03/06/2022 Johnny Depp Ethereum NFTs Surge After Actor Wins Defamation Suit Against Amber Heard

The NFT collection on OpenSea features images of several figures that Depp calls “friends and heroes.”

Johnny-Depp-Shutterstock-gID_1.png

An NFT collection featuring artwork by Johnny Depp has seen its price jump after the actor won a defamation suit against ex-wife Amber Heard yesterday.

The 3,850"Never Fear Truth" NFTs have a floor price of 0.52 ETH (around $944) as of this writing. Before the televised defamation trial, the collection had not seen much traction since March 11, when its floor price peaked at 1.64 ETH. At that time, Ethereum was trading at $2,664, per CoinMarketCap. The collection first launched in January with a starting price of 0.70 ETH.

McDonald’s Collaboration Sparks Doodles NFT Floor Price Surge
NFTs weekly sales surge 94% as crypto market continues bullish run
Chinese Payment Giant Alipay Launches NFT Sales

The "Never Fear Truth" collection of generative art on OpenSea isminted onEthereum, featuring artwork by Depp. The project wasverified as authenticby MakersPlace last month. Among the collection are images of "Friends and Heroes" from Depp's past, including Heath Ledger, Tim Burton, River Phoenix,Elizabeth Taylor, Al Pacino, and Hunter S. Thompson.

607 of the pieces feature Depp himself.

Never Fear Truth Collection by Johnny Depp

Image: Never Fear Truth on OpenSea

“In this first public exposure of Johnny's art, he has focussed on people he has known well, and who have inspired him as a person,” the description reads. “Each image is an intimate reflection of their character in Johnny's eyes; a portrayal of how they have revealed themselves to him.”

Non-fungible tokens(NFTs) are cryptographically unique tokens linked to digital (and sometimes physical) content, providing proof of ownership. According to the OpenSea listing, each "Never Fear Truth" NFT will act as a membership to a creative community and future releases by Depp.

Depp is not the first controversial celebrity to enter the NFT marketplace. In December, the rapper turned actorIce-Tlaunched an NFT collection with Niftify. Ice-T's 1992 album "Body Count" was nationally controversial for the protest song "Cop Killer," written from the perspective of a character fed up with police brutality.

Of course, NFTs have become controversial, with gamers and artists pushing back against what they see as a cash grab or, worse, a scam, not to mention the environmental impact of NFTs minted onproof of workblockchains like Ethereum that is in the process of shifting to aproof of stakealgorithm.

Arts

https://decrypt.co/101922/johnny-depp-ethereum-nfts-surge-after-actor-wins-suit-against-amber-heard?amp=1

Interesting NFTs
Who Is The Creator 2
The idea for this piece was borne out of a tweet of mine that caused a bit of a stir. I’d posted a link to a blog article I’d written a number of months previous titled ‘Who is the Creator’ discussing various types of creative collaborations and why I hire people to work on my animations. It generated a lot of debate around creation and attribution with the community split on whether it’s right or wrong for an artist to hire other professionals to help them realize their art projects. I decided to push the boundaries even further and see how the cryptoart community responded. What if I quite literally had nothing to do with the physical or digital elements of the work other than coming up with the concept and coordinating it? I decided there was one artist in the space who could add huge value to this idea on levels that none other could and so I gathered my courage and contacted the great JosĂ© Delbo to ask him if he’d be interested in a very unique collaboration. I explained to him that to make this piece ‘work’ he couldn't have any say in what I produced and moreover, he wouldn’t even be allowed to see the animation until it was dropped on MakersPlace. To my surprise, Mr Delbo agreed to my proposal. The animation tells the story of the creative process, which includes my roles as writer, director, and producer working with a team and making edits and changes ‘in real time’. The dialogue between myself and my ‘hired guns’ plays out in front of the viewer. The music written for the piece adds to the nostalgia of the comic book superhero theme but other elements such as the snapping and kicking of the pencil and the signing of my signature at the bottom incorporates further layers and challenges the viewer to ask important questions, such as, is the ‘Art’ the final animation (the creation) or is the ‘Art’ the concept/credit for the creation itself?
Ocean Front (Beeple)
Cinema 4D, Octane render, Photoshop Everyday #4344
The Moth Catcher
In this psychologically bed-headed portrait, a creature sets in a trance; his eyes devolved and vestigal, his third eye open but hardened and in a form resembling a Sharingan. The imagery therefore expresses an awareness existing in corporeal introspection. The creature’s mind sprouts, on the left side, an emerging face, grinning. To the right side of the head, red tentacles and fingers intertwine–a collaboration of invertebrate and vertebrate consciousness cooperatively handling paint brushes of the sort used to build an oil painting. The neck and throat bristle with random thorns, as from a rose or the upper portions of a beak sprouting from its flesh. The neck itself disassociates into layers of membranous material, terminating upon an abstracted base of convoluted forms composing its body. The nose is virtually non existent, more a sinus reiterative of the shape of the third eye. Set against the exposed teeth peering out of thick, meaty cheeks, a skeleton-like impression results. That impression sets behind a visceral set of lips and tongue, which is the creature’s prime seat of awareness. Sensual, organic, the tongue organ hangs, meaty, and with consciousness of a sea cucumber. It illuminates at the tip, drawing the attraction of a nearby moth–with mystery of purpose.
It’s not a teardrop, it’s blue paint
Have you thought about why water drops are always being visually portrayed in the color blue, yet, in reality, water is not blue, it’s clear. This illustration is a visual experiment with semiotics - the study of signs and symbols, their usage, and interpretation. Here, I used blue, black, and pink colors to create this visual interplay and interaction between the concepts of sign, context, designed meaning, and intended response. Your eye might be drawn to the blue teardrop shape on her face, then interpret that as a drop of water, according to your everyday visual experience. But if you read my title, it says, "It's not a teardrop, it’s blue paint." Similar to RenĂ© Magritte's surreal painting "The Treachery of Images" a.k.a "This is not a pipe", where the image consists of a drawing of a pipe and a line where Magritte wrote, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe"), this painting is a visual trick, the writing invites us to recognize that what appears to be a pip, is not really a pipe: it is an illusion, nothing more than paint on a flat surface. Similarly, by making the title "It's a teardrop, it’s blue paint." I want to invite the audience to step out of their conditional interpretation according to the "norms," which are the majority of societal beliefs, and step into something new and whimsical. It is intended to be a playful visual experience for the viewers to experience the tension between words and image, nature and artifice, truth and fiction, reality and surreality.
#94552
By OthersideDeployer