I asked a few close friends for early feedback on GRUS LUPUS. @joeyldotcom liked the less figurative ones and picked Lupus Manus Sinistra Nebula. I asked @SamSpratt completely independently and he picked Lupus Manus Sinistra Unfurled, the sibling piece to the one that Joey picked. They are truly brothers. Grateful for my friendship with them both, together and individually. It has been a source of great joy for me over the past several years. Lupus Manus Sinistra Nebula In the collection of JoeyL Lupus Manus Sinistra Unfurled In the collection of Sam Spratt

I cannot believe I am typing this, but yesterday I reached the 5-year mark since I started working on Friends. This piece of art truly has every bit of my soul, feelings & emotions intertwined within it. As I've continued to work on this piece, I've experienced huge wins in life as well as devastating health news. Ive become completely sober, grown as a person, & generally like to think that I've become a better human overall. This piece of art has become in a way my safe space & I find myself at peace when I get lost in the world I am creating. Time stops. My mind goes blank ( in a good way ) & nothings else matters. There is no such thing as worries, only joy when I pick up the pencil and work on Friends. I like to share these yearly updates with you all because it's a good way for me to track my progress and hopefully there are those still here excited to reach the end of this journey with me. As you can see, at glance it looks like it’s almost finished but the reason I am comfortable sharing it as it is now, it’s because by the time it’s actually done, you’ll see the big secret I’ve been hiding! 5 years, 5817 hours & counting, the journey continues. I’ve made peace with the fact that I don’t think there are any collectors out there who are truly interested in owning this piece once I’m done, this is a true labor of love and as the wise Spike once said, “Whatever happens, happens” I do implore anyone with the slightest interest in collecting this to please send me a dm. It could be just get to know me as an artist better or to know anything else at all about Friends. I will update my website soon with all the new works in progress that have lead to what you see now. There you’ll be able to enjoy the piece in a higher resolution/quality. Thanks for reading.

My one request for you today. Take a moment out of your day and spend time with @joeyldotcom's photography. Spend time on his website: I love the on-set section: Especially this photo, it shows how much he is an all-in kind of guy, never a "dip your toe in the water" kind of guy.

My favorite moment in this journey through @SamSpratt and @MrsRachelSpratt's Masquerade has been the friends I've met along the way and sharing in the Network of their stories... So happy for @LaurentNft64534 and their conviction in their collection journey.

613 can look like a supply number. Inside Masquerade, it behaves more like a constitution. The archive divides exactly into: 560 Masks within eight ecological categories 50 Council Masks outside them 3 exceptional Masks: Creation, Destruction and Balance

gm This is my masks collection. There's a lot to be said about the one-year journey it took to build it and I'll make a dedicated post for each of these masks, they all have a story. But for now, I'd like to focus on why this collection is unique to me. What started as a gift from Sam, my mask from the Masquerade, "Ecclesiastic Manifesto", became a collector's quest paved with frustration, hope and yes, success down the line. At some stage Masks became "more or less" affordable and I decided to go all in, especially after Sam launched his website ( which has become a pivotal reference on my journey. Before considering an acquisition, I would always look up the traits (material, adornment, bond, source) and the attributes (finalist, seer, incomplete) to - sort of -determine the mask's rarity. @musicalnetta's write-ups were also an incredible source of inspiration. Today, I'm pleased to have 3 Seers, 3 finalists and 1 incomplete. My biggest pride though is to have managed to collect a full spectrum of masks, one per category. I believe there are only 4 collectors who have this badge of honor: Sam himself, Lowkey Ventures and Hivemind. This little icon on my profile means the world to me and to think that I could achieve this dream still feels unreal. I'll share my profile in the comment of the post or you can look it up on Sam's website and do a deep dive. The other concentric circles, story and skulls, will always be out-of-reach for me but I know I've gone as far as I could reasonably go and I'm feeling incredibly grateful to be the steward of these beautiful pieces.

Judge not, lest ye be judged...but we ARE judged every single day! I believe when we realize in judgement what we can control (what WE do), and what we cannot (what THEY think); then you can learn from judgement and maybe even how to judge well yourself. "Judges Mandatum" - a 🧵

Masquerade looks complete. The players were selected. The observations were submitted, revised and judged. Six hundred and thirteen Masks were made. Their names, ranks, regions and categories now sit inside a permanent archive. If this were an ordinary game, there would be little left to do except preserve the record. But LUCI has never behaved like an ordinary game. A puzzle narrows towards an answer. When the answer is found, the search ends. A myth behaves differently. It can provoke explanations for generations without surrendering itself to any one of them. Each serious interpretation returns the story to circulation. One exchange among the Masks gives us language for that distinction. Mask #258#, Page Keeper, asks what the number seven means. Mask #250# answers: “Rules of Chapter 7.” The title of Mask #250# is Infinite Games. James P. Carse distinguishes games played to win from games played so play can continue. His seventh chapter describes myth as significantly unresolved: it provokes explanation but accepts no explanation as its ending. This is not proof of Sam’s private plan. The Mask words came from participants, and resemblance should never be confused with instruction from the artist. But the lens changes how the archive looks. The auctions, contests and voting processes were finite games. They needed boundaries, judges and outcomes. Masquerade may have completed that phase. Yet seven category positions remain Reserved. The Council has been promised a role unlike its previous ones. The Mask Maker is preparing beneath the Zoo “For the Debt Jubilee.” Something has ended. Something else may already have begun without announcing its rules. For collectors, the question may therefore be changing. Not only: What do I hold? But: What role am I being asked to play? An infinite story does not make ownership meaningless. It makes ownership the beginning of a responsibility rather than the conclusion of a victory. That is the game after the game. (Read my expanded thoughts. Link in 🧵)

THE INHERITANCE OF LIVING A new film by Chikai September 2, 2026 at 1:30PM-3:30PM NYC Limited Seating (details on RSVP coming soon) Special Guest @Ed_Balloon “Ed-ible Cookie Room” Hosted by @RogerDickerman

Its really too bad that the best capitalized group in the digital art movement doesnt believe in curating. My good faith assumption is that thats based on a misunderstanding of what a curator actually does. Good curators dont tell artists how to exhibit their work. They help artist crystalize the vision and bring the work to the next level. They solve problems (sometimes art making related, sometimes just operational), and sometimes open doors for ideas that artists hadn't even considered. A curator that looks out for an artist is much like a good investor that looks out for their startup. Making work in your studio is one thing, putting together a coherent exhibition around it is another. A handful of artists can do it themselves, but those are usually the outliers, because its simply two different tasks. @SamSpratt gave me a mask after curating his debut exhibition. Its called Steered Simulations. I doubt that was a coincidence.

THE QUESTION What happens when an artwork stops behaving like a finished object and begins behaving like a living tradition? For months I’ve been tracing a question inside LUCI: not only what has happened, but what the work may now be asking of the people who entered it.

Gm A couple months ago I achieved my collector's goal: a full spectrum of masks. There was one particular type I was missing though: the incomplete one. Today "Uncarved Union' joins my collection. It also has the rare trait "inscribed" (I believe it is the date of the first owner's upcoming wedding), which makes it even more special to me. Grateful 🙏

My piece in the home of Micky Malka and Becky Kleiner. I always was into how they chose to display 'Masquerade' aesthetically, but after visiting the other day and hearing stories from them, I felt moved by how meaningful of a choice the placement was. Installed in their dining room, Masquerade's initial digital gathering got new life as a physical gathering space. Week after week, new guests fill the chairs around it for meals, meetings, shabbats, holidays. For them, the meal isn't an isolated event. Guests since its installation have been in the hundreds, constantly cycle through - and range from family, old friends, tech titans, CEOs, film directors, museum curators, entrepreneurs, artists, students, professors, from all walks of life and from all over the world. Getting to hear from them how each configuration in each new meal has provoked intense observation, discussion, debate was truly magic. They even keep an ipad loaded and ready to go to bring out when people start inquiring about the digital side of it all Letting people dive in on their own, reading everyone's observations and masks, exploring the digital version to see what has taken place atop it. How they chose to share the work has authored this entirely new way in - a perfect echo of why it was made to begin with.