Artizen Contest is Now Live for My Gigatura Project

My project Gigatura is in the running to secure funding and here's how you can help us win the prestigious Artizen prize.

Long time no write!

Hope you all are doing well. Things have been pretty tough, I’m not gonna lie, but I’ve lived through hard times before, so my spirits aren’t too low. I’ve been pretty quiet because I’ve been working on my Gigatura project for nearly six months already! I am now at a point where I am reaching out to let everyone know what's going on.

I’m happy to announce that my team is in the running for the Artizen Prize which means we placed 4th in the initial stage. To win the big Artizen Prize, we need to sell the most open editions, and this is where you come in.

Here’s where you can buy our Gigatura NFT for the Artizen contest: https://www.artizen.fund/project/gigatura

Each NFT is only .01 ETH, so it’s affordable for most everyone.

If you have any issues or technical problems, just tag me here or on X Twitter and I will contact the Artizen team. So far, it’s been pretty smooth. We are currently in 2nd place.

By buying one of our NFTs, you will be helping us get funding from Artizen, as the team who sells the most open editions will win the Artizen Prize funding.

Also, for this contest, Artizen is doing match funding which means that for every nft we sell for .01 ETH, Artizen will give us additional funds. You can help us win! Winning this contest would mean I don’t have to go work at McDonald’s!

I’m doing something different this time and giving back.

If you buy my Artizen Gigatura NFT then I will go into a busy shopping area, hold a sign with a message you craft, your image & social media handle. I’ll make a video of this and post it on X, Hive (peakd), instagram and TikTok.

After you purchase my NFT, send me a dm on X (twitter) to submit your info for the sign. For those who buy 10+ nfts, a special gift awaits. This could be something great for marketing your own project, idea, art or company, or you could wish someone Happy Birthday or just submit a favorite quote you have. I’m open to anything as long as it is not violent or extremely offensive to me.

To get a better idea of this, check out my pinned tweet on X:https://twitter.com/stellabelle/status/1714273635270033632

I met the co-founder of Artizen, René Pinnell and he’s a really legit smart person. His best friend is Ross Ulbricht, so that should give you an idea of his values. From the Artizen website:

Human creativity is core to civilization, and yet we chronically underfund it. Artists, scientists, and builders of every kind are essential for thriving communities and a sustainable planet. Artizen aims to restore that trust by eliminating bureaucracy and putting power back in the hands of communities. We do it with a transparent and participatory funding model that lets people directly support their values. -Artizen website

About The Gigatura Project

Gigatura is a large art project on Tezos that will launch on @objkt in 2024. The team consists of myself, Fabi Yamada and FredM. I have worked with Fabi on many crypto and art projects since 2017 and FredM is a cryptoart collector, and a great metaverse builder.
If you want to see the over 200 pieces Gigatura collection go here.
I’d like to also invite you to join our Telegram group: https://t.me/gigatura

About Stellabelle

You may be curious what I’ve accomplished so far, and here’s a short list:

-Founded first creative commons cryptoart collective Slothicorn in 2017
-Slothicorn paid out over $50K in crypto to artists in 2018
-Worked for Dash DAO in 2017
-Created/designed the innovative Fuck Wall Street Art Exhibition in Voxels
-Created a CCO art library for the Telos DAO
-Sent out real custom art chocolate bars to CryptoStellas holders
-Designed virtual sticker machine that sends out real stickers for free to anyone in the world.
-My art has been in global cryptoart exhibitions including Paris, Saudi Arabia, New York and Miami.

Learn more about Gigatura on our website.

How Will We Use The Funding?

Firstly, my teammate, Fabi Yamada will be paid for the work she has already done. She built our website, and was the lead designer of the Giga Score machine. She is currently building some interactive games, and so far, I have only paid her .1 ETH for all this work. Receiving funding from Artizen would go to her first. Two other devs who have also been helping us build the Giga Score machine would receive some payment as well for the work they did. Also, Jack Dragoon, who built Gonut, the tipbot in our Telegram would receive payment for his work. Also, FredM who has been instrumental to our team would receive payment.

The Salon

Receiving funding would allow me to do a variety of artist-centered services for the community. For example, we will be soon be launching The Salon, a fun X (Twitter) Spaces where artists get feedback and critique on a work of art they made by three different judges, myself, Zamartist and FredM. The basic structure for launch: each judge picks the artist and the artist picks their own art that they want critiqued. This concept came out of me thinking what doesn’t currently exist in our community. For me personally, I want to focus on unknown artists who don’t have a large social media following, to help them get exposure and fans.
Work

I also want to have an area of our website dedicated to work and tasks that people can do for small payments. We are still working out the details on this.

What are we building?

Firstly, Gigatura is a public domain art project that will launch on objkt.com and will be composed of 1/1 art. Although each Gigatura nft will feature a character, this is not a generative project. The vast majority of the nfts will have these features: a character, social credit score, trait and background. I used Stable Diffusion to create a lot of the figures, traits and other things but I also modified these elements digitally. Most of the art is already completed. The characters are archetypes and some famous people will be in it like SBF, Paris Hilton, BitBoy, Alexandra Elbakyan, Gary Gensler, Billie Eilish and others. The CEO of Gigacorp is based on a real person, but his identity is obscured significantly, as is the case with Nora Link, the wife of the CEO.

In addition to the standard nfts, there will be some Wild Cards which don’t have the social credit scores, but which express a human emotion. For example, I’ve made these Wild Cards so far: Revenge, Love, Community, Power, Wealth.

The Gigatura Story

Enter the world of Mirage in the year 2045, a Dark Enlightenment hellscape where one mega corporation, Gigacorp has seized control of the government and simple freedoms that were once enjoyed are now just a memory. A lot of the story centers around artists who get replaced by AI. Since AI is thousands of times better at art than any human, artists no longer make art, and most end up working in factories, prompt prisons and the WAGMI fast-food restaurant chain.

The people running Gigacorp are Dark Enlightenment techno dystopians who don’t believe in democracy. Their roots are from the 2020’s when a philosophy called the Dark Enlightenment began to spread.

In order to control the citizens of Mirage, Gigacorp launched its social credit score system called the Giga Score, on a scale of 0-1000. As long as their score remains above 300, citizens are provided with a free monthly distribution of GOMA, a medicated gum that induces happiness, and diminishes negative thoughts. GOMA is highly addictive and withdrawals are bad enough that most people don’t ever want to go through that. Getting free GOMA is a big deal to the citizens of Mirage especially since most people are poor and a bit on the miserable side. Anyone who dips below a Giga Score of 300 will be automatically added to a list that prevents them from flying, taking trains, leaving Mirage, getting a house or a lucrative job.

The Gigatura project centers around a young woman named Tura, an artist who loses her art career to AI in 2037. Tura, like many artists who were replaced by AI had to find employment and getting a job at the WAGMI restaurant was the easiest route.

Tura’s life turns completely upside down when her mother is killed by robots in a WAGMI meat factory. Tura learns that her mother often disobeyed her manager’s orders. After she was killed, they hung her body underneath a WAGMI billboard, to set an example for other workers. But actually, no one in Mirage noticed her hanging body. They thought it was part of the WAGMI marketing on the billboard.

The killing of her mom was Tura’s life changing moment, when she began to question everything in Mirage. As her Giga Score plummets, and she loses access to her GOMA, she experiences bad withdrawals, and delirium. It is during her GOMA withdrawals that she wanders into a forest and by chance discovers a flying rabbit. The flying rabbit leads her to the door of the Freezone.

Open Access Movement

This is a cc0 public domain project and I am believer in the open access movement. I believe that human knowledge is a human right. No other living person embodies this open knowledge movement right now than Alexandra Elbakyan, founder of SciHub and she’s a character I portray in Gigatura. If we get funding from Artizen, I will donate some to SciHub, her project. https://sci-hub.se/alexandra

The Gift Economy

I’m a believer and a creator of the gift economy but it’s my suspicion that most people have no idea what I’m talking about. Even though this project is a dystopian nightmare, it’s also a tale of how real connections, the gift economy and cooperation can be essential structures in the future, as we enter the phases of ecological collapse and instability. Part of my goal is to create real experiences of the gift economy so that I spend less time explaining, and more time actually creating real world gift economy experiences. Because when you receive, you’re more inclined to give, too. Relationships were at the center of survival in the past, and it’s my feeling that relationships will be more important in the future, too.
So, you may be wondering how to join us and get more involved? Join our Telegram group where you can have free drinks and food (in virtual way): https://t.me/gigatura

I will be posting daily updates on X about our progress for the Artizen contest. If you bought your Gigatura NFT already, a big thank you from all of us! Help us win funding from Artizen and prevent me from having to work at McDonald’s!

Cheers,

Stellabelle

looks like my Giga score is below 300 :(