NFTs have enabled digital assets to become collectible and investible, something that's so far only been limited to the physical world. Artists and creators have a new way of monetising their digital work into a viable business while simultaneously fostering an thriving secondary market for collectors. In this episode, we dive into a conversation with Medusa Collection's creator @miekemarple, with our host @nadjabester, the co-founder of AdLunam. Tune in for more details.

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INCLUSIVITY IN NFT ART

Hey, web3 world. This is Nadja Bester from AdLunam, and you are listening to The Future of NFTs, the show that looks beyond the current NFT use cases to what Non-Fungible Token technology is evolving into. All this as seen through the eyes and built by the minds of the fascinating guest speakers we speak to each week more about AdLunam. We are building the industry's first IDO Launchpad with a Proof Of Attention allocation mechanism. The Future of NFTs are really important to us because our investor profiles use dynamic NFTs, which allows for fractionalization of allocation, which is the backbone behind our Engage to Earn model. So, on that note, welcome to our second episode. We are still in the baby phase here with Future of NFTs. We are hosting the show live every Tuesday, or you can also listen to it via the podcast.

Also be sure to listen to AdLunam’s other show, Diving into Crypto every Thursday for all things Web3. All right, so onto today very special day because we are going deep. I'm going to be talking inclusivity with Mieke Marple, who is an artist and a writer, joining us today from Los Angeles. She's the co-founder of NFT Tuesday LA, the creator of the generative NFT collection, the Medusa Collection, which reframes the Medusa myth. Really something very interesting that we're talking about today. She's a former art gallery owner, the Night Gallery in Los Angeles. She's also a philanthropist who through her art has contributed over a million dollars to organizations like Planned Parenthood, Critical Resistance, and actually through the Medusa collection, which we'll hear about shortly, she also contributes, I believe, 25% of each sale to the nonprofit Teach Rock. Really amazing to have you with us today, Mieke.

Mieke is a visionary artist who uses visual mediums to tell a very powerful story. I think her work in the NFT space contributes greatly to this underground continuation of carving out the industry into a more diversified, all people's welcome representation of humans in web3 and not only certain cohorts of people. For that reason, awesome to be talking to you today. We'll open it up to questions at the end, so you can then put in a speaker request or just message your questions to the AdLunam Twitter handle AdLunamInc. All right. So, Mieke, in addition to a lot of the publicity and the odd world, you've also been covered in mainstream media like The New York Times, W Magazine, The Guardian. I'd like to get an understanding of you as someone from the traditional art world who's now extending and expanding your work into the NFT space.

From the looks of it, you continue to focus on this intersection of mythology power commas through a feminist and a social emotional lens. I'd like to start with what got you here. Tell us more about your background, what makes you tick.

Yeah, it's a pretty interesting story how I got into NFTs. So I feel like a few things, I should say. I went to art school, but I studied traditional mediums painting, charcoal drawing. It's pretty nothing to do with technology. I am, however, from Silicon Valley, and I grew up in a family of engineers. When I was an art dealer, basically for my twenty’s, I sold paintings exclusively. It was very hard to sell any kind of digital medium, that there would be this false scarcity through additions, but it just never really clicked for people. When I left at 30 to focus on myself and my art and writing, I again started with paintings. That was my background, that was all that I knew and I continued to make paintings. In February of last year, so February 2021, my partner told me about a friend of his that had sold a painting and then separately sold an image of the painting. I thought this was the craziest thing I ever heard. I was like, why would anyone pay money for an image they could get for free from a website?

I thought if there is a way to make money without doing more work, I was interested. And so those were my first NFTs. They were just really simple, just photographs of my paintings that were on my website. They sold right away to an amazing collector Gianchu, who two weeks later put me in a benefit auction. The carbon dropped on NFT Gateway that had eight artists total, and Beeple was one of them, and Rafique Anadol was another. It was just this f*** render and just some of the best artists in the space. Somehow I was there with this picture of my painting, which sold for the equivalent of 25,500 something US dollars.

This all happened in a matter of two, three weeks, so I was pretty speechless with NFTs. The whole thing just seemed like a weird hallucination or something. But then of course, after that there was like a mini crash or sort of like a mini dip. Even then a lot of people left, and I just found myself still interested. I was really engaged, and I realized that, AHA, actually I'm just like the rest of my family. I'm really interested in tech.

Maybe not as a coder, but from a cultural perspective. I'm fascinated by tech's impact on culture. I kept with NFTs, and I only got deeper and deeper into it. Of course, just selling pictures of my paintings wasn't very interesting to me ultimately. That's how I got into making a generative collection. I can get more into that, but that's basically how I got into here.

Also, I'm thanking you for that fascinating story. I love how you encapsulate this idea of this prevailing idea of an artist having to choose between passion on the one hand and money on the other. I think this is something that the NFT space definitely is bringing to the fore, is really connecting artists not only to the passion that they have for the work, but also the monetary possibilities that are out there. It always makes me think of the Renaissance period a couple of hundred years ago when there were these patrons who supported artists and therefore we are now left with some of the world's most amazing artworks from that period. I also like how you highlight this roller coaster ride of being in web3 and how easy it is for crazy things to happen. The opportunities that are in the space is something that it simply doesn't happen in other industries that are more well established, more on the straight and narrow, so to speak.

The roads have been laid over and over again a million times and here we still are in this really genesis period of everyone co-creating together. At the same time, of course, things like being on a show with people a couple of weeks after becoming An NFT artist is very possible in.

This space and also really resonated with what you said about being interested in tech from a cultural perspective rather than a technical perspective because I think there's this prevailing myth around the industry that it's very technical. You either have to have a high level of technical knowledge or high level of, let's say, financial knowledge and that there's not as much space for everyone else. I think, again, coming back to this idea of we are building out this new world together, it definitely takes all sorts. Speaking of worlds, so I studied and I even guessed lecture in mythology at university years ago. I'm especially mindful of the way in which world mythologies have shaped cultural narratives, often to the detriment of minorities such as women. I would love to hear more about the Medusa Collection and why this choice of topic in this industry at this time.

So the Medusa collection. I actually started drawing Medusa in 2019 as paintings. I did it to work through some of my own feelings of monstrousness, actually, because I used to be an art dealer and I was actually a very successful art dealer and it felt like everyone wanted to be associated with me and like a piece of me. When I left in 2016 to focus on myself, I felt like everybody fell away and I took it very personally, felt like there was something wrong with me. I felt like drawing a female monster. When I started drawing Medusa, I actually learned her whole story, which I didn't know before, which was that she was a rape victim, that she'd been raped by the god Poseidon and turned into a monster by his wife, the god Athena. This is according to Ovid's Metamorphosis from two Ad, which is the story that's most popularized.

Yeah, the part of the Medusa story that everyone knows, of course, is the Beheading by Perseus. It spoke volumes to me that we actually didn't know this very tragic part of Medusa and why she became a monster. I felt the fact that we don't scratch under the surface to find out why people are monsters said a lot. Also the fact that so many of the people we think of as quote unquote monsters actually start off as victims or survivors of abuse. I found that also very much to be true on all these levels. It really resonated with me. I wanted to do something that put Medusa in this aspect of her life forward so we could really see her humanity.

I absolutely love that. I think what you said about these unspoken narratives about why people are monsters, we only look to the villain end result. I mean, this is what Hollywood is built on. Sometimes we get the origin story for the bad guy, but most of the time, it's really just about what they are doing now and all of the mayhem that they are causing. Who cares about why they got that way? I thought about this. Now, even in the Web3 space, we are so often focused only on this narrative around making as much gains as possible, and each person is in it for themselves. It's a legacy mentality that we are bringing with us. With the difference being in Web3, we also have this additional opportunity to shape narrative in a way that we couldn't in those traditional industries.

I know that you've also spoken about the Medusa collection as being representative of society at large. I wonder if you can speak a Little bit about that.

Oh, yeah. I think we all have this capacity to see ourselves as monsters and to make other people monsters. I think in some ways, the more we see ourselves in the monster, the more likely we are to have compassion for ourselves and for other people. I think, just going back to what you were saying, there's this tendency to think in Binaries, right? It's maybe almost this like, legacy from Christianity that there's such a thing as good and evil, and some people are inherently good, and then some people just come into this world as evil. I just don't think that's true at all, ever. Right. There are usually an accumulation of traumatic events that cause someone to become mistrustful, that cause them to see other people as means to an end and it's because they were treated as such. I think the more we try to see the whole person, the more compassion there will be in this world.

Absolutely. I think that binary thoughts are easier to softer, easier on the brain than complexity. It's so much easier for us to jump to a simple binary solution or conclusion rather than look at the big picture and understand how all the different moving parts fit together. It's often that saying if a butterfly flaps its wings, it's affected by the winds in the Sahara Desert or something. I think I'm completely messing up this saying. On that note, I think definitely this is one of the deepest NFT conversations that I have ever had in this space. I would love to know, from your perspective, what is unique about your approach to NFTs?

Yeah, I love this question because I do think there is quite a lot that is unique about my approach and it just has to do with my background and interest. I mean, I think first when I launched the Medusa Collection in December of 2021, like I mentioned, I have this deep traditional art background. I'm interested obviously in Western art history. The Medusa's in my Medusa Collection reference specific canonical sculptures of Medusa or sometimes Medusa Perseus with Medusa. I only draw medusa by these Very famous Italian artists; Salini, Canova, Bernini. I have this very deep relationship with art history and traditional art. I think bringing that into the NFT space where especially last year, like a lot of the references to the history of pixel art or these more contemporary, more recent references.

I really wanted to bring in deep history into this space because I think that kind of gravitas is needed and gives something last, like staying power, which is also something I don't see as much in the space. Of course with that to also bring some pretty serious content to be talking about something not superficial, that's not about wag me or just something that kind of looks cool and looks like fun and friendly and it's like cool to post on my Twitter profile. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about things that meant a lot to me and I know meant a lot to other people and are maybe not talked about openly as much, sexual abuse and the whitewashing of this, history and these very important but potentially uncomfortable conversations.

That, also I think what has been amazing to me about the Medusa collection is that I think in this space we're so used to seeing the boom bust or just things, like there's an idea, or there was to me that if something didn't sell out in the first day, that it was a bust. Even if it did sell out, it could easily be forgotten in two, three months. And that was kind of it. It's like you kind of had to hope to like I said, there's no like slow growth, there's no kind of slow burn. My experience with Medusa collection is like it keeps gaining momentum kind of little by little. I still am getting opportunities to speak about it. This is seven months later. I was just on the cover of this computer graphics magazine. I was on the cover of LA Weekly just like a month ago.

In some ways, it is kind of proving that not everything has to be this instant sell out. Sorry. I think that all comes back to the content and the depth of the piece, which has taken time for people to digest and sometimes things take time for people to fully understand and appreciate and it just takes longer to catch, but it doesn't mean that it won't.

Yeah, that is beautifully said. I was thinking as you were speaking, that the NFT space in general is this bringing together of some of the history of art into the future of art. It's this blending of the history and the future of art. I love how you very specifically then also focus on the history of art as a whole and then use this in this archetypal manner to continue the conversation. As you say, allow people, even in this very fast moving space where your NFT has literally its 15 minutes of fame, you are creating something that allows people to take in as much as they can at any specific time and then revisit at a later time when there's a deeper and more nuanced understanding. Definitely from that perspective, it is a very unique approach in the NFT space. At the same time, I'm hoping that we'll see more of this kind of mentality going forward. Speaking of NFTs and where we are going, what do you foresee for the future of this technology?

Like what's going to look different tomorrow, Or maybe what should look different tomorrow than today?

Yeah, I guess one thing I kind of just want to say in response To what you were talking about, there is this idea that time moves ten times faster or maybe more in the NFT space than quote unquote, the regular world. I think in some ways that's true, but I would also encourage people to resist that. I think it's important to be adaptable because things do change quickly, but not too adaptable. Like you don't want to be chasing trends. I think it's just important for people to feel okay taking their time making something and not this idea that, I don't know, time doesn't actually move faster. There's one time we're all in it and the space is more volatile. I think that's what makes it feel like time moves faster since I've been in the space, February of 2021, there's been already like one dip, one winter, two peaks. That’s wild.

Time doesn't actually move faster, it's just more volatile. I think if you're chasing the crests of that volatility, you're going to make something pretty superficial and you're going to make something that isn't as strong and lasting as it can be. So, yeah, I would just encourage people not to believe that time does move faster and that they have to rush or chase anything. You're asking about where things are going. Yeah, it's interesting. I can answer that on two levels, like maybe where things are going short term and where I think things are going long term in the short term. As many of we're in this quote unquote crypto winter, which is a bear market. Yeah, things are not selling for as much or as often as they were before. This happened before, of course, in 2018 and 19. I wasn't in the space, but I know a few people that were and they said sales basically came to a complete stop then.

I don't think that's going to happen. Pretty sure that's not going to happen this time, but there will be a slowing down. There are people that are in the space for purely financial reasons that will leave. I think what is nice is that who is still here will be the people that have a long term interest in NFTs and who have genuine connections with this is their community, this is where their friends are and they're not going anywhere. I think everyone says this is a builder's market, this is a time when people build.

And I think that's true. I think there will be more experimentation here that will lead to very interesting innovations because experimentation requires time and it kind of requires not having pressure to make money, I think, for it to be genuine. So I think that is what's happening. That is what will happen. I have seen this like a lot like dynamic NFTs, which I think you mentioned at the very beginning, which are very interesting to me, that's kind of, I think, going to just continue to grow, I think, between generative art and dynamic NFTs. These are very interesting to me because these are properties of NFTs that only NFTs have. Of course, you theoretically could make generative or dynamic art that wasn't an NFT. I think these qualities just work so well with the medium when they can be coded into the NFT. I think NFTs are really discovering what they are and what they can do that only they can do or what they can do best and how they can lean even more into what they are.

I think for a lot of it's such a new medium. I think it's still looking to old ways of doing things. When the car came out, people still thought of it as like a horseless carriage. They're still referencing the thing that came before it and it took a while before that went away. I think the same thing is happening with NFTs.

I love how you mentioned this idea that a builders market requires experimentation, requires time and spaciousness to really experiment with what's possible. Also this idea that similar to people finding themselves, which takes time. It takes time for us to grow into our own identities and also to Shift and change identities. NFTs are in exactly the same position. It's like this teenage pop star that just came on the scene and we know how that goes.

We've seen these trajectories from people who have become famous and we know that the stories don't end up being very pretty for a time. That's really the time that we need as people, as a community, as an industry to really just figure ourselves out. Yes, coming back to this idea that the volatility is what makes it feel like we are hurtling through space at rocket speed, but then in those times, that's only really a focus on the growth in terms of numbers. How big the community is getting and how many investments we are making and how much is being how much token movement there is and it's all very price related. But if we are going to build Out a sustainable industry that's about so.

Much more than just these temporary, momentary roller coaster rides, then for sure we need the space. I love the linking of this idea of it's going too fast and therefore it needs to slow down so it can come to an even speed. Again. I think you've already touched on this, but what would you say is hindering progress or mass adoption?

We hear a lot about NFTs being a huge potential for mass adoption. But I think at the same time we also realize that mass adoption is a really long way away.

So what is going on there? Do we even want mass adoption or where are we going with all of this?

Yeah, I actually think mass adoption is inevitable. While you were talking I was just thinking, I just had this image. I'll come back to this question but there's this meditation trick where you think of an ocean and There can be a storm into these like crazy waves at the surface of the ocean. You don't want to be the waves, you want to be the depths of the ocean where everything is calm because the waves that's just surface and it doesn't really depict the majority of the ocean, it's just very skim coat. I think that's kind of the attitude to have about NFTs is that this volatility is just the surface of a much bigger, vaster thing. I was interviewed by this financial consultancy firm and they told me this statistic that actually Gen Z 18 through 24 actually are more likely to buy NFT than stock which I thought was really interesting. In some ways there already is kind of some mass adoption. It's a much younger generation and of course I think as they get older it will kind of just happen naturally and I think also things will be easier like user interfaces become and it's already so much easier than it used to be.

The more people will join, the more people have their friends joining, the less scams there are, people losing everything that's in their wallet to a fisher. All of that I think is already going that way. I kind of don't even think there's much we need to do other than just keep doing what we're all doing already and it will happen when it's meant to. It's already happening.

Absolutely.

I think it comes back to this idea of time and space that is needed in order to discover what direction we are going to take. This down market this winter that we have right now is almost like a recalibration of what is working, what is not working and I mean after things are recalibrated we cannot go back to what we've done previously. So we need to continue to improve. I think as more and more people come into this space, it's inevitable that both good and bad practices so we are very well aware of the bad practices that people are bringing into the space. Also I think to be very mindful of all of the good practices that people are taking from the traditional spaces that they are coming from and also introducing that here.

So on that note, I want to ask you the next question. You have spoken about your background in the traditional odd world. With this foot in both worlds, one in that world, one in NFT space and also by virtue of being involved with NFT art at this time, you are also then one of the early architects of what art and NFTs are going to look like.

I wonder in your opinion what NFTs and the traditional art world can learn from each other. We can consider examples like Noah Davis, the head of digital for Christie's who has changed industries to become the brand leader for Crypto Punks. Or the Ryder Ripps lawsuit which accuses Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Apes and Crypto Punks of having an underlying racist agenda. What are your thoughts on the learnings between these two worlds and what they can take from each other?

Yeah, there's so much so interesting too because I just bought an NFT by Marina and Bronzevich who just launched her first NFT project yesterday and I was really thinking about what she had done well and what she could have done better and I won't get into it. In the end, I actually just realized it's just great that she's just doing this period because she really is connecting with the generation that I think the art world just doesn't really speak to. I think that's one of the biggest missed opportunities in the traditional art world that it could learn from the NFT world is, how to connect with this Gen Z generation, who for them, digital mediums and digital avatars are seamless part of their life. That wasn't necessary. I'm 36, and I mean, I grew up with the Internet pretty, like, early because I was in Silicon Valley. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to even if that wasn't your personal experience, to be curious about it. I think we just have to stay curious people, not judging things just because they maybe aren't familiar to us.

I was actually just on this Benzinga podcast and I was telling the host that I think as a 20 year old walks into a white wall gallery with just Paintings on the wall and no one talking, no wall text, no one talking them through it, no music, no anything, it's just not going to hold their attention. It kind of barely holds my attention anymore, to be honest. I think this learning how to engage in a more contemporary way is definitely something that traditional art world needs to learn and then I think, I kind of actually already touched on this, but what I think the NFT space could adopt from the traditional art world space is taking more time to do things with more rigor. Also, on a really basic level, I think that I've seen at this point a good amount of NFT exhibitions and learning how to do compelling things in analog space in the physical world is a learned skill that I don't think a lot of NFT artists or just NFT people at all have a lot of experience with and therefore know how to do well.

I think people are still struggling to know how to even display their NFTs. There's a lot to be figured out about how to bring this rich NFT world into the physical world and how to do so with rigor and criticality and some of these things that just require more time and more reflection and aren't just going at the speed of cutting edge technology. That's something that I think the NFT world could benefit from the traditional art world.

I think there is a fascinating comparison, and it definitely highlights the fact that every industry contributes to another industry that it comes into contact and in touch with. Nothing is ever happening in a silo. I mean, we are a legacy society that comes from things that we have already learned, the wisdom of the ancestors So to Speak and we are carrying this with us even into these new industries. Really just on the thought of NFTs are groundbreaking. They are really at the forefront of where we are going with a lot of technology and the monetary system, but at the same day, at the same time, they are not immune to getting of wisdom from the elders, so to speak. On that note, I know that in the traditional art world, there's a lot of gatekeeping, which obviously a lot of the buzz around NFTs in the art space is this idea, as we've touched on earlier in the interview, that people are more easily able to, for example, get access to funds for the art in this space. I wonder what role do you reckon can NFTs play to increase inclusion diversity and how will this extend to the world even beyond Web3?

Yeah, that's the ultimate question and I feel like I keep doing this, I go back to earlier things but I don’t realize, I didn't touch on this or Noah Davis or the writer Rips. I wonder if I can touch on that and then segue into this topic. I think Noah Davis leaving Christie's for Yuga labs kind of did speak to Noah Davis is pretty young. I don't know how old he is exactly, but I think he might still be in his twenty’s and I think that in a way, like Yuga labs and crypto punks just felt closer to who he was than Christie's with its like very old slow moving systems. Even though they were pretty early into NFTs, I know from people I've talked to that they really still were doing things in a pretty old fashioned way. That the bidding didn't actually happen on chain and yeah, that there was just a lot of that it didn't really deeply get the web3 ethos.

I think that's a lot of what is happening there. With the Ryder Ripps lawsuit and I think actually this is pretty super interesting. I think it kind of sends two messages. One that NFTs aren't just this lawless space where you can do kind of whatever you want without repercussion and at the same time which I think is what it's known for, right? That's like kind of an image it has not an untrue image. At the same time you can't make this insensitive imagery that's just targeting tech bros without getting some called out on it basically. Which is also I think what the NFT space is known for. I think this lawsuit is actually extremely interesting for both sides. They're both in the wrong and I think that's kind of what makes and they both epitomize what so many people dislike about the NFT space, including myself.

I think that lawsuit is fascinating and I think that's actually kind of a good way to segue into the topic of inclusivity because both those things bro culture and lawless, just lawlessness, they both favor basically CIS white men and they both make it very hard for marginalized groups to succeed. I think the more it's talked about why certain imagery is offensive and why it's not okay to just do whatever you want, it will make it a safer space for marginalized people. Of course, that's not really enough. There has to be so much more of an active effort to foreground marginalized voices and hopefully the Medusa collection is part of that kind of culture of uplifting those voices. Yeah, there's just like I think you mentioned gatekeeping. I think this is very interesting because there's an idea that there is no gatekeeping in the NFT space and that this is a positive thing somehow.

The truth is there's lots of gatekeeping. The fact is when there's no, quote unquote gatekeeping and there's still gatekeeping because basically it's the people that can Afford to be on Twitter all the time that maybe are really familiar with Twitter culture, which tends to just favor bros and like antagonistic bros.

Yeah, it's like all of that stuff. Maybe it's not gatekeeping as we traditionally think of it, but in this attention economy, there is still gatekeeping just by who most people pay the attention to or who can be the loudest. Which of the loudest people are people more likely to pay attention to. And there's all these just sort of like inherent biases that make that true.

I think what you highlighted about both the necessity of gatekeeping as well as gatekeeping again being the heritage that we come with into this space, it's really important, especially this idea of Bro culture that continues and then also this microcosm on Twitter, where if you only look at Twitter, it can give you a very different idea of how things are going and who is participating. That's not necessarily the reality of what is unfolding with all of these marginalized voices. It also made me think when you were mentioning Christie's and kind of doing the auction off chain, similar to having this idea of green washing where companies jump on the green, organic, environmentally friendly bandwagon when it suits them or even Pride Month that is being misappropriated by brands only for the month of June. I think in this space we have NFT washing or Web3 washing of companies jumping on this bandwagon without, as you say, encapsulating the ethos that this is all trying to bold.

It's funny because I personally came into the Web3 space and it's also the reason I stay because I have founded the only industry that I've ever been involved with. Keeping in mind, I came from Pharma before I came into this industry. It's like really chalk and cheese where average people can have a collective influence and literally have a sizable influence on how things change shape.

But of course I think we see this with everything that we as a society are involved with. Humans always bring their humanness with them wherever they go, whether it's their fears or their prejudices, coping mechanisms. This is why we can never have nice things. At the same time society genuinely as you were mentioning earlier about the monster inside all of us and how we came to be this way I, Think it's also really important to understand That the society as a whole has never had equal opportunities to many different things, to all things, and up until the point where we can have that level of inclusion and religious empowerment of everyone that shares this collective space which is Earth. We are always going to have difficulties with these kind of conversations. Some groups that are of course being objectified in some way characterized, but at the same time very powerful influence on the way that things are going. So I am mindful of time. I'm wondering, I just want to get back to the Medusa Collection. This conversation that this collection has sparked is very significant because as you said earlier, it houses some of society's dirtiest laundry, whether that's sexual violence or misogyny in pop culture, politics, even public policy. I want to read a quote from LA Weekly who said the Medusa Collection fights back against the oldest and newest violence in this historically restorative and futuristically utopian vision.

I would love to know what impact has it had on you personally to create the Medusa Collection and what have you learned from it?

Oh my God. I'll try to be quick too because I know we have limited time, but although I'm happy to say as long as everyone wants. Yeah, the collection really changed my life. First, making generative art was a completely new experience for me, having really only made paintings before and it was the first time I had ever handed over creative decision making to an algorithm. I set up the parameters and the elements for the algorithm to choose from but ultimately the algorithm put those elements together into a set of final images.

That was a huge act for me.Just personally that letting go of control. I think what astounded me was that the result felt more me than anything I'd made before. By letting go of control I was kind of able to access a deeper aspect of myself. The Medusa Collection felt more wild and alive and full of color and expression than anything I'd done before. I realized that was in me and that had been in me this whole time. Just needed to kind of just loosen up to free it and let it come into the world. Of course, making the way that the art world works is that you make a handful of paintings a year and they sell for very high amounts to a small group of collectors. Even within the art world, all the galleries are basically fighting for the resources of the same 50 to 100 collectors, more or less.

It was a very different economic model, making generative art where you make a large volume at a reasonable price. Yeah, that was also game changing for me because when I made the paintings of Medusa, which were selling for upwards of $10,000, their status as luxury commodities, I felt hindered the conversation that I wanted to have. Kind of making the price, depending on the price of east, it's anywhere from like $70 to 100 or something dollars. It just felt like I was able to have a very different, more connected conversation with the owners of that work.

Thanks Mieke. I feel like this line you said needs to go one of those social media graphic quotes about letting go of control. You get to access this deeper part of yourself which is wild and alive. I absolutely love that takeaway from the collection. Very interesting, you're mentioning your paintings as having the status of a luxury commodity, but that hinders the impact it might have. By having this very real time conversation with the holders of your NFT art, it also really brings to the fore this idea that part and parcel of digital art and especially NFT art, is the ability to connect. Artist and investor in a way that I don't think the traditional art world focuses on or even is possible in the same way because of the connected nature of the space that we are in. So this has been amazing.

It's been my absolute pleasure to have you on the show and to talk about inclusion and diversity and all of these really deep topics that, as I said earlier, I don't think I've had this deeper conversation about an NFT collection or even NFTs in general. So it's been my absolute pleasure. I'm going to open it up to the audience now. If you have any questions for Mieke, go ahead and request to speak. Or if you don't want your name used, you can also DM the AdLunam Twitter handle at adlunam Inc. with your question. I will give it a few seconds, up to a minute, and then start with oh, I see we already have a question.

What is your favorite upcoming NFT group? Like Bored Apes, Crypto Punks, et cetera.Which one are you most excited to see?

I think the question is about PFP Collections. Which stands for Profile Pic. I think it's interesting because maybe because it's a down market, there's not as many PFP collections happening right now. There's just not the same appetite for them as there used to be. I have a world of women, so I'm really happy to be part of that group. The world of Women actually was a huge inspiration for me for the Medusa Collection because I saw how you could combine art with community building in a really strong way when I discovered World of Women. In terms of projects, and I don't have a crypto punk, but I wish I did, but I am interested to see what Noah Davis does with them as the brand leader. I think it'll be really interesting to see what his experience at Christie's.

How it lends itself to that. Yeah, just in terms of projects I'm excited about in general. I am Excited to see more traditional art world, like really great artists from the traditional art world getting into the NFT space. Now, like Rena and Bronzevich who I mentioned earlier, there's a drop by this artist Walid Raad through the platform art world that's dropping tomorrow that I'm excited about. I don't know, it's cool to see all these people getting into the space even though the market has slowed down. I don't know, that's cool for me.

I think that leans into our next question. What is your message as an artist to aspiring artists in NFT? I'm not sure if it's just NFTs or art in general. What is your wise words of wisdom?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think my message for just all people in general is to be curious and to not be afraid to experiment. I think these are the keys to having a rich, joyful life and so those are the qualities that got me into NFTs and keep me here. But yeah, that's what's cool for me.

To see some of these artists, these Traditional art world artists that are older in their 50s or older, trying NFTs for the first time. And to be honest, like, I don't think they're doing it perfectly but my first NFTs weren't perfect either. Like I, I don't make NFTs of my pit that are just pictures of my paintings anymore, but I'm not embarrassed that they're there. That was part of my journey. I stand by it.

Lovely advice and absolutely love the takeaway that being curious and being unafraid to experiment is what leads to a rich, joyful life. I think now that we've come to the end of the show, believe the audience are all working away with many different thoughts and insights. Definitely one of the most fascinating and captivating episodes that not only I've done, but also that I've listened to. So Mieke, thank you.

This has been amazing.

If you would like to follow what Mieke is doing, catch up on Twitter at Mieke Marple. Mobile links will also be available on the show notes once the podcast episode is released. Mieke, once again, thank you not only for the fantastic insights, but also for everything that you do to dial up the volume around these important topics. Also for the people in the back and yeah, definitely the industry and the space where people in the back need to listen and hear as well. I look forward to seeing where to from here. To the audience, thank you so much for joining us today. Very sure you're walking away with a new perspective on things, so I look forward to seeing you next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs, brought to you by AdLunam. Cheers, everybody. Have a good day.

Thanks for having me. This is wonderful. My DMs are open, too, if there's any questions that people didn't get a chance to ask. Thank you so much, Nadja, you're a wonderful host.

Perfect. Mieke yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. I think this ethos of your DM being open is just such a good way to end off this whole conversation that inclusivity means access to people who are out there making things, and, yes, this is what we are all doing. So lots of love to everybody. Catch you next week.