Proposal: ATX Walls Mural Project for Consensus

CrystalGravy

Inspiration:

ATX DAO has a mission to connect with local artists and educate and activate them in the web3 ecosystem. During Consensus, ATX DAO should take the opportunity to showcase a badass project which has been coordinated by us to get local artists paid, support a local charity, and teach Austinites about web3-native mechanisms like using art NFTs for collectibility and governance.

Proposal:

ATX DAO commissions a local artist named Efren “E-R” (https://www.EverydayResearch.com) to paint a mural at Native Hostel May 23-28 to advertise ATX DAO during Consensus.
Mural price: $11,825, which is a 20% price discount because E-R believes in the project and will share in the NFT royalty split.
Native Hostel’s prime location wallspace (4th St x I-35) is a 5 min walk from the Consensus Convention Center. This wall always rents for $4k/month, but it is being donated by Native and arranged through HOPE Outdoor Gallery (local 501c3 artist collective of muralists).
Because Summer is not usually a busy time for new murals, Miles Starkey from HOPE is optimistic that Native will be able to donate the wall through August.
Local videographer Jeff Zavala will create two short marketing films that explain and advertise the project.
JZavala will film the mural painting process over three days and interview ATX DAO, HOPE, and E-R. He will deliver 90-seconds of edited video in the form of a 30-second teaser and 60-second explainer.
Cost to film and edit the videos: $1500.
https://vimeo.com/397710292 30 second teaser example
https://vimeo.com/663430332 explainer video example (about 3D-NFT Mural)
A 3D-NFT will be created by Jeff Zavala by performing a high-resolution 3D-scan of the completed mural. This high-quality NFT will be metaverse-compatible and can be placed anywhere by the NFT-collector using gallery tools like MoNa, iLLUST.Space, etc.
Cost to scan and deliver 3D-NFT: $2500. A similar 3D scanned mural, also up at Native Hostel right now: https://foundation.app/@KimieTheDestroyer/ksa/1.
Total cost for Mural art + marketing videos + 3D-NFT = $15,825
The Mural NFT will be featured prominently at the June 10th Consensus Party. We will have a panel with E-R, HOPE, and Jeff Zavala to highlight the project.
Mint-royalty split between the artist E-R (50%), HOPE (25%), and ATX DAO's Art Fund (25%). If we sell just 200 NFTs at $250, this raises $50,000 for three good causes. Cost prototyping here if you want to play with the numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n_zmsxfIk-rR5VBVR0SBccIlQCgbb2Mfd_QnUvZtLt0/edit?usp=sharing
I will work with Engineering to size the effort to build this into the mint.atxdao.com site. Alternatively, we can use MintGoldDust.com but they take a 15% cut. They could be a useful partner for promoting the project if we want to work with them, but I'm not sure we need their assistance.
If we want, we can also setup a special MuralNFT-gated discord channel for allowing minters to participate in governance over the ATX DAO Art Fund. They can vote for the next project's location, artist, theme, etc via snapshot and ATX DAO can set this up on our discord.

512mace

I strongly support this proposal for many reasons. The most important, personally, is that this will be the ATX DAO's first project that directly benefits the city of Austin and artist communities. We have done an excellent job growing the organization and building an Austin crypto community, but this will be our first foray into work that is a general public good. The promise of ATX DAO is that as we make Austin the crypto capital of the world, we are also demonstrating that crypto can be a positive force. With increasing scrutiny, FUD, and negative sentiment given recent events, delivering on this promise is more important than ever.

Thank you Ryan, Jeff, and team for the hard work over the past months, this is a very complex project and is shaping up to be a home run.

josephf

This is great progress! I love the art by E-R. I would like to see more detail about the website and the minting page. Can we build a mockup? What does the landing page look like? Which chain do we mint on? Do we have some tutorials on how to set up a wallet or purchase crypto for first-timers? Perhaps an explainer video about the project.
Here is an early draft: http://atxdao.com/mural, feel free to modify.

How do we direct users to the website? Are we going to have the URL painted on the mural? eg. atxdao.com/art

CrystalGravy

josephf Yes, we need to do a mockup of the landing page asap. I will work on this with Sam Padilla next week.

clifton

Am I reading correctly that we're we're paying 16k to get the mural maybe through august? Do we not have any options with a little more permanence? I would think there would be some business owner that would be cool with having 10k+ of art installed at no cost to them. Everything else looks great

512mace

clifton from what I understand, walls are actually rented out for murals - i.e. we would typically be paying for this.

CrystalGravy

clifton Yes, this is a valid criticism that we tried to address. I talked with Miles Starkey of HOPE about trying to find a more permanent wall or business that wants a mural. We were unsuccessful finding something during the April-July timeframe. During this first project, we did want to keep the number of decision-makers on the project as small as possible and didn't want to involve a business unless absolutely necessary. With Native donating the wallspace during Consensus at a perfect location, and the NFT will be the actual way that we raise money from the project. I'm not sure exactly how specifically relevant the mural will be after the June crypto-centric events (other than being beautiful art, of course). All things considered, we decided to go with the great donated location. Thanks for your question, clifton.

SamPadilla

I strongly support the proposal and its spirits and motives of it.

Though I second clifton's concern of the price being a little too high for a during maybe 3 months.

I am sure Ryan did the best possible DD on the costs, but wondering if there are any other ways to make this cheaper on the artist side.

josephf

Are we are planning to operate the Mural project at a loss? Any way we can make it positive? Seems like ATX DAO should be collecting a larger portion of the royalties since we are taking the financial risk and providing funds.
150 * $250 * .25 - $15,825 = $6.2k loss

It is a very tough market right now for all financial investments, especially crypto so getting 150 NFT sales this year will be harder than it would have been a few months ago. But if the project is well marketed and the user experience is good, there is a chance we could get well over 150. But I'd vote for collecting a larger portion of the royalties, (even if it means paying the artist a slightly larger up-front fee).

CrystalGravy

josephf I think if you consider the additional sponsorship that we will be able to raise for the June 10th party due to our featuring a prominent artist and local charity, the $6.2k loss may actually be a wash. But your review of the estimated numbers is accurate. Or you could consider it a $6.2k billboard for ATX DAO, perfectly located at ground zero during a gigantic crypto conference, with sticky NFT Utility, and a reason for Austinites to watch a 90-second video about ATX DAO, that's got to be worth something. I think the current costs and royalties are close enough to be financially reasonable (if even at a slight loss), while gaining lots of knowledge and experience on some key tasks that ATX DAO needs to learn:

working with and amplifying the artist community
working with and amplifying a local charity 501c3
marketing and selling an NFT that generates revenue for future ATX DAO projects
using that NFT to teach non-DAO folks about NFT governance
experimenting with ATX DAO's ability to bring DAO-coordinated projects to the larger austin population