@CSA2D7: Billy Rennekamp on art audiences, blockchain constraints, and games

Classic McCarren Park Bench conversation with the thoughtful, ambitious, and boundary-pushing Billy Rennekamp (@billyrennekamp) - we talk about art, audiences (david lynch/hideo kojima!), selling out, videogames, space (constraints in meatworld and blockchain), and great artists! CSA2D7 Gaming master Heya Billy welcome to the bench! okwme Hello! I just looked into my photos app to see if I could remember visiting the actual McCarren Park all I found was this picture from 2017 [Editor’s note: Billy Rennekamp, okwme, uploads an image] beautiful amirite?! CSA2D7 I was thinking we would start the chat with a huge GM train but that's too silly. This is much better. Its a picture of a baseball that has been beaten to tar Baseball's are beautiful! I like your basketball work stretched out like a pregnant belly. Can you give us a story behind this picture? okwme I have no memory of it I'm kind of a goldfish brain which i think keeps me happy looking at days before it tho looks like i was in new york after going to the kentucky derby in louisville and in ny to move out of my storage unit CSA2D7 You know they say in baseball a goldfish brain is really key. This was like an unconscious conscious brilliant thing you just did. Billy Beane (the GM of the oakland athletics behind moneyball) said he couldn't succeed as a baseball player because he remembered everything and couldn't take each at bat as its own separate thing But he really succeeded as a GM in the sport because he remembered everything. Different functions, different skillset, different outcome Should we talk about the many hats you have worn in the art world? okwme that's lovely, sure! CSA2D7 Its hard to know where to begin, because I know you mainly through FOLIA and trifle (my interest in the blockchain), but you have obviously done many things beyond that (including working with Cory, Rhizome, etc.) Why don't we start with what you posted in the discord as kind of the impetus for this chat “carnival / casino / gashapon as potential for art delivery mechanism" is kind of a provocative statement to me, but I think a sort of reality for the delivery of NFTs that are not art-focused, and even ones that are art focused Hm, let me put this in a simple question form, this is supposed to be informal lol: Is this a true statement for you when you are wearing your FOLIA hat? or is this a Trifle only thing? okwme had to scroll back to remember why we started talking about this in the first place... I was asking about what collections people here would be interested in seeing in the trifle arcade if we were to start using NFTs as prizes for games then I asked "related question: are well curated carnivals, casinos and gashapon machines more accessible than galleries?" Artists have used unique lottery like distribution mechanisms in the past, even auctions could be classified as such i actually remember being kind of pumped about some work from my sister, an artist named Lettie Jane Rennekamp and her boyfriend at the time, Jarrett Mitchel, making work that used horse racing in a lottery kind of way. Lettie and I grew up on a horse farm where my dad trained low-stakes racing horses in kentucky and Jarett was the son of a preacher from Idaho that had a gift for gab, kind of an auctioneer cadence and they made a tv show where they had purchased a fraction of a race horse and sold a fraction of that fraction onwards that came with a subscription of video access and posters and drawings they would do a kind of newscast of that week's horse racing events I think these things fall apart easily, like most performance art, but they're really fun it was one of the reasons I started getting excited about art on blockchains because there were so many moving pieces that would be kind of impossible to maintain in meatspace that were neatly tied up on a public computer access to the work remains open the purchase mechanism can be wildly unpractical (thinking of rudnik's folia auction that lasts 70 (?) years) I'm also a fan of the artist as a kind of scammer / trickster / gambler and have an appreciation for gambling / games of chance as aura generators it was how I first got interested in proof of work actually [Editor’s note: Billy inserts a link to the Clovers Network] I realized that if someone had to run a machine for hours, days or weeks, in order to create one of the "true" artworks, that meant that each "true" artwork came with an aura of this time and effort that was spent to create it then I realized that was the same mechanism being used to mine blocks on proof of work blockchains this was in around 2013/4 and I tried to learn how to make a blockchain that could do this the closest I got was learning about colored coins and after seeing how difficult it was I gave up until 2017 when I saw a solidity smart contract When I started making Clovers I was pretty convinced that it would only be interesting as an artwork if there was a little engine of commerce that was outside the circle of art like if I could create some system that convinced random people on the internet to run this software for one reason, then the things it produced as a result could be seen with the intended aura for the eventual art audience I think I've spent a lot of my life getting these two audiences confused and the shift from Folia to Trifle might be another (failed?) attempt to refocus the audience /endrant CSA2D7 What do you mean? We are all at the intersection of art and X 😂 Ok, tell me about audience because that's sort of an indirect way into this. Who is the audience for Folia? And who is the audience for Trifle? okwme I'm told it's maximum 200 forty year old men CSA2D7 This is Nic H's refrain from Citadel okwme lol I see a lot of post internet faces in the nft world which i really like CSA2D7 I feel like we're moving into post-X phases too quickly. The nature of the internet landscape maybe okwme when it comes to audience I often get torn between the joy of making something for yourself and your friends like that was the surf-club environment that i started making art and i loved it but I also remember speaking to Oliver Laric about the question of whether you'd rather be Shigeru Miyamoto and make Super Mario or Cory Arcangel and make Super Mario Clouds CSA2D7 Is this the tension between being an artist and being a businessman? Or is there that tension within artistry as well, and within business as well. okwme this is definitely part of it CSA2D7 Do you think that's up to you, or up to your audience? okwme and maybe kind of a gen x lens like about being a sellout or not CSA2D7 We all "sellout" everyday because that's just human life. For some reason we just like to note the big decision thats judged, but there are so many small ones that forecast that IMO okwme yea I was never sure how you're supposed to tell what a sellout is CSA2D7 But yea, I also know what you mean when you say sellout when I perceive someone as doing that its rough okwme according to waynes world it meant you did brand sponsorships CSA2D7 So, I think sometimes a little bit about deafbeef appearing in the museum of toledo (I use deafbeef here because I think his art is fantastic and generally admire his approach) But like, Im sure deafbeef as an incredibly successful blockchain artist is getting solicited left and right, so who am I to judge when nobody solicits me like that? Ya know? At the same time I still get a feeling I dunno - have you encountered that moment in your life for your own career? okwme idgi, he's a sellout for doing an institutional show or is there something about toledo specifically? CSA2D7 This is the problem for me - is selling out just being really successful? Or is it a different sort of discomfort. Untying the two is hard I can unpack this a little? Success on the blockchain is sort of a different success in the art world Or I guess the conceptual underpinning can look a little different between something meant to upend things and something meant to preserve things Do you think there's a tension there between blockchain and institution, or is that not there for you? You have your foot deep in both worlds I think okwme I was going down the more traditional studio artist path and began working with a gallery in Ireland. It was kind of the simchowitz era and the gallery was close with him. They bought a lot of my work and started getting very suggestive of the kind of work I should make, which was kind of fine it was more like "we love this direction are you working on anything more like that". But then they got sued by this other artist for chopping up their work and selling the pieces as separate works. at the same time I was teaching myself solidity and kind of told them I'd come back to them when I had more work in that direction but just basically stopped making sport sculpture artworks in lieu of being fascinated by blockchain things maybe that was an opportunity to "sell out" but it seems like it would have ended poorly and probably really quickly I would point to more of the like, soul-less existence, as the possible sell out scenario for artists where because of a financial situation they're forced to make or remake the same artwork over and over instead of trying out new things or growing as an artist a bit like a band who has to play their first album for the rest of their lives CSA2D7 That's a great point All successful bands have to do this though? okwme there's probably an overlap with that happening and getting institutional shows but i don't think they're always happening together and I think some still love to do it so that's not a soul-less experience CSA2D7 Did your work with Folia make you more sympathetic to this suggestivist approach to art making by galleries? okwme in almost all cases we were pretty involved in the creative side of the works which we really loved. it's actually why we sometimes prefer the term "label" over "gallery". I've been an assistant many times and it's kind of natural for me to find what's really amazing about an artist's practice and suggest how to bring that out in different situations CSA2D7 What were some of your favorite instances where you were involved in the creative side of the works? I was talking to Paul Seidler about this briefly and I think he mentioned almost all of the Folia works are on Folia contracts okwme ja that's right, I think all projects except Paul's and Harm's are Folia contracts. Rudnik's that I mentioned earlier is my favorite on-chain interaction probably, I still geek out trying to imagine what Ethereum looks like 40 years from launch when the final one goes up for auction. but more recently travess's coordinates was really fun. He came to us with these big ass JPEGs and we came up with a system that would make them accessible at all the different depths. Even JRL's Selection felt so nice to take and trim down into the version that would work onchain. Joan's work is always a challenge because she codes the js herself and her style is actually kind of erratic and beautiful but at times impractical, so I'm always torn about having to rewrite things I think Oliver's is an underappreciated mechanism it functions as a kind of on-chain canon of NFTs but hasn't been used as such after an initial flurry of activity it's also conceptually very beautiful, like erased de kooning CSA2D7 Its a lovely mix of his practice and the blockchain. I think I had decomposer on my top nfts list can't remember How well did you get to know Oliver when you worked with him? I want to ask follow-up questions on all the works you mention okwme very well! I moved to Germany to work for him and was in his studio every day for 6 months or so we're still close, he was kind of a mentor/host family for moving to another country CSA2D7 And you're permanently in Germany now? What made you stay? okwme I am, I got my permanent residence a few years ago and should receive dual-citizenship soon there's just more space and more space leads to a lot of other good things CSA2D7 physical and mental? space I mean okwme everything gets cheaper—food, apartments, drinks—and the quality is higher just cause you can afford better you can ride your bike on the sidewalks cause they're bigger you can park your car more often and the fine is cheap in case you do get a ticket sometimes i worry that i'm just an american scammer taking advantage of a german trust based society like riding the subway without paying but as i get older i've become convinced by the german mentality of doing things the "right way" regardless of being enforced or punished CSA2D7 There's a nice connection between space here between your experience in Germany and your work on the blockchain I think okwme haha true blue ocean CSA2D7 Talk a little bit more about Travess because space is important here? "He came to us with these big ass JPEGs and we came up with a system that would make them accessible at all the different depths" How did you make them more accessible at all the different depths? In coordinates you can click and zoom in on these huge jpegs okwme ja lol, travess has always been such a maximalist, really taking advantage of cheap digital storage and layers and layers in photoshop. him and petra cortright really stand out in my memory of artists taking file size to a comical end, cause like why not. In those days there was a kind of limit to how big you would make a file cause it would take forever to load, or transfer, or actually break your computer possibly. but the theory is sound, like there's no reason to be precious around those kinds of resources. The issue because what would you do with that much real estate and they've both always had ready answers. since his work changes so much depending on the scale you're experiencing it we wanted to make sure it was accessible in all its forms google maps came up early on as a kind of system but after dumbing it down to just 4 or 5 viewer levels it had the right mix of functionality and surprise the index site also presented an opportunity to show it at two other scales super tiny thumbnails and normal thumbs CSA2D7 Google maps came up early on as a kind of system? Like as a concept, or for practical purposes? okwme practical purposes but also because each photo came with a coordinate we thought about leaning more into that direction but they were all clustered in a handful of locations so didn't have the "all over the globe" visual effect that could have worked putting them on a real map CSA2D7 Really fascinating stuff. So we touched on Folia, why don't we talk about a shift to Trifle? You've always been interesting in games and casinos Most of your time now is spent more on Trifle than Folia? okwme that's right. Folia has been a passion project and kind of onchain collaboration whereas Trifle is a proper company, registered in Germany. sometimes it felt like we would tie our hands a bit when it came to launching an artwork because we began realizing people didn't care about mechanisms as much as we did. JPEG with an ID is simpler to swallow and we didn't want to fight our audience on that. Also the sort of attention around collection size and price and market activity was always such an important signal for an artwork it felt like we would optimize for the wrong kind of work if we really focused on that so the idea was to follow instincts on interesting mechanisms and not worry about if it's seen as being a precious commodity calling them games makes it possible to sidestep that conversation CSA2D7 Sidestep that conversation with your investors or your audience? okwme Audience like, we didn't want to have to convince someone that this artwork will appreciate in value for it to be valuable CSA2D7 So - you did a podcast with Mitch, I know you know this better than me, don't you think there's a shift in perception and that games can be art as well? okwme or maybe swap word "artwork" for "gadget"? okwme I do! but this is actually orthogonal like whether or not they are also artworks doesn't change the freedom gained from making them as games CSA2D7 I think your generally right though. The label of game is going to depict it as more trifling But you don't necessarily see it that way? Its just how your audience is perceiving it? okwme i think there are a lot of interesting artworks that are games but not a lot of interesting games that are artworks does that make sense? CSA2D7 Certainly. I think if you look at the universe of videogames its just a small percentage that one would view as art, and so generally it helps to frame things around that concept Kind of offtopic but I want to know! What makes a videogame art in your eyes? okwme it reveals mystic truths Lol CSA2D7 Metal Gear Solid reveals mystic truths? Hideo Kojima is mystic truth? okwme pretty good candidate CSA2D7 How about Super Mario? okwme i think mitch and i were on different ends of that argument with regard to death stranding CSA2D7 I remember having an argument with mitch too about its level of engagement with the player What did you think? okwme I think death stranding is an interesting game and a great artwork CSA2D7 Yea I agree. There's a Lynchian component to Kojima's work for me in that if I think too hard about it the logic kind of falls away but that's mystic truth I guess But Lynch's audience and Kojima's audience are a little different! and that's where the different becomes interesting okwme the cheesy cinematic quality and obvious desire to be taken seriously by the film industry create a beautiful and tragic mystique accentuated by the corporate sponsorships scattered across the game (sellout? also the confusion about whether they are actual sponsors makes it even better) ja i think that's so interesting it's kind of an aura thing too like his work has been washed in the view of so many millions of people not giving a "generous" gaze of an art viewing audience this idea of a generous gaze comes up a lot for me in this question of "is it art" it's more like, how likely will this thing be viewed with a "generous gaze"? by generous i mean like, an educated, context rich, patient and curious temperament willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of some possibly intangible benefit educated here being more of a concrete example of "context rich" CSA2D7 Agreed I notice this with myself as a viewer and people I go with. There's a certain suspension of disbelief you have to engage in to give every artwork a chance - but not even the perfect person can do this. Everytime we see something for the first time there is some thing, some variable affecting our interpretation and experience of it As you say, being context rich changes the perception of an object immensely okwme I think I've become impatient with this tho like I went to too many bad performances where the gaze has to be extremely generous and i've overextended my patience CSA2D7 Same okwme I want art that delivers with and without a generous gaze CSA2D7 True okwme thats sublime that's mario lol CSA2D7 This is a good place to wrap? okwme sounds good :: ) CSA2D7 In my eyes, a sublime conversation Thank you for giving me your time and thoughts. okwme thanks for having me it's been a pleasure CSA2D7 Will send it to you in a google doc and you can decide where we go from there 😊 Plutonium F. okwme Thanks for this conversation. Got to learn a lot about your background and Folia I gotta ask, when is the next work coming to Folia okwme good question! it's kind of in sleep mode atm and our energy is focused on trifle but will rise again when the time is right 51991 great messages, thank you Plutonium F. Sleep is better than off. Will be here for it when it rises again 51991 also Suika Stay Home is one of my favorite collections, have spent a lot of time watching it, good art :salute: okwme i still love looking at it too :smoothbrain: Figure31 hmm