If there\u2019s ever been an artist suited for the digital renaissance of putting art on the blockchain, it would be Matt Kane \u2014 a traditional artist who transitioned into digital art by writing his own software and pushing boundaries impossible in the physical art world.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Kane is most known for his collection \u201cGazers,\u201d which launched in December 2021 and is considered by many to be an OG among generative artists. He recently released his collection Anons<\/a>, which is centered around understanding identity through art and immortalizing true anons from yesteryear.<\/p>\n Kane spent a chunk of his career as a software developer but was always experimental with different artistic mediums, including physical canvas. However, the limitations of the physical art world made the American ponder whether digital art could remove many of the barriers to better his vision for creating art.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my 20s and 30s, I was really trying to find what the right medium for my voice was. I\u2019ve spent a lot of time experimenting with canvas and fabric because I was really interested in pattern. But I realized it\u2019s not the medium that matters \u2014 it\u2019s my vision. It\u2019s how I get my vision and my mind out into the world,\u201d Kane tells Magazine.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWithin that realization, I knew I had to learn to code because there\u2019s so many physical limitations to traditional art. Code circumvents the limitations of our physical bodies and time. It allows us to manifest our visions, and so it\u2019s become the perfect medium for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Kane had heard about NFTs a week before CryptoPunks<\/a> launched in June 2017 through a Quora article, but he remained an observer while he continued to create and tinker with digital art, a medium that had captured his deep curiosity as early as 18.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I read this [Quora] article, and it talked about NFTs \u2014 I understood from years before what Bitcoin was and the blockchain \u2014 it just all snapped, and I remember thinking, this is what I\u2019m looking for. It\u2019s going to allow me to sell digital work, and prints can be optional. What I\u2019ll be creating are actually paintings as databases, and this is going to be the way that I\u2019m going to be able to do that. To transmit files and ownership of the artwork,\u201d says Kane.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite being introduced to the concept of digital art provenance via NFTs in 2017, it wasn\u2019t until May 2019 that Kane minted his first NFT, M87 Black Hole Deconstruction<\/a>, on SuperRare.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI watched the space develop just before Punks and looked on. I was Googling blockchain galleries, and there were none. That was the paradigm I was in at the time. I thought I needed to find a gallery to represent me on the blockchain. Now I\u2019m very much about self-representation and cutting out the middleman, but back then, I was still in that paradigm,\u201d Kane says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2018, I watched places like Dada, SuperRare and KnownOrigin come out in the summer of 2018. I continued to watch for another six to 12 months and then decided to pull the trigger,\u201d he adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kane\u2019s journey to digital artist stardom has been bittersweet, however, as he lost a close friend to suicide while on the way to visit her in 2013. This left the then 32-year-old devastated and even, at one point, contending with some of his own suicidal thoughts.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDuring that time, I had left my life in Seattle trying to find something new and was already in an upheaval. Then losing her \u2014 it really threw me quite into an abyss. I was on the road and about a week away from seeing her. It made me wonder, what if I had visited her earlier? It was really devastating,\u201d Kane shares.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI ended up in Texas and just making really destructive decisions. I caught myself in a moment of my own suicidal ideations and realized I was in a really bad place.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe next day, I bought a train ticket to LA to go visit my friend out there, and I think I stayed out there for a month. It was out there that I kind of just took some breaths, and I assessed my life and where I was. I was looking into my future and understanding how devastated I was and understanding my desire to rejoin society, my desire to get on with my life. I had years in front of me that were going to be wasted, and so I decided I\u2019m going to just start coding.\u201d<\/p>\n Kane used coding as a way to distract his mind from the painful emotional baggage he was dealing with.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was math, and it was distracting my brain. I couldn\u2019t think about emotions or how I was depressed. It was like I needed to figure out how to use sine and cosine to make this brush. It was really about building a tool of expression for the future when it would be safe to express myself again,\u201d says Kane.\u00a0<\/p>\n Had it not been for the tragedy of losing a loved one, Kane, in his own words, says he may not have pursued the artistic path he is now so well known for.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where it\u2019s like I\u2019ve had a lot of conflicts coming into success the last few years because I understand that had I not lost her, I never would have committed myself to digital art the way that I have. And that\u2019s difficult because I would trade all the success to have her back in the world, but things can\u2019t change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Much of Kane\u2019s work shows an immaculate use of color and reflects his sense of history and time.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my hope is that my art marks time, especially with Gazers. It\u2019s not necessarily any emotion that I\u2019m trying to imply. I think we all bring our own experiences, and if an image pattern or whatever I\u2019m doing in my art is really resonating with me in a strong way, I\u2019ve always believed that it\u2019s really going to resonate strongly with others.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While often cliche, NFTs are still incredibly new. Kane has stated that we\u2019re in \u201cprehistoric times for NFTs,\u201d and the inspiration for Gazers is connected to the caveman days.\u00a0<\/p>\n Leaning on his passion and ability to work with color, Gazers is a 1,000-piece collection with the moon as its centerpiece and acts as somewhat of a lunar calendar for the blockchain.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople on Twitter were talking about how we\u2019re in the caveman days of NFTs. What struck me about that was \u2014 it made one of these constellation connections for me. I knew that our caveman ancestors recorded phase calendars on antler bones, [\u2026] and they would use that to understand when to go, timewise, to attack a mammoth and whatnot,\u201d Kane says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project\u2019s website describes<\/a> it as \u201calgorithmically synching closely with moon phases in the sky, joining the blockchain with one of humanity\u2019s longest running lineages in art. Gazers seeks to create a community of collectors celebrating the change of our perceptions that happen over time, our collective goals in crypto, and our love of color theory, astronomy, and generative art.\u201d<\/p>\n Launched in December 2021 with Art Blocks Curated, Gazers has done over 8,800 ETH in secondary sales on OpenSea and still commands a 12.6 ETH floor despite being in the depth of an NFT bear market. Gazers are dynamic and have rules built into them. While possessing different rules, similarities can be drawn to 0xDEAFBEEF\u2019s \u201cEntropy<\/a>,\u201d which has a rule built in that when the NFT is traded, it degrades in quality.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe way that each Gazer forms is it creates a color theory about it. It has different rules, so each month, different rules are formed that basically designate the color of your moon and sky. The frame around it stays the same, but the sky and the moon change. Then on the website, we track the lunations, so we have little previews to go back in history,\u201d Kane explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe moon phase changes over time, and some of the gazers are clocks \u2014 they\u2019re all clocks. But some of them can also track minutes and hours, and those are really beautiful compositions because they play with the moon phases in a multilayered way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was really thinking about the future of art when I made Gazers. It accelerates over time. It speeds up one frame per second on average in each artwork every year.\u201d<\/p>\n Read also<\/p>\n Connecting the Dots: Collectivism and Collaboration in the Crypto Art World<\/p>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n $3.4B of Bitcoin in a popcorn tin: The Silk Road hacker\u2019s story<\/p>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Influences<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very eclectic, so it\u2019s very strange, but Andy Kaufman<\/a> [entertainer] is one. I got interested in comedy first, and Andy Kaufman is the comedian who made me understand that comedy is actually an art. It actually made me pivot from comedy to fine art. I also get around Mark Rothko [American abstract painter]. I really love his work and what he did in terms of layering, making these really thin layers of color. I was studying his work in my early twenties, and I\u2019m still living off of that education that I learned.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlso artists like JOY<\/a> [John Orion Young] and Josie Bellini<\/a>. When I came into this, they were very self-representing. They weren\u2019t using middlemen. They haven\u2019t used middlemen as much in their careers on the blockchain, and I always admire that. Plus, they are fantastic artists in their own right. I like that principle, so releasing Anons on my own contract was a big deal because I felt like I\u2019m joining you guys now, kicking the middleman out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Which hot NFT artists should we be paying attention to?<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n AwfulEye:<\/a> \u201cHe\u2019s legally blind in one eye, but he\u2019s still painting with an iPad. I think he gets really close up. Recently, he\u2019s been creating some code projects with the help of artificial intelligence. I find it incredible that you have an artist with a visual impairment using AI to help you manifest your vision. To me, it\u2019s one of the reasons that we have AI, to benefit humanity.<\/p>\n Panter Xhita:<\/a> \u201cI\u2019ve really been a big proponent of Panter. She\u2019s Argentine and a surrealist. She\u2019s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n Favorite NFT in your wallet that\u2019s not your own<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s my Alotta Money piece, \u201cBitcoin Fixes This<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Notable collectors<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI think that I\u2019m so centered on the community. They all still make me smile. It\u2019s the ones who are in Discord or on X [formerly Twitter] who give an update on what they\u2019re thinking and feeling. They\u2019re ever present in my life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Who do you listen to when creating art?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cItalian disco. Plus Giorgio Moroder. This playlist<\/a> is what I\u2019ve been listening to whilst creating Anons.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Links<\/strong><\/p>\n X: twitter.com\/MattKaneArtist<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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Lost in code dealing with personal tragedy<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Personal style<\/h2>\n
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Gazers inspired by cavemen <\/h2>\n
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\n Art Week<\/span><\/p>\n
\n Features<\/span><\/p>\nNotable sales to date <\/h2>\n
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Rapid-fire Q&A<\/h2>\n
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