On July 6, while I was barely awake and drinking my first cup of coffee, I asked ChatGPT to tell me what the common elements of the highest cryptoart sales were. The answer was no surprise - we love our dystopian vaporwave pixel art with the fiery passion of a thousand burning blunts.

Just to see what happened, I copy-pasted the entire answer into the Runway text-to-image generator.

The first images were a cluttered, chaotic mess.

I deleted one set of characteristics and tried again.

Less cluttered, still a mess.

I kept going, deleting one set of characteristics at a time, until all I was left with was the original question.

Because Runway understood where I was going with this exercise even though I didn't, the final four images were what would constitute grail cryptoart produced by an experienced pixel artist who had a thorough understanding of the kind of work that's most marketable in the NFT space.

I suppose I could have stopped there, minted those four and been done with it.

But in the process of this exploration, I started thinking about why low effort, straight-from-the-AI-generator art sells well. Why very simple art sells well. Why bad art sells at all. And, frustratingly, why does so much thoughtful, intelligent art get passed over, time and time again?

What gives cryptoart value?

Time spent? Skill? Understanding the meme? Cost per pixel? A quasi-mercenary element of reviewing the market, analyzing what sells well, and making art tailored to the niche? Staying "active", whatever that means?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I want to understand it because it's frustrating to see so many talented, thoughtful artists get overlooked in favor of glitched spinny Ethereum logos.

Yes, cryptoart is all about the memes, I get it!

But what if it could be something more? Something that didn't demand an artist provide a roadmap for utility and entertainment. Something that cultivates an appreciation for the human connection over the potential for monetary gains.

When artists flooded into the cryptoart space three years ago, they came here because of the promise that they could be compensated fairly for their talents, finally, and also be able to cultivate a secondary market for their artwork in ways that weren't possible in tradart.

We've watched platforms strip royalties and encourage artists to mint free editions in exchange for points and airdrops while the platform profits from our labor and markets their project. We do all this work for them, and yet the platforms only promote a handful of artists who are perched at the top of the leaderboards. NFT galleries still rely heavily on like, tag, and retweet to be seen. There's no real curation, just gatekeeping.

There are no good solutions on the horizon for any of this.

And so, what could have been a castaway creative exercise of moving ideas between AI programs morphed into Nexus of Realities, the title suggested for this work by ChatGPT when it first provided me the concept.

I started thinking about how all of these images could work together. How could they be combined? What could be removed? What needed to be added?

What would happen if I composed these images in such a way that they created miniature artworks within a much larger piece? How small could I squeeze the pixels before they lost meaning? How big could I make them before they swallowed what I was trying to say?

What if I created something that demanded that you zoom in and observe the tiniest details in order to understand what I was trying to say?

So I made my canvas as large as I could make it in Procreate while having a couple of layers to work with - 10,000 x 10,000 px. I picked one of the images - a cityscape on water, a larger city in the distance, to build on. I wasn't sure what to do next so I picked another image, added it, and shrunk it down to see if it would fit into the larger piece somewhere. As luck had it, it aligned with a courtyard. I left it there and grabbed a dragon next.

Pixel by pixel, I cut out the dragon. I placed her on a floating pedestal and added pixels here and there to blend her into the image seamlessly.

You can't see this dragon when you look at the whole image. I noticed, though, that when you zoom in the dragon is a standalone piece of art. This was the moment I understood what I was creating, and the vision for Proof of Humanity came to life.

I wanted to add one of the subterranean streetscapes I'd generated to this image. I chose this one because the placement of the alley, showing hints of a cityscape in the distance, which echoed the beam of pink light falling from the sky in the first image.

I could have blended these two images using AI to achieve a seamless result. Had I done that, though, I would have missed out on the experience of learning how these two worlds fit together. The disorienting perspective shift would have been lost.

Instead, I spent hours building these structures into each other, building by building, tree by tree, sign by sign, deciding what to keep and what to discard.

It's July 9. I'm a little over 10 hours into this work. My biggest challenge right now is that because the canvas is so large I'm limited to only 6 layers in Procreate (after shrinking it to 8000 x 8000 px). This means when I add another image and decide where it belongs, I have to commit and combine it into the layer beneath it, no backsies. I'm stuck with all of the decisions I've made along the way.

Yesterday an artist shared some awful things people said to him after he sold a piece of art - physical art - for $12,000: greedy, evil, selfish, conceited.

Why are artists being shamed when they are paid well for their work?

On the other hand, artists are also being shamed for giving away work for free or cutting their prices so that they can sell any work at all.

Why do we not stand on our principles and demand fair value for our art? That's what we came here for. Are we so ground down that pennies are better than nothing?

Cutting prices to achieve volume has led to a proliferation of meaningless AI work through which collectors must wade to find. It's become impossible to browse an NFT platform and find actual art - you have to know who and what you're looking for.

If we aren't careful we'll noise ourselves right out of cryptoart, leaving the bots and farmers to cannibalize themselves.

Nobody seems to know what to do about any of this.

To me it seems simple: Proof of Humanity.

Art is about human connection, something that is lost in cryptoart with its focus on floor price, sales volume, and leaderboards.

So while ChatGPT was able to give me a list of aesthetic characteristics and could have generated a description for the collection had I asked it to, it could never give my art meaning or context.

In the end, I incorporated every element on the list ChatGPT provided. Even though AI generated the base images, AI could not have made all of the creative decisions I made along the way. It could not have generated the art I made by hand and incorporated into this work. And it could not have curated the final pieces for this collection in a way that expressed what I wanted to say.

Everything to do with NFTs has been so frustrating lately I nearly gave up on this collection several times. It's not fun in the same way it was in early HEN days (before someone tried to capture the spirit 🙄). I feel constantly marketed-to on X, not invited to experience something new or interesting. Experimentation is rare, and so is work with meaning that hasn't been vomited out by ChatGPT. Artists who weren't able to talk intelligently about their work now rely on AI to do it for them, and collectors are falling for generic drivel pasted on top of aesthetically pleasing illustration (and tits, so many tits) because they are investors, not art appreciators or understanders.

It's not worth my time to play the game everyone is playing right now, minting and marketing low-priced editions. There are other opportunities to share my work and connect with people on a more meaningful level IRL than there are shouting into the X void.

Proof of Humanity is my response, and Nexus of Realities is available for $8 million (not a lot of money according to some people in crypto).

Since $8 million is not a lot of money this should be an easy sale. It contains the exact same visual and thematic elements as the NFTs that have sold for the most money. It's a conservative estimate of my future contributions to art, for which I am seeking a patron.

By collecting this work and becoming my patron, you will free up my time to focus on creating things that will bring joy to the world - something we desperately need more of. I'll be doing this anyway, albeit more slowly, but as my patron you'd get to be a part of that story.

What do you receive in exchange?

• My undying gratitude

• Custom artwork

• Collecting advice

• Studio visits

• Inside access to my creative process

• Collaboration on whatever you're working on

• Feet pics (jk!)

• Hanging out at crypto events

• Being part of a very cool story

In short, you'd get a ticket for the Jen ride at the art circus.

My creative limitations right now are time and money. Selling this work would take care of both.

If you're still on the fence about adding Nexus of Realities to your collection, consider this: it's at least as valuable as Rotating Mud, which sold for $8.2 million, and far more portable. Because of this, I know my collector is out there, I just need to find them.

If you'd like to be a part of Proof of Humanity for less than $8 million, I'm also offering some lower priced 1/1s and editions.

Minted on an ERC-721 contract via Transient Labs, listed for sale on MakersPlace*: https://makersplace.com/jensalittleloopy1/gallery/created/nexus-of-realities

Nexus of Realities, 1/1 NFT, 2754 ETH ($8 million at the time of minting)

Nexus of Realities – Process, 1/1 NFT, 1.75 ETH

Proof of Humanity, 1/1 NFT, Auction - 0.5 ETH reserve, 24 hours

Betty on a Pedestal, 1/1 NFT, Auction - 0.069 ETH reserve, 24 hours

Old Friends and New Friends, 1/1 NFT, Auction - 0.069 ETH reserve, 24 hours

The Trial, 1/1 NFT, Auction - 0.069 ETH reserve, 24 hours

Five Minutes Before the Strike, 1/1 NFT, Auction - 0.069 ETH reserve, 24 hours

Three Minutes Before the Strike, 1/1 NFT, Auction - 0.069 ETH reserve, 24 hours

*these were originally listed for sale on Foundation but I decided to delist them and relist them on MakersPlace because Foundation seems to be pivoting toward Rodeo and I have concerns about the longevity of the platform.

Minted on an ERC-1155 contract via Transient Labs, listed for sale on The Lab: https://www.transient.xyz/@jensalittleloopy

As Above, Velocity Mint - .01 ETH, 5 editions max, 24 hours, each mints removes 10 minutes from the clock, starts at 8/3/2024 at 7:30 pm EST.

The availability of artwork on the Proof of Humanity contract depends on mint mechanics. One NFT will be listed for sale when the previous mint has expired. After all eight pieces on this contract have been minted out, they will not be available again. I will not be minting any other tokens on this contract.

I will never sell a piece of art for $8 million unless I create a circumstance where that can happen. It's not the kind of thing you can work hard and grind your way into. But maybe, just maybe, it's something I can art my way into.

We are limited only by fear and the failure of our imaginations.