Mar 2, 2022
In this episode, we spend some time trying to convince artist and educator Ben Sloat that NFTs have any degree of merit through discussions around cheap money and exotic financial instruments, the question of who is actually being empowered by crypto-art, the parallels and non-parallels of the traditional art world, the importance of free cultural content, the (in)accessibility of video art, and the power of viewing art in person.
Ben Sloat often uses elements of the vernacular in his works; generating hybrid social meanings and reflecting the artist's multiracial Taiwanese-American background. Working across mediums, the projects frequently find themselves considering the capacity of iconography, image, or light based material, in a wide and inclusive definition of the "photographic". Cultural vocabulary is commonly used as a medium in the work, oscillating between an intimately personal voice and a larger societal one.