Volume: IX | Interview with 0xG
1 September 2022 - Community is the Utility
Reading Key:
Foreword
Interview with 0xG
Official Pak Project Links
Community Resources
Foreword
0xG is building a community of curious and intellectual people. They are involved with the $ASH Community both as a creator and as a collector. Many of us were initially exposed to 0xG through Del’s work and artistic vision; The Token and Balance. Please enjoy this interview with one of the most exciting and innovative creators in the NFT space.
- iseult
Interview with 0xG
Can you briefly describe the nature of your website ‘0xG.xyz’?
0xG.xyz’s nature is fundamentally indie. I embrace the indie-web* culture and I like to have a space that I can fully control and where I can share my work, thoughts, experiments and creations.
Ash Zero is an NFT which opens the doors to certain sections of your website: ‘want’ and ‘EXHIBIT’. Furthermore, Zero was free to mint for $ASH token holders. Now it is an immutable on-chain memory that $ASH community members share.
What does community mean to you?
I think that I was programmed to explore, learn, support and share.
Exploring and learning excites me.
Community is where I find hope and meaning.
The ASH community in particular attracted me because of its abundance of good, genuine and intelligent members.
What is ‘want/us’?
Want. Us is a minimalistic peer-to-peer chat where one of the participants acts as a server. I built it because I wanted to create a space where those who own an Ash Zero token can chat and because such a tool can be programmed to do interesting things.
Given its minimalistic nature and the fact that it doesn’t come with features that create addiction, it is a place that metaphorically sets you free. Furthermore it might show that even in a decentralized, peer-to-peer world some degree of centralized effort is required for the wheel to spin.
Is there a deadline for submitting to EXHIBIT?
If Want. Us is where I connect with the community and collectors, Want. EXHIBIT is where I want to connect with artists. Eventually it will feature artists that I choose and a room with all the works that came from submissions – there is no deadline for that.
What does it mean to be a Pak collector?
Pak’s work often challenges concepts such as value and ownership, and collectors are those who are willing to engage with these ideas. Additionally the depth and quality of Pak’s work is what makes me want to be a collector of their creations.
Why are you building a community pertaining towards $ASH?
Because I see an alignment of values and creative, cultural and technical interests.
The ASH token itself is unconventional which is what I am always after as well.
The Owned is a performance which showcased “Lendable NFTs” by allowing for any collector of Ash Zero to claim the ‘Borrowed’ NFT for a minimum locked duration of 10 minutes. After a few days, $ASH holders were also allowed to claim ‘Borrowed’. Participants had up to 7 days to claim.
At the conclusion of the performance- 246 unique addresses claimed ‘Borrowed’ 314 times. Since then ‘Borrowed’ has transferred to Del and now Sir Anthony Hopkins.
What does this project mean to you and how will the performance proceed from here?
I created The Owned after a phase where I had the chance to explore the feelings that are connected to digital art ownership.
If we remove the economic incentive from the equation, why do we still crave or desire to own a reproducible digital creation?
The Owned allows the collector to experience the desire of owning a token to then provide the euphoria and sense of fulfillment that comes with ownership and finally offers a chance to reflect on those feelings by giving up ownership. During this whole experience the token was never really yours.
From a technical standpoint, The Owned is an expression of my constant desire to bend the rules of NFTs and create unconventional smart contract mechanisms – as a software engineer I love the “creative hacking” part of it.
The Owned consists of two additional smart contracts that I have never deployed:
One enables rentals.
The other puts emphasis on the art side of the project, expanding it in an interesting way.
Maybe they will make it to mainnet one day.
How did your partnership with Del come to be?
I connected with Del after his first drop and eventually helped him with the smart contract for The Token. Del and I continued to chat and share ideas, one of which became Balance.
Some behind the scenes, let me tell you about the initial concept of Balance.
The idea came from me in the form of a game where players would start with a token and on a daily basis decide whether to keep it or swap it for another one. At the end of each day, those who kept the token would not be able to swap it anymore and the token would be permanent. Would there be Balance at the end of the game?
What aspect of Find Balance are you most proud of?
I am proud of the mechanism that Del and I eventually created in the end and the culture that we contributed to facilitate in our community. My favorite moment was when a community member gifted some tokens to a few fellow collectors so that they could make progress in the game.
Can we expect another collaboration in 2022?
Balance is now the gate for Del’s future work which I am eager to discover with other fellow collectors, and while we haven’t planned any collaboration I am always happy to Lend him my brain ;)
0xG Labs is defined as “art, experiments and mad science”. It is the first contract that you deployed with Manifold Studio. True to its ethos, every project launched explores your creative mind and the functionality of blockchain technology.
The first token minted to the contract is ‘Feature Parity’. It is a “dynamic 1/1 NFT that works only in some browsers.
The second series minted to the contract is a set of four NFTs titled ‘blink’. You describe, “‘blink’ as an open edition that will never exist. Nevertheless, participants had an opportunity to “blink and screenshot it”. The three most appreciated screenshots were minted as NFTs and given to the “spectators”.
Fearless is the sixth token minted to the contract. You recently disclosed that Ash Zero collectors had an opportunity to collect the NFT through hidden command.
The seventh token minted to the contract is Vacuum. Thus far not much is known about the token’s mechanics.
Can you disclose the process of how to claim ‘Fearless’?
If you remember, Want. Us – the peer-to-peer chat – can be programmed to do interesting things.
For a chat that I hosted for Fomoverse and Ash Zero holders, I deployed a change that would allow anybody who typed “F.” to get the token transferred by my backend and at my expense.
Unfortunately nobody found it but the meaning of the unknown performance remains:
What more can we expect from 0xG Labs and how can we stay involved?
My area of interest is clearly smart contract mechanisms, hacking and experimentation, therefore you can expect interesting things coming in that area. Some of them will happen on Want. others will be publicly announced on Twitter.
How do you view your legacy?
My legacy would be a series of on-chain creations, limited programs that – under the constraint of a simple yet revolutionary medium – do interesting things.
Some of my ideas are in other people’s work and nobody will ever know that, but they will be there regardless.
Official Pak Project Links
Do you exist? mass.black
∴ AB AETERNO lostpoets.xyz
Creation Through Destruction ASH burn.art
Contribute
@_seult on Twitter
iseult#8848 on Discord
iseultimpakt@gmail.com
Please consider donating ASH or ETH to: 0x56ec61c5ca992dbe5dba7e942cc4a055bf584f24
All donations will be used to acquire Pak and ASH Creator NFTs for a Virtual Museum.