Blockchain

The moon landing program brings neurodiversity to NFT and supports art non-profit organizations

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Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are certificates of ownership representing digital works of art, music, video, audio, souvenirs, etc. In the past year, they have quickly become popular because they allow everyday artists to create and sell content. In fact, OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT market, has more than 1.6 billion U.S. dollars in monthly trading volume.

Like physical works of art, NFTs can also be used for charitable auctions or donated to non-profit organizations with generous tax deductions.From Funded the construction of a school in Uganda, arrive Help frontline medical staff, The decline of non-profit NFTs can play a decisive role in generating positive social differences.

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Lisa Slominski and Nick Dehadray, co-founders of a new initiative for the neurodiversity of the NFT space, discussed their upcoming NFT auction to support contemporary artists with intellectual disabilities and their non-profit work Room. The key themes of these works are pop culture and nostalgia, intertwined with the struggle and persistence moments of the artist’s daily life.Collection is Call NFToons, now available for preview, can be used for Public auction From January 2022.

United Telegram: Please tell me, who are the artists behind your NFT project?

Lisa Slominsky: Of course, the first project is NFToons, which are eight artists working with Project Onward. Project Onward is a non-profit organization in Chicago that provides support for artists with different intellectual disabilities and social needs. Among the eight artists, one of them is this outstanding artist named Ruby Bradford. I have previously curated exhibitions with her. Her practice mainly revolves around Superman and Cat, linking the two with care and a sense of belonging. So for NFToons, we really took her Superman as one of the iconic paintings of a cat, then animate it, moving it off the screen, and she actually sang the soundtrack to .mp4 NFT, where she was performing Superman theme song. This is an example.

Another artist is named Luis De Marco. In fact, I also brought one of his paintings back there (pointing to an artwork on the mantle behind her). But he made a very interesting work called “The Words of Life”. He did a lot of technical space work based on the spell he told himself. What he also does is develop his own script like in a band. So he developed a concept for a TV show called “Toaster”, which is a mashup of his own “Friends” and “Cheers.” So he made a pilot episode, which we will promote on Twitter and Instagram so that anyone can watch it. His NFT is a set of two-character apartments he drew. He also produced his own soundtrack for TV shows. This is the audio of that.

CT: So, read the press release. Obviously, part of the proceeds will go to charity; which organization will it be?

LS: The charity is their studio.All these artists Work In the day art studio The Project Onward. Project Onward is a non-profit 501(c) (3) [Legal U.S. federal income tax-exempt non-profit entity] Charities in Chicago support these disabled artists. So 80% of sales will go back to that studio and artist. Moon Landing plans to collaborate with a non-profit studio that supports artists with disabilities for each project. We work with their artists to create NFTs, and the proceeds go to the artists and studios. Our second project will work with the Australian Art Project Studio in Melbourne.

CT: So what inspired you, especially, to work with these artists to help tell their stories?

LS: Of course, so I have been working in the larger field of neurodiversity contemporary art for three years. I used to only work in contemporary art. I worked in an organization in London called the Museum of Everything. They study what many people call “outsiders art.” This is a problematic term, but it usually includes some kind of disabled artists, Self-taught artists, artists on the margins. In any case, after coming out of there and starting to work on my kind of independent projects, I really found that I got in touch with some artists through positions with disabilities. I just discovered that the artworks of these studios are absolutely incredible.

I started to think about myself, they are just contemporary artists, even if they have disabilities. They are just young contemporary artists, so I started to incorporate them into the exhibition I was planning. I wrote some articles about them for Artsy. However, these studios in particular, internationally, these non-profit studios may have 30 to 50 different versions, which create professional development and creative environments for artists with different social needs and disabilities to develop creative practices. I was in contact with Nick a few years ago; he made some promotional animations for some of the exhibitions I planned, and then, yes. Relying a bit on this, I realized his interest in NFT and creative diversity, as well as my interest, this would be a good opportunity to do something interesting and meaningful in the field of NFT.

Nick De Halle: Yes, I think what I have seen is indeed the way NFT Space supports self-taught artists, and it is a very strong community, and it is still the case. So I think it’s really suitable for this type of work, where neurologically diverse artists teach themselves and create art for others to appreciate. Therefore, NFT may be a great space for them to sell it. It seems really meaningful, and I think in the contemporary art market, they did not set these prices so high. Therefore, they may get better opportunities in the NFT field.

CT: More technical issues; Due to the very high price of Ethereum natural gas, it may cost hundreds of dollars to mint NFT. Do you provide financial support to artists when they are auctioned?

ND: Well, we will auction through OpenSea. So the casting will be done by the person who buys it, and we will do it for this on Ethereum, but we also consider other currencies, such as Polygon, where there is no gas fee at the speed of light. But at present, Ethereum still has a larger share of use. So it seems reasonable to choose that one now.

LS: Yes, we work directly with the studio that handles all these things in advance.

CT: Do you want to include a mission statement about your work?

LS: Yes, so just follow up with Nick’s point. There are some similarities. I mean diversity in general, which is a struggle in the field of contemporary art, while neurodiversity is a new kind. There is some discussion at this moment, as I talked about last night, called “Can we be artists?” It talks about neuro-diversified artists opening up a perspective space in the art world. So I do think that the NFT space has the opportunity to democratize things and create direct access from creators to audiences. It has great potential and can really improve many artists, otherwise it may be difficult for them to enter the art world, which I think is very interesting. Then, you know, we are working hard to promote these artists and promote these non-profit organizations. We know that people in the NFT field are asking about diversity, about neurodiversity. But connecting to them is difficult.

ND: Yes, this is one of the difficulties we encountered. Because there are many influential people there, such as gmoney, they commented that we need more spatial diversity. But we are not visible now, because we have just started. But we will try to send a message to gmoney, but he did not reply.

LS: So yes, it does. Obviously, I hope that NFToons is the initial project. Then, the moon landing company will continue this move. Therefore, we have considered two other supportive studios to cooperate with non-profit organizations with the same interest to carry out further projects to support disabled artists and allow them to create unique NFTs. And use them for artists and non-profit organizations.

ND: This is a good way to introduce them [inaudible] They may not be able to cooperate with it. For example, we are looking at an artist, Terry Williams from the Australian Art Project, who completed the sculptures of these astronauts. But we can scan them in 3D, and through 3D scanning, we can turn them into NFT. Otherwise we may not be able to do this. Therefore, there is indeed a good opportunity for artists to use technologies that they would not otherwise consider using or inaccessible.

Credit reference for works: Ruby Bradford, Superman Cat, 2021 NFT, .mp4 | Repainted in Cointelegraph style