*I am not a native English speaker, sorry for any mistake in the text or translation

---> Link to the collection on GALLERY.so

Preamble

On Tezos you can find high quality works of art in a wide range of prices. For example, the latest zancan project on FX(hash) has already moved more than 400k tez since it was released a little over a month ago. In another project by the same artist, a single edition was sold for 75k tez. There is a lot of production of digital artwork on Tezos with experimentation, artistic research and innovation, which adds value to the works.

In this scenario where we can find a varied production with artistic quality, the #5tezCollection challenge becomes even more interesting because it creates a very specific limit: create a collection with only 5 tezos – which encourages those who participated to have to research and select works thinking about creating a digital art collection within this restricted limit.

A challenge like this encourages each participant to improve their ability to search for interesting works, to develop search strategies, to make a selection of works, to experiment with tools, to look at different projects, and to discover artists. And the learning of the participants in this experience feeds the practice of collecting. This learning can later be applied to collections of any size, made with any amount available to each person, whether thousands of tezos or just a few. Speaking for myself, while researching for the #5tezCollection challenge, I discovered several artists I didn't know about and am slowly adding various works I found to my main collection.

Concept / Context

Is it possible to create a collection with 5 tezos that has a guiding concept and represents a small sample of the diversity of digital art? Let's try (knowing that there will obviously be numerous gaps due to the limited budget, time for research and pieces that would be available while assembling this collection, let's do what is possible and in the best way).

My collection was built guided by the notions of dream and poetic narrative. It was made by collecting works in FX(hash) and OBJKT and was motivated by the #5tezCollection challenge.

The gallery has been conceived as an art exhibition, where the sequence of images and the entire set have been defined to create relationships between the works, valuing each one and expanding the meanings from the approximation of one work to the other, and from the thread between them along the gallery.

The presentation of the collected works uses the possibilities of GALLERY.so to create a visual flow, where the pieces are arranged initially seeking formal and thematic dialogues within each line, but also from one line to another, inviting the eye to go through the entire collection, piece by piece, line after line, as if visiting the rooms and corridors of an imaginary exhibition space.

Process

The first version of my collection was made for the challenge proposed by HAL09999 on the FX(hash) discord, a challenge that was stimulated also by Elout de Kok with his thread on twitter:

As requested, my collection was done with a new wallet, to which I transferred 5 tezos from my main account.

I started with FX(hash) because it's the platform I'm most familiar with, both in terms of following what's released on it, and in terms of collecting works quite often.

For my collection, I tried to select some of the variety of token types available on FX(hash): 100% code, PFPs, image composition, new & old tokens still mintable and also works from the second market. While searching for the works, I first started thinking on the grid of 3 works per line on the FX profiles, and I tried to create formal relationships between the works, especially within each line of the collection.

On research process, the most incredible thing was to see everything that was produced in FX and is available for the researched price (under 0.5 tez). It was very interesting to see the production since the beginning of the platform, discover artists and separate great works that I'm gradually adding to my main collection.

For the research of works I had two different strategies: one for mintable works and another for the secondary market.

Mintable works on FX(hash)

To find tokens available to mint in FX, I used the Explore section with the filters “on going” and maximum price 0.5tez.

The advantage of minting a work is that you get a new, unique piece from the interaction between the work code and the operation hash. The result is a surprise that is drawn from the definitions of the code. When possible, I tried to mint more than one piece of the same project, to get some of the possible variations of that token represented on my collection. It was interesting to see that some of the selected works ended up also being included in other #5tezCollection.

These are some of the works minted on FX(hash):

Secondary market

To find sold out tokens that are available on the secondary market, I entered the FX(hash) Marketplace and then used the maximum price filter.

Here, the advantage is being able to choose exactly the piece that is being included in the collection, since not all the outputs of a project are always interesting, and often we like some outputs much more than others.

Here are some of the works acquired on 2nd market:

OBJKT

The challenge proposed by FX(hash) and OBJKT gave me an excellent opportunity to get to know the OBJKT platform better. The next step was to research and collect works there.

While FX(hash) is specialized in long-form generative art, in OBJKT we can find other types of digital artwork, such as: photography, digital collage, animated gifs, digital painting, digital books, etc.

So I tried to include some examples of this kind of work. Remembering the goal of my collection: to create a small sample of digital art.

At OBJKT, my research and work selection strategy was based on looking for artists I admire, and seeing if they had any work available at a price that fit the challenge. For each artist profile I visited, I also looked in the "owned" section to see if there were any items collected by the artist that could be added to my selection. So, I selected the works that would best make up the collection and acquired the pieces (again, saving several other discoveries to acquire later for my main collection).

In the meantime, I still won a piece as a gift. I think it was because I created the new wallet.

Below are some of the works acquired on OBJKT:

-> Link to the book 'Maré de Agosto (August Tide)', by Morbeck on OBJKT.

-> Link to 'shadowplay' on OBJKT

-> Link to '111', by fresiliave on OBJKT

-> Link to 'las gracias que nos rodean' by msoriaro on OBKJCT

-> Link to 'Hab #24', by Casia on OBJKT

Finally, I created a profile on the GALLERY and set up a virtual exhibition there that brought together all the collected works. It was interesting to discover and explore the possibilities of the GALLERY. The final compilation aimed to create a visual flow between the works and to explore the concepts of dream and poetic narrative. Hope you like the result.

Summary of steps:

• Create a new wallet (HAL/Elout challenge rule)
• Transfer 5 tezos from my main account to the new wallet
• Search all works available for less than 0.5tz in FX(hash)
• Do the curation
• Mint available works
• Purchase works from the secondary market
• Search for artists on OBJKT, select their works, and works from their collections available for less than 0.5tz
• Do the curation
• Mint the works
• Assemble the final exhibition in the GALLERY.so
• Write this article
• Translate it to English
• Publish it on FX(text)

Links:

• The final version of my collection has 41 works and can be viewed here . It contains works from FX(hash) and OBJKT and was edited on GALLERY.so
• All the operations, paid prices and fees can be checked in the wallet created specifically for this collection
• For more thoughts and tips on collecting digital art: @marcelonada
• About the author of this text: https://linktr.ee/marcelonada