🎙 Justin Aversano | Layer Zero

did you you likely didn't realize that it was going to be such an important moment at the moment of taking the photo right it was like a fun moment but every time i think about that moment it was like it set a whole course for my entire rest of my life welcome to layer zero player zero is a podcast of unscripted conversations of the people that make up the ethereum community crypto is built by code but it's composed by people and each individual member of the crypto community has their own story to tell cypherpunks understood that the code

they write impacts the people that use it and layer zero focuses on the people behind the code because ethereum is people all the way down and it always has been today i'm talking with justin aversano the now famous photographer of the twin flames project and before that the birthday project and justin is a strapping young lad clocking in at 28 years old or maybe 29 and it's really just been all about art his entire life was uh is one of those guys that wakes up in the morning

and just thinks about creating art first and foremost and then also when he create and also when he goes to bed it's creating art through and through and through and while i tend to recap stories in these intros i'm gonna try my best to not do that and just give you guys some themes justin has a very unique story a relationship with his mother a twin lost in the womb uh and has used photography to tell stories and then accidentally tell a story about

himself and then very much begin to do that on purpose and he's used art and photography to connect so many different components about his life uh in in a way that was healing to him as an individual uh and then ultimately arrives at the world of nfts in january of 2021 and we talk about how nfts represent just a great um climax to the story at large so what to the the project that he has uh twin flames uh which which is now wrapped and

he has now moved on to his new projects but has really put a fantastic just bow on top of two fantastic stories of creating these very deep projects with photography and has now completely just redefined what it means for him to be an artist and so him and i unpack the significance of nfts as a means for creating meaning is it just some code uh and is it just a bunch of crypto people like me saying that nfts are the most magical thing on the universe uh or is it actually what we

say it is as nfcs do allow for human culture and human art to be manifested in ways that could not have been done before justin has his own opinions on that and so i will let him speak now before i go on for too long but first a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make the show possible the era of proof of stake is upon us proof of stake systems like ethereum terra and solana allow the industry to move away from the hot loud and wasteful proof of work systems and return back to a cottage industry of

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one of the big users of these platforms i'm really excited to unpack the how you've gotten into the world of crypto to bring your creative artistic expression into our world so welcome thanks for having me so justin a lot of people will know you as the the artist behind the twin flames nft project but i want to start way way back all the way back uh when did you get into photography and was it was it your first love of like creative expression man we're going back yeah

so you know i've always been a photographer practically most of my life i'm 29 years old i started photography around the same time i started skateboarding so for me those two things went hand in hand and i was around 12 or 13 really coming out of being a gamer um basically since i was two years old i was a gamer from nintendo super nintendo on to every console you could imagine and then falling in love with the outside worlds

um with skateboarding and photography but through the time um growing up i was always drawing and i was always creating scenes and you know making different theatrical stuff with my toys and and also drawing and and visio vision vision visualizing and being a visionary through my ideas um and really activating it through photography um when i started

um middle school and then like how did a camera actually like come into your hands you know i was i was inspired on myspace by all the older guys who were skateboarders and i fell in love with what photography they were shooting um and i just wanted to be a photographer too and i was inspired by you know a melon photo that was a macro of the ridges and you know things like that were like inspiring to me

and they were my favorite skateboarders at the time growing up in the neighborhood so you know you it's kind of like monkey see monkey do you you you're inspired by people um in your community who are older and you want to be like them you want to do what they're doing because it's cool and for me skateboarding and photography were those things that really got me out of the house made me a healthier person more social so in a way it really like allowed me to

come out of my shell i do remember having a decent number of skateboarding friends like growing up in in middle school and high school and uh it's funny it seems like the longer that they went on in the world of skateboarding more and more of them got into like photography and videography because they all wanted to take like sick videos and take photos of them of them skateboarding so there seems to be like this interesting pairing between skateboarders and like either film or photography exactly and that's that's what i was experiencing and then you know always being a skater and

skating with my camera very dangerously with my camera around my chest but i just was it was a natural i never really fell on it only like a couple times but it was a strong camera um and you know you go around and you know you shoot the photography of the skateboarders but more importantly like i just photographed what i loved and i was a street photographer from the beginning um and in an art school i was i was really actively doing street portraiture street photography and then by the end of art school i i

moved into like closer on in on the subject and actually started taking really dynamic portraits yeah the you're really giving me some some throwbacks uh i actually like photography was how i had like you know um basically how i had my own like budget in in college like uh i always had my my nikon around my neck and like all photographers know that there's this inevitable like tug of war behind like having your camera around you at all times and inevitably like

breaking it somehow uh because like the more that you have it around you like the more likely you're is you're just gonna like bump into something and then like it's just it's it's always this like liability uh what kind of camera did you like first get really really good at um i'll tell you a little funny story so my first camera i ordered um i was a bus boy at my dad's restaurant when i was 13 and i wanted to buy a camera and i was on amazon and i bought a canon xti

around christmas time black friday-ish and i had bought it and in the description it said oh it comes with the lens it comes with the camera and i got the camera in the mail and i'd spent like 500 bucks on this thing and it had no lens so i was like where the [ __ ] is the lens so i emailed the amazon thing customer support and i was like hey guys you guys advertised that this comes with a lens and it didn't come with a lens can you please send me a lens and then and then they responded

and for me i was like wow i'm a 13 year old and i and i'm like coming at them with some legal jargon and you know i was like i need a lens man and then they were like oh we weren't supposed to you know have a lens with this camera but you know since we advertised it that way we'll send you one for free and i'm like great so i basically got a free lens and i got it and for those that don't know lenses can be even more expensive than the actual body of the camera oftentimes so having a free lens it's it's not like a tip like it's sometimes

it's the whole entire thing so yeah i got the the lens in the mail and then i was excited i finally put the two pieces together because i've been sitting with this camera mirrorless for like a [ __ ] week and then i get the lens and then the first photo i ever took really was of my mom and that was to me like one of the most important moments of my life do you still have that photo yeah yeah well uh did you you likely didn't realize that it was going to be such an

important moment at the moment of taking the photo right you know it was like a fun moment but every time i think about that moment it was like it set a whole course for my entire rest of my life and when i look at that photo and i look at her looking at me and she passed away a few years ago um it's really like a powerful image of how she's looking at me because for me it was you know the really time really the first time as a young adult i actually like looked into my mom's eyes or like

had that connection with her through something other than just being around at the house and and what not going around town but really like engaging in a way that i haven't with my mom before it was so powerful and it really like it inspired the rest of my life and career and gave me strength to be an artist because i don't know just that gesture and look she gave me was like all i ever needed to get the hit the ground running and be who i am today

were you having these reflections like relatively around the moment of you taking the photograph are you saying oh no no th this has been current con like every time i think of that photo it really strikes me i think maybe in hindsight and retroactively thinking of when i took that photo and and how beautiful the light and like my mom's look at me and her being you know fighting cancer and like all these different things in that moment it was just pure joy and fun and

i'm testing out the camera but when i look at that photo it's like more meaningful than a test shot it's like this is like a memory of my mom that like literally was like the first picture i've ever taken in my life was she posing or was it candid it was like a candid acceptance look like fine fine you can take a photo of me type of look just like gentle and like you know

a guard is down and really like opening herself up you know accepting this photo shoot and not being insecure you know because it's easy to be insecure when you're you know going through cancer and you know it's it's tough but for me it was like it was strength for both of us it was it was a moment that really connected us as mother and son like like never before was it do you think it has anything to do with the fact that when you take a photograph you're taking you're taking a snapshot

in time and you're given the ability to reflect upon that one specific snapshot in greater detail because you actually have something to look at right like you well no i'm not looking at my mom i'm looking at a photograph of my mom and i can pause and you know zoom in and analyze and parse apart and look at a picture of my mom that you know kind of like you were saying uh you had never looked at your mom in that way before and it was probably you know i think a lot of us go around our our loved ones uh that you know they're

about you know they're you know putting the dishes away they're just living their life in your apartment and you you kind of forget to really look at them and is that kind of what you're saying with 100 like it's not a look it's being seen in the most honorable respectful like intimate way you can be present with someone it really was being present with someone in the most ultimate way and this was a digital photographer right not a film yeah when i started photography i bought

a digital camera and then when i went into art school in 2010 so i was shooting from let's say 2005 till uh and i until 2010 is when i got into college and that's when i started shooting film um because that was the first you know the first assignment was should go in the dark room and print and and develop your negatives and

coming from digital i've honestly fell in love with being in the dark room and seeing the magic of the paper come to life when you're shaking the negative chemistry and that's when i was like i am never shooting digital ever again uh yeah i remember taking photography class in high school which was a film class with a dark room and this wasn't really much of a problem back then but everyone uh you know even i think even high schoolers were like constantly on their phones those days and the dark room's such like an oasis because it's

dark like you can't bring your phone in there it messes up the photographs and not only that but like you you when you're in the dark room you are only have one thing to focus on which is a deep connection to the creative process there's nothing else to think about like not it's kind of like a sensory deprivation tank except the only sense that you have is the creation of the of the of the film photograph and i think a lot of people in in society these days have it's a little bit of a surreal experience these days because like you're totally cut off from the beeps

and the sounds and the lcd screens and you only have this one deep creative thing to think about is is am i kind of tapping into one of the under the energy that you really like yeah i mean it's like it is a sensory deprivation room and the only light that you see is the 10 seconds when you're exposing the paper and then you're like fumbling around in the dark trying to make sure that paper is in the paper safe and you don't [ __ ] expose it because you forgot to put it in there

uh justin what was your relationship with the internet at this time because the average like crypto coder that i i talked to on these later zeros they they all kind of tell me a similar story of like oh yeah i got a computer really relatively early in my life what was your relationship with with the internet so my my first uh experience with the computer was really to play like legoland as a kid and having fun with roller coaster tycoon and like i'm a huge i was a huge

gamer i have love for it and i think the gaming really led me into computers um world of warcraft and you know all those you know games online on those websites that existed early 2000s um that we all probably went on ebalm's world and all those weird fun games and so that was my you know experience with the internet and then aim and just messaging then it went to myspace um a lot of computer gaming like

battlefield 2042 as a young youngling and there's always being a gamer and knowing how to navigate just the computer for that and and hitting up my friends to go hang out but nothing about uh uploading your digital photographs into some photo editor or anything like that oh i mean yeah photoshop yeah yeah using photoshop on the computer right but then you went into the into the dark room and like oh this is way better

yeah but i still use photoshop just to put my stuff online uh when did it ever was there ever a moment where you're like oh yeah i want to make money doing this uh doing this this passion this photography and then how did you actually go about achieving that you know it's funny like when i was in school i never really thought about making money i only thought about making art and learning and being educated and using my

uh time at sva school of visual arts to just keep learning and having fun and it it never really was about money um and even like seeing everyone else in school like shooting for vogue shooting for gucci whatever brands i was like i never wanted to be a commercial photographer anyway i was pretty much more so trained to want to be a museum photographer or you know some sort of serious artist like a warhol of our generation someone who

really made an impact and created works that people can't forget and i think you know that was always my drive it wasn't ever about money it was always about you know the work and the creation and and what makes it relevant and what makes people care and you know i think to be a good artist you really got to just you know have the drive to want to be seen and create everlasting things that are timeless

and you know have a place in history that that makes you different so when you're making these uh the your photographs in the dark room that's not the last step of course in the creative process the last step is actually displaying these things in a way that also have an impact so what what's the uh if if you're creating this art for the sake of creating art how do you actually uh what was your plan for actually expressing this art to the rest of the world because again if you're not you know if you're not money driven you are art

driven what is the performance uh if you will about how to display display your photographs i think a lot of it comes from you know there's a lot of practice involved and to create a project like twin flames or even every day is a gift the birthday project um it just comes from pure inspiration in in a divine moment at any point in time that really sets the tone for a whole project but prior to those major projects i was just in creation mode i

was in i was finding what i like to shoot i was finding my style i was building consistency in the way i shoot learning the craft learning everything about the printing processes all sorts of them alternative process silk screen process like really finding out what i really love to do and what i really didn't like to do and filtering through through using school and learning philosophy and attributing philosophy to the concepts of the work you know it was really just a huge filtering process of where i want to

take this and what is my communication through the medium that i want to create and so honestly the only major project i did during art school was the birthday project and it was my first taste in like wow this is a serious project that people can stand by and understand when they see it and that's just a project where i photograph someone every day of the year with a polaroid camera on their birthday without missing a day and i did that every single day in 2020 in 2012 to 2013

as a senior thesis project and then from there on out i really stopped taking random type of photos and i started really thinking heavily in projects and themes and i think learning about other photographers works in the history of photography or in contemporary art you see that they all work in different themes that tell a bigger story than just the one photograph and i think that's where i started that's when my aha moment was oh i need to make a serious project

and it was the birthday project and then and then it took me time to to find twin flames and really activate that and start making that work so there's a lot of famous photographers out there and the classic example is ansel adams and he has these great images that you can look at and you can you can just look at them and just be astounded by by how they look as an individual photograph but you're talking about the art itself isn't the single photograph

or not even the whole entire project at large but it's also the process of creating the project that is also the art so it seems to me that you're making a hybrid of what the art actually is is a hybrid of good fantastically composed photography of a bunch of common themes but also really the art is the story of how it was created is that true yeah you need the story it's the mythology we're creating mythology as as we're shooting and and and in time you know we look at the

greeks and the sculptures and the marble and you know the renaissance jesus paintings and you know where are we in that time stamp of history in 20 in the 2000s 2010 and for me you know using classic portraiture and film cameras and a theme that's where i made my mark i would say and it is it is a balance between the subject and and the and the story because the subject conveys the story that's being told in the greater

narrative of the cohesive project that that goes together and then when you see it exhibited together or in a book you get the story without even have to reading the the artist statement right so when you your first project was the the birthday project we'll go i think we'll go into more detail in just a second but when was there the aha moment of that this piece of art that you're about to create is not just the photographs uh before you got it started on the project or did you

realize that maybe the art was going to be something more than just some of the photographs maybe towards like after you finished taking all the photographs when did you realize it was going to become more than just the photographs individually or was that the whole purpose going into it well i'll just give you some insight in uh where that project came from and my thought process sure um because there's like three stages i would say the first stage was i was in a self-portrait class in my sophomore year of college and

one of the projects was take a photo of yourself as as as the other gender and for me i was like i want to take a polaroid of myself on the street corner with my best friend and be prostitutes and so like that was the fun little idea and do a whole like polaroid narrative of that and then i had the polaroid camera sitting at my house and i had had a house party i was living in like a five-bedroom house in bushwick bed-stuy

and it was just non-stop parties all the time i don't even like to party i just like to make art and chill but like the roommates i had were partiers drinkers and so we would always have parties because that would what would pay the rent and you know we had a party the night before and then it's like two in the morning and i'm on mushrooms and i get a knock at the door and i'm like who the [ __ ] is here like what's going on and it's my friend brian with two of his girlfriends and one of which he said oh could we

come in is it is the party still happening i'm like bro the party was yesterday but you could come in and smoke some joints like let's hang out yeah you're here and then we sat on the couch and he he's like hey it's my friend's birthday today and i'm like oh [ __ ] happy birthday and i looked at her and then i looked at the polaroid and in that moment i like stood up like and like i had a lightning bolt pierced through my crown chakra into my body in my heart and like electrified me

and it was like oh my god and i held the polaroid in my hand i'm like i grabbed it i'm like i looked at her i'm like oh my god i'm going to start a birthday project and every day of the year i'm going to photograph someone on their birthday did you say that out loud or was that in your head man i think [Laughter] i don't think i said that out loud okay okay it just came to me and i don't even remember the rest of the night because that was the only thing i remembered but you did take her photograph i did not take her photos oh you didn't take her photograph oh no

no because because it was close to my birthday and i i think that that was around september 12th and then my birthday september 23rd so there was another party on september 22nd and i was going to start the project on my birthday and be the first self-portrait of the day and then the party on the 22nd one of my friends it was their her birthday so i was like you know what [ __ ] it i'm gonna start a day early like

what's the what what's the harm here and i photographed her and then the next day i drove upstate and went to bear mountain and i had a photograph of my my dog t uh tortilla um in my hand arms like a big ass husky and then wearing my like hippie [ __ ] hoodie um that you could find on any boardwalk um and and like the project started and then you know every day i would you know like hit up all my friends hey do you know anyone whose birthday it is

i would check facebook see whose birthday it is i would go to school and you know so it was very very very difficult the first three months because i it was very stressful and then after three months it got to the point where i had calendars marked i had people ready who were excited to be in it like who would text me if they knew whose birthday was and i would actually go around with the sign that says is it your birthday today on the streets of new york so the first time i did that really broke me out of my shell this is why i feel

like i'm a social person now is because i literally endured a whole year of [ __ ] going out there looking everyone in the face in new york city with a sign that says is it your birthday today and i literally say is it your birthday today is it your birthday today is it your birthday today is it until i found someone and there are so many liars like it's my birthday i'm like really they're like nah i'm like what the [ __ ] it happens get out of my way it happened so many times i would even check their ids yeah it's legit

do you feel how many photographs were there 365 yes yeah so do you feel like every single one actually was their birthday every single 100 hit rate i mean i'm i i'm 100 positive although i have a suspicion that one of them was a lie okay okay because he was a younger kid because he was like 13. he didn't have an id and my friend was like trying to hook me up but i feel like he kind of [ __ ] me over but you know what i

it it wouldn't be a project if there wasn't one liar sure yeah yeah absolutely well i'm sure there were a number of times where maybe i don't know it's like 9 00 p.m 10 p.m and you haven't taken your photograph yet and you're like that only happened once only one time it was 11 o'clock at night so i mean i was losing my mind in your head you're like dude if the clock strikes midnight i'm out or is it kind of like uh before i go to bed i'm like i'm overwhelmed my rule was midnight midnight i'm dead