Early September, 65 degrees and sunny: a perfect morning to cross Broadway into Bed-Stuy and gaze at the homey brownstones on the way to meet a new friend for coffee. We first connected a couple weeks prior, when my partner and I went to Ginger’s–at the time, it was Brooklyn’s only lesbian bar. We had been lamenting the homogeneous look of the crowd when we noticed him¹ and his companions–two classic butches and a Wednesday Adams type femme–cutting through a sea of designer-branded jackets and ribbed white tank tops. I was too shy to say hi, but lucky for me, he came over and introduced himself. “I follow you on TikTok,” he said. “I like your takes.”

When we met for coffee, he introduced me to the barista, a friend of his. A butch whose relationship to gender was not far from mine, my new friend had worked in coffee shops and bars in Brooklyn since he moved here. He was also a photographer, and while I was very out of practice, I have a background in photography and cinematography–given my role at SuperRare, the conversation naturally shifted to NFTs.

“When they were getting big, I thought about doing NFTs with my photos,” he told me. “But after looking at everything, it seemed like a lot.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. As a working queer creative, he’d need to take time away from his day job, his photography work, and his side gigs to learn how to set up a wallet, to acquire cryptocurrency, and to research which platforms were best suited to host his art. Then, he’d need to figure out how to market his photography to a new audience, convince his existing audience to learn how to set up a wallet and buy crypto, and help them navigate a cryptoart marketplace. On top of that? Ethereum gas fees² were another barrier of entry, making it difficult for new crypto artists to afford to mint, and for existing fans to afford to buy.

I always see people talking about egalitarianism and democracy when it comes to Web3, especially cryptoart, but is this reality? Or just hope and perception? It’s a narrative told time and time again: Artists can now bypass gallery gatekeepers, sell the type of work that doesn’t fit the trad art mold, and earn royalties. The scene defocuses Western art, allowing artists from the East and Global South to connect with collectors who may never have found them otherwise. It affords autonomy to artists. All of these things are true, but other problems haven’t gone away. Not to utilize a cliché, but we live in a society; too many people already start off with the disadvantages built in.

According to data aggregated and analyzed by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Queer people were more likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic than their cishet counterparts (24% reported job loss versus 18% across the board, with the disparity being even more startling among black and latino queer people), and “while the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic played a significant role in increasing unemployment and decreasing incomes among LGBTQ+ workers, these disparities have been building in recent decades in the United States.” The lesbian wage premium fell from 10% in 2000 to 0% in 2018, and in 2019, 31% of queer black households and 24% of queer latino households reported earning less than $25,000 annually, compared to 24% and 15% for black and latino households where income earners are not queer.

Three of the five industries with the highest rates of queer workers (restaurants and food service, K-12 education, and retail) were also among ones hit hardest by the pandemic, and workers in those fields already earn lower wages in comparison to workers in other lines of employment. Additionally, housing security remains a significant concern among queer people, who are less confident in their abilities to pay monthly living expenses than cishet people, with trans people being significantly more vulnerable than cis queer people in that respect.³ Queer people are also more likely to rent their dwellings (41%) as opposed to cishet people (25%), leaving them more vulnerable in the face of lifted eviction moratoriums. And that doesn’t even cover the sweeping waves of anti-LGBTQ legislation. Over the last three years, already statistically unstable living situations for many queer people in the United States have gone from precarious to terrifying, with no immediate signs of change.

In my own experience, I’ve noticed that looking like the archetype of a classic dyke and being trans in a way that’s difficult to hide has made certain employers–the ones who traditionally pay higher wages–write me off. Even after I earned a master’s degree⁴, published consistently, and applied all wide-eyed and ready to entry-level editorial positions, I still spent years working in retail, struggling to push my wages above $35k, with student loans and rent piling up. All things considered, I wouldn’t have sunk my cash into crypto or NFTs either.

I don’t want to waste my word count talking about the representation of marginalized people in Web3 or telling you about how tech is classically a cishet white boys club, and how Web3 is no exception. If you gave me 1 wei for every article I’ve already read on the topic, I could pay off what I owe the Department of Education twice over. This isn’t to say these issues aren’t important or worthy of coverage. But the question I want to ask is: Who’s really getting the spoils of Web3?

Communities around blockchain-based assets do seem to have opened some opportunities. While it is true that a majority of cryptocurrency holders are men⁵, black and hispanic people actually hold crypto at higher rates than Americans on average. Plenty of factors contribute to why, but one of the biggest is that people don’t want to (or can’t) buy into financial systems that have historically excluded them. Of course, this also means that during crashes like the recent bear market, these are the people hit the hardest. In that sense, while crypto has helped create new wealth for traditionally marginalized peoples, it has also made them the most susceptible to plummeting markets. Is something really an opportunity if what drove you to it was necessity? If you’re more likely to get fucked over than someone else, just by virtue of ethnicity or race? It’s definitely more complicated than crypto = salvation.

So, what’s the solution? There doesn’t appear to be a good one yet.

Returning to my community of queer people in Brooklyn, in September 2022, a friend put an event on my rader. Hosted by an organization called Qrypto Queer, it was a beginner crypto workshop for queer people. After digging a little further, I realized the org was founded by Bee Davies, known for her NFT web series “Hivemind” and her Web3 production company, Hive Global Media. The organization aims to usher queer people into Web3 by providing educational resources and spaces to connect. I remembered hearing some buzz around the series–a thriller starring Davies herself and including a cast of mostly queer people and people of color, it stood out as something new in a sea of unremarkable NFT projects. When I asked to schedule an interview, she had already flown back west, but I snagged some time with her for a conversation over video.

Qrypto Queer held its first major event last summer as an auxiliary to NFT.NYC; over 100 people showed up. Maybe it came at just the right time. This fall, I stumbled across an event hosted by “The Lesbian Bar Project” in partnership with Jägermeister, describing itself as “an educational and interactive bar experience in Decentraland showcasing archival and historic images of lesbian bars from the Library of Congress.” I wondered if the metaverse foray would isolate its audience, or if it came on the heels of wider adoption. Queer people haven’t been the most crypto-curious. In fact, most queer people I know are crypto-hostile, or really, that’s how it used to be. More recently, it left me shocked when I described my job to a group of new queer friends, and they seemed interested, not angry. Maybe queer people wanted crypto now. Maybe they read a story about FEWOCiOUS, or caught this interview with Laurel Charleston and wondered, what’s SuperRare?

Davies explained that the initial Qrypto Queer concept came from her own experiences with isolation at tech and NFT conferences. Even in a women’s NFT group, something still didn’t quite click for her. “There’s a lot of women’s groups now, and that’s so amazing,” Davies said. “I started to see more and more popping up, and felt like my energy could be better utilized creating a space for the LGBTQ community.” She knew that plenty of queer people already existed in tech, that organizations like Lesbians Who Tech held annual conferences,⁶ but those spaces didn’t make room for the crypto savvy. She had the privilege of time and education, and wanted to share the knowledge she learned in the NFT and tech spaces with her own community. And while she acknowledges that as a cis white person, she can’t represent all queer people, “activism has always been in the back of my mind in this space, and in focusing on groups who need their voices elevated the most.”

Ultimately, she wants to see queer generational wealth grow, but testing the Web3 waters in queer spaces remains tricky. “I have found a lot more resistance probably within the queer community, and that’s because they’re such great activists and they’re quick to question things.” Sustainability is a strong contributing factor when it comes to friction, but she thinks that since the Ethereum merge, things may start to shift. As more queer people enter the space, those on the outside might begin to finally see themselves reflected in Web3, and maybe that will be enough to entice them.

“I think socioeconomic status is the biggest one,” Davies said when I asked about barriers to entry. The perception, in her observation, is that you already need ETH to play the crypto game, but she hopes to mitigate this by airdropping people starter NFTs in conjunction with “Hivemind.” Your ETH will always just be worth whatever the price of ETH is, but an NFT is worth whatever someone else feels like paying for it, which could eventually be a lot.

I first interviewed Davies several months ago, and when we caught up recently, I got to speak with her about a newer project as she was coming off Outer Edge (previously NFT LA). “Strippaverse,” a metaverse wrapped in a film, is a psychological thriller about a game dev who founds a virtual strip club for extra cash, but whose world is rocked when a fan starts to stalk her. Its focus is on flipping the script, putting power back into the hands of queer people and women, allowing them to express their sexualities and commodify their bodies on their terms, as opposed to the patriarchy. Strippaverse itself is a safe and private place for women and queer people to be themselves. And, true to ethos, funding from the project is going back into the wallets of sex workers.

In the meantime, Davies is keeping all Qrypto Queer workshops free with the option to donate, and has opened a workshop space in LA for creators to drop in, ask questions, and learn. She doesn’t want queer people to be left behind in this new and growing ecosystem. “As long as we have the right people leading this community and supporting them, we’re gonna make it, and for the right reasons,” she said.

I agreed with her and appreciated her optimism. But I also found myself feeling cynical. How can we ensure the right people are leading the space? How can we ensure they’re here for the right reasons? Who determines how they are being educated? And when marginalized people enter the space, after education, after support from their communities, how realistic is it to think, for example, that queer artists and creators will be able to sell their work successfully, without experiencing prejudice or bias?

I’ve asked these questions before in writing, in Twitter spaces, among colleagues and friends. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Dawnia Darkstone, better known online as Letsglitchit, over Twitter DM. A legend in the glitch art scene who is recognized just as much for her work as she is for her technical contributions to the medium, Dawnia is also among some of the most high profile trans artists in crypto. Initially involved in art spaces on Tumblr and Facebook, she began working with NFTs following connections she made as an administrator and curator for the Glitch Artists Collective, which is likely the biggest online community dedicated to glitch art. “So many people involved with glitch art are queer/trans or otherwise fairly open to such things,” she emphasized when I asked her about her experiences in the NFT space, acknowledging that coming from the glitch art scene made her move to the blockchain smoother in comparison to queer and trans artists working in other styles and communities. Kate the Cursed had entered the space a few months before, and her presence at that time meant a lot.

But a few prominent figures weren’t evidence that trans crypto artists had it easy. The number of trans artists who find widespread recognition in the NFT space versus the number of quality trans artists I’m aware of is disproportionately small, and the most important factor stopping them from breaking through the noise is obvious to those in the know. “It’s the fact that we’re trans,” Dawnia told me. Despite stereotypes about the demographics of the arts, as a formal industry the field has systematically excluded those who aren’t cisgender, heterosexual white men. “Adding magic internet money to the equation doesn’t change this formula, there’s still so much work that needs to be done. I know personally that many marginalized people have taken to anonymous artsonas as a means to counteract this, which is perhaps easier in the cryptosphere. This is obviously not a fix for the problem though. We shouldn’t have to hide who we are to reach the top.”

Dawnia mints on Ethereum and Tezos–I’ve noticed that queer artists seem to gravitate towards Tezos in greater numbers, and she said she’s observed that, too. The same goes for glitch artists, she told me. We can only guess why–likely the cost of entry was a factor at the beginning, and perhaps before the Ethereum merge, concerns around sustainability played a role. Whatever it is, queer crypto artists have flocked there. Of course, plenty of queer artists still mint on Ethereum-built platforms, but you can’t deny that the culture is different. Dawnia sells consistently on the Tezos marketplace Objkt.com, for example, but around the time I first spoke to her, she had only sold one piece of art on SuperRare. Her genesis on the marketplace, “Liquid Codex,” which was displayed on the big, bright screens of both Times Square and Shibuya Crossing–moments any artist would kill for–had only received one offer, and an offer under 0.3 ETH, at that. Like I said, I’m cynical.

“I think we might be circling back around to the beginning of our conversation,” Dawnia said when I asked where she thought the disparity between blockchains came from. “Not to toot my own horn too much, but it’s hard to imagine a cishet white man with my amount of accolades performing as poorly on Ethereum.” I don’t think she’s wrong.

Between our interview and publishing, “Liquid Codex” sold for a little over 3.6 ETH. But it took almost a whole year after minting to even receive a second offer.

Ultimately, Dawnia knows that the issue goes beyond cryptoart, beyond blockchain, beyond the web. Really, that’s the point. She thinks that for now, further decentralization will help, as will ensuring that people from marginalized backgrounds find their ways into positions of influence, especially when it comes to curation. Like Davies, she’s optimistic–as the world changes, the crypto world changes with it. She’s observed the distribution of crypto wealth start to shift, especially with initiatives founded by queer people in the space, like aGENDAdao and the Queer Museum of Digital Art. But, “we can have progressive platforms with inclusion initiatives and so forth, but as long as the people collecting art are stuck in the same traditional art world buying patterns of ‘this artist is a woman/trans/queer/a POC and their art won’t resell well on secondary,’ it won’t amount to much.” And there is certainly hope for actionable change. For example, Dawnia recently co-curated the second iteration of Sotheby’s landmark glitch art auction, “Glitch: Beyond Binary.” The initial plans for the auction were scrapped after community outcry over the lack of artists who were either women or non-men; Patrick Amadon even pulled out of the auction in protest. To hold institutions accountable, people need to be willing to make noise.

It’s become increasingly important for the crypto space to veer queerer and for queer communities to adapt. The isolation Davies felt in the NFT space is one I hear repeated by queer crypto creators time and time again. And Dawnia’s experience with IRL queer community is one many crypto queers are familiar with, too. When she began minting, she also began to lose friends: “There were so many hit-pieces about crypto-NFTs around that time and I feel like so many queer folks, who had months prior decried the ‘plastic straws’ debacle as corporations shifting the blame of systemic issues to the average consumer, latched onto them. I felt really betrayed, to be honest.” The hypocrisy was apparent. If she instead took a job with one of the corporations mostly responsible for the destruction of the planet, she knows the response would have been different. “I would have been met with congratulations, or at worst ‘you have to do what ya gotta do to survive in this capitalist system.’”

In queer spaces, we often talk about joy. The joy of community, friendship, love, gender euphoria. That joy is genuine, but the emphasis is often just as much a coping mechanism. Queer people are not homogenous, and even in our own spaces, isolation is king. People who live in smaller communities get hit the hardest, but even someone like myself, living where I do, knowing that I could probably go a week without interacting with a cishet person if I really tried, can struggle with finding community. Being the only trans person in a room of cis queers, for example. There are a million variations, coming down to gender, sexuality, race, religion, politics, economic class–you name it. It’s hard to encounter queer people who are queer in exactly the way that you are. That’s why so many of us already turn to online spaces for community, to meet people who understand us. It’s such a lonely lifestyle is a classic line used to scare us into rescinding our truths, dangling the ultimatum of rejection over our heads. You want to be queer? Sure. But you’ll be alone and you’ll be sad. Good luck.

It’s not accurate to solely characterize queerness as loneliness. Finding your people is hard, but when you do, they’re your family. It’s complicated, and as queer creators in the NFT space experience isolation from two sides, change becomes essential on each end. “I’ve not received much flack for it in a while,” Dawia said, which eased my mind. “I’m not sure if this means attitudes are changing or attention spans are just short, or if I successfully weeded out the detractors.” If NFT art can succeed on one of its central tenets, building community through peer to peer connective webs, perhaps it can cut through some of the early vitriol and skepticism.

So who wins in Web3? In many instances to date, it’s the people who have always won. But values are changing, and while people in the NFT space are responsible for uplifting their own communities, the real driver of progress comes from outside, and it’s not impossible. I think back to “The Lesbian Bar Project’s” Decentraland event, this merging of spaces that until recently have felt antithetical. Bars hold a specific place in the hearts of queer people, in our histories. In the United States, lesbian bars are disappearing. I mentioned earlier that Ginger’s was the only lesbian bar in Brooklyn–a second opened in my neighborhood just this month. In Manhattan, there are two. One in Queens hosts pop-up events, and it’s been trying to fund a permanent space for the better part of two years. With so few places to gather, what’s been the community’s response? To adapt. One of the most popular lesbian spots in Brooklyn is a weekly party hosted at a straight bar in Williamsburg, one with a big backyard and a clientele that usually conjures too many images of college for my taste. But every Wednesday night, it’s transformed into a sapphic haven. In my own neighborhood, there are few queer bars proper, but because a high population of queer people call it home, most bars are queer bars as long as the right people show up, and the cishets are so used to it by now that they barely blink when we roll in. A dedicated space has value, absolutely. But in the absence of what we need, we’re pretty skilled at crafting alternatives, as long as we’re not meeting hostility on the outside.

And hostility absolutely still exists in the space. Ask anyone who’s both trans and in Web3. Once, after reading a Twitter thread by Klara Vollstaedt, I checked to see if any of my Web3 colleagues followed noted transphobes like Matt Walsh or the dedicated anti-queer hate account Libs of Tiktok.

I unfollowed a lot of people after that.

Want the NFT space to be better? Good. Then go help move the needle of society, because that’s the surest way to make it happen. It’s a monumental task, but when you scale it down, maybe it’s just as simple as being a straight and cisgender person at a Brooklyn bar who doesn’t see anything threatening about the presence of queer people. Maybe it’s as easy as recognizing the humanity in someone else and sticking up for them when they’re vulnerable. Maybe it’s buying work from queer artists and supporting mutual aid DAOs. Maybe it’s banding together for mutual support. We always say we’re a community, after all–let’s act like it.

Footnotes:

1.Yes, he/him lesbians exist. No, I am not doing pronoun discourse. Go read Stone Butch Blues.

2. Hopefully, this will change soon.

3. An estimated 40% of homeless youth are also queer, and around 80% of queer homeless youth report that they became homeless after being forced from their homes or running away from their families.

4. I had to put myself in debt for life by earning a master’s degree to find an entry level job in a professional field–that should tell you something about what it’s like out here.

5. I can’t find any reputable data on the number of LGBTQ people in Web3, be it about cryptocurrency holders, crypto artists, NFT holders, etc. I would like to make the case that there is a need in Web3 for data on the participation of LGBTQ people.

6. Their 2022 speaker list included the likes of Roxane Gay, Rosie O’Donnell, and Cameron Esposito among other celebrities and tech world business figures, but no one it seemed from the crypto world.

YuLiang Liu, better known online as Cyber YuYu, is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist whose work comments on the relationships between identity, society, and exclusion. Utilizing his own image, he directly confronts and exposes the types of gazes and subjects that have traditionally been granted the privilege of representation throughout art history, and draws explicit attention to those that have been intentionally suppressed. 

SuperRare Labs Content Strategist Oli Scialdone interviewed YuYu about power, pain, appropriation, and his new collection, “GAG.”

Oli Scialdone: In your artwork, you recontextualize pieces from the Western canon by inserting yourself into the frame. Can you tell me a little about what it means to juxtapose yourself with these works? 

Cyber YuYu: Professor Jun once wrote in the context of my work, “a queer and post-colonial rewriting of the loving, desiring, warlike body, which deconstructs the visual representations at the foundation of hetero-centric Western cultures,” and I have never felt more understood before. For centuries, art has been a matrix of fabrication, reinforcement, and embellishment of social norms, norms that often saw danger in representation and intentionally excluded people like me. Through my practice, I position myself as an intruder, a character that does not belong yet somehow tricks the viewer to believe it has always been there, to pinpoint those manifestations.

Looking back to when I first started exploring this method, I realize I wasn’t fully aware of the conceptual layers I could develop with it. At first, it seemed like a protest, a way for me to navigate living in a new environment different from what I was accustomed to. Having just moved to Germany from Taiwan, where I was born and raised, creative expression seemed to be the only outlet I could use to express my emotional frustration. Art offers a unique way of communicating universally—even without being able to properly speak a language, you know you can be seen and heard.

As the first cultural shocks started to recede and I got the chance to delve deeper into the fundamentals of the issues I was exploring, it became apparent that I was not just looking to denounce or criticize the norms that regulate our behaviors, but instead, I am more intrigued by the idea of inventing alternative and provocative identifications to resist dominant patterns and narratives. In juxtaposing myself with these works I have found a balanced way to disturb perceptions and provoke reactions, but in parallel, to study and understand the culture of the place I live my life and build my career. For some, it might seem as if I denounce the cultural validity of those works, or the historical significance of the artists behind them. In reality, I have an immense amount of respect for the artists’ crafts, I am in love with the works I am re-interpreting. And part of this new interpretation is an homage, an attempt to bring them to today and allow them to re-flourish, centuries after their initial creation.

CYY: “GAG” is situated within the current socio-political climate, which is marked by ongoing

debates surrounding issues of power, control, and identity. Naturally, as both my work and myself mature, the themes I explore become less superficial and instead focus on underlying social structures that are not always apparent at first glance. Considering the severity of the topics I am touching on, I find it extremely important to approach them with a sense of humility and humor, to strip them of their inherent meanings and allow myself to review them in a new light that craves reinterpretation. As an extension, the three works in this collection utilize elements, such as the BDSM accessories, to soften the torturing depictions and act as armor to empower oneself.

The foundation of this collection lies within a conceptual visualization of power dynamics between artists and society at large, whether we talk about the general perception of what constitutes an artist, or more specifically how the relationship between artist and market unfolds in contemporary times. Building upon the concept of the “tortured genius,” a phrase that implies that an individual’s genius and their suffering are interconnected, with the creative output being inextricably linked to inner turmoil, this collection exaggerates societal perceptions of what comprises art by establishing a haunting imagery of amplified pain and suffering. In a way, it questions the limits of our definition of art by amplifying the dramaturgy and trauma to the extreme, blurring the lines between pain and pleasure under the omnipresent sight of the viewer. While the imagery draws inspiration from the centuries of persecution of marginalized individuals, the collection as a whole uses the concept of the “tortured genius” as a lens through which to explore the broader themes of dominance and submission, establishing a visual representation of how power is wielded and controlled in different contexts. Despite my voice being seemingly silenced, and gagged, throughout this collection, my message aims to transcend the digital and physical displays and demonstrate how individual presence can not be forced to oblivion. 

OS: The BDSM imagery really drives home the point of power and submission. What representations of power are you addressing in these works? What do you think is the relationship between artists and pain?

CYY: Pain is a fundamental emotion of human existence. While happiness comes briefly and disappears shortly after, pain and sorrow create cracks that never fully heal. Pain is what makes us human, to experience multiple layers of it and continue living. The relationship between artists and pain is complex and multifaceted, yet above all, deeply personal. Whether approached in an autobiographical way, as a source of motivation to express inner turmoil, or as a thematic element in their work, pain in the art can take many forms depending on the individual’s practice and perspective. 

What is particularly interesting to me and a main topic of investigation through this collection, is how this deeply personal relationship becomes a commodity. Is pain what creates art and thus; is pain the art? The three works address this question through different perspectives, discussing both external and internal factors causing pain, setting them in parallel to the suggestion that creators must suffer in order to achieve artistic excellence. Submissive – Dominant power structures are not always easy to distinguish, with energy flowing both ways and a mutual acceptance of the exchange in place, those perplexing relationships were pivotal to the development of “GAG.” 

CYY: All three works that constitute “GAG” have been developed under the same concept and the idea of visualizing a complex interplay of power dynamics. The artworks draw upon borrowed elements from both classical paintings and BDSM culture references inspired by the place I call home, Berlin. Each of the works presented in this collection approaches the concept of the “tortured genius” as it relates to the three main pillars of a) society, b) religion, and c) the self. 

Representing society, “Bad Bunny, Dead Bunny” references the Mandarin slang term “Rabbit,” a derogatory label aimed at the queer community. The work takes inspiration from Solomon J Solomon’s “Samson,” depicting the biblical hero weakened and bound after revealing the source of his strength to his lover Delilah. The work symbolizes the oppressive norms of society and comments on the ongoing persecution of minority groups. 

“Praise be,” a work inspired by “The Martyr of Fanaticism” by Jose de Britoc, approaches the topic of dominance from the perspective of religion, the ruler of our social norms for centuries. Perhaps the most emotionally charged out of the three works, “Praise Be” depicts, through my portraiture, the martyrdom of countless “divergent” individuals that have found themselves against the wheels of religious righteousness.   

Lastly, “Jokes on You” is the final piece of this three-piece collection, serving as a self-reflection statement. Based on “Stańczyk” by Jan Matejko, I position myself as the sad clown gagged and soon-to-be-consumed by the skeletons surrounding me. The piece questions whether someone gagged me by force or I gagged myself, offering a moment of retrospection regarding how societal expectations affect individual decisions.  

The three works together offer a narrational journey into the complexities of human societies and explore socio-political manifestations of dominance over the less privileged bodies. They aim to destabilize our “truths” and to reveal the ways in which cultural codes are constructed. 

CYY: To begin with, “GAG” was initiated as a project meant to manifest in a physical space. When IHAM invited me to present a solo exhibition with them I instantly thought how this was an incredible opportunity to approach my work in a less digitally-focused manner. To give you a bit of context, prior to my involvement with the Web3 space and in parallel to establishing my artistic identity, my main occupation was in the fields of cultural and electronic music event production. As a result, and regardless of my adoration of our digital utopia, I highly value the impact and immersive potential of the physical space. In real life, the artist sets a stage, and for as long as you are in it, you are bound by them. Precisely due to this unique role allocation, the contradiction between the power dynamics within the works versus the ones manifesting in the physical gallery creates the perfect playground to express the fragility of the concept of power. 

The whole concept of this collection/exhibition has been built in a way that allows the topics to reflect in three dimensions, making the exhibition a complete manifestation of my conceptual input, and placing the viewers at the epicenter of it. For the past couple of months I have worked with a team of people, to name a few my two curators Grida and Sixela who helped bring the idea to life, and the London-based music producer MarcelDune who created an hour-long soundscape, to collectively transform the entire gallery grounds into a visceral experience that echo the individual themes explored through the three main artworks of the exhibition.

I could continue rambling forever but I have to maintain an element of surprise for those planning to attend the show (lol). For those interested, the exhibition will last from the 10th to the 20th of May, and I will be physically there from 10 to 13. Come! 

CYY: As a millennial, I was born into digital art. We might have not fully realized it, but every experience we had growing up has been infused with large amounts of digitalization. Even how we experience traditional, physical art, for its majority, has been through digital lenses. Art that would normally be experienced inside the halls of esteemed museums located in the most elite capitals of the West, was at the same time available to access from anywhere in the world as long as there was an internet connection. When I felt the need to start exploring creative outlets for my thoughts and fears, digital experimentation seemed like a no-brainer. 

I think like most of us, the pandemic has been a pivotal moment in my life. I was already working on my creations for a couple of years by that time, having participated in multiple international exhibitions and publications, but in no way I was yet able to fully sustain myself from it. While things were moving in a good direction, COVID-19 brought everything to an absolute standstill. For the bigger part of 2020, I went into a rabbit hole of self-doubting and questioning what happens next. I was extremely lucky to have a partner who pushed me through and introduced me to the concept of blockchain and NFTs. It was a revelation. Not only because I could start filling the financial gaps caused by the pandemic, but because, for the first time since I started creating art, I felt there was an alternative to the traditional art markets that can often feel excluding for queer, non-white individuals. It only took me a few months of learning more about the technicalities of blockchain before I decided to fully join in 2021. 

CYY: Forcing yourself on a table that traditionally rejects or ignores you comes with a heavy emotional weight, as you will often witness yourself dimming your light or silencing your voice before being able to fully embrace your ways of expression and being. “GAG” explores this exact topic, the instances under which, whether as a forced or self-caused result, an individual voice becomes muted under the pressure and expectations of others. Due to the nature of those interactions, allow me to rephrase your question to “What does it mean to create a place for yourself” rather than “find”. I feel “create” describes the journey of belonging more accurately, as it entails the tremendous amounts of physical and emotional labor that goes into it. Speaking for myself, I know I have a long way to go to be considered and feel equal to those in more privileged positions, but for one thing, I feel proud of myself for my perseverance and determination to not just be a queer Asian token but instead acknowledged for my contribution in the space and the art canon as a whole. Somehow similar to my work, an invader holds the power to disturb pre-established structures and I like to think of my presence inside West-centric, heteronormative spaces as a manifestation of this exact disturbance. 

OS: Are you working on anything else you’re excited about?

CYY: Of course! I wake up every day feeling excited about the projects I have in the pipeline. At the moment, I am most excited about my upcoming participation in the Non-Fungible Conference as a speaker and a showcasing artist, where I will be presenting a completely new side of who YuYu is! I cannot wait to show everyone how layered my brand is and of course, enjoy engaging with the community under the blazing Lisbon sun! 

Beyond that, I am currently working with the Jane Goodall Institute, one of the largest environmental causes in the globe, for a fundraising event taking place during the Cannes Film Festival, while also discussing some incredibly exciting things for Asia in Q3 2023! 

Can not share more for now but I am sure 2023 will be a year to remember!

Natasha Chomko (b. 1995), aka POST WOOK, is among the most recognized NFT collage artists of today. Born in 1995 and currently based in Los Angeles, she has been creating her distinctive and mesmerizing collages full-time for the past 3 years.

Combining elements from photographs of impressive landscapes,  space, and sometimes geometric compositions, the artist hopes to create narratives through subtle symbolism. Her work pays tribute to Surrealist obscurity whilst striking a melancholic tone, wrapped with a psychedelic flare. Upon seeing her work, one often questions what is real, imaginary, or a blend of both.

SuperRare Labs digital editor Shutong Liu asks Natasha about her creative process, symbolism in her work, and the future of POST WOOK.

Shutong Liu: Did you always create collages digitally? How did you make that transition?

POST WOOK: I started making analogue collages when I was about 12–I was initially inspired by my childhood friend’s older sister and, ironically enough, the Burn Book from the movie Mean Girls. I started by getting magazines at the grocery store and cutting up everything and anything I could use in them to make art. Eventually I got more involved in my life, then college, and never really considered myself an artist. I did creative things but didn’t consider myself creative enough to be an artist–I thought artists had to look a certain way and be able to draw. I was so wrong. I made the transition from analogue to digital in 2018, when I needed a creative outlet but didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have enough space, time, or money to take up the other artistic mediums I’ve done, like set design, costume design, ceramics, or printmaking, so I turned to digital work because it was free and fit right in my pocket at the time: on my phone. 

SL: You are a self-taught artist, and studied Political Science in college. Did your studies impact your art in any way?

PW: I learned how to write, speak, and research in school. Political Science is more about understanding the history of policies and the cyclical nature of humans than current events, so I learned a lot about the past and how to communicate old ideas into the future. I think my process is similar in that aspect but different everywhere else. I have absolutely no issues researching something til I pass out or writing long and emotional descriptions for my pieces though, I definitely think school helped with that. 

SL: Can you walk us through your creative process-from a blank canvas to the finished product? 

PW: I work in a few different segments to create a piece of art, and while assembly might feel like the only part that counts, it isn’t in my book. 

Before even getting to a blank canvas, I need photos to work with. I have a large library of assets at this point, but I either need to find new photos or take them myself for new material, edit and cut those out, and save them accordingly. Sometimes the process of finding new material leads me to inspiration, but if it doesn’t, I need to find concepts and dig internally for feelings to make work about. Ironically enough, sometimes the process of finding inspiration takes me away from my studio and into the real world.

I am a big believer in mindfulness and find a lot of my inspiration through the world around me. Being outside, in a museum, or even driving home without music playing can inspire me and give me an idea for a new piece. The smallest things can lead to inspiration in my eyes. I find that the best inspiration comes when I least expect it, so I have to keep myself primed and alert to those little moments in life to find it. Otherwise it would feel pointless. 

Once there’s an idea, I need to assemble the pieces that swim around in my head to make the art. Usually I start with one specific layer that inspired the piece and work from there. Sometimes that initial layer doesn’t even make it to the final and that’s okay. From there, I assemble the scene that I want to convey, make sure the composition is exactly what I want and then I color edit. 

I did JUST get an iPad though, so I’m excited to see where I can expand my process to include things made with a tablet. So far, I really love it and can’t wait to see where it takes me!

SL: Talk to us about subjects that frequently appear in your works: stars, moon, nature, wild landscapes, and geometric shapes. Is there symbolism behind them?

PW: There absolutely is symbolism in all of my work, whether I outwardly talk about it or not. Sometimes the piece comes together in a way I absolutely needed without even realizing it until after the fact. My subconscious desire to create is so strong it sometimes scares me. 

The sun represents the source–of all life and light–of everything. Without the sun nothing else would exist as we know it. 

The moon represents perspective–without the sun (the source) the moon would not be illuminated on earth. But we see the moon differently every day, month, and based on where we are, like our perspective on situations, people, and events. Our perspectives are ever changing and I think the moon is the best signal for this dynamic energy in my work. 

Mountains represent time–similar to the time needed to create and destroy mountains, everything we do requires time as well. The Rocky Mountain range was not created overnight, how can we expect our lives to go any differently? 

Above land images of oceans and water represent patience, stillness, or calm–I grew up on a lake and found a lot of solace there. I also crave large bodies of water in moments of calamity, and find that water appears in a lot of my work when I’m feeling unsettled about something. It’s like a message from my subconscious to calm down.

Underwater scenes represent our need to get out of our own way–I often like to think about how the ocean exists solely without us–fish swim, bacteria grows, sponges protect life, coral sustains it. The whole system works with or without me, and if I want to observe it in its rawest form I have to get out of the way. Life is like that, too. If I want to enjoy life, I can’t meddle with it. It just has to unfold naturally.

Outer space and specifically stars represent time, just like mountains do, but more like lost time. Every star we can see has already burned out, yet we still celebrate stars and their beauty. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating life as it was, thinking back on it fondly, and letting it go. Stars are often one of the last elements I add to my work for this reason. 

Deserts represent solitude and the need for independence. When I was 13, I found myself in the middle of a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon exhausted, bored, and longing to go home. But the only way I could go home was by getting out of the canyon, and no one was coming to save me. At that moment I knew I had to keep going. I’ve revisited that moment in my head many times over since then, and reflect it in my work often as a reminder that despite all odds–geologically speaking with deserts–you can survive and you must keep moving forward. 

There are specific places that I revisit frequently in my work as well, like Arizona, the Badlands, and the general American southwest–they draw me in. There’s something magical about Arizona and I hope my work reflects that. 

I like circles because of what they represent energetically. Typically a circle is seen as the symbol for feminine energy, the beginning and end of something that truly has no markers. I like to use circles in my work as a reminder that things can and will continue to happen and it’s not the “end” of anything. 

Lastly, I use color in my work to depict emotions. In my mind every color has a subsequent emotion behind it. The more vibrant and multicolored the piece, the more emotions were felt. 

SL: What do you hope the viewers feel or think when they see your work, or are you happy to open it to interpretation?

PW: I hope people just feel or think when they see my work. In my eyes if art makes you feel something, it did its job. I don’t really mind if people interpret my work differently than how I see it, I want people to see my work in a way that works for them. This is so much bigger than me at this point and there’s so much that can be said about creating art in the first place, so I’m just happy if I can impact someone on any level today. 

SL: What is the future for POST WOOK?

PW: First and foremost, I want POST WOOK to be a household name. I want my work to continue resonating with people all over the world and feel connected to themselves, their pasts, and their emotions in a new way when they look at my work. People often tell me my work looks like their dreams, or a place they’ve been but can’t remember and I think that’s the highest compliment of all. I want to continue making art that inspires people to feel that way. 

I want to push my boundaries for what I think is acceptable for me to create and let my imagination run wild. I am very drawn to the color red right now, and will continue to explore red work until it no longer feels right to do so. I will also keep looking inward to find the darkest corners of myself and make art about them so I can release the old feelings and let light flood in. I want to get more vulnerable, raw, and honest with myself in order to create even better work.

I’m interested in getting back into the world of physical art and have ideas on how to do that, as well as expanding how and where I create my art digitally. It’s important for me as an artist to keep creating and finding new heights. 

Objectively speaking, I am very focused on creating my best work instead of the most work at this time. I am making work based on collections and not just stand alone pieces, and I am focusing more on introspection to make the best art I possibly can. 

If you want to hear about mechanics, you’ll have to follow along. 

SL: Talk to us about the works you are dropping with SuperRare this time?

PW: I’m dropping two new pieces into my Red Season series. I love this series because it was inspired by curiosity, and the deeper I get into it the more significance is revealed to me. 

The first piece is called Red Desert, 2023 and depicts one of the fantastic red rocks in Sedona, AZ. I am so incredibly drawn to Sedona, and bringing it’s otherworldly influence into my Red Season series feels very fitting. This piece lends more to the aesthetics side of the purpose behind Red Season. 

The second piece is called La Luna, 2023 and is meant to represent my interpretation of how my partner sees me. La Luna is his nickname for me, so I wanted to make a piece that really reflects how I interpret his love. This piece lends itself to the emotional side of Red Season, but is one of the first pieces I’ve made about love in an endearing way. Call that healing!

Robert LeBlanc is a renowned artist and documentary photographer who has taken an embedded approach to telling important stories about under-documented communities across the United States. Some of his well known projects include GLORYLAND, where he spent five years photographing the sermons, culture, and people of the rattlesnake handling Holiness church, “The House of The Lord Jesus”, in the quiet town of Squire, West Virginia, Unlawful Conduct, for which he spent six years documenting the beauty and suffering bred from skateboarding street culture, and MOON DUST, for which he spent four years shooting the lives and work of hotshot firefighters in California and Montana. For his latest project, CHANSU, Robert has turned his lens in a different direction; melding the use of traditional post-photography software with the output of Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) technology to produce a wholly unique abstract, post-photography series. 

SuperRare Labs Editorial Director Luke Whyte asks Robert LeBlanc about GAN, his inspiration for CHANSU, and collaboration with Transient Labs.

Luke Whyte: Let’s jump right into CHANSU. Can you talk a little bit about the vision and goals behind the project?

Robert LeBlanc: I wanted to create a world that balances the lines of surrealism and fiction. This project focuses on a more contemporary aesthetic that encourages viewers to use their imagination as they experience this world. Is it photography? Is it an abstract painting? Or is it a digital rendering? I want the viewers to feel like they have entered a world where all these mediums are possible. I get a cathartic experience when I’m exposed to these images, and I find it so inspiring, so in the end, I’m hoping viewers have this same experience as well.

LW: What’s the scope of the project? How many images are being minted this week and how many will there be in total?

RL: This body of work is quite vast, and it’s been something I have been working on for a couple of years and have spent a lot of time crafting the style that it is today. I have developed 100 images I see as a fully immersive exhibition and a book project, with a limited number released as NFTs, both dynamic and still. The final number has not been decided yet, but it will be minimal compared to the size of the body of work.

LW: This is something new for you, correct? What appealed to you about this type of project and why embark on it at this time? 

RL: Yes, I have been working with GAN imagery for two years and am highly inspired by its endless capabilities. My photography works have been increasingly focused on a more surreal and fictional landscape, with much of my current inspiration from the contemporary Japanese black-and-white photography genre. Artists such as Daidō Moriyama and Kikuji Kawada have substantially influenced this new world of photography I’m developing. As artists, we constantly evolve; I want to be mindful of this. I also believe that artists need to fit in the niche they have been in, and I think this mindset can suffocate the creative process and the evolution of one’s work. What I am attracted to now is much different than ten years ago in my early twenties. I want to embrace this evolution of my creative journey. Between CHANSUand another project, Tin Lizards, which I’m currently creating, I feel like it’s the right time to start exploring this desire to create a more drenched monochrome surreal world.

LW: Can you talk a little bit about the techniques behind the artworks? How did you go about creating them? 

RL: I started promoting images through the GAN technology, slowly crafting a style that felt right to me, which was a long a difficult road; CHANSU focused a lot on the mindset of embracing the element of chance, which I think is a constant dance between the artist and creating within the contemporary and abstract space. It is an organic flow of creativity, and you enjoy the process and become vulnerable in the experience. After building the foundation, I would take the images and process them with a more traditional post-editing photography software which I was more familiar with. This was an arena where I could be more purposeful and deliberate, taking the elements of chance that I was so open to in the first step and then honing in the result with purpose and reason for the final step.

LW: What excites you about GAN technology? Why did you choose to work with it and where would you like to see its role in art, and AI more generally, go in the future? 

RL: It’s the feeling of the unknown and the ability to tap one’s imagination into a visual result. Since using AI as a tool, I have felt that the world of possibilities has opened up immensely, and as a creative, this can be extremely inspiring. I first used it with GLORYLAND, which is a very traditional documentary project. Still, within the church, you always heard the fables from the bible that illustrated things I could never photograph but were very prominent in the landscape of the characters I was documenting. I used GAN to create illustrations for these stories, and I’m pleased with how that helped polish and add another layer to the project. There are countless ways to use AI as a tool, and I find that very inspiring and exciting but also a bit terrifying.

LW: You’ve referred to the project as creating a world that is both familiar and strange, do you see parallels between this statement and today’s world more generally? Particularly with the embrace of AI and digital reality? 

RL: Absolutely! We have entered a stage in human existence where our ambitions and ability to develop technologies have created a new world where we can’t tell if humans or machines create something. I don’t believe we exist in a physical world separate from a digital one. Our current moment as humans is undeniably strange, and I don’t know where this road will lead. AI is moving at lightning speeds, and that is a scary thought. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash becomes less of a fictional novel and more of a prophetic warning more and more to me every day.

LW: You’ve said the project draws inspiration from contemporary Japanese aesthetics, what do you mean by that and how is it reflected in the artworks? 

RL: I have been gravitating toward this style of photography, where grain, rich black, and texture are all embraced to create an emotionally invigorating image. In documentary work, the way an image is formed is much more literal, and I have always considered composition the most essential quality. But in the contemporary landscape, emotion takes the lead, and I have been finding this world very freeing. I’ve always looked up to the level of thought, attention to detail, and purpose you see in almost everything from Japan. Photography is certainly no exception to these attributes for them, either. One project that has been my biggest inspiration for CHANSU is Daido Moriyama’s Bye Bye Photography. This book broke all the rules of photography at that time, embracing chaos and chance. It’s a true masterpiece.

LW: How did chance play a role in the production of these artworks and how did it feel for you to turn over much of the result of your work to fate? 

RL: Chance was the driving force in the initial stage of artwork production. It’s impossible not to embrace chance when working with AI. I used vague and not specific prompts, which resulted in me knowing that what I could get from this machine was a complete gamble. By doing this, I had to let go of the controlling side of myself and embrace fate. I learned a lot about myself while creating this body of work, and patience and trust are essential elements of its development and end result.

LW: You worked with Transient Labs to put together this project, correct? What was their role in CHANSU? 

RL: Yes! They added layers of dynamic qualities to this series I couldn’t. Ultimately, the result is fantastic and embraces every element of this project. As I said earlier, patience was essential. Part of our dynamic process is watching four images dissolve into each other over a length of eighty minutes, it’s a slow and almost unnoticeable process that takes a lot of patience to experience, but if you look away for a few minutes and then turn back, it becomes a whole different piece. They did an incredible job of turning this project into a more dynamic and immersive experience.

LW: I love this idea of gradually dissolving images that recompose themselves over 80 minutes. Where did the idea come from and why experiment with the approach? 

RL: I wanted to create an experience for the viewers to see the pieces interact. I see these displayed on a large scale in an exhibition space where they morph over time, always giving the experience something new, ever-evolving, similar to our environment and how this technology is ever-evolving. I also wanted to play on the speed of the way the world is moving at such a drastic pace. In return, I tried to slow down time, making the viewers sit and digest the artwork at a slower and more deliberate pace.

LW: Looking back to some of your previous work, can you talk a little bit about how you got started as a photographer through skateboarding in LA? 

RL: I like to say skating saved my life. It was a way to expose me to so many different worlds, art, and music. Skating was the stepping point for me creatively and made me more curious about the world in general. I started taking photos when I was out skating with my friends at an early age, and to me, it was the perfect marriage and a means for me to not only experience the world around me but also document that world as well. Skaters have always had a unique view of their environment and are conscious of details most don’t see. 

LW: What’s next for you from here? What projects do you have brewing? 

RL: More experimentation and me trying to evolve my craft in inspiring ways. I’m currently working on a project that documents train trips through America in a surreal and almost gothic aesthetic. I’m excited to jump more into these body of works that blur the line between fiction and reality

Explore CHANSU on SuperRare Now.