Welcome to Touch Grass! We’re kicking off a newsletter to surface what’s happening onchain, and on Lens. 

We’ll be delivering the pop culture, art, and news on all things on everything onchain. You might be wondering, who gives me (and Lens) the authority to say what’s cool and what’s not on our onchain social digital spaces? Absolutely nobody. Our onchain world is permissionless, decentralized, diverse and censorship resistant, and so too should our voices be. 

We live and die by the onchain sword - everything we do (until a proper zk-rollup takes over) is viewable by everyone. Ask Chainalysis if you don’t believe me. They might even be able to figure out the source for that weird smell that’s coming out of your fridge, at this stage. 

In the spirit of the transparency and ever-flowing creativity on our corner of the internet, here is a selection of cool stuff happening right now:

Art: 

• Big fan of OG glitch artist letsglitchit - minting on Orb

• Refraction’s open call for BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer), their upcoming exhibition at ETHBerlin, which I’m co-curating with Stina Gustafsson and the DAO. Apply here.

• I’ve been lately obsessing with Cigawrettes - they minted out last week, but now I’ve gotten into the habit of customizing packs and communicating my thoughts through them.

• A visual story about onchain artists by Proportio

• Michel Majerus was an iconic artist - his legacy has been digitalized and reconceptualized by Rhizome and Cory Arcangel for our digital era, learn about it on this video.

• Asamisscream’s creations. OMG. I loved the $BONSAI zine and the CCC News video

• Garden.wtf, is a wonderful project by Cody Brown and Jon Bo

• This Hyperbass 30 minute video on Orb absolutely SENT ME. 

Read:

• Benoit + Vienna Kim wrote a fantastic blogpost on technostalgia on t2, Lens-powered blogging platform. Technostalgia refers to the aesthetics that so often populate the NFT and crypto space (remember Curve’s first interface?) 

• RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) published a great resource for everything computer art with the Spalter art collectors. Important if you want to understand where do all the jpegs we love to mint come from.

• If you want to jump into the Lens monetization game, which is ramping up quite remarkably (self shill incoming) I published a guide on best practices for creators. 

People:

• Steph just joined FWB as CMO, and her announcement blog was excellent. I know a lot of builders in the space reject marketing, partly because others exploit it, but damn, she’s convincing. So read it. 

• Jamee Cornelia (who is an incredible meme artiste, I have to mention) launched an a/v club on Orb, where we’re all sharing our favorite movies and other media content.

• You: the MadFi team have launched a REQUEST FOR BUILDERS: build with Bonsai initiative - read more here.

⭐ HOT NEW LENS USERS ⭐

• CHRIS MARTZ - artist, memelord, curator

• ARIKAN - artist, data wizard

• KOJII - customize artists AI models and mint them

• NIC HAMILTON - artist, shitposter, efan

• PAFF - amazing storyteller and marketing at IYK

• EDBALLOON - artist

• QUINTERRIBLE - artist, one of the minds behind Based Ghouls

• ADDIE - artist and technologist, memecoiner

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