D: Let’s talk about your love for generative art. You started collecting physical works by some of the most important pioneers of this era, including Harold Cohen, Vera Molnar, and Herbert W. Franke among others. How does it feel to own works by these pioneers in a physical vs digital space and do you “live” with these works?

G: Right now I completely run out of space, but next year I am planning to move homes and one of the most important things I’m looking forward to is how I'm going to lay out all my physical pieces. Digital art functions perfectly in a digital environment, its native environment. I would like to see the evolution of the metaverse and how galleries and museums will set up in the metaverse beyond our expectation with the evolution of virtual reality.

Vera Molnar, fragment de Grecques à partir de petites carres, 2002

Herbert W. Franke, Bandformen series (1953-1955)

Image: Operator, Missed stillness (Privacy Portraits), 2022. Find out more here.

D: What does the crypto/NFT scene look like in Athens and Greece in general?

G: The reality is that there is a very small crypto space in Greece. It is mainly populated by maximalists of certain coins, like Bitcoin and some other alt coins. There is no fruitful conversation nor interesting events going on, which is pretty sad. I tried to organise an event last year in Athens and I was met by a lot of issues.

The majority of the people are opportunistic and joined during the hype cycle because their friend told them to invest in crypto in order to make 100 x within a few days. I know a few people from my inner circle that already had a connection with art or crypto before, but the interesting people working in crypto left Greece to start their venture or career abroad.

“Greece has some NFT artists and a few collectors, but unfortunately, there's zero education on NFTs and crypto. It's something I'm trying to change through an initiative that we are trying to create with a few other crypto natives.“

D: Where do you discover art and how do you make a decision whether you should mint or buy a work on secondary? What is the aha moment when you know you want something in your collection?

G: There are four main ways where I discover art. First of all is Twitter, through retweets, likes, or interactions from people I follow.

“I pay attention to what artists collect, many of them are the best curators out there. Artists understand some stuff way better than collectors. It's good to see when an artist invests in another artist, because it doesn't happen frequently.”

So for example about 2 years ago, I found out from Refik Anadol that he had collected Matt DesLauriers’s first NFT, which was part of his Ink Plots collection on OpenSea. I was able to collect the second NFT in that collection. So in hindsight, that was a very good move. Also, Instagram is a source to discover art and lastly, word of mouth — through other collectors you know, and some discord or telegram channels.

Image: Matt DesLauriers, Ink Plots 02 – Kinetic

There is a short list of things that I look for when I collect. I have a preference for generative art, so I will actively look for generative artists that are more financially approachable than others. I will look into the art side and their history, their previous artworks and if it speaks to me emotionally one way or another, the uniqueness of the artist’s style and how innovative they are. Also by whom else they're collected, but that is not of a big importance. It just gives me a good idea of who's looking at their work. The price point is also important, the symmetry between what they price their 1 of 1 and editions (limited and open).

D: Do you have a preference between a 1 of 1 of X edition, an edition (limited and open), or a unique piece?

G: I think a 1 of 1 — like a specific one or one output that the artist chose to mint; either that's generative art or any type of art, for me is more valuable. It means that the artist chose this output and this piece to be a 1 of 1 for his or her own reason(s). That is more valuable than minting for example an ArtBlocks that is an edition of 1’000, but still is a unique output. I mean, it's still a 1 of 1 in my mind, but the uniqueness of a 1/1 is a bit more valuable to me. Same with other stuff like layers on Async Art, I consider them 1 of 1s. They're not 1 of 1 art pieces per se (as they belong to a 1/1 “master” piece), but they are unique assets, which are also really valuable. It’s also by the way a sleeper platform that not many people are paying attention to — its innovation and proper use of NFT technology, interactive art, is something new and interesting. I hope in the future people will give it a more credit and the attention it deserves.

D: Can you tell us about Amplify Global and its goals? Can you  disclose any of the projects?

G: Amplify Global is a company that we founded officially one year ago, between four good friends and crypto natives; three Greeks and an Italian with similar mindset and goals. Our goal is funding interesting projects in the NFT and crypto space. We also provide some consulting services too. We faced some issues with regulations, as the landscape is not 100% straightforward in the EU and specifically in Cyprus. But thankfully, we're set up and we're operating. We are in the process of actually investing in our first few projects. I can't disclose much yet, but there will probably be something coming out soon.

The main project that I'm working on is Couch Heroes, which is a gaming project built on unreal engine that elevates NFT technology. I'm actually pretty excited about it because it is something that also involves art to an extent. We are already involving a lot of artists from the web3 space this year, in terms of our NFT drop and the actual play test of what we're building.

Image: Couch Heroes

Couch Heroes will be a social, massive multiplayer online game. It has a lot of gaming aspects, but I wouldn't call it a traditional video game, as it is focused on social, identity, and customization aspects. There's more to it but we're still in stealth mode so expect more to be unveiled in the next few months.

D: Let's talk about Bright Moments coming to Tokyo. Are you going? And what are you mostly excited about?

G: It's been a dream for me to go to Tokyo. I love the people, culture, food, language, anime, and manga — it's definitely a dream for me. I am doing everything I can to be there. Hopefully I book my tickets this week. It's always a huge joy to meet in real life with the NFT community, builders, artists, and collectors.

“It’s nice talking digitally, but it does not compare with meeting IRL, to put a real face to the PFP.”

It's really nice to be able to talk with people that you share so much in common with and have the same amount of passion for NFTs/art.

Especially meeting the artists who are very down to earth and are open to talk about their craft, their past, how they see things, what they want to do in the future and how they evolve.

I am super excited for Tokyo and it is always an honour to meet with one of my favourite artists and hang out with him - Zancan and also a very big pleasure to meet Quibibi for the first time, as I didn't meet him in London when he was there for the first exhibition. These two artists are a big reason why I'm going to Japan but obviously not the only reason of course - Can’t wait to meet and mint a piece by Lars Wander and see Spongenuity again, whom I already know.

D: You have a vast NFT collection including blue-chip works by XCOPY, Fidenza by Tyler Hobbs, and your love for Zancan - however which mint or secondary buy has been the most memorable and why?

G: I think some of my most memorable buys are my Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) mints, which just started off as someone sending the link to a group of collectors and saying: “look at those monkeys, they look fun, let's mint a few of them” and that's what happened. There was no financial gain in mind, just minting monkeys because they looked nice. That started a lot for me.

Images: Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #688,#701,#729