i should mention that i am VERY happy to do commissions. you can set a price and i'll tell you what dimensions it'll be. price would include supplies, labor and shipping, and in general, 100% of what go beyond standard pricing will go toward mutual aid (in addition to the portion of it that would go to mutual aid anyway, as well as well as times like now where i'e already hit my living wage for the month and the rest is going either toward future months or mutual aid, or both)
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 02:45 (two years ago) link
yeah, i put the website up overnight because i was applying to a residency. i was very drunk and did everything very quickly. i actually typed "it's all connected" in a statement and made a PDF and submitted it while simultaneously asking my two biggest inspirations (one my partner, 30, the other my studio splitter, nearly 40) to write me references. i feel awful about it. and i really need to make the links work sometime. but at least for now it's a facade of a working website with high res images of my most recent work
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 02:47 (two years ago) link
ok cool! we can maybe chat commission too.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 6 July 2021 02:49 (two years ago) link
I am also extremely up to any sort of experimental transaction. I have ideas of my own, and would love to hear others too! Like, if someone is reading this: what would YOU do? I am an actual person that will consider it
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 02:56 (two years ago) link
also why did i mention both of their ages? why did i do that? these are among the questions i intend to address in my life and work
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:02 (two years ago) link
for something especially good and someone especially experimental, i also have an idea that would mimic the blockchain but in real life, and would grant continuing money to anyone who bought it along the way. it would be hilarious, and i would build in a mechanism to fund mutual aid no matter what anyone else wants. always wanted to create a real helpful pyramid scheme, and if you've known me on ilx over the years you know exactly what i mean
find a wealthy person for me who can help me do it!
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:04 (two years ago) link
there are all these fuckers getting rich off of NFTs and buying yachts. is there a goddamn SINGLE one of them that will fund what i'm doing
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:05 (two years ago) link
rooting for jeff's pickle here
also: unconditional guarantee: if any of these fuckers have a better model than me, i will adopt it and tell people how good it is. i am searching for the best model. so before cryptonation destroys me, let them offer a better alternative
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:06 (two years ago) link
very drunk over here, watching spartacus
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:07 (two years ago) link
call 'em NFZ's
― frogbs, Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:10 (two years ago) link
i posted a version of this on various channels, but i would love for an art critic to compare my work to bimple's. even if it's unfavorable to me. in fact, if they do that, i would LOVE to see it. but I think bimple just sold his works for $69M (and he continues to sell for millions, and is a mindless waste of space), and i think that conferencecall.biz is much better than anything he's ever made. no big deal, i don't expect to be paid millions, let alone thousands. but what does it say about this juncture in history if beeple is worth $69M and i am worth negative $1K, even though i'm openly saying all of my profits go to mutual aid? sorry to go to those lengths, but it's just fucking bullshit.
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:21 (two years ago) link
fuckng jeff's pickle is not only worth more than conferencecall.biz, but it's in the range of infinitude because his value is positive while mine is negative $1000. all while supposed institutional supporters of the digital art scene march on toward NFT/crypto bullshit like they weren't supporting it all the while
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:22 (two years ago) link
i would join anyone who pledged to BURY them
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:23 (two years ago) link
i am 99% joking 99% of the time, but be sure ^^that^^ is true. robin fucking hood
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 03:24 (two years ago) link
i am highly influenced by my top-volume headphone listening of SPARTACUS while working here tonight in Studio TBD
i honestly think my next painting is jeff's pickle, i will give it to jeff, and ask them to make as much money as possible on it by whatever means no matter who benefits
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 05:33 (two years ago) link
i would love to be murdered by a pickle yacht
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 05:34 (two years ago) link
let me have 1% of it so i can help people
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 05:52 (two years ago) link
I ended up letting my pickle go for $68. But I still have a baby pickle that hasn’t been revealed yet. Lower end pickle market is just above break even these days. And the banana market is even worse!Thinking last night about how to NFT’ize cc.biz. Something like dreamloops where the audio elements of the conference call are programmatically generated, each of which would have corresponding rarity. e.g., am I on mute would be relatively common, but a toilet flushing in the back ground would be more rare. Do the same with the visuals. Who knows if it would hit but it’s strange and unique enough that it may just work.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 6 July 2021 11:49 (two years ago) link
But it would need to be marketed, sent to influencers, discord started, etc. Which all seems exhausting.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 6 July 2021 12:09 (two years ago) link
Oh and deal with the annoying coiners that will complain about everything.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 6 July 2021 12:12 (two years ago) link
karl i always knew you were awesome but this is next level.
unfortunately my work computer is forbidding me from visiting your website. you must be on a blacklist of some kind?? but i will check it all out when i get home.
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 6 July 2021 12:16 (two years ago) link
jeez, thanks tracer! zach, i'm kind amazed that zachtbd.xyz works on any computer! and no rush, I still need to put something else on it, it's currently a shell :)
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 15:11 (two years ago) link
Jeff you gotta HODL on that pickle! but it's nice that there is still hope in the form of a baby pickle.
i wish i were a more well-known artist, because i think it would be a great thing if someone NFT'd conferencecall.biz and then made more money off of it than i will. that would be amazing - kind of like how it's actually a good thing if you work at a corporation and your boss shoots you in the leg or non-fatally maims you. you lose, but ultimately you win. i highly encourage any direct comparisons between conferencecall.biz and NFT art, with frank discussion about the monetary value of each, as well as what i would do with $60M vs what Beeple would do with $60M, and why that actually does matter
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 15:16 (two years ago) link
I love you Zach! We should make some cool stuff ASAP.
Do you know any of the Rhizome people? IIRC, Dragan Espenschied runs their preservation group and you two have very similar vibes.
― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 18:10 (two years ago) link
I've only been involved with Rhizome from an outsider/contractor perspective. for example, i was asked to make a bunch of GIFs for their Seven on Seven thing one year, and was paid through about a dozen subcontracts.
similarly, a little later Rhizome did a "GIF show" with Giphy. Rhizome provided hand-me-downs from 5 of their hot shit artists, while Giphy supplied the other 20, including me. i made this for it!
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/zachscott.org/Assets/images/staircase/LoopDreams.gif
unfortunately it was placed right next to the bathroom, and all night lines formed in front of it and blocked the projection. i guess that was my fault for not thinking about lines and stuff like that. anyway, I was really hoping that someone from Rhizome would see it, because I got a lot of nice compliments that night (i acted like a complete maniac, as i have every other time i exhibit something, and i think i may wear an oversized helmet at my next one to prevent that), but if any of them were ever there, i never knew. it was a cool opportunity though i guess. it just sucked because the only people i knew to "network" with were the giphy people, and they were obviously more focused on what would become their BILLION DOLLAR ACQUISITION or whatever just a few years later.
i know Rhizome does lots of cool things. but they always do these net art retrospectives and i always try to get them to pay attention to me and they nevvvver do. also I recently started yelling at them about NFTs because they've been nodding along toward crypto for a long time now
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 18:45 (two years ago) link
they could make up for these petty grievances of mine via a large donation to mutual aid, lol
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 18:47 (two years ago) link
i'm going to try a new writing style real quick. brief!
Do you know any of the Rhizome people?
no, i do not
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 18:48 (two years ago) link
How about the Rhymzone people? I asked them about you, 'karl malone?', and they simply replied 'metacarpal bone.'
― butyrate humbucker bobbins (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 6 July 2021 19:10 (two years ago) link
last day of the auction. i know i have been obnoxious, and i am sorry.
but this is my battle station tweet for this last day, and i am going to use it to do a public shoutout to ILX and share a bunch of "making of" stuff. silby, part of this will for your archival package, assuming @rhizome doesn't suddenly realize that i was a digital artist
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 16:52 (two years ago) link
but please, humor me for one more day and celebrate with me if you're bored:
On this final day of the https://t.co/IpbI6ThK3c auction, I'd like to make a value proposition to my friends in the digital art world. As we've all seen from Beeple's deserved success: money talks! So let's talk about how conferencecall has been valued over the last 7 years.— Zach TBD (@weinventyou) July 8, 2021
this will be truly a celebratory, bitter, triumphant, angry, emotional twitter thread that you won't want to miss
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 16:53 (two years ago) link
i hope you get a billion dollars and give me .05%
― burly crafty woodsman (James Harden) vs tall ethereal phantom (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 8 July 2021 17:02 (two years ago) link
i do have a compensation package in mind for ilxors (and others who helped) if it ever did get recognized by whatever the art world is and took on a higher value, for real! i would love to finally send everyone a gift! but my first priority is my own living (covered for the next couple months now, due to people buying my paintings?!) and then mutual aiding the fuck out of it
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 17:18 (two years ago) link
but currently i have one heart sign by my post, so no compensation for ilxors, christmas is canceled. in the twitter thread i highlight a particular early post ("as art-projects go, this isn't a terrible idea at all. it's a very good idea.") which was so important to me and a big confidence boost. it's my love letter to ilx, but on twitter. sorry. i post a lot of love letters to ilx on ilx, so i thought i'd share this one with the outsiders
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 17:20 (two years ago) link
I've been popping in and out of this thread clearly at the worst possible times, cognitively, to understand what the hell is going on. That first post alone is a doozy. But I think I get it now.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 8 July 2021 17:27 (two years ago) link
i have you and conferencecall.biz to thank for my first (and only) television appearance with the version for adult swim
― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Thursday, 8 July 2021 17:33 (two years ago) link
and on this thread, i'll archive one of my first interactions with the digital art world
Aww, no we didnt! Our archive is based on stewardship rather than ownership - we don't purchase work, and a number of the works in our archive are even owned by other people.— Rhizome (@rhizome) July 8, 2021
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 17:35 (two years ago) link
lol josh, i'm sorry! for real. it is inherently confusing, i admit. and believe it or not, what's happening now is actually the more straightforward version of what was originally going to be an even more weird plan.
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 17:36 (two years ago) link
things that only happen after burning bridges
Great project, good luck with the sale!— Rhizome (@rhizome) July 8, 2021
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 18:00 (two years ago) link
burn every bridge you find, i say. at least then other people may see the smoke and know you existed
love the painting jaq bought (i think it is the one at the top on the website? the link here is broken). I hope cc biz sells for millions.
― butyrate humbucker bobbins (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 8 July 2021 18:56 (two years ago) link
thank you sufjan!
I'm hoping Silby can re-sell it (to a good home) and do much better than i can someday! i don't think i'm a bad salesmen, but i do think i'm an unorthodox one and sometimes i get myself into trouble. a steady hand could do better i think :)
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 19:00 (two years ago) link
however, in my giant twitter thread, which is still somehow going, i am trying to systematically do shoutouts to the many people who made conferencecall.biz a thing that was seen by several hundred thousand people instead of just a thousand or so. there were a ton of very lucky and non-repeatable things that happened
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 19:01 (two years ago) link
Hey Zach, I tried to ilxmail you but got poxy fuled. I’m currently on a course that is Instagram/social media for small business, and seeing you on this thread talk about not knowing how to present yourself online, I feel like a lot of the slides and stuff I’ve got from it could maybe help? I’ve been on a few of these things before that have sucked but this one seems to actually deal with more concrete ways to interact with folks. Drop me an email at samuelpooley at gmail dot com and I’ll email them over. It’s about small fashion businesses but a lot is transferable. Also I understand if you dgaf, a lot of this modern world shit also just makes me wanna roll my eyes a million times.
― a hoy hoy, Thursday, 8 July 2021 19:21 (two years ago) link
maybe kai ryssdal will buy it, did you @ him?
― superdeep borehole (harbl), Thursday, 8 July 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link
hahaha, I haven't gotten to his part of the story yet but it's coming
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 19:47 (two years ago) link
if I can get Kai Ryssdal to donate to mutual aid i will consider my work done here
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 20:21 (two years ago) link
a hoy hoy i got your message! you probably saw my reply already :)
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, 8 July 2021 20:50 (two years ago) link
upload the tracks and a master gif to spotify. then make a podcast where you interview each contributor about the biz before playing their contribution at the end.
― butyrate humbucker bobbins (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 9 July 2021 17:35 (two years ago) link
i think that would be listened to by...people in this thread. :)
it would be kind of fun to have a zoom call with all the original participants (including those whose clips i didn't end up using!) and then just have it go really, really poorly
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Friday, 9 July 2021 17:38 (two years ago) link
Karl I'll make sure I do a "gallery opening" conference call someday when I fulfill my vision of having a little exhibit to go alongside the site itself.
― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Friday, 9 July 2021 17:46 (two years ago) link
i will definitely put that on my calendar!
*checks calendar*
yep, completely empty! :)
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Friday, 9 July 2021 18:00 (two years ago) link
you know what would be fun for that? have as many OG participants as possible fill all the roles, and then fill in the others with other ilxors. then, we sit there and do conferencecall.biz as long as possible (probably 15 minutes), but the trick would be that we'll all have applebee's like buzzer/triggers to let us all know that the clip we originally recorded has been triggered and we have to do it. there would be no way to know what was coming next, for anyone. could be cool!
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Friday, 9 July 2021 20:50 (two years ago) link
if we did that i'd have someone else be me and then i would play the live drone and be really high
that was zach scott, anyway. ok, all of that, plus we put someone in a zach scott corpse suit, just looking like shit, but they read my lines as me
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Friday, 9 July 2021 20:51 (two years ago) link
karl havoc could do it
― butyrate humbucker bobbins (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 9 July 2021 21:14 (two years ago) link
i highly encourage everyone to make as much profit as possible off of conferencecall.biz and then use it for as many anticapitalist ends as possible
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Friday, 9 July 2021 21:22 (two years ago) link
tbh I was shocked and confused to be called an “old school” ilxor by Zach on Twitter because I’ve only been on here 10 or 11 years
― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Saturday, 10 July 2021 00:40 (two years ago) link
The only people who started posting after me are frogbs and treeship I think
― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Saturday, 10 July 2021 00:41 (two years ago) link
Me
― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Saturday, 10 July 2021 01:04 (two years ago) link
dmac is old schooltreesh is old schoolsilby is old school
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 01:11 (two years ago) link
anyone after me is old school, and i made my first post in...2006? it was bad
people before that were the golden age of ilx, in my mind. they're like legolas and gandalf and the rest. some of them were like gollum. there were a bunch of good characters
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 01:12 (two years ago) link
in my mind dmac treesh and silby have always been there. so, personally, to me, old school
if you fight intuition with facts, i will throw ideas at logic
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 01:13 (two years ago) link
please sign me up for conference call dot biz conference call party!
― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Saturday, 10 July 2021 15:20 (two years ago) link
^^old schooler^^
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 15:53 (two years ago) link
Had to look myself up: 2004, happy to recreate my obvious magic again. :)
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 10 July 2021 16:25 (two years ago) link
Think of me like an old school ghost, always present, often silent ❤️👻
― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Saturday, 10 July 2021 16:43 (two years ago) link
I used to post as 'sonicdeath' - 06 - mostly not a heavy poster, but enjoy the discourse. Miss conference call biz, which I think I was introduced to via lumpen.
― BlackIronPrison, Saturday, 10 July 2021 20:28 (two years ago) link
it's still alive!
also, i just thought of a way to trick ted cruz supporters into supporting me, this covid group i work with, and mutual aid
fuck yeah
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 20:33 (two years ago) link
xp
via lumpen? really? the chicago area group?
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 20:34 (two years ago) link
The zine, enjoyed the internet/radio stuff a bit, & maybe went to a few space related things, but mostly just read and enjoyed zine at Quimby's etc.
― BlackIronPrison, Saturday, 10 July 2021 20:53 (two years ago) link
dang, that's awesome! i used to hang out a small bit with the lumpen crew back in 2006 (not very much at all, but a little) and i'd love to see what they said.
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
plus i'm currently concocting a plan to get a zine into Quimby's, full circle.
like, just Quimby's
― Z_TBD (Karl Malone), Saturday, 10 July 2021 20:56 (two years ago) link
att: karl malone
https://zenodo.org/record/4008297#.YRPvgy1Q3_Q
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 12 August 2021 11:45 (two years ago) link
lol! what a cool database! it must have been hard to know when they had "enough" meows
― Read between the lines Zach (Karl Malone), Thursday, 12 August 2021 15:46 (two years ago) link