NFT: let’s shake the world with some “digital real emotions” ! – w/ Vittorio Grigòlo

hello welcome this is the valuart podcast the working title at least we're working on a better one um this is the first episode we are moving really quickly and uh things are a little a little disorganized and uh chaotic but i think it's good i think it's fun and um we're excited most importantly um my name is eddie this is my co-host izzy and uh we're gonna be we're gonna be the creative team behind this podcast indefinitely um as long as they'll have us uh and it's an exciting opportunity for both of us um so uh i i'll just start with uh introducing myself i guess my name is eddie contento i i spent about nine nine and a half years running the design side of a software agency uh based out of philadelphia i also have a background in film so i've transitioned within the last four or five years to focusing on filmmaking full-time and i have quite a bit of experience in just the digital media sector so my my interests really lie in in that world but having this sort of this combination background of technology and uh and storytelling i find myself in a really cool position to want to learn about both sides of it so this podcast which we'll get into a little bit more after uh izzy introduces herself well that will allow us to do that so but yeah that's a little bit about about me what what about you is he who are you explain we're still getting to know me absolutely so my name's actually isabella but i go by izzy um i have a background in languages in fact i know four languages i know italian english german spanish and i'm trying to learn french at the moment it's taking a while uh over the last year i've actually been became very passionate about virtual events and that brought me to be passionate also about the crypto and nft world and i can't wait to to be part of this cool yeah i think it's going to be a lot of fun because i think you have more of uh you come from the perspective of like the technology side or like i feel like it's our discussions that your your enthusiasm lies more in the technology side and i think for me my enthusiasm definitely lies more in the the art and philosophical and conceptual side so i think we'll we'll do a good job of balancing each other out in that and even when we were getting to know each other over the last week some of the stuff you were sharing with me like some of the links you were sharing super super cool uh some somewhat dystopian stuff but like i think that's just the nature of the technologies um and maybe that's just my my habit of automatically assuming like this could be very dystopian but uh but it's really cool and um i hope that i can also uh reciprocate and share some of some interesting things from the other side with you and and with our audience that's actually like i love reading tech books so that could actually be a chapter like i could be suggesting books just like i i've been doing with you yeah yeah actually that's a good that's a good segue to mention like we're really trying to figure out the format and uh and flow of these episodes so um this first one is pretty freestyle like we we've done the intro of this at least a hundred times and that's mostly on me but um it's because we're trying to figure it out you know so um if anybody watching assuming there's anybody watching uh has any interest in pitching uh topics or or things for us to explore um i'll just talk a little bit about what i'm curious to learn through this opportunity so as far as digital art goes i think a topic that always comes up uh that's sort of gray and ambiguous to me uh is ownership like intellectual property i think copyright is really absolutely such a strange thing in digital art when you can distribute things infinitely and with the with the evolution of the blockchain which i i know a little bit about but i'm not super well versed in and i'm not really familiar with the with the emerging like apps or companies that are trying to address these things so i think it would be cool a goal for us in in future episodes which we're starting to plan is to bring on an expert in in copyright in ip guests like that um are gonna be frequent like we're gonna we're gonna bring in experts because like as a disclaimer neither of us izzy or i are experts in either side of this but we are very curious and so i think we're going to try to fill out the episodes with the knowledge we're going to try to learn together essentially so that's exciting what are some of the other topics that you maybe are interested in touching on with this because i know we've addressed we've talked about a few like i think for me providence is also another thing yeah absolutely and i'd love to see it also from a collector's standpoint how that's changing um of course you know from the traditional art how that already is and the future of it with nfts so that's going to be an interesting point and overall how this technology is really expanding in all spheres right of course we're going to be focusing on art but i'd love to see it like in all spheres uh so how it's getting into sports but also gaming um for me it's absolutely mind blowing so i'm curious do you do you own any digital art any nfts i i do actually um so i have a few from pokemon okay cool uh they're pretty i'd love to share them right now what made you choose uh pokemon nfts well i mean i guess of course they're not like the pokemon like that you know the truth pokemon pokemon right like pokemon um they're not like the original ones but like when i was little i used to like collect them all the time um so then i was just mind blowing and they were cute so i was like man these i gotta have one of these uh there were many other others that i was looking at and i'm still having a look at and man i i kind of like lost a train for many because whereas months ago didn't cost much they're already out of range like insane prices so you know really yeah mostly so you have to give up a few ethereums and a few sorry a few even more than a few or some so i'm more of the like um i invest in crypto so i'm more of the hodling uh philosophy so for me to sometimes you know give up my crypto it's it's kind of hard so definitely i lost it for a lot of nfts uh when the price was better yeah but i'm definitely going to buy more [Laughter] how about you i don't have any nfts i do have some crypto but i've i've i purchased for like uh with the intention of just sitting on it for like a year like i'm not looking at it i'm not thinking about it yeah because i also don't have i don't have the stomach for it like it's too much every day to like see it's so volatile you know i don't i don't like feeling i'm not a day trader you know it's not my thing i can't and that's why i i think you have to see it like um in a long-term perspective and there's so many people that are missing out on this it's absurd insane so you're doing it right the hard lane like that's i thought i thought like in 2016 in the first bubble like i i had the intention of buying some i think in the beginning of the year but i didn't and then there was that like crazy spike and then i was like oh it's too late now like i'm definitely way i've missed the boat like i'm there's no point now and then of course like how many people had the same regret not buying it at that point oh boy and now a lot yeah so just like the last crash right um a lot of people sold because they they just panicked and they're going to pretty much regret that um can you actually explain a little bit like just really briefly because we there's like a million resources on like what nfts are but can you just like high level tell me what your idea of it is yeah so not you know nfc stands for non-fungible token which gives the concept of it being unique since it's not it's not replaceable right most nfts they are on the ethereum blockchain and nfts can be pretty much anything at the moment art but also you're getting into the um music industry um movies and sports they're it's it's incredible what i like most about it because it's just how art works right like art you're not necessarily buying the piece but you're buying the concept or the idea and the bragging rights too in digital art you don't really have the luxury of exclusivity because people can just re recreate your work and share it and whatever this is super exciting for for artists to be able to take control over their work and to be able to like distribute it how they want whether it's in sets or whether it's like a one-off piece and to clearly validate a piece like to authenticate a piece as like the one you know even if you have like some shitty digital version of it you you have proof one person as proof or one of 100 people have proof that they own a piece of this which i think is so exciting because as so so i invest i i shouldn't say invest i support uh creators on patreon and i love patreon because it it does give you a little bit of a little bit more value than just like straight up donating to someone's memo or something because you get like perks back right people people will make things for you there will be like exclusive content but what's nice about nfts is it's like patronage but you have the benefit of also owning something unique you know so like you're still supporting an artist that you love but you're getting something out that could return on your investment later on which is super cool absolutely and i love the fact i think that it gives so many opportunity opportunities especially to emerging artists just gives them the chance to really get into the world and earn because let's let's let's just say it you know being an artist can be hard to also earn money um unless you get like super famous immediately um here it really gives you the opportunity to to do that it's weird because like i think that there's this divide in in artists that are more traditional or maybe just make physical works like i have a couple close friends that do like murals or or like canvas work or uh even like uh like ceramics right and a few of them have have voiced their grievances about this and i think they feel as if it cheapens the work because they're not really going into they're not really delving into the benefits of it and and how it's it augments the work rather than than taking away from the physical piece you know and i think that it would be cool to talk to some we should have some people on that are that are on both sides of it like like artists that are absolutely against digital and blockchain uh there are these and then artists that are yeah for sure for sure also what you're seeing is like this there's this influx of people that are that are trying to capitalize like people that are artists now that weren't for the nft boom you know just like um all the altcoins right um there were a lot that came out all together then you know the best projects they stay strong they win um it's gonna be the same in an nft world too um definitely in this period there's a lot but you're gonna already see i think even a year from now that only the serious ones are gonna be there yeah but and as a collector in that like really low tier space like if you're looking if you're getting a piece of art from somebody who's nobody now like be and super cheap or whatever and you're maybe you're supporting them or maybe you're just sort of like hedging your bets but either way you have this opportunity to get something so early on so young that in 10 20 years could be in insanely valuable you know i agree so um let's talk a little bit about what valuart is as a platform and uh and then maybe we can talk about who are who our guest is because we're gonna have an exciting guest on in uh in a moment so valuart is a platform to mint sell buy and curate nfts with the focus on curation i think we're in the beginning we're working with artists with collectors to take physical works iconic physical works like really memorable works and to digitize them and list them as nfts on our platform and to basically elevate and expand the reach and the accessibility of these like insanely iconic pieces of art so um our first drop i i feel like i should have a drum roll sound effect for this our first drop is gonna be on july 22nd and the item up for auction is a banksy which i when they reached out to me and they were like hey we're doing this thing and we think you might be interested and also we're we're working with a with some collectors uh we have some works that i think are cool i was like oh cool what is it and they were like yeah first you got to sign an nda and i was like to talk to you about it and so then i did and then they told me and i was like oh that's why so our producer giorgio was like i just had a physical banksy in our studio and we used photogrammetry to make a one-to-one model of it and i'm like you're saying too many insane things to me at once you need to slow down he's like there was like secret service with the piece like they had guards you know it wasn't it was intense i had like an hour or something like that to do it i'm like whoa man so the reason that this is our first piece is because our co-founder uh vittorio he's the owner of the piece we're gonna have our co-founder on in a moment to talk about the first drop to talk about the piece but right now we'll just let's talk a little bit about it and what its history is so the piece is is known as spike it is a it is a physical rock i think from 2003 or 2004 was when the piece was realized and it was part of a a treasure hunt banksy spent some time in the west bank doing a like multitude of different works um mostly focused around like escapism and the conflict and uh the feeling of getting a way of freedom and he juxtaposed the imagery of children and like paradise uh with the surrounding environment and like putting putting works right on the wall like some of his most iconic pieces are in this region and before leaving he uh hacked off a piece of the wall and and wrote a word on the underside of this of this piece of rock and then like hit it amongst the environment for somebody to find and like there was a press release that said like this is out there if you find it you'll get a certification and i think the piece is i think the piece was for the person that found it i don't actually remember who like what the what the chain of ownership was with this piece apart long story short our co-founder has this piece of art he has spike and he's digitized it with the help of our team and we're listing it as our first item in our first drop on july 22nd and it is super exciting and i have no idea what to expect out of uh out of an auction like this um but i think it's really cool i think it's cool that we're getting these and there will be way more of these sorts of of drops so more iconic pieces of physical art digitized and minted into nfts so um i don't really know the full extent of the list of items that they've got planned but i know that they they they've told me that they keep getting more and more i guess iconic is that is the right word so that's really cool iconic definitely and yeah yeah and so this is just the beginning like i think the plan for the platform is to partner and collaborate with other notable artists um outside of the backlog that we have and try to build up this network of of pieces at the same time giving uh lesser-known artists a platform to share their work alongside of these like insanely like notable pieces so i think that's that's a really great opportunity for artists i'm probably going to list some of my own stuff when the opportunity when we when we actually launch i'm going to like maybe i'll make something new or i'll my next then of tea to buy oh so sweet thank you so much my first patron um i don't know i don't know what the process is like yeah i haven't actually gone through it but maybe we can make that a topic of conversation in the epis in another episode so i think we're gonna have vittorio on the on should be here shortly the podcast in a moment yeah hey there he is how are you guys very good very good very excited to talk to you yeah excited cool so where are you where are you talking from eddie so i'm in the netherlands i'm in rotterdam specifically uh and nothing is he you are i'm in lido in venice italy so working from here exactly and where are you i am in pizza oh nice i think we have we have all the same time yeah perfect yeah good timing yeah you look you look like in the dark side of the moon uh yeah i have this i have a nice little setup here that i'm uh still figuring it out though but do you prefer do you like it should i change it what do you think i love it nice nice thank you appreciate you okay so um so welcome to the valuaar podcast uh where i'm i'm really excited to talk to you specifically about the first drop but also just to get to know you because we've never met before and uh um i've heard your name mentioned in conversation obviously with the with things as they develop but um can you introduce yourself explain to us like who you are your background and then then we'll talk a little bit more about how value arc came to be so first who who are you um i i am my name is vittorio grigolo and i am an entrepreneur of feelings i've been in the world of music since i was a little kid i i was attracted to everything i was curious one of the most beautiful things i would suggest to the people that are watching us watching why balor he's here today is because of curiosity so uh always be uh happy to be um surprise yeah that's exactly what for izzy and i like the most exciting part about the podcast is is the chance to grow and to foster our curiosity and like to learn about this space about digital art about uh technology and how those two things interact so um that spirit is definitely alive in the valley our brand already and we're excited to like really grow that um so you at what point did did your uh career um open up the doors to you to start getting into art and collecting and and when did you take an interest in it outside of the music world i always loved to to paint to make a statue sculpture i will always use my hand so i i tried really to discover my senses because what is important what we are losing i always learned that since the the introduced we introduced the computer the iphone and the new smartphone we were losing something so we were getting something but we were also losing something i don't see anymore i'm friend with everybody but i don't talk to everybody 10 years ago when facebook came in and said i'm your friend in facebook but i i don't know you i you can have one million friends but friends is something a word that means a lot if you say friend we are friends 20 years ago it's not like you say friends today yeah is my friend everybody's your friend but let's let's give a value to this world i start to say how i can i can be more realistic in something that is surreal how can you bring the energy and the humanity back to the digital yeah i try always to find a meaning and a feeling so in connection with this this new idea this new world of valor and the art i give you the best example i could to put in relation opera and this new world that we're talking about so i use one of the greatest area ever written by puccini so this area starts before he's going to death and before going to die he's uh saying oh my god one hour in one hour i'm not gonna be able to see again the light of those wonderful stars i'm not gonna be able to hear uh hear the door creaking and screeching you know the door of my room i cannot hear the smell of my love i cannot hold her in my arms so he's bringing all the senses so he's bringing on all the senses that he's gonna soon lose so this is what i i always put in relation with the smart world let's use the smart word but let's also don't lose all this incredible feelings that are the senses that of course through the phone we cannot um be able to feel i cannot touch you eddie yeah but i i can use only you know small things i can see the expression so i can read the eyes you know yeah i think that that's a really cool thing about what we're discussing with this platform merging these this cold digital world with the the pathos of of art and of the humans involved i think that's a really beautiful thing and i'm curious if what do you what is it like for you now and and sharing your work with the world and what are some of the pain points what are some of the areas where you're struggling with uh in in sharing yourself your art with the world of course uh uh i mean if if you're talking of what we've been living uh the past two years uh i mean it's been it's been very difficult for everybody because that we had a big reset let's call it uh yeah so you know trying to i did a beautiful concert from la scala with the piano and the no public in front of me usually i was going to la scala was full of people so you missing all the warm applause the the the the you hear the heart beating and the breath of the people is not that when you're singing you don't hear them you feel the energy because if we really believe that the world is a wave i mean look at us we are talking and some ways waves are reproducing my voice far away to you it's still for me a miracle when i when i think that i can i can we are surrounded by waves you know yeah i think that that what you just described of performing to in a in a venue where there would be an audience but there isn't one is so symbolic of what it feels like to make things on the internet you know it's like it's everybody's there and listening but you can't feel anybody you know so i think i what's what's remarkable is your your attitude towards embracing that and and trying to bring the humanity back into it versus being cynical and jaded and being like this sucks i don't want to be a part of it because like you said you're from the old guard of creators and you don't necessarily need to adapt and you don't need to be a part of that evolution but you've decided to embrace it and to improve it and bring the old with the new which i think is really cool but eddie i had the opportunity to sing for 150 000 instead of two and then he arrived to 1 million during the evening because we were connected the live so i i gave the opportunity uh an old guard the school guy that is using alberta you that you only can go on the theater alaska to see there was a lot of people interested because maybe they never been to the opera they wanted to hear it they wanted to so it is true that we are closing some doors but it's also true that we are opening others so this is very important because at this time if you think it this way i give my message my love my will arrive to million people that the through the the chain of the internet and maybe one day not an internet centralized but even decentralized so i want to switch gears a little bit and talk about the piece about about the banksy about spike and i want to first start by asking how you came into possession of it what was the story behind that what motivated you to want to buy it i always i think that my love for heart knowing that we were going to to be in this technological world was to collect to start collecting some pieces that were giving me some emotion but i want to know also who produced that piece of art what he wanted to say what he wanted to communicate to the world for me uh banksy maybe the the first the greatest street artists that uh uh start uh launching messages very strong messages to the community you know doing this uh these funny rats with the or or the guy that throwing flowers instead of throwing a bomb so this attracts me you understand the the way that how people see the the the reality and try to connect and give messages so i really liked him at the beginning i didn't know if it would have been famous or not so this was not an investment done for uh that's why i want to come back to balwa is not we are not balor is not here to uh speculate right it's not we don't want to follow a trend a curve the it's not we're not talking about the uh stock market here yeah we're not investing on a piece of art because we wanted to sell it again we want to keep the value of course we want to invest in something that we know that one day my value my feelings and my emotional and my money are are there but i know that this is something that is not you cannot pay those feelings those emotions are there are no value they are incredibly valuable i think it's really important to stress that because even when i was first approached for the opportunity to work together i was cynical because i felt like it's a capitalist idea of just pouncing on a trend you know just trying to take advantage of a trend and i don't like that feeling as an artist i don't wanna i don't wanna diminish the value of the art which is exactly why when it was communicated to me what you just said how how to elevate it how to be doing something sustainable and something with substance it was really exciting because it's the opposite it addressed all all my concerns and i think that's that's a really beautiful endeavor but i'm i'm curious how that how the spike piece and how the first drop how the drops in general relate to that mission for you balor now in the future drop so you will see how wallward is connecting the world the real world into the digitalized world and how big hard this drops in terms of uh history in terms of value of feelings what we are talking today so it's not only a picture that i do with my phone and i put it on a on a platform to sell this nft okay to became to put it into the big big uh big enchilopedia that is the that is the blockchain and sell it here we are keeping the value of what is the greatest masterpiece ever like this stone we're talking we want to ensure with valuer so i want to keep again repeating value is a big insurance policy to keep those feelings and those emotion with the drop so that's why the drop is taking care of everything it's like something so special when it's coming out and i don't know if you know because the drop also is very sensible the first drop is something that we thought about because um i didn't i don't have a foundation but we're thinking with valor to have a vittorio grigolo foundation in the future to help also musician hearts in other fields and all the people that really are in need like banks he did with the stone at the beginning with this treasure hunt we are coming out with a drop but we didn't want to corrupt the message of the beginning of the treasure hunt so actually ballard is giving the 50 50 of whatever is making on the on this drop and you know how much work it is behind 50 all the income towards the benefit so so to to do actions that will do good so we'll give away or 50 of it so nice we also do good to give people the chance to invest in something different or to enter this new era and keep the value but also to do something good to others yeah and i'm just going to say because i know we got to close out i want to say thank you for for for taking the initiative and doing this because it's a super cool concept and being being an entertainer being a collector like you you get what it feels like to have or to not have ownership over your work and to not be able to share it or make it accessible and i think what this era of technology is is affording us is the ability to give artists more control and to give value back to their art and i think that's really something special so thank you thank you eddie thank you everybody i i hope that we're going to have a future podcast together so we can talk uh why yeah after some drops uh to keep what you said right now i mean what is the most beautiful things when you have a peace it's just not uh only have it for you but uh is to share why we have peace in a museum while we have graded piece of art because we want people to go there and be able to see it because sharing is caring so if we keep it for ourselves no good beautiful man thank you thank you for joining us today and i hope to talk to you again soon thank you ciao ciao all right so that concludes the first episode of the valuart podcast like i've said several times on the episode i'm super excited and i hope that you are excited as well because we're going to get into a lot of cool topics we're going to meet a lot of cool people and we're going to talk about a lot of very interesting pieces of art and uh and culture and technology so also we're building a little bit of a community outside the podcast so you can contribute ideas for topics for guests feedback criticism love anything we want to hear it we want to hear from you so yeah i'm going gonna end it there and i look forward to seeing you all in the next one so ciao