With the names being subtle and difficult to see flashing up in real-time throughout the artwork, the billboard stayed up for 72 hours before Art Innovation Gallery — the gallery that Amadon had worked with to display the piece — informed him that the owners of Sogo were concerned about the hidden political content behind the work.

“The free Hong Kong press found out about it so they wrote an article about it and then the next day it was the BBC and the Global Press covering it, and the Chinese press counterprogramming it, saying I’m pro-rioter — which I love because I am definitely pro-rioter.”

“So it got taken down by the government and I joined the list with Winnie the Pooh in terms of free speech expression being ripped down.”

Gatekeepers get out

Amadon believes that the Web3/crypto space has a long way to go, but he’s equally optimistic about the potential of the technology to democratize the art industry, for both artists and collectors.

“From a collecting standpoint, from an experiencing art standpoint, from a creation of art standpoint, it’s massive. You no longer need a brother, sister or cousin to be working at the Gagosian to get a shot at selling physical and be sitting at the main table of the art world,” Amadon says.

“It’s really tough to participate in the art world if you’re coming from a marginalized community or from a third-world country. What we’ve done with the technology is we really have flattened the space tremendously and we’ve allowed people like Osinachi and Ix Shells to participate meaningfully in the art world that would have been very difficult to access before. We are very accessible and very inclusive.”

Doppelganger innovation with smart contract

In May this year, Amadon launched something unique with his Doppelganger drop in conjunction with Transient Labs. As an artist who is fascinated by the convergence of art and technology, Doppelganger explores what it’s like to link a nonfungible token to an array of art rather than point to a single image.

“Because we’re just beginning to scratch the surface on what’s possible in digital art and what’s possible in digital art when it’s paired with smart contracts on the blockchain, I reached out to Transient Labs and had them build a token that points to an array instead of a token that points to a single link. Doppelganger was built on that.”

The contract is artist-owned and essentially can include multiple images into one NFT. Users can pick which artwork to point to with the artist having the ability to add new pieces of art but can never subtract.

“Essentially consider them frozen metadata. They will never change and only the collector has control over what it points to. As the collector you get to select what art you’d like to be displayed. I think we’re up to around 12-13 different pieces right now. I’m going to add another very shortly. I’m just going to keep expanding it because I can keep adding to it, but I can never subtract from it,” he says. 

Notable sales to date

Amadon’s first Ethereum mint was ZoFo and his inaugural mint on Tezos was RGB Glitch 2013.

Notable sales include: 

Rapid-fire Q&A

Influences

“I really like Edward Snowden and Banksy. Aesthetically, I grew up with all the abstract artists so that’s how I first got into making art. I really like texture and abstract art. People like Richter [Gerhard].”

“From within the [Web3] space there’s a number of people like XCOPY, Max Capacity and Kidmograph. There was a community on Tumblr that was making glitch work that’s all still here so it’s cool to see. I have known Pak since back in 2013 because the Twitter art community transitioned over to NFTs in a lot of interesting ways.” 

Personal style of art

“Glitches. But my background is in street art. I photograph it, I contribute to it. I’ve always liked graffiti. Glitch blended with graffiti.”

“Banksy was always the artist that I’ve most looked up to in terms of how they approach the art world and how they approach messaging from their art.” 

Notable collector 

“I have to say Anonymoux. Anonymoux has become like family throughout this process. He picked up a number of my 1 of 1s. The relationship between collector and artist can be really strong. The amount of support that you get from them really makes it possible to do this on a greater level. Just the amount of support that I’ve received from Anonymoux over the past couple of years has honestly been life-changing.”

Which hot NFT artist should we be paying attention to? 

“I would say one of the biggest initiatives I’m working on right now is the 404 catalogue. It’s a quarterly exhibition, anyone can enter one piece per artist. It’s an opportunity for artists to strip away any change, strip away platform. I just wanted to be completely agnostic, social media and presence does not matter, just art and giving artists the opportunity to be seen just for their art.”

Favorite NFTs in your wallet that’s not your own

“Ana Maria Caballero, 1 of 1. I picked up her Ethereum genesis piece. She’s an incredible poet. We became friends early in the NFT space” 

What do you listen to when creating art: 

“I work completely in silence. If there’s any noise I’ll put headphones on noise cancellation mode. If there’s anything that’s distracting, I’ll be distracted.” 

“That being said, in terms of music in the space that I like, I would mention Mariana Makwaia, I think she is an incredible musician but also doing some really interesting tech things in the space. She used a Doppelganger contract to build her album. Each track has its own metadata all on the same token which I think is a fantastic use of the technology.” 

Links

X: twitter.com/patrickamadon 

Website: patrickamadon.com

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Greg Oakford

Greg Oakford is the co-founder of NFT Fest Australia. A former marketing and communications specialist in the sports world, Greg now focuses his time on running events, creating content and consulting in web3. He is an avid NFT collector and hosts a weekly podcast covering all things NFTs.

Follow the author @GregOakford