Part 1 of 3
This article is a deep dive on the Seize and Share collection by MintFace revealing the narratives behind the seized and shared memes released over the last six months. Each meme was seized and shared permission-lessly thanks to CC0; the most permissive of all intellectual property copyrights.
Seize and Share collection is the most comprehensive set of memes by a single artist, minted often within hours of the original meme.
This Seize and Share Memes article is part 1 of 3 that document the Seize and Share memes, reveal the artist narrative behind each piece and encourages the reader to go deeper on what could be the most fascinating, tokenised communication medium of the 2020s.
Seize and Share memes featured in this article in order of mint are:
Seize and Share pixels Card [1] 367 editions
Dalleglytch Card [8] 20 editions
Meditation on gn Card [10] 69 editions
10K Seized Card [12] 10 editions
Greengm Card [13] 10 editions
gm日本 Card [14] 20 editions
Birth of gm Card [15] 25 editions
10k Buidling Card [16] 100 editions
Freedom to Live Card [7] 933 editions
Awakening ॐ Card [17] 20 editions
Bicameral Hallucination Card [18] 7 editions
The Seize and Share collection was borne out of the objectives of The Memes by 6529…. and an idea MintFace had to remix, reinterpret and reimagine the memes by documenting moments of historical note during 2022.
You can visit the Seize and Share gallery in the open metaverse thanks to OnCyber.
The Memes by 6529
‘The Memes by 6529’ carry a specific set of messages and meaning visually in contrast to what a text or tweet might, where the message and meaning is intrinsic in the words and the language of delivery.
Visually constructed meaning has the benefits of being more open to interpretation, is thus more malleable and can therefore traverse and find a footing in more groups and cultures we take as pre-eminent. I like to bridge divide between groups by joining many so the Seize and Share collection often draws on the symbolism found in disparate groups.
Why does a visually constructed meaning with the superpower of spreading beyond established walls matter? If, and only if… you desire to change something about the established culture.
You can visit The Memes by 6529 Exhibition via OnCyber.
The Memes Launch Day
June 10th 2022
The Memes by 6529 was established around a set of SZN1 themes plus a freestyle category that collectively operate to further two objectives. According to Punk6529 on June 10th 2022, these objectives are ‘to spread our messages far and wide, in as many places as possible. To run experiments in emergent community behavior.”
6/ Today we are dropping the first three cards
1: 6529 Seizing
2: SeizeJPGs
3: Uncle SeizeI view these as the three genesis cards for The Memes, like Squiggle/Genesis/Construction token are first for ArtBlocks, like Nakamoto is first for Pepe
— 6529 (@punk6529) June 9, 2022
The SZN1 thematic objectives were to promote eight messages through the visual interpretation of each artist selected at the time. These messages are:
Seize The Memes Of Production
WAGMI
Don’t Let The Institutions Steal Your JPEGS
GM
Use A Hardware Wallet
Open Metaverse / OM
Freedom To Transact
Freestyle
The Seize and Share collection often amplified these messages but not always. Its remit was broader and often operated entirely outside the original themes. Let me explain…
The Seize and Share Collection
The Seize and Share collection was created as a reinterpretation layer of meme communication, an amplifier of memes and as a pathway of reply to the original meme. Each Seize and Share meme documents a moments of note in the NFT community or a personal observation by MintFace.
By opening up three communication pathways, there was the potential to spread the memes further by providing commentary on the original meme that opened up a dialogue in the mind of the viewer.
The Seize and Share collection would also test and improving my own creative capabilities by forcing the learning of new creative techniques such as glitch, GIF creation and a whole host of photoshop menu features I never knew existed!
I minted a Seize and Share collection on 11th June 2022 via a Manifold smart contract and thus began the journey to reinterpret, remix and reimagine the memes and their messaging without deviating too far from the original artistic aesthetic.
The following article offers the reader a front row seat into some of the details of each of the meme derivatives in the Seize and Share Collection.
Let’s begin.
Seize and Share pixels
The genesis meme 6529Seizing was atomised into its individual pixels. Each of the 176 pixels were made available for ‘seizing’ by
collectors.
The seed of the idea was inspired by XCOPY who launched his own experiment with Right Click Share through a collection of 1024 pixels with Deca the month before. Each of the pixels gave the holder the right to add an artwork as a billboard on the Omtagon, an events arena open to anyone to use.
More pixels were added to the Seize and Share collection in the form of Cryptophunk 457 aka MintFace. Each of these pixels also got the right to setup a billboard on the Omtagon and use the events center wen they pleased.
The pixels will always be a special part of the Seize and Share collection and treated as such in future projects because of the belief shown by hodlers, in a similar way to XCOPY Right Click Share hodlers. We attest and hodl because we believe in Web3.0.
Dalleglytch
1 of 20 editions
Dalleglytch6529 is a derivative artwork of Aeroglyph6529 by Reuben Wu that peers behind the 6529 logo to reveal its origin is AI. Because 6529 is an anon in Web3.0, it is possibly feasible that 6529 is a form of artificial intelligence not of human form.
If that is hard to believe now, then consider a moment wen the pace of AI development finally closes the human perception gap.
Alpha: It’s Meme SZN is an easter egg 1/1 within Dalleglytch airdropped to Guy Norcal as a thanks for picking up MintFace genesis photograph Mountains on Mountains on Foundation.
Meditation on gn
1 of 69 editions
A Meditation on gn is a derivative artwork of ‘A Meditation on GM’ by Ayla el Moussa. The seized and shared meme is a pathway of reply to the original ‘gm’ meme. Ayla’s wavy world is transformed throughout the day and the clouds part to reveal a moon.
Degens like to ask project founders ‘wen moon’ and A Meditation on gn encourages patience that doesn’t cloud your judgement.
10K Seized
1 of 10 editions
’10kSeized’ is a derivative artwork of ‘OMSeized’ by Rakesh Pulapa. 10k Seized reinterprets the broad OM meme to highlight the 10k Residence microverse launched by MintFace for the benefit of 1,000+ hodlers of the 10K Project NFT.
The message is clear. We ALL now have the capability to buidl a space, gallery or building with the tools provided by OnCyber and contribute to the open metaverse.
Greengm
1 of 10 editions
Greengm is a derivative artwork of BlueGM by Priyanka Patel. It is an amplifier of the original meme designed to traverse across from punks to phunks. How so? At the time, v3 phunks had launched as an affordable entry point into the Cryptophunks ecosystem.
In parallel, 0xTJ0 had found artistic success that resulted in the Twitter timeline turning blue. It felt like a green vs blue meme war was bubbling under the timelines surface, as a proxy for the phunk vs punk battles of 2021… so Greengm imposes an aesthetic march of green over the blue…that eventually gets wiped back to blue…and the cycle continues.
gm日本
1 of 20 editions
gm日本 is a derivative artwork of GMgm by Haru Komoda. I felt sad that the Japanese hiragana syllables might be erased by a successful world domination of gm. I also felt that wen NFTs become huge in Haru Komoda’s home country of Japan, then Web3.0 culture has another mainstream foothold.
gm日本 reinserts the wonderful imagery of Japanese language back into the meme whilst preserving its ‘good morning’ message for a domestic audience.
Birth of gm
1 of 25 editions
Birth of gm is a derivative artwork of “GM to Death” by ALIENQUEEN. We go back in time to the birth of gm… that occured in May 2021, wen holders of Bored Apes began greeting each other in the morning with ‘good boring’ as a riff on ‘good morning’. The greeting eventually was shortened to ‘gm’.
The message of the meme is preserved while the flickering on of colors reflects the broad awakening to a new way forward provided by blockchain technology.
10k Buidling
1 of 100 editions
10k Buidling is a derivative artwork of ‘OMbuidling’ by Tony Sellen acting as a reinterpretation layer of the original meme title. While Sellen is renowned for his minimalist black and white palette, the MintFace derivative charts a more colorful course. Each flickering cell of color represents a new resident moving in to the 10k Residence.
Freedom to Live
1 of 933 editions
Freedom to Live is a derivative artwork of “NakamotoFreedom” by 6529er. The meme acted as reinterpretation layer for the highest order freedom we all deserve and should help others in attaining as a minimum human right.
The hero of the Freedom to Live meme is Mahsa Amini, a 22 year old beaten by the ‘morality police’ for the incorrect wearing of a hijab. The beating resulted in her death and sparked protests throughout Tehran, Iran.
Up until this point I had not seized and shared NakamotoFreedom, but felt compelled almost two months later to release Freedom to Live as a symbol of support to many in the NFT art community from Iran who had already been banned from marketplaces because of their country of domicile.
A side note: Freedom to Live was an open free mint at the time, making it the highest edition in the series, in contrast to the original NakamotoFreedom that minted 300 editions only, making it the rarest.
Freedom to Live remains the most affordable re:meme to join the Seize and Share collection.
Awakening ॐ
1 of 20 editions
Awakening ॐ is a derivative artwork of Awakening OM by Apocalypse. The ॐ Sanskrit symbol is reinserted as a reminder of ‘the essence of the supreme Absolute, consciousness, Atman, Brahman, or the cosmic world.’
Awakening takes on a different meaning entirely. The meme is a cynical reinterpretation where each panel in the tryptych begins to appear like a casino slot machine. Are we really here for the art or are we fooling ourselves that NFTs a simply another form of degenerate gambling?
Bicameral Hallucination
1 of 7 editions
Bicameral Hallucination is a derivative artwork of “OM Breakdown of the bicameral mind” by Spydenator. The origin of consciousness is coined ‘The Bicameral Mind’. Here I reimagine these origins as an AI influenced, bad psychedic trip.
DALLE was called upon to begin with a couple of the distortion elements. If you look carefully, there is left learning Democratic symbolism on the left hand side and right learning Republican symbolism on the right. In the middle, represents the distasteful public discourse often encountered online. The main character hisses snakelike at the viewer. The tolling of the bell is replaced with a NakamotoFreedom symbol giving the work a more hopeful tone that is first seen.
Seize and Share Memes Part II
Part II will continue in about a week, sharing the narrative behind the memes seized and shared by MintFace during 2022. The next article will deep dive on the Seize and Share collection.
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You can visit the Seize and Share collection here.
You can also visit The Memes by 6529 collection here.
Visit the Seize and Share collection in the open metaverse here.