Understanding EF Mandate Art - Tomo Saito

Transcript

I can change. Okay, you see this presenter view, right? Okay, let me stop. Maybe I can just like a slideshow. Okay cool. Here you go. So, today I want to talk about the EF Monday. Um Well, before talking about that, like it like I'm actually here in a beautiful room and I'm going to talk about the some sort of like aesthetics. So, I want to actually feel where you are at. Like you look at the beautiful room, like beautiful art.

You know, it's Prague has a such a beautiful logos and you know, this event is really really well created. So, yeah, let's cultivate the essence of feeling. Okay, so So, I want to talk about the EF Monday arts. Um couple of weeks ago I was in Tokyo and someone, you know, told me that like, "Oh, you're the designer of a Milady Manifesto." I was like, "Okay, uh that's interesting." Um I was like, "Yeah, that's kind of funny to you know, people have some sort of perception about some certain document."

So, this is kind of like an interesting moment like, "Okay, I really want to talk about my perception about the EF Monday. Maybe you can have a little bit clearer perception about the EF Monday. And also sharing my personal transformation creatively through the project and then do a Q&A later. Okay, so what is EF Monday? It's a The EF Monday is the document published by the board of the Eastern Foundation for the in March 2025, sorry, 26.

A couple of weeks ago uh or a couple of months ago, I feel like a long time ago already, um but that defines what the Foundation stands for, what it stands for, and then why it exists. And then that is the foundation of everything Ethereum Foundation does and then guidelines set by the board for the future leadership to follow effectively lasting thousands years. And it allows it outlines the core principles and practices for Ethereum as a sanctuary technology that brings self-sovereignty and the ability to coordinate at scale without surrendering the sovereignty to anyone.

Very strong document. And to design that um the core challenge design challenge I had was manifesting the new energy of the document but also the the new energy of the how the Ethereum Foundation exists and then probably uh the Ethereum ecosystem at large. Um So um and then soon after I realized I need to work on transforming the old aesthetics to the new aesthetics.

Because aesthetics is a tool to understand the energy of the world. Does it make sense? Yeah. So, I want to just go through the 2024 aesthetics, which is the infinite garden era. Um Like this. And um that like pretty dreamy. The Infinite Garden is a vision of the Ethereum that that we created Infinite Games Playground.

Right? And then, in 2025, I start implementing the more AI amplified uh tools. I still draw a couple things in that in the picture. Um but I mean, like, it's Saga's like it's it's more, you know, more more broad. It can It can go beyond, you know, AI's amplifiers. So, I was really excited about like implementing AI as well. Couple things like this. Beautiful. It's awesome.

Um but soon after um especially I finished the first version of the EF Monday and I share to everyone in a EF. And then that was good. Um but the board member said, "Not good. It doesn't implement the energy." And then what I had to do was to break my judgment or attachment to create something good to be on the good.

Right? So, I had to shut up myself. Go beyond. It was really challenging. Um it was actually the moment like I really have to look at myself like why I like good thing, beautiful thing. And to explore one of the inspiration was Milady. Um does anybody knows about Milady? Okay. Do you understand what is Okay, so to be honest like I was not super familiar with the Milady before this project. Um but I went deep down and then I learned really interesting stuff.

Um So Milady is actually about creating um the sense of abundance. And the sense of abundance of love in the digital age. And that creates some sort of like network spirituality. It's just some sort of a a common purpose. And then to have the spirituality, you practice individually to create art or memes or to make something broad, right? And then that energy itself is the one we're similar to what we were looking

for. And it's the sense of like a revelating was really, really powerful. And that I thought personally thought that Milady energy was really, really close to the sense of the freedom that Ethereum Ethereum especially the mandate was talking about. Um so and then at large it points to the very fundamental thing. It's a human humanity itself, right? So And if you want to learn more about the Milady um there's a couple of zines at the other side of the room. The Tim Clancy has brought 200 copies of uh Milady zines. So please take a look like

take it like I have number 55 of 200. So this um this describes something about the face. The face of being radical, being cyberpunk. You can take whatever you want, but um yeah, it's a really strong genes. And I started working with Shiro. Shiro is a have been working as the artist to create the network spirituality aesthetics.

And I work I also talked to Emma, my friend who lives in LA in Japan. She has been working as a artist and then a musician kind of like having a sense of like sensibility. And obviously I have lots of influences and inspirations including Freeland or Zelda or Dante's Divine Comedy which is the journey from Inferno to Paradiso.

Samurai the the Vagabond comics by Inouye. And don't forget about the anarchism. Freedom. Right, those are a lot of influences and then I was like yeah, really soaking to a lot of influence and then trying to reflect without any attachment like without judging anything. So, like you trying to be open and then amplifying the aesthetics and yeah, like beauty beauty but it would have would have more than beauty, right?

So, so just the couple iteration from left to right to go to the good to beyond good. And the last one is like Okay, when I show to a couple of designers for the first time before showing it to everyone, everyone was like, "What the What happened?" Right? Yes, I I thought I felt that too. Like what did I do? Like I didn't really understand why I did. Um So this is a little bit of details like how that look.

Um There was a lot of details and also a lot of things are made by uh me but also from AI. So it's like a mix of a lot of things. But um the quote in the bottom left Hopes springs eternal in the human breast is is a Anthony Pope uh probably like 17 century. I Sorry, I don't have the details. Um because presenter view is gone. Um but it's the quote for the the the freedom, legal representation.

Um The Eastern in the center it's uh the character made by Shiro. But also this is a cover so it's like a beginning of the journey is starting. Um Yeah, um this is just the cover for the the first section. I I actually wrote Japanese over here like like a dreaming is about learning love and then much much bigger love. And the dreams are streaming into you and access. You know, this is a game of the dream.

And this is a Yeah, this is like the the amplified the infinite garden. And the cultivating crops. So crops uh are the the principles or properties of uh the Ethereum, the censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security. Crop sounds like Yeah crops right? And yeah, this is a scene of the um dark forest.

We go in through the dark forest with lots of love. Um I was actually thinking about the samurai thing here. Um I practice samurai for 2 months uh in Los Angeles. And then from the the the real Japanese samurai guys. And then to you know, when you do something samurai thing, to kill somebody, actually they have to use a lot of love. Because love is the only way you can liberate your body.

If you're fighting with a fear, your body tighten up. You cannot do anything. So, it's like even to kill somebody, you have to actually have a the humongous love right? I thought that was actually really amazing. And through Monday, we talk about the love a lot. I I think that's actually similar to that. Like, to do something, you have to really love it. Um Okay so let's move on.

Um another game prompt case says activating s- seventy. And then the Chinese character or kanji says crops. Thank you. It's It's like a joke. Um that this Chinese character says um shūshin saike. It's a um Can take a look at my notes. I think it was like a Yeah, cultivate self and then regulate the family. It's a self discipline basically.

And yeah, this is straightforward. I don't need to be perfect. I just need to be brave. It's good reminder all the time. And yeah, this is a scene of the subtraction. We have been talking about the subtraction years. Someone is walking in the path you built. They're going farther than you imagined. Love beautiful. Cool. And this is the section of uh Ah sorry.

Resolving the quantities. Um yeah, it's it's a you know, we have to have the challenges and the trade-offs. So, it's like kind of like a big growth like facing some challenges. And that's kind of like we wanted to show that. And then we challenge with team. And this is the section of the future. Future is a multi-dimension dimensional. So, it's not only the light, but also we have like a lot of things happening. Um And Yeah the the bottom part is like a still our base is a infinite garden. So, let's move

forward from here to the the hopeful future. Um yeah, so around that this section like we want to kind of implement the journey of the Dante's you know, Paradiso essence. And obviously this is like divine light. Right? For the stream. And your future is our future. You are wired into the Ethereum.

Affirm and I love you. There's no way to go back. You are here already, so let's commit. So, through this um work, I was like, you know, I showed up myself breaking my old myself and creating something new, which is open and then I feel like so much some sort of like this creative freedom. And I feel so much lighter. Like, I don't feel something heavy. Like yeah, like everything was like a coming in and coming out. It was really natural. I spent about a week of this process and

yeah, it was such a um yeah, personally, I felt something transformative. Like And yeah, so those arts are available as a print. So, if you want to download as a the poster form, you can download this one. Uh we have like PDF, big JPEG, and TIFF, which is super huge. But um not that different, to be honest. Um yeah, please download if you want to print by yourself.

Um yeah. Okay. So um I talked about the I talked about the aesthetics. So, how do I call this aesthetics? Right? Um what do you think? Um Okay, hyper glitch Wait, hyper trans glitch liminal chrono avant-garde kawaii divine psychedelic beyond modern. Digital video web 3.0 cosmic hyper futuristic cyber and love punks.

Everything everywhere is in This is a joke. Um I think I probably I need your help to name it um because I don't have myself the right word to describe. Also, I'm still digesting this work. Like I am really um Yeah, like always go back to this and I felt like wow, this is something different and I'm I'm also learning from this.

Right, so I think this is interesting. Like I don't have any attachment to this work. I feel like this is some something happened. So I'm learning from it. um Also, I want to emphasize that true form of the Eve Monday is is on Ethereum. um on a world computer and our blog says uh it's free for anyone to read, view, interpret, and remix forever. We publish uh canonical version of a version uh on use, but it im- imposes no obligation to on anyone else. So Yeah, please take a look this way and I just imagine

how it can be. um And uh some of some some some people did it already. um Other form of the Eve Monday is the how the Ethereum fund uh EF Monday can exist. Uh this is uh uh covered by one of the Infinite Garden artist cohort last year. um Tiny And this is another one by uh the same cohort Felina. They did this work. um It's like a snake.

Snake like um Adam and Eve's snake. Right? But, it transformed into uh dragon. And Ciro, who is uh collaborating for the Eve Monday art, uh also did about her her version as well. And yeah, anyone can do this. Okay, which is like we are um Yeah, happy to see how it goes. Okay, now Q&A. Um Before that, okay, I have some Q FAQs.

Uh because people ask the same questions already. So, did you take any substance to create this aesthetics? No. But, I felt it. So, I felt like I was on something. It's like a dzz feel for a week. Right? I took reishi actually, so maybe it, right? Reishi, the mushroom? Not the psychedelic mushrooms. Reishi. You know reishi?

Reishi or uh cordyceps type of things, right? Um lion's mane, sorry, not reishi. Lion's mane. Yeah. Okay, does the aesthetics represent a ism ecosystem? No. Uh our aesthetics is uh ours. We built it together. So, every single person here can be the con- uh contributor of the aesthetics. So, happy to build together. Okay, that's it. Uh any questions? That was it.

>> Hello. Thanks for the Thanks for the presentation. It's Yeah, very inspiring to see and and also hear your thoughts behind it besides just the trying to interpret them from what we see. Um, I'm curious if you um during this process, if you have explored other mediums besides visual mediums to try to interpret what the EF mandate could, I don't know, for example, sound like. Um, have you had any, yeah, explorations of other mediums besides visual?

>> Yes, personally, I I thought about couple different um mediums, but also like it's a part of my process, like I draw something and then go beyond. Yeah, but also I want everyone to imagine any form is fine. Like for example, it can be it can be a sculpture. It can be anything. So I'd like to have you imagine whatever you want.

>> Hi. I have one question. Yeah, maybe I didn't catch it correctly, but what does the girl represent? >> What is a what? >> What does the girl in the Ah, okay. Okay. What does the girl represent and if if it changes during different different phases or how do people uh react towards her? Or >> The the girls? Sorry, I >> Ah, okay. Um >> Can you can you repeat the question?

>> Yeah, each chan each chan >> Oh, each chan? >> Ah Sorry. >> Yeah, so we can go back. Uh, each chan? Each chan each chan's Yeah, this one? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, and then what what's your question?

>> Yeah, the question is what does her represent and if there is an evolution during the mandate between the relationship between the girl and and the rest of the >> I I actually So, this is done by Shiro. So, I didn't impose too much about what what the story exactly, but kind of implemented her work. So, she stands as a collaborator for me. So, you can contact Shiro if you have a question. She's um Hold on.

>> The question was more about what it represents and if there is an evolution of of that meaning through the mandate. >> Oh, Okay so um It's actually up to you. I don't have an answer for it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anyone else with questions? We have a little bit of extra time, it seems. >> Hi, Elisa here.

Sorry if you already bring this point, but I think it's important because I got this question quite or like I got in these discussions quite a lot. If like people can take the images from the mandate and do like things by themselves with that. I don't know. Um post it in I don't know, like post it in in some somewhere else or like use it because everyone agrees that it's great art. >> Okay, what what's your question again? The >> So, if like people can like take in pictures of the mandate of like what kind of license does it have and if people can use their art.

>> Oh, I see. Um, okay. Is that like it can you edit this one or something like that? Like a copy, take it. I think I think this Did we talk about that? No? It's like it's oh creative commons zero, right? Yeah. It's it's yeah. Like it's CC zero. I believe. So, you can you can copy, modify. Do whatever you want. Yeah, you can do whatever you want.

Yeah. >> Okay. Um I have a question actually. Uh so, what do you think about um the criticisms of the EF mandate and art style in the sense of cultish let's say. Cuz there's a lot of very spiritual themes and I think that's been open to many interpretations by malicious and positive actors. >> Well, first um having criticism like like in my personal experience like about 50% of people said something really really critical and some people like that was And then and some people said like it was awesome, right? I thought that was actually this is perfect. This is

great. Like a 50/50 is awesome. I'm so happy personally and I'm great. Um but to for the criticism, I understand and I'm you know, I'd love to understand more. Like yeah, like yeah, culty maybe. Um but it's still also depending on the personal experiences and stuff, right? So, yeah. I I'm happy to hear, but also um it's it's more like a reflection of what's going on. So, it reflection part uh pure reflection to to energy itself.

Um so, it was not intention to make it like culty or something. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Anyone else has some interesting questions? We're still uh extra on time. Okay. Thank you very much, Tom. Let's have one great round of applause for this amazing artist. >> you so much. >> Do we have a speaker? Virginia?

>> Virginia? >> Is she here?