The Digital Hollywood Experience

 

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

2:00 PM - 2:45 PM - Eastern Time Zone

All-Digital & Online

Session I:

The Art & Evaluation of NFT

NFT as a significant category of “Collectable Art,” while still in an “Arguable” stage of development, has nonetheless quickly established itself as the next real thing. It is hard to argue with the $69.3 Million sale at Christie’s of “Beeple’s” “EVERYDAYS.” Or the $7.5 Million for “CryptoPunk #7804” or the $6.66 Million for “CROSSROAD.” In this panel we have assembled a cutting-edge group of experts in the field of NFT Art. As a group they have been a part of the explosion and impact of NFT Art from both the artistic and creative as well as NFT as a flourishing sector of the “Art Market.”

Mark Lurie, Board Member, Foundation for Art and Blockchain, Founder & CEO, Codex Protocol

Gerald Casale, Artist, Cultural Innovator and founding Member, DEVO

Colborn Bell, Co-founder, Museum of Crypto Art (MoCA)

Shivani Mitra, Director, Museum of Crypto Art (MoCA)

Steve Masur, Senior Partner, MGA, Moderator

Additional Speakers to be announced

 

Steven Masur, Senior Partner, MG+: Steven Masur has over 22 years of experience advising emerging and established businesses on new opportunities and business challenges. He focuses his practice on corporate finance, M&A, intellectual property, entertainment, emerging businesses and strategic guidance. Steve has extensive experience in angel and venture capital finance,

mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and cross-border transactions in Europe and Asia. He is passionate about helping new businesses plan a path to success, and helping older businesses bridge the gap to new markets. Steve brings a unique mix of legal, business, and strategic experience to bear on client matters. He has counseled enterprise level clients including Shazam, Virgin Mobile, Liberty Media, Yamaha, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Bob Vila and Conde Nast Publications in corporate, digital media, and new business matters. He has also helped emerging businesses in a wide variety of sectors, and is especially knowledgeable in media, entertainment, advertising, consumer products, food and technology, including mobile, games, digital music, social media, augmented and virtual reality, software and hardware. Steve has been recognized as a “Rising Star” and a “Super Lawyer” by Super Lawyers. He serves on a variety of corporate and nonprofit boards and industry associations, and lectures and writes about major issues in venture capital, emerging businesses, entertainment law, technology and corporate strategy.

 

Colborn Bell is currently the Co-Founder and Curator of the Museum of Crypto Art (M○C△), an immersive digital art center in virtual reality.  Unconstrained by the limitations of physical reality, the aim of this project is to create bridges to Metaverse spaces and usher in a creative renaissance that empowers digital creators and reawakens the imaginations of its participants. He is a long-time blockchain and venture investor and advisor to individuals allocating capital towards the exponential change frontier technologies can affectuate.  Previously he was a Co-Founder of the 5th Element Group, a global braintrust advising corporations in aligning brand and social impact.  With Abacus Wealth Partners he worked with families to create value-aligned investment portfolios.  He has also served alongside the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in designing an innovative infrastructure bank for East Africa. As a volunteer, he currently sits on the Board of Dream Tank, is an advisor to the Rainforest Partnership, and has done significant work with Acumen Fund.

 

Gerald Vincent "Jerry" Casale is an American musician, composer, music video director, and vintner. Casale's music career spans more than 40 years. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as co-founder and bass player of the new wave band Devo, which released a Top 20 hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It". Casale is the main lyricist and one of the main composers of Devo's music and directed most of Devo's music videos. He is one of only two members who have been with Devo throughout its entire history. Casale's brother Bob also performed with the band.

 

Shivani Mitra is Director of the Museum of Crypto Art. M○C△ creates a democratic community of free creative exchange in the Metaverse that is imagined and built by exceptional artists and their practice. Shivani's background is across computer science and art history. She previously worked as a researcher at Harvard Medical School studying global health systems. As part of a 2-year fellowship program, she helped local entrepreneurs in India implement high impact software/hardware solutions in rural communities. Shivani's art history studies focused on german expressionism and the role of public art in socioeconomic discourse. Broadly, she believes that by pulling premier crypto art off the computer screen and building it into in the Metaverse, M○C△ provides a foundation for undiscovered artistic expression existing between humans, computing power, and blockchain technology.

 

Mark Lurie, Board Member, Foundation for Art and Blockchain, Founder & CEO, Codex Protocol: Mark Lurie has an impressive resume: Harvard alum, Lofty founder, and now, Codex Protocol CEO. Codex is a blockchain-powered registry for unique assets. It establishes a permanent record of provenance for items ranging anywhere from fine art to bottles of wine. About a month ago, the Codex team organized a blockchain art auction at the Ethereal Summit in New York in which they raised over $190,000 towards the Foundation for Art and Blockchain. The highlight of the auction: an ultra-rare CryptoKitty fetching a $140,000 final price tag. Coin Central’s Steven Buchko recently sat down (virtually) with Lurie to talk about the auction and get a better sense of the value blockchain technology brings to the art world. They also touch on Lurie’s entrance to blockchain and art as well as his plans for Codex moving forward. If you’re interested in learning more about the Codex protocol, we dive a little deeper into the project in our interview with Codex COO Jess Houlgrave.