I need Matic / I can’t see my Matic / I can’t see my tokens / I can’t redeem my tokens
Use Metamask and the Chrome Extension or Firefox Extension to participate. Make sure you Get Matic on Polygon to use it with NFT Culture Proof. [Below used to live buttons to activate Polygon and our tokens.]
Why should I do this?
NFT Culture Proof is the first, large-scale participatory performance art project that lives completely and forever on the blockchain. It’s fun and affordable, collaborative and unpredictable, collectible and a part of net.art, Blockchain art, and NFT history.
How do I do this?
You buy a token (and sometimes get air-dropped tokens!), use it to join the conversation, and get an NFT of the eight most recently submitted texts – including your own. Basically, 1 purchase or gift = 1 Culture Proof Token (CPT) = 1 Text Block = 1 NFT (“Culture”). See How it Works.
I was given a free token, but I can’t use it!
You need gas money / Matic on Polygon. It’s about .035 Matic per transaction (7 cents US)!
I can’t see my NFT / Other people can’t see my NFT
Head on over to Opensea, and connect/log-in with your wallet to see them in your account. Sadly, external Polygon NFTs from small accounts like ours now default to hidden on Opensea, so click on your Hidden tab, then click the ellipses (three dots) to unhide.
Isn’t the Blockchain bad for the environment?
We are using the Polygon Blockchain – a Proof of Stake chain – which is 99.9% greener than Bitcoin or Ethereum – both Proof of Work (at least currently; Ethereum is in the process of moving to Proof of Stake). Also, the discussion around energy usage and the Blockchain is somewhat overblown, based on some questionable math in an oft-cited paper, and especially when compared to energy usage of other everyday human activities.
Wait, gifted / air dropped tokens?
Yup. Every time you buy a Culture Proof Token (CPT), your wallet is added to a drawing pool. And every time anyone purchases a CPT, a wallet address within that pool is randomly selected to receive a free gifted token. The more CPTs you buy, the higher the probability you’ll get some gifted tokens.
Give us your email address, and we will contact you if you receive a free token; otherwise, just keep an eye on your wallet.
Is this totally “on-chain”? What does that mean?
Yes, it is.
Storing information on the Blockchain can get expensive very quickly. Most chains require CPU-intensive cryptography to get approval for new data, and then the ledger is copied over a large network of computers, so as to build trust – making it very costly. Because of this, most NFTs are stored on servers elsewhere (like IPFS), then your “ownership” is what is stored on chain – kind of like a deed.
NFT Culture Proof stores all the participatory text on-chain as well as your NFTs. We solve the expense issue in two ways. First, since text is much smaller in data size than images, we store both your text and your image as text. The image is an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic); this is basically a description of your image, which the computer you are viewing it on renders locally. Second, we are performing NFT Culture Proof on the Polygon chain, which uses a different algorithm (Proof of Stake) than Ethereum or Bitcoin (Proof of Work), and this is far less expensive. Ethereum is in fact in the process of migrating to Proof of Stake, which is 99.9% more efficient, and thus also significantly better for the environment (Stern and Kildall both make ecological art, too, so appreciate this). But since Ethereum isn’t there yet, we decided on Polygon (see more on this two questions down).
Will special characters work in your SVGs? Spacing for ASCII art? What about Emojis?
Yes.
Yes.
and Yes.
I’ve never heard of Polygon. Don’t most NFTs live on Ethereum? Can I move my NFTs there?
Nerd moment: Polygon is a Layer 2 scaling solution company for Ethereum, and currently lives as a “side chain.” They also recently purchased Hermez, a full-on Layer 2 “ZK-Rollup, optimised for secure, low-cost and usable token transfers on the wings of Ethereum.” If that makes little or no sense, keep reading below.
The short of it is that Polygon is great, reliable, green, and will be connected to Layer 2 of Ethereum. We are making a bridge to move our NFTs between Polygon and Ethereum Layer 1 for those who want to. This means that while we are keeping things affordable during the performance, you can go ahead and put your NFT on the most used chain / with the rest of your collection yourself. Moving to Layer 1 may be somewhat costly, given all the on-chain data we are storing, but given how inexpensive our NFTS are in the first pace, it will absolutely be worth it for Ethereum-based collectors! You should also be able to move your NFTs to other Layer 2 solutions, like Hermez when they are available. Check back here for when our bridge is up and working. Our NFTs have already been approved for mapping by Polygon.
Can I sell my Culture Proof NFTs on the secondary market?
We call the NFTs “Cultures,” and you sure can! They are immediately compatible with OpenSea. Sign up / log in with your wallet, and you should see your NFTs in your collection (they start in the hidden tab, which is now part of Opensea’s policy). From there, you can sell them or accept offers. They also make great gifts 🙂
Can I buy a Culture Proof Token for a friend? Or give them my air-dropped token?
Yes! Whoever purchases the token is added to the draw (you), but you can send a friend your CPT. They will need a little gas money to participate, so if they are not already a Polygon user, send them .5 Matic or tell them how to get some. They should also use that link to make our tokens viewable in their wallet.
Can I buy a Culture Proof NFT (“Culture”) for a friend?
Of course! You can go through the process of participation (and ask them what text they want to submit), then pass the NFT to anyone with a compatible wallet. If they are total noobs, just help them set that up.
I can’t see my NFT! Where is it?
The fastest and easiest way to view your NFT is to sign-up or sign in to Opensea with the wallet you used to participate. It will appear in your collection from there, on the Hidden tab. You can also look for the transactions with your text, and your NFT, on Polygonscan.
Is this art generative? I hear that’s hot.
There are generative aspects to it. The color palette of the stripes on the bottom are based on Wallet IDs, and the background color will always be a variation of red, green, or blue that is constrained somewhat, but generated based on your specific transaction purchase hash. There are a few “rare attributes” that use probability functions based on the transaction hash as well. We’ve been pretty inspired by Art Blocks. But the participatory and durational aspects of NFT Culture Proof are really what make it unique.
What are the rare attributes collectors might want?
We won’t say everything here… but:
- We’ve coded in “special editions,” which make certain texts appear based on specific edition numbers. These are mutually exclusive, since the numbers are more or less hard-coded.
- There are generatively-based probability algorithms that make certain ASCII graphics or text lines appear.
- And some NFTs will use a different base font, or have a different background, also generative / probability-based.
- None of the rare attributes exclude the others (or special editions), so it would be rarer still if more than one appeared.
But other “rare attributes” will simply be based on the performance, and won’t be known until later.
WE. LOVE. THIS.
For example, each day has a different color, a different writing prompt, and perhaps different number of participants. Day 1 will probably be desirable, but lulls might see lower numbers on different days, making those rarer. Cool prompts from known influencers might make certain more popular and desirable, but perhaps less rare. The first 7 editions will have less text than the others, since there were less than 8 people involved. The very last edition will have “the last word” – and we imagine people might compete for this, some losing their CPTs because they miss the 32-day, 5PM PST closing mark. Collectors may want to use a bunch of CPTs to fill up all 8 lines on their NFT with a single-author story, or make a larger ASCII drawing. People may want to work together on such a thing, or have rare attribute tags together on a single work… Each wallet has a color palette for three of the stripes at the bottom (see About the NFTs), and some may be more desirable than others; the other three stripes are based on gifting, and there may be a situation where a single wallet gifts itself; in this case, the six stripes at the bottom would be two identical pairs of three (that would be super rare, if it happens at all)… and more!
Given the participatory and generative nature of this project, we’re excited about the rare attributes we can’t foresee. In other words: try to make your own!
What are you going to do about hate speech/bullying/NSFW?
ummmmmmmm…. Disclaimer: we take no responsibility for what people say or do with our artistic platform(?). Honestly, we’re hoping the barriers for entry (both money and technology), and the generous communities we’ve been engaging with, will be enough to self-regulate. We had a lot of luck in that vein with Tweets in Space. Just as importantly, we can’t sensor or block anyone; it would go against the nature of the project.
Is NFT Culture Proof a good investment?
While we like to think NFT Culture Proof is and will be valuable – both culturally and monetarily – we take the Kevin Rose approach to NFT investment (he has a great podcast about NFT collecting). Basically: participate if you’d be happy with what you get at the available price, even if it winds up having no future cash value. (Not investment advice. DYOR: Do your own research.)
Is this a DAO? What is a DAO?
We are part of RefractionDAO and have a channel on their Discord!
We are not setting up an official DAO ourselves – Decentralized Autonomous Organization – for NFT Culture Proof, although we’d love it if someone else did! That said, it is arguable that NFT Culture Proof is a DAO already – in as much as it is often argued that Bitcoin was the first DAO. Each is governed by a decentralized Smart Contract, on-chain. Forbes has a pretty decent introduction to DAOs.
We believe DAOs and other Blockchain-based relationships – including all sorts of transactions, monetary or otherwise – are going to significantly change the ways people communicate, play, and work together. It’s web 3.0! And that is part of what we are trying to explore, with our participants, in this project.
Why don’t you have your own Discord? Do you have other social media? What tag should I use?
First, honestly, we are hoping that the dialog and community around NFT Culture Proof happen on chain, within the NFTs themselves. That’s part of the point! Second, as a performance piece, we consider the “work” to be ephemeral – whereas the performance will be immutably archived on the Blockchain, and in your NFTs. Finally, we are part of RefractionDAO, and have a channel on their Discord, so you can find us there. There are lots of ways to form ad-hoc communities, and we are precisely trying to explore that space.
Please follow and tag @nftcultureproof and use #cultureproof on Twitter.
Who inspired this work? Did you have help?
This is a big question. Individually, we have been producing digital, networked, and coded art for 25+ years. And together, we have produced large-scale networked performances since 2009. This continues that practice, which picked up on all kinds of conversations from the 60s and 90s, 2000s, and more. We have a lot of colleagues and friends from the early digital art days through today that continue to inspire us. Our big communities from the beginning were Turbulence (no longer active), Rhizome, and Furtherfield; Scott was also an Eyebeam resident, and we’ve participated in ISEA and other conference-festivals like it a number of times. We are relatively new to the Blockchain space, but have been part the projects that lead to it for a long time. It took several translocal villages 🙂
More specific to NFT Culture Proof, we’ve pulled help and inspiration from Furtherfield and Saturday Night Live, Interdependence and Proof, Sarah Friend, Art Blocks, Loot, On Kawara, and many other pieces and spaces. We’re coders, writers, and artists ourselves – and did a lot this work – but given the timeframe we wanted to work in, we also hired Raunak Singh to code the core back-end and Smart Contract functionality. Rhea Myers and Simon de la Rouviere have been both inspirational in their work, and personally helpful with advice and ideas.
I want to learn more about crypto and NFTs. Where should I start?
One of our favorite podcast is Interdependence, which covers a lot on both Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence in the academic and art worlds – but it’s generally just a super smart podcast about art, technology, and culture. Mat and Holly are generous and brilliant, and we can’t say enough about how much we have learned by listening to what they call their “$5 grad school.” We also like Proof for more on the collector side of things; Kevin Rose has great interviews with artists and collectors, both early adopters and new and exciting projects.
The best critical book on the Blockchain and Art is probably Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain, even though it’s ancient by Blockchain standards. Furtherfield has been at the front of all things art, technology, and social change-oriented for decades, and have also supported our work in the past. There’s a lot out there already…. We learned as we went along!
Wait, who are you guys?
Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern.
How do I reach you?
Unless it’s a press inquiry (including podcast and other media, of course), we prefer you reach out to us on public Twitter. We do our best to get back to all questions not answered on our site, and certainly want to know / do something if you are unhappy about something in the work!
For press (etc), DM us on Twitter (@nftcultureproof | @kildall | @nathanielstern), or find our emails on our personal sites (nathanielstern.com | kildall.com).
