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Intro: You're now listening to the Boogle podcast. Don't be afraid. This is not financial advice. Whoever said graveyards aren't fun? Whoever said graveyards aren't fun?
Jords: Welcome everyone to Episode 15 of the Boogle podcast. Today we are very grateful to be joined by one of my good friends and one of the most interesting creators and also a really nice guy, Sleepr. He's coming fresh off an all-time high auction of his piece, Glory be to the highest, which finished at 85 sold, which is a pretty significant all-time high for him personally. And we've kind of started to see a lot of momentum and recently approved for utlist, I believe, this morning. So how are you? Are you in a good mood?
Sleepr: Thank you. It's been a crazy wild day. They just happen in a blue moon or it's been a really long time in the space. And it's rare when everything clicks. And today was one of those really cool days where it was an amazing auction and then utlist was a really nice icing on the top. So feeling very loved and appreciated and feeling good.
Jords: I think there's few other industries in the world like crypto when it comes to the highs and lows. I know the whole journey of the auctions, I think the first auction was maybe ten sold, and then the grind from two or three and kind of trying to get through the lows and keep pushing and figuring out if you needed to create something different. It can be so hard. And I know just personally, obviously Celon and I have done it a million times, or what feels like a million times for auctions when you really don't know what to expect and you can have a big bid early that raises your expectations and then it finishes at that same level. And then other times you can have a really small bid and then it just kind of goes crazy at the end. So the auction format, what did it feel like last night? You had 85 sol all-time high, but coming into the last 20 minutes or so, it was at about 25. There was a lot of hype. You had a really good addition sale, and then everything was kind of going well. And then the last 15 minutes you're sitting at a 25 sold bid and it could have been looking pretty underwhelming. What goes through your head? What's the roller coaster look like?
Sleepr: It's such a good point. It's such a behind the scenes process as well. It's so emotionally taxing for you as an artist to try. It's the only point of objective validation of the work. Here's the moment, this is what it's worth. So it's a really difficult thing. It's great that auctions in that they feel like a real test of the waters, so they feel objective and clear and there's no kind of fudging it either. The market either does love it or not. But I remember chatting with you this morning at 25, and it was after having done a bunch of these now. It was kind of whatever happens now, it doesn't matter. And part of that is just a kind of belief process that you train yourself into to kind of have tough skin. But at the same time, there's a tipping point where that does become true as well. So if it had have gone for ten sol or it had gone for whatever, some lower number than expected, and it can't matter. I often think of Sleepr like a train, and trains are pretty big heavyweight tanks, and it should be able to take a bunch of dents in the middle. So even if anything kind of poor performance had happened, the train would have continued rolling forward. And that's just kind of taken a while to get to that spot where an awareness that the market can be up and down and you'll just keep grinding through.
Celon: That's a really good way to look at it. I think a lot of people do struggle with that and tie a lot of emotion to the performance of each auction. When in reality, like you say, there's going to be times where the market isn't looking great, there's certain other factors that play into it completely out of your control, but kind of realizing that there will be them times in between some of the good times is quite a mature way to look at it and to approach all of this. Some of your starting auctions, I know George and Sheikh and people like that were huge advocates very early on. Do you feel in the last month, two months or so, people have really started paying attention? Have you felt there's been a change? Because from the outside, I feel a lot has been taking place very recently where your work is getting much higher praise by a wider audience than before. It was only the real art collectors and heads that were looking at it, and the growth has been visible recently? Do you feel that's the same?
Sleepr: It's really true. It really feels that way. Objectivity is really hard when you're in the middle of it. So hearing it from you, I even believe it more now because it really must seem like that. I think there's a number of strange. Objectivity is really the key. And that's the strange thing about a crypto space where there really is no objectivity. There's just endless perception. And then it's like group perception. For me, I'm always kind of strangely doubtful that it's real. It's always like, I'm so glad that new individual has appreciated the work. That's amazing. But they've just liked it because of X, Y and Z reason. It’s kind of an undercutting, just because there's no way. There's very hard to detect lines in the sand. And part of that's an emotional, doubtful artist kind of feeling endlessly doubtful of perception. But it's also not to celebrate too early kind of feeling as well. But I definitely feel like something has shifted recently for Sleepr, and it's a really cool feeling, but it's really tough also to pat yourself on the back and say, “It's just that we're doing great work and things are moving in the right direction.”
Jords: I'm curious. Let's wind it back. I obviously know a little bit more about your story, but the cool thing is we've been in contacts and we talk a lot, but I still don't know. There's a lot of different gaps that I have no idea. And I'm curious when you started creating. Because obviously the pieces you create now lean a lot towards really interesting technology, and it's not something that you just scribble down and then slowly move forward. But I'm curious were you a kid in school that liked to scribble on art books, or were you more in the computer facing trying to create games kind of thing or what came first, the psychedelics or the art?
Sleepr: Well, the psychedelics came first, and I never drew during school. I never even really interested in that and never really interested in computers either. I played a lot of sport, did all kind of inter-religion, the social, anthropological aspects of schooling, math’s and kind of just a normal kid growing up. Lots of know living in Australia, there was a sporting culture. So that was kind of the more normal thing to do. Parents went to church every week. We all went to church. So it was kind of this spiritual aspect to our lives. And that was all up until about 15 or 16. And then as a curious, kind of started moving into a more rebellious thing. I think whatever your family is good at, then you rebel against that. So we were really normal, and I rebelled against that normality or just maybe that, I wonder if there's more.
Jords: Where did you find your first psychedelics?
Sleepr: Actually, I'll call it out. Like, there's this place called “Happy High Herbs” in West End and they're a legal store. And I was like, I've tried your stuff that's legal here, but have you got any really cool stuff that's behind the counter? And she says, “Try this.”
Celon: And what age are you at this point?
Sleepr: I'm 15. Hanging out with a couple of older kids and hanging in their cars. We're going for drives and all this type of stuff. But anyways, ended up with this stuff that was DMT and I really didn't know anything.
Celon: Wow, so they gave DMT to a 15 year old?
Sleepr: Yeah.
Celon: That's wild. Your mind is very much primed to be bent into a different shape at that age as well.
Sleepr: That's it. And the thing was, I took it and then my brain actually refused to acknowledge it happened. It was such a dramatic experience that my brain refused to acknowledge what happened. And then I tried it multiple times, and every time it would tell me that I was making it up. I would have the experience for ten minutes, see these insane worlds open up in front of me. And then 20 minutes later it would say, you just made that up. That didn't happen. And then I put it all down. I had maybe four or five experiences around then, and then just stopped it for a couple of years and it almost took me a few years to integrate. Actually, something really weird happened there. And then I was moving out of home and moving into university and begun putting some of the puzzle pieces back together, thinking, wow, something really strikingly unique happened and that spawned a really deep fascination with what happened. And still to this day, my art is actually almost a therapeutic healing and explorer process of trying to say something strange happened, trying to acknowledge the reality of something that doesn't fit into the normal boxes of our day to day world.
Jords: So when did you start trying to create? So you said that the psychedelics came before the art. You're 15, you've had these experiences, you've spent a while trying to process what's happened. Did you try and get your mind away from it? Or was it more of a case of you just were fascinated and you needed to understand more?
Sleepr: So a couple of years passed, and then I wanted to try too. I would try and talk about it and it wouldn't be very helpful at all. So you're stuck with this thing inside you that try to tell other people and it doesn't really come across. I realized quickly that actually I want to try and draw these things and would try on paper, would try with paint, would try with oil, would try with acrylics, try with everything physically. And realized I had no technical skill to be able to do any of it and would just make a mess. There'd probably be like some hints of something, but it's really nothing at all. And then moved into the digital around 18, 19, and 20. And then from 20 till for maybe like five or six years I was hanging out with my best friend and I'd go to his house every single night and we'd make work all night and we'd talk art all night and we'd go as deep as we could into trying to understand art. And that was one of the most formative periods of my life. It was definitely my most favorite memories. And it was a really beautiful time to connect with another really talented creative who was obsessed with very complex, difficult technical achievements within the creative industries. And for that five years, I made probably about 1000 works. And they're just sitting in a folder now. You go back through them and there's a lot of shit. That's a normal process for an artist, is to go make a lot of work and then to need a lot of time to then realize and kind of get your bearings as to what is quality and what's not. But make a lot of work first before you're able to help pick the women's out really.
Jords: So you went from 15, 16, very little interest in art to a handful of years later, you're at a friend's place every night, or every night for making thousands of works and really digging deeper on the art scene. When did you start to feel you were getting closer to capturing these things? Was there a technological advantage, as you started to play around with the digital side, did newer software or new upgrades in whatever software you were using or whatever crafts you were trying to put together? Did the advancement in technology advance the pieces get you closer to capturing it? Or was it more your own skill set started to increase? I think he's just dropped out.
Celon: Yeah, we lost him.
Jords: It's a good question, though, I thought.
Celon: Very good. I'm keen to know what he actually used back then to start making stuff.
Jords: He's an interesting guy.
Celon: It's wild. The story starting at 15 is blowing my mind even more.
Jords: I think he's come back in now. Did you hear my last question or did I drop out? It was the greatest song ever written, but I'll see if I can repackage it. It was curious you went from 15 with very little interest in art. You've had this psychedelic experience. A handful of years later, you're all of a sudden incredibly passionate and seemingly your entire life is gravitating around this pool of art, and you're with your friend, you're creating thousands of pieces, you're doing all this work. What kind of tools were you using then? And do you feel that advancement in technology or upgrades in the software you were using, did that help you get closer to the goal that is capturing these visions? And do you think that played a role? Or was it more about you created 1000 pieces of work and you were honing in your skill set? And then as your skill set kind of got better and improved, you were able to get closer to capturing these things?
Sleepr: There's layers to this. The tools have definitely developed and increased in technical ability, which has been helpful, but it's definitely up a certain point helpfulness. I've released a bunch of works that were done ten years ago. And they still are as vibrant, as fresh as a lot of other work that may have been done in much newer tool sets. So strangely, the tools haven't really been maybe the key, but certainly the ironing out and getting your eye in on what is an exotic aesthetic. That's why I called it exotic, the collection, because it's not from here. It's one of Ceylon's pieces that he picked up. This idea that this thing that I'm doing is not really from here. So we can all learn how to draw a tiger. And we can all maybe model it in three day and put real fur on it and put a depth of field camera and make it look realistic and all those things. But we're all just going to keep circling around real world things. What I was working on was trying to break through some other angle in the game. So, for me, art is like chess. I really think of it a lot like chess. Chess is a beautiful game because there are billions and billions to the power of billions potential games you can have. And it's really hard to understand that, “Oh wow, so many combinations.” And yet it's such a restricted game board. I think that's the most beautiful. That's why I only want to work in single frame images. Even though I can do animation, I can do 3D and VR and all that. I'd rather just work on one frame because it's kind of a controlled game board. And how do you innovate within that restriction.
Jords: There's something quite beautiful about that comparison. I know nothing about art. I know nothing about art, and I probably can be said that I don't know much about chess. But on a scale of things, you take an eight by eight board and people really don't understand what the possibilities are because we don't think in a way that can quantify exponential numbers. And it's really interesting that you said that it's the same canvas using the same colors. Maybe you're using something different, but it's still a super flat or a flat canvas, one print. And the reason it stood the test of time, and maybe chess too, is the fact that there will never be a time where all art has been created. There's always nuances and new things to go. And I'm curious when you're looking for, because now you've got a vault of works that I'm sure people will see someday. And there's a lot of amazing things that you can pick through that. And obviously there's no doubt some rougher ones around the edges. But your newer pieces, like the exotic series, and I think pretty much most of the last two series have been new works that you've created. You've got a full time job. You've got a lot of all the stresses that a normal life has, but you still manage to find the time to do things like these spaces and put in the work to get these pieces out. Where do you kind of draw from to get these new ideas? Are you still practicing? Are you still actively doing DMT to try and capture them? Or are there specific times that you've done it, where you just go that's one that I really, really need to get on a page and be able to capture it.
Sleepr: Look, I think these are all layered complex things. I've had probably 150 DMT experiences in my life, so I've got a rich bank of things that I've experienced. But when I sit down and make a work, there is a theatrical element to being an artist. Because another angle here is I did this PhD research on DMT, that's a purely academic documentation of complex hallucinations. But there's no theatricalness as an artist. Sleepr is the synthesis between those two things. It does have a theatricalness in there. The glory be to the highest that embodies so many DMT qualities. But did I see exactly that? I don't even know. I don't think so. And this is the most beautiful thing about creative industries and art is that through fiction you can get closer to nonfiction. That's a really key line about Sleepr, because cadence is one on stage. You are the star. There's a beautiful theater stage, and there's shredded and torn and character in the middle wasn't quite there, but distorted morphological stretching of that character. Those qualities are in DMT, but the scene itself isn't. But what I've got to do as an artist is kind of present to you. A moment that works on so many levels so quickly. So the first moment has to be like, “Wow, I'm hooked. I want to look more.” We look at things all day. The brain is so incredibly fast at being interested or not interested or detecting novelty or not novelty. So it immediately has to be interesting. And then when you look further, it has to feel stable and it has to feel grand. It has to feel all these other qualities. So I'm working on all those layers just to get you in to then maybe show you a certain quality about how your brain keeps identifying eyes and a face, but there's actually nothing there in the character off to the right. So you keep in your peripheral, keeps checking and detecting all these elements, but it's not actually there when you go look back. That's me as an artist using trickery in your peripheral vision to make you have a feeling like you're being watched in the middle. If you're focusing on the middle, like a magician who's moving his left hand and flaying with his right, it's kind of like a bunch of techniques. That's what the whole thing is. It's just techniques. It's a funny, complex balance between documentation of real experiences that I'm having and an embodied essence rather than just the surface being accurate. Does that make sense?
Celon: You do really feel that. Anyone who's done psychedelics before and has experimented, I think when you look at some of these pieces, there is a familiarity with everything that you're seeing. And like you say, there's certain things that jump out to you, but when you look deeper, it's not actually what you're thinking you're seeing is that kind of trickery and how your eyes really affect you in the vision and perception of it all, which it's easy to get lost in some of this work, and especially if you've got an experience with psychedelics. When it comes to DMT, mushrooms, psilocybin, LSD, all of these. When you consume them, there is different qualities and subtleness’s to each one that you get a different feeling from. I'm curious to know, have you experimented with LSD, psilocybin, and do they give you different trips or different things to bring back? And do they change the artwork if they're something that you've experimented with before?
Sleepr: Australia is a really psychedelic hub underneath the surface.
Jords: Which I never even know. I'm really the nerdy kid in school.
Sleepr: There's lots of cactus in Australia, so lots of mescaline, lots of psilocybin, there's mushrooms growing in fields of cows. So definitely experimented and been a fan of all of them and they all have unique qualities. I'm not a fan of LSD. I don't think that more chemical nature is really interesting anymore. Psilocybin is 5-MeO-DMT, so its chemical constituent is five oxy, whatever it is attached to the DMT molecule. So it is DMT just in an edible format, but it still gives a different quality. Mushrooms are much more cognitive, but at really high doses. You can have very visionary experiences that have the same circus and morphology, stripes and tentacles, other worlds emerging. So we have Aussie Wasca in Australia where we use the Acacia tree with Peganum Harmala seeds. Certainly a lot of people think drugs are a really clear category of things. It's like crypto. They're real worlds into worlds, each one of them. And if you want to have an academic investigation of them, then you need to take the time to understand the nuances of each one of them and talk about them in their own way.
Jords: I'm curious. So you created works for almost a decade before you discovered NFT’s. And obviously the path like crypto can age you ten years in what feels like a few months. But in that decade, did you feel there was a time somewhere in the future where people would appreciate your work externally or you would be able to sell it? Or did it always feel this pursuit of art and this pursuit of trying to capture these visions, and it was more of the self-satisfaction of being able to create? And as you said earlier, it's somewhat therapeutic. Did you ever feel there would be a monetary goal at the end of it, or was that always a second thought?
Sleepr: Look, I think it was always a second thought. That wasn't the reason why it was being done. There were plenty of ways to make money. It was a long distant goal that maybe could turn into something, but it was so unclear how. And I was put in a gallery like digital prints, and they just nothing sold in the galleries because it was digital work. So it was reinforced multiple times that it would always be a worthless exercise. And so I had to learn really quickly that this would always be a worthless exercise. And in doing that, it then freed me up, because it enabled me to say, I'll do it exactly how I want, and I want it like this. And that bullishness on my own aesthetic is the key for all artists in their own pursuit of their own taste and their own individualism and the pursuit of their own aesthetic.
Jords: That's so beautiful. And there's that cheesy quote about dance like nobody's watching and laugh like nobody's hearing. And I think as much as that is thrown on the walls too much, it's a beautiful concept. And we've all had experiences where we've done something where you really didn't care about the observer effect and you weren't doing anything for someone else. I personally get that feeling when I'm surfing by myself and there's no crowds not around, there's no need to do anything outside of exactly what you want to do in that moment. I'm curious now to know more about. So you created work firstly for yourself for so long. What does it feel now to be creating works for more specifically for the use case of NFT’s? Obviously, you've got a community of people around your work now who are appreciating and watching what you're doing, what does that feel like? And is there a different pressure that comes with that? Do you feel it affects your creative process, having things like deadlines, or are you more comfortable with not really having deadlines, and if you can't get the work, you'd rather just hold off the auction for another week or wherever it might need to be?
Sleepr: These things move and change. So I feel more comfortable now than months ago. When it was starting, it felt like the whole world was watching, and then quickly realized that no one was watching. This is still just the same old game, and so it feels just like that now. Anyway, even though there may be some people watching, it's very difficult to get that objectively, what's really going on. So I'm just making work as much as I like right now. But I'm really enjoying the collections aspect of it and the curation, and I'm really enjoying the storytelling of the Sleepr kind of thing. I'm really enjoying that there's Sleepr. Sleepr is a puzzle piece in this whole thing, and although there are a bunch of works lying around now, but there's actually a character that's there and that's an interesting piece in all this as well. That's an emergent phenomena that I'm sure each artist goes through. And I also like a gun to my head. I just sleep very little.
Jords: We're on different time zones, and I always get. Sleepr is a very inaccurate name for your pseudonym. You seem to be awake when I go to sleep and awake when I wake up, and that probably shouldn't be the case. But I know very few people who have as much output as you, so I'm not surprised to hear you're someone who likes deadline and always be pushing forward. Because I remember when you connected with me and we started thinking about what this could look like and everything like that. There was times where nothing was what needed to be done. You just needed to relax, just trust the process thing. And you were creating videos and 3D models and these different stories. Do you think this experience has helped you direct some of that energy? Did you always have that? How some people always seem to have something going on, they're working on this side project or they're renovating the house or they're doing? Were you one of those people that always kind of had something going on and this has now been your more direct outlet?
Sleepr: Two things. I put down the artwork a couple of years ago and just stopped doing it. I finally gave up. Because it was years and years of making stuff and then on a real hopeful idea, tried out the NFT thing and it has reignited and enabled me to pick up again. But I was really rusty and had to get back in the groove and the swing of it. And then when I put it down, I ended up done so many other projects between then and now, I was building an entire laser interactive real time music. I was going to do a stage show that would travel around working on this thing for almost two years. And now just stop that because I was always working on something. But I think one of the key, when you were saying all that, there's a key detail here that I just want to try and communicate. And the feeling of that gun to the head for me is like the psychedelics really taught me about death, and it really made me confront my own mortality that tomorrow could be the final day. Sounds cliche, but when you repeatedly engage with an ego death and a really severe ending of who you once were, you need to clean up your act and get ready for the final act every day. So for me, I'm racing against time. I'm really trying to very quickly do a lot of things because I know my time is running out so quick. That's my overwhelming feeling every day.
Jords: That’s stressful.
Sleepr: It’s very stressful. But what it does is it makes me run faster. And that's something I've got to probably work on, there'll be a releasing process and untangling of that over time. But, for now, there's this feeling like I've got to put out this work very quickly and who knows when the end will come. I think that's where the gun to the head idea comes from.
Jords: I'm curious, and I've obviously seen this vault of works that you had from a decade worth of vaults. There's hundreds or I don't even know how many pieces there are, but there's a lot of work that was created, and some of it definitely deserves to see the light of day because it's beautiful. But one thing that struck me, I remember you sent me a Google Drive link with all this work. One thing that really surprised me, and it's important to remember and note at this point that there wasn't really much going on with this work. It was sitting in a vault. You had somewhat given up on trying to get the world to see this work. But every single piece had a specific story about it. They weren't named. They were titled and then they had a story about the work. How important is the text? And that's continued on, obviously, with the NFTS. Every single one has this little, whether it be a little riddle or hint towards kind of what the inspiration was behind the piece. And that's really different because we don't really see that very often. Usually there's a title and an artist have to do a lot with a few words, but you do that and then you put that extra time in even when no one else was watching to really describe it. Is that part of the documenting process on your end, or is that just something that you felt was really needed to give more context to the piece?
Sleepr: I think giving more context to the piece. The visuals and text are two different mediums, and you can tell more by adding another layer of text. You can expand the story world another layer through some text, and you could call a pink dot on a screen, like Dr. Seuss's pajama pants. And you can have fun with it as well. But when it really sticks is when it feels you really deeply understand some abstracted world to another layer. So I'm always interested in trying to bring out a lot more of the qualities that I see that I'm not sure if others are seeing or can see as well. The works I make, I'm fascinated with. I think they're the coolest things ever. And I have to, if I don't, my God, who else would? So it has to work for me first and foremost, and then hopefully it's happening for the next person in line. But I'm then trying to articulate the thing I'm seeing as well.
Celon: I love the descriptions. There's so many that I've read. And when you pair it with the work, like I said before, if you've had a psychedelic experience and you understand it and you've studied that what it is and what it means to breakthrough and all these different things, there's so many of the descriptions that have an instant connection for you. The recent piece you did, you found the Bosch room. The Bosch room is something that you hear about, and you hear a lot of people in trip reports and stuff like that. They talk about these rooms or these certain places that are just commonly coming up. It's very powerful to have both of them together. It definitely provides a lot of understanding for anyone with that kind of experience or knowledge in the area.
Sleepr: And that's what beautiful poetry is. I love poetry. I love linguistics. I love the root meaning, etymology, and the root meanings of things. Where has it come from? I'm obsessed with intention. There's a really beautiful book by Douglas Hofstadter called “Surfaces and Essences”. It's kind of like those qualities I'm really interested in the essence of something and then the surface of it as well. The essence is intangible. You'll always just point to it through symbology, but you'll point to it through surface things. Very rarely in life is anything actually important on the surface. I think for most of us, essence and intention and what was really under the hood is actually the most important thing.
Jords: I love that. I'd like to just sit on that for a second. But one thing that is interesting is you've expressed that a goal of yours, and no doubt the goalposts continue to move as the years progress and even weeks. But one of your goals is to be displayed in a museum at some stage. And I'm curious as to what your thoughts are. Maybe we can make the second part of this question a separate question. But what does that museum look like in your eyes? Is that something like a world prestigious art museum and art gallery right now integrating to digital work and NFTS? Or is that a future NFT specific museum that helps integrate the NFTs and digital art into one space, and that's a new age gallery? Or is that something completely separate and it's a VR based museum that is an offset of something like MoMA. I'm curious what that looks like. Or is that separate to that goal, it's to get into something physical, a reputable name, and that's the goal and anything else could be a bonus, or you'll adjust with the times.
Sleepr: I'm coming at it from a more just straight laced traditional idea. Where's the pinnacle? It's such an endless ballgame. There's no end. When have you made it? Or what's the end goal? It feels like an infinite task, which is daunting. So it's nice to have. That would be the end point I'm running to. And in the art world, it feels like a museum is the most stable diamond hand out there. Like, they'll take it and they'll just sit on it. In 100 years, they'll still showcase your artifact that you developed. For me, I started thinking that it was this physical space, a world class museum that would be the pinnacle goal of all time to make as a lifelong goal.
Jords: You say there that it will be displayed long after you're gone in something like a museum. How important is a legacy to you when it comes to your art and your footprint on the world in this specific space? Is that something that is part of that same gunsy head you've expressed before, that every day could be your last? Is very much an attitude that's present in your mind? Is that a part of that? Is it about leaving things behind that people can ponder and look back on what you've created for the centuries to come? Is that part of the goal?
Sleepr: I think there's part of that. The more romantic and probably what I actually spend my time thinking about is that there's a real importance to the work that I'm doing. That's why I did a PhD on this stuff. That's why I've spent so long documenting it, is I can get wrapped up in. I want to leave a legacy for Sleepr and trying to cheat death. That's the old idea of artists is that they're so scared of or they're trying to cheat death by ensuring there's a memory of them somewhere in the future. But I'm actually really more genuinely obsessed with human evolution and that the next phase of our growth will be inclusive of these spirit worlds, and that we've been denied that for a long period in our life. And so these artifacts are really important not only just culturally as an outcome of a certain era, but that they're important to study to learn more about who we are and the world and the universe and the multidimensional kind of space we live in. I began writing this book called “Maps of Hyperspace”, and these artworks are the beginnings of mapping out the video game worlds of these spaces. And so the museum idea, is actually probably more rooted in. We've got to preserve these maps, like a library of Alexandria or something. It's like we've got to store this stuff. It's so important for everyone. And it's a personal belief, of course, but that's where the root comes from.
Jords: Wow, that's interesting. Being someone who hasn't really gone down the psychedelics route, it's so fascinating. And the thoughts and expressions you are saying, they sound so wild to someone kind of outside looking in, but they're very much shared with a lot of people who are big participants in that space. You hear very similar terminology from someone like Rogan, who's a big advocate for psychedelics. And it's really interesting when two people or many people who aren't really connected by any other biases apart from one core thing, using the same terminology and reporting the same things, it's pretty fascinating. One thing on that same note, I suppose, obviously your name isn't Sleepr. It's a pseudonym. And this pursuit of sharing this message and what you believe is fundamental to the future of human growth. Do you think that operating under a pseudonym potentially hinders your ability to sing that message? Or do you think that you can do that both in your real life and then obviously in this side? Or do you think that it's more powerful coming from behind a pseudonym where you can potentially build a whole kind of map around it and be more of the Banksy in soul NFTS has had a bad rap recently, but a pseudonym can be sometimes more powerful. Have you thought about that? Or is that something that is just part of the process?
Sleepr: I've definitely thought about this. And the pseudonym has helped a lot. It's very helpful. It enables me to free up the fear and doubt of any perhaps repercussions that are just more normal later things. But what the idea of a stage name has is that you're actually able to perform and become and be the individual that embodies those messages to a much greater extent than you could have on your own. I find that a really interesting thing. I think identity in Web 3 is a really beautiful and fascinating concept. But what's interesting is Sleepr, for me, I often talk about Sleepr externally to me, because Sleepr is actually a character that does the coolest thing. He would be the coolest artist doing the coolest explorative work. I could ever imagine, I would find. And if that's how I'm seeing Sleepr, then that's the type of decision making Sleepr should be making.
Jords: You really getting into the stage name?
Sleepr: Yes.
Celon: Sleepr is the guy you send into the DMT experience, and then he comes back and tells you what happened.
Sleepr: He's the hero we need.
Jords: I love it. There's so much we can talk about. But as we slowly get to the end, there's a lot of artists that are listening in. There's a lot of artists that will no doubt hear this in the future. And one of the beautiful things about podcasts is it's always here. If in five years you are displayed in every museum and the whole world has gone digital, people can always go back to this as a time capsule. So I'm curious, kind of reflecting on your own experience, what would you recommend to a new artist who is going through perhaps a similar journey? As up until your point, they've created works because they love doing it. They have really struggled to really make a career out of it or make a name for themselves or try and get a foot in the door when it comes to this big nasty gate, all of the traditional art world, they found out about NFTS, they're trying to find their feet. What do you think is a good place to start? And what advice would you give to someone trying to find and navigate this space as a means to finally have their art appreciated?
Sleepr: I really don't feel like an authority. I feel like I'm in that position as well. But I know that I am really privileged to be able to perhaps help someone else navigate through the gates. I think a lot of this is about telling your story. And a lot of the things I make, the work that you really want to make, that really genuinely interests you, don't make it for anyone else, that you should be the ultimate authority on the work. And it all has to filter through the individual. So you are the critic. You are the measurement of the quality. You are the measurement of the taste. Everything goes through you. And if you love it, then I will too. I will probably love it too. That's just such a simple thing. And there's so many cool artists that I see in Seoul making awesome work. I love that. I could never do that. I wouldn't have made those decisions. I wouldn't have even recommended doing those decisions because all I can see is through my own lens. So the first thing is, “Really be a boss. Just do exactly what you want all the time.” That's the first thing. And then the second is, if you're getting paid $40, $100 a work, that's really cool. That's a really cool thing. And it's a really strange. It's really tough to get paid that amount of work to make art outside of here. It's really tough because it's not going to pay the bills. But any income is like, we're working towards stabilizing working artists. Having working artists in our space is working artists getting paid, people collecting work, that's a really healthy ecosystem. So we want that to be embraced and not to feel like a failure if it isn't at the next level or the next number that you were chasing.
Jords: That's a burden that a lot of people bear. With the wider crypto scene, it's so easy to immediately start comparing yourselves to others, and the goalposts just continue to move. And as someone who has done much better than I thought I would ever do, you immediately start comparing yourself to the next rank up and the next rank up. And it really is that journey to inner satisfaction. And there is no one event, one number, or one thing that ticks the box and you're satisfied. It's important to try and start that attitude from day one with. If I told you eight months ago that one day you would sell a piece for $500 to someone on the Internet and they'd be soaked with it, then that's an incredible achievement for many artists. And to have that stripped away immediately and you sell something beyond your wildest dreams, and you immediately start going, “Well, John Lee piece just sold for this, so I'm underperforming.” It's such an easy mindset to get trapped into. But I'm curious, as part of us starting to wrap it up, you said that there's a lot of other fantastic artists in the space, and it's absolutely too many of them are listening here. I'm curious if there's a favorite piece that you've created of your own work. And is there a piece on Seoul from another artist that is a dream piece that you would love or is one of your favorite things that you've seen created?
Sleepr: My piece is the cafe on Mount Kailash and compound owns that piece. But it's just one of those funny pieces where everything. I've looked at that piece for ten years, and I still am enamored and surprised and delighted and unable to conquer the piece. That's such a cool quality. And it's being unable to wrap my mind around it enough to get over it. It's just subtle, it's gentle. It's not too much.
Celon: I love that one. It's a very good one. It gives me a reminder of a warm jazz bar looking out across the skyline. That's a really good one.
Sleepr: That's it. And I actually reached out to you. When I put it out, I was like, this is the three musicians by Picasso. It's that vein. The jazz bar is a really good analogy. It's really hard on Seoul. I don't really want to choose one piece of a grail on Seoul.
Celon: Is there may be some artists that you'd want to shout out then?
Sleepr: For sure. I recently working with the Hans boys, those two are super talented and young, very mature visual thinkers already, and they love brutalism, which I secretly adore as well. I think you wrote George once, the masculine urge to just maybe have everything as brutalism in your life. But I just want to live in a concrete block room, like a concrete bed. And I'd be so thrilled. I love Wayne Newton's stuff. Having a few chats with him in a few spaces we set up. They were really beautiful, delicate, abstract pieces, very similar to a lot of work I was making a long time ago. But the way he plays with color is beautiful. His compositions are delicate and gentle. I love Dust Bunny. His muted color palettes are really sweet, and I don't think he gets enough attention at the moment. Dato's art as well. He's got a really sweet abstract style. I love Tony's. Tony's a real acid driven trip, but very cool work. I love a lot of work that I see on here, and I feel really privileged to be in a space that's got good work. It elevates me and makes me feel like, “Oh wow, this is a real class of 2022 thing that we'll look back on.”
Celon: I get that from all the spaces that I've done and the amount of times speaking to artists, and it really does think, we've got some of the best creative thinkers that could possibly have found their way here, and they're choosing to put work out and help grow the space and kind of raise the bar of what people can understand as what NFTS are and show that it's so much more. So truly thankful for people like yourself and everyone else in the space that's choosing Solana as home and just putting out work that's fucking blown people away.
Jords: For sure. This is a weird question because we usually finish on something more traditional but the things that you've expressed and the thoughts that you've put forward, I'm so curious, Sleepr, what's the meaning of life?
Sleepr: Jords, look, the meaning is “Go look at non dualism”. That's probably the key that you and I are the same person and we're just finding that out over and over and over in this strange fractal maze. But when I look in someone's eyes, even if it's at a 711 across the road or in a taxi, I look in the guy's e and I see it like it's like a mirror. And there's something like a faint flicker of “Wow, I can see you in there and who is that in there?” That's me. And the person listening to this in ten years’ time, you're that person too. We're all connected. I think that's the key in a very real and meaningful way. That's the end.
Jords: That's beautiful. I think that's what better place to put a pin in it. And maybe that's a good terminology put a pin in it. Because we'll probably have to resume this conversation sometime in the future. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you everyone for tuning in to Episode 15 of the podcast. It's been a really different and interesting one with two of my favorite people. Celon, Sleepr, thank you so much. It's been really fun.
Sleepr: Thanks so much. Super appreciative, Jords, and honorable of everything you do.
Celon: Thank you very much everyone for listening. Sleepr massive, thank you. And I'm very looking forward to what you put out next and some new pieces that are coming out. I'm sure they're going to be equally as crazy as everything else you've done. Appreciate it, everyone. Peace.
Jords: Peace.