Welcome to State of SEEN the weekly newsletter about all things happening in the SEEN ecosystem.
Product
V2 Nearing Completion
The wait is almost over! After a hectic few months of planning, development, and tweaking, SEEN HAUS is finally ready to unveil our much anticipated V2 update, the next chapter for our journey to merge physical and digital art. A friendly reminder of just some of the new features for V2:
- Complete front end rehaul & improved UI/UX
- Staking $SEEN to earn a share of platform revenues
- Reworked codebase with improved auction mechanics including time extensions
- The redesign has drastically reduced the amount of gas being used to launch auctions, mint NFTs and place bids thus lowering transaction costs by about 40%
And the best news? We can officially announce a release date: 4/20 !
Raffle Announcement
As part of the V2 launch, we will also be livestreaming the raffle winners for both the Origin series and the Astronausance series at 8PM EST.
Collectors that completed the Origin series will be in the running to win one of two different physical pieces by pop artist Art Policia. The 24” x 18” framed, acrylic on canvas pieces are satirical renditions of Pantone color palettes.
The second drawing will be for 2RAGON’s Astronausance series, a themed NFT collection that replaces iconic figures of classic Renaissance era masterpieces with space motifs. The imagery of astronauts, aliens, and exploration strongly resonate with the crypto community. The raffled physical piece The Last Supper is a hand painted, 3D-printed figure measuring 390mm in length.
AMA
Immediately after the raffle, join us on the SEEN HAUS community Discord where the team will host its first public AMA. Anything and everything is fair game, including the V2 upgrade, the staking protocol, the roadmap, upcoming artists, community events, feature requests, JIGGLYBUFF’s lifting regimen, or Blue Kirby’s Cornell degree.
Auction Recap
Another few weeks of successful auctions in the books!
Singaporean artist Allison M. Low’s Zhusu the Whale, limited to 20 editions, sold out within a few minutes. The NFT, depicting Three Arrows Capital CEO & crypto superhero Zhu Su, also comes with a hand signed and numbered print. A claim form for the delivery of the print will be available once V2 launches on 4/20/21.
Pornstar turned international culture icon CB Hoyo completed his debut SEEN HAUS auction. If the Bubble Bursts… sold for a 1.5 ETH. The 16”x13” crayon on acrylic piece pokes fun at the meteoric rise of the NFT space. “The piece talks about the world we’re living in. Nowadays everything is about hype and speculation,” Hoya shared. “Life sometimes feels like a game of hot potato.”
2RAGON completed his 4 piece Astronausance series, totalling sales of 8 ETH, or approximately $17,000. Collectors of all four pieces will also receive an exclusive NFT The Last Supper. As mentioned earlier, winners will be entered in a raffle for the physical, 3D-printed model of The Last Supper on 4/20/21 at 8PM.
Drop Preview
Italian mixed media artist Fabio La Fauci was born surrounded by beauty. Though he has since departed his native homeland, he still draws inspiration from those memories. La Fauci’s style is immediately recognizable: thick swashes of paint over hand drawn bodies provides depth & texture for his portraits, which curiously, do not feature faces.
His subjects, often defined by their posture, have elongated necks that capture the yearning of something that is just quite out of grasp. His face-less portraits leave the interpretation of his art up to the viewer, and La Fauci’s pieces are often centerpoints for conversation.
This piece, titled Anon 2, will be the inaugural auction for our V2 platform.
Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Time: 3PM EST
Buzz Lightyear in Starry Night. Homer & Marge Simpson in American Gothic. Kanye West in The Last Supper.
Tim Gatenby is a renowned pop artist who takes modern day cultural icons and recreates classic Renaissance era oil paintings using those eccentric characters. However, Gatenby often strips his subjects of their bubbly personalities, substituting their formally bright palettes for muted tones, speaking to Gatenby’s darker commentary of consumerism.
This juxtaposition between feel-good nostalgia from his childhood with more sinister themes provides a balance and composition for his work. Gatenby’s first contribution to SEEN HAUS, Portrait of InfNFTy Pepe was extremely well-received by the SEEN community, and his second piece will be up for auction later this week.
Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Time: 3PM EST
Community
Community member and wizard developer Jay Welsh launched Popswap, a decentralized trading protocol for NFTs. Users will be able to make trustless, peer-to-peer trading transactions with anyone, for the simple price of gas. Popswap currently supports ERC721 and ERC1155 tokens. More information, including a demonstration video, can be found on Popswap’s Medium.
Development of the SEEN HAUS CryptoVoxels museum is nearing completion. Stay tuned for details regarding our virtual launch party.
In an effort to improve marketing and communications, SEEN HAUS is proud to welcome @Laserbacher to the team. He will be spearheading a new marketing campaign as well as an reorganization of social media platforms and communication channels.
Industry Deep Dive
This week, Lars explores the digitalization of culture, and specifically, its effect on art. Digitalization provides many benefits for artists including lower barriers to entry, direct to consumer revenue streams, and reduces the importance of being near major global cities and galleries.
Read the full article here:
https://seen-haus.medium.com/state-of-seen-deep-dive-4-10634ce7bd75
Random
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That’s it for this edition of ‘State of SEEN’. You can follow the project on Twitter, Telegram, and here on Medium.
Check out the previous issue using the link below:
https://seen-haus.medium.com/state-of-seen-volume-3-b32303c54293
See you next time!
-the seen.haus team
