Here and Now (Hic Et Nunc)

The most recent hobby is to explore Taiwanese elements suitable for casting into NFTs. The interest is the same as when the Facebook fan page first appeared. At that time, there was no attention war or algorithm reach rate. Life is to do the works you like and write the ones you like. Articles to share with friends.

Hic Et Nunc (HEN), Latin for Here and Now, an often-faulty NFT collection platform, brings me the same feeling again. The community style of this website is super weird, like a co-living space that is powered off every now and then without paying the electricity bill, and there are a bunch of weird creators living in it. If there is a disagreement, I will send you works indiscriminately, just like the neighbors sending vegetables and fruits.

At this moment, due to frequent failures, other engineers have independently created a secondary trading platform that is compatible with him, and some have created an interface that is easy to view the works. Taiwan Light NewYellow has created a pocket version of this moment app. This kind of chaotic spirit is what everyone calls Web3, a bottom-up grassroots network.

As a half-hearted scout, my intuition tells me that there is no unknown photographer Chen Derui (if he will call himself a photographer) whose work is very similar to HEN's style, dark background, flashing neon lights, transparent cubes, dirty dolls . He has been shooting claw machines for several years, held a small exhibition, and then disappeared (maybe he was studying for the national exam?).

The claw machine suddenly became an ordinary scene in Taiwan, and then a complete industrial chain grew. The golden storefront closed down, and the claw machine was stuffed full of it and emitted a cold light at night, like fibrous connective tissue. I used to be a fan of the game of clipping dolls, and I also learned some jargon. When the craze for dolls was crazy two or three years ago, the small conch shells and small waists that were commonly found in the belly of the doll machine even became a currency in circulation. You can easily exchange them for money. They are actually shoddy bluetooth speakers.

This kind of cheap entertainment is right now in Taiwan, so it should be seen on HEN by people from other countries.

So I kept pushing De_Ruei and told him to make works and put them on the shelves as soon as possible.

So there was a project called Lock-in Vending Machine, where De Rui would cast an NFT of video clips of the doll machine one day until one hundred were completed.

Sure enough, my hunch was correct. From the launch last week to today, most of the editions have been cleared and sold out. But that's not the point, the point is that Twitter has overseas collectors sharing their experiences of traveling to Taiwan. He said that the claw machine was exactly the Taiwan he knew.

At this moment, these claw machines are still shining at night.

Some collectors said that at first glance, they thought that these claw machines were 3D model videos produced by Render, but after a closer look, they found that they were videos shot on the spot, which is really cool.

Coincidentally, NFTs are made of blockchain smart contracts, and the earliest smart contract paper was written in 1997 by Nick Szabo, who described the ancestor of smart contracts as an honest vending machine (The primitive ancestor of smart contracts is the humble vending machine).

But there are also dishonest vending machines, such as the NFT LostPoets produced by Pak, which has been very popular recently. It is notorious to whet the appetite of collectors and laugh at collectors for fun (definitely not because I can't get the life of Qiqi) . Blind boxes, randomness, casting and burning, generative art, these shaky mediums make NFT collectors' perceptions very different from the traditional art market.

For example, the permanent royalty setting, so that the artist's works do not need to set a high price when they are sold for the first time. Everyone sells them casually when they are unknown, and they cheer each other. One day, it will become popular and take off. As the works are sold again and again, everyone will work together. it is good. For example, artworks can be burnt at will, and it may seem like a bunch of lunatics destroying their own work in the traditional world, but this may be the norm in this virtual world.

For example, there are more and more virtual exhibitions that can read NFTs. You can hang your own NFTs on the wall. I am looking forward to the appearance of a hundred claw machines flashing in the black space. This is an era of over-convenience, and as long as you have a work, you have almost all kinds of over-cheap services.

So you can do what you like.

I think now is a very suitable time to explore the image of Taiwan, not because of NFT money flooding your feet, but because now no matter what field you do, you will be the first, like I dare to say that De_Ruei is the first NFT issued on HEN Taiwanese photographer. And as long as his claw machine is successfully collected and discussed by overseas collectors, the image of Taiwan will be able to spread to the sea once again.

Very low cost cultural diplomacy.

Finally, Vendor Lock-in also means the monopoly of manufacturers. Although this article is written on Facebook, it is difficult for many people to be outside of Facebook, IG, Line and other community platforms, but I think the only prescription to avoid attention monopoly It is to choose to live in a Web3, which is still in the hands of the people, and a social network built on the Web3 without a large platform.

There will be many people at this moment, including those from Taiwan.