Minty Fresh: Edition 64

Welcome back to Minty Fresh, your weekly roundup of the freshest Clean NFTs found across the Tezos ecosystem! This week, our secret word is, well, "words." Recently, we've seen the power of words in the Tezos art community – from fundraising initiatives like #Tezos4Iran and #SavePakistan, to the "Respect Artist Royalties" pledge that many Tezos platforms signed last week.

So this week is an ode to the power of words! Where would we be without them? Read on for a selection of text-based objects found on fxhash, Versum, Teia, and Objkt.

We livin this cuz it's deep in our bones
A Tribe Called Quest with this hip hop jones
So sit and analyze the lyrical spray
Cuz it really is all word play

1. Collage Poem

"A collaboration between the founders of NFT poetry gallery theVERSEverse... in which lines from their individual practices are woven together into a literary artwork."

How do you write an ode to words on the blockchain without including the ground-breaking work of theVERSEverse? This weekend marks the closing of POÈME OBJKT, an exhibition curated by L'Avant Galerie Vossen, that includes several works by theVERSEverse founders and artists Ana Maria Caballero, Sasha Stiles, and Kalen Iwamoto. The three founders collaborated on this collage poem, an amalgmation of different lines of poetry from each of their individual practices. Check it out IRL in Paris this weekend or online at Objkt.

2. Cosmology of oneself

"Each person contains a cosmos made up of many elements in constant motion and transformation..."

Cosmology of oneself from NFT and generative artist Deadcode is a powerful reminder that language and text come in many forms. For this work, the artist reused: "the 31 ancestral symbols already encoded in previous projects and placed them on the canvas using physical forces that pushed the symbols as particle (or stars) into the universe." Deadcode brings together the technical language of code, with the spiritual and metaphysical languages of ancestral symbols and asemic writing to create a visually captivating generative collection. Perhaps what ties it all together is the Aldous Huxley quote included in the project description: "There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self." Join this corner of the universe on fxhash.

3. Everyday Meditation

"In the forest I  chop wood to start fire, then I begin to meditate, in my home or outside of it. Daily life of the mundane."

Taipei-based generative artist and calligrapher Jimi Wen creates ink drawings that abstract and reimagine the Chinese alphabet. Here, the characters represent a fallen tree, splattering into the firewood and ashes that will keep the artist warm on a mundane day. Has Wen cracked the meaning of life? Aren't we all just trying to stay warm and find peace in this life? Find Everyday Meditation on Versum.

4. streams of consciousness 2

"second nature"

This work from multi-hyphenate musician and artist Itzel Reyna shows the beauty of words + sound coming together to create music. Reyna sets the lyrics as a still image, with her instrumental composition acting as soundtrack - allowing the viewer or collector to put the two together into a song of their own. The result is music deconstructed, making it, in some ways, completely unique to the individual listener. Tune in to stream of consciousness 2 on Objkt.

5. Translations of Figure A

"A caravan of words that pierce through times
And loose a few members in the attempt of
Arriving"

Contemporary artist Estelle Flores combines poetry with ancient writing forms in this generative series. By pairing a generative poem with a generated image of a cuneiform tablet, Flores encapsulates the past, present, and future of communication. The future of writing exists on the blockchain, and artists like Flores, theVERSEverse collective, and many others, are actively building it. Check out Translations of Figure A on fxhash.

6. It's Still Here

"HEN is dead. Love live HEN."

Let's end where it all began! The Teia Community launched #StillHereNow or #RIPHEN to honor the "discontinuation" of hic et nunc last November. #StillHereNow is a celebration of "Web 3.0 resilience" and the Tezos artist community who continued to produce amazing work following the end of HEN. So, multimedia artist and writer Poppel created this work of pixel art, a cheeky eulogy that completely honors the spirit of HEN. Gone, but definitely not forgotten. Find it on Teia.

Related Links:

• Minty Fresh Edition 63
• Tezos.art
• Minty Fresh Archive