The art is mainly digitally hand-drawn; This results in the small imperfections we wanted. Perfect circles and straight lines can make for a very dull and flat artwork — plus a cranky artist in the team. More importantly, the style has to reflect the kind of community we want: Imperfect, but strong and vibrant. Working towards the perfect community is a good driving force, but making it perfect would kill the dynamic of said community for a number of reasons.
The image you see at the top is an 0xer in its raw state (plus a tic-tac-toe match I won). The 0x eyes, headphones and Matrix inspired neck cable (headjack) are the fundamental features of 0xers, and they have a significance. The 0x eyes refer to the project name and Ethereum address syntax, of course, but they also point to the nature of people in web3 who are halfway on and halfway off; We are present in the metaverse (0 — on), but our biology, our bodies, keep us rooted IRL (x — off). We can also flip this perspective and say we live in the real world (0 — on), but part of us belongs to the metaverse (x — off). Deep stuff. The headphones are a homage to mfers and carry the notion that life is better with vibes. Some of our best memories are triggered by music. The headjack has a more ominous significance. We presume most of you have watched The Matrix, or at least know the gist of it (watch the movie!). In The Matrix, the headjack is the main instrument of control that the AI machines have over us; It also leaves us very vulnerable physically and, in extension, existentially. Elon Musk once uttered the foreboding mark my words phrase when he tried to explain the dangers of AI, and we should never discard all trepidation as we ape into new technology — we used to live in caves, you know.
We’ve also drawn inspiration from other collections (like mfers, BAYC, Nouns, Azuki…) when it comes to traits and backgrounds. We love fun art just as much as the next 0xer. And it keeps our artist happy. We could go on an on about the artwork, but bite-sized articles is a sound principle. We’ll be back with another piece of text soon where we’ll discuss the philosophy and values behind 0xers.
Until then, 0x0x.
