazing - it means that the way we decided art was good or bad has been wrong all along.
Yes there can only be 10 in a top 10, but there can also be a top 10,000 —
I understand and appreciate where things like the “Western Canon” come from. There is so much to read and listen to and watch and see that you quickly lose your bearings when you don’t have any guidance on what is good and what isn’t. It becomes overwhelming until you realize that just as the art multiplies and changes form and style endlessly so too does your budget of appreciation expand, in fact you realize that you don’t have a budget at all and that you are free to like whatever you like.
Of course maybe you already spend your likes freely and if so god bless but I realized how cheap I had been at times.
The truth is we can all judge art without any prior knowledge, that it’s ok if you have to explain a work of art to someone, but what you are explaining to them is how you see. It is incredible that we can show others to see as we do, it’s part of the joy of sharing the beauty and wonder we discover in the world. But we still open and close our own eyes.
We can experience art easily and directly. We can let art flow over us without filtering the thoughts it and feelings it creates. We can see the same thing on multiple days and see something different. There is enough love to go around. Let your love expand, let it fill your coffers and then spend it on everything you like.
This is how we stop The Nothing.