Falko's 'ELEVEN BENEVOLENT ELEPHANTS' NFT Drop

So I was watching "Don’t Look Up’’ with Leonardo DiCaprio and before he goes on stage, he says “eleven benevolent elephants” live in the mirror, which is like a little actors linguistic warmup, which I liked. I thought it was made up just for the movie, and I wouldn't obviously know if it's a real thing because I'm not in the acting society of any sort so I Googled it and I was like “cool" - there's a familiarity to it, which I liked.

I though that was actually a good play and then I checked out 10 states of happiness. Well, there are actually 11 states of happiness, which is close enough for me. So I winged it around 11. [NFT] No.1 is an amalgamation of all the states of happiness. I liked the first one because it seems dark, and to me the word “benevolent" sounds dark, even though I know it's not dark. I decided "let's make a set out of it."

Nobody helped me with NFTS. I got into the space with a currency called Alchemy. They contacted me early 2021 and asked if I wanted to submit an artwork as a NFT and they would sell it. They put up all the gas fees and whatever. I was like “shit I got nothing to lose" and it went up for auction. I made quite a bit [of money] in a few days. I never thought anything of it after that, but during summertime, you know, I usually don't paint because it's too hot. December & January are usually times are where I just sit inside 'cos its so hot. On "Boxing Day", I thought "let's learn how to do 3D modelling!" and here we are.

So nobody has been helping me with 3D modelling or NFTS. I've just been watching YouTube videos for hours every day. Just educating myself on what suits my style, and then also what suits my learning capabilities because I’m a slow learner.

So where NFTs are at the moment, it's basically at the same pivoting stage like when MP3s came about. Before that there were LPs, cassettes and CDs, people felt that was the tangible form of music and when MP3s came out there was the usual kind of push against it. You know, saying "this is a death of music" and "it's abstract" and "it doesn't sound the same." It’s a common kind of resistance. It's a good thing because there's always a resistance and there should always be a resistance to everything, whether it seems good or bad. These are definitely the early days.

What people are doing now, like a pixelated art kind of vibe, and what Bored Ape Yacht Club are doing is interesting. They are literally making an entertainment franchise, where they are taking certain apes and they give it their own life, clothes and they're making music videos - it’s similar to how Disney started their empire.

People say it uses too much energy and all that, but it's the early days. All that shit will be sorted out, You know what I'm saying? In the meantime, keep moving forward in order for those changes to come about. You can't start any project in the beginning and have all cogs fit into place and everything makes sense. It isn't perfect, It doesn't work like that. It's all the building process of the do's and don'ts and the goods and the bads.

I'm reaching a half a century old. My love for street art won't ever go away because ive been doing for more than two thirds of my life. It's what I do and everything I love. I think the change comes with applying what I've learned through the streets, going forward and trying to conserve the physical energy. There are problems that come with street art and dealing with bullshit clients and whatever the case, you know. So doing NFTS doesn't have to replace street art - both can exists in parallel with one another. Just like you can have multiple shoes you wear on different days

I don't have any advice for creating any of these because it's art and art is subjective. People are gonna like it and people not gonna like it. The good thing about all of this, is that your markets is the world. I mean, it's literally everybody out there! You just have to go and kind of beef up your social media presence to push it out that world.

If you an artist based in Cape town, and you've got 2000 followers and they’re all in Cape Town, you put up an NFT and put it into promotion on Instagram - it's only going to be hitting local guys and not the broader world.

So I think what they're trying to do is reduce the energy consumption so don't have high tariffs. They are trying to make it so you don't have to use crypto to buy NFTs. You can pay with your card, which, you know, could be a scam, could not be a scam, but that's what they trying to change about it.

Anyway, to end this whole interview thing, I hope Shelflife buys one of my NFTs, one of the higher end ones and not the el-cheapos ;)

Speak to your boss. PEACE.