DR. Death & Love in Web3 — a Valentine special
Who would have predicted that our Valentine post would feature “Dr.death”’ in its title. But if there is any single word that captures the web3 revolution, unpredictable might be it. Nonetheless, it’s a great opportunity to take a moment and introduce the romantic power couple that kicked off our first steps into the Meta.
Tighe-Mearns-Smith, aka Dr.Death, are the ever-prolific and talented creators behind our first collaboration with Marcel Art, a platform that empowers creators and connects them with a community of art lovers. Their art has a unique voice and signature which is more than just thought-provoking, it offers a vision; one which they are quite vocal about. And in a time that has already been described as the age of imagination, it sure sparked ours.
So without any further adieu, let’s hear from the Meta love birds themself.
Time to unveil the mask. What can you tell us about the power couple behind Dr.Death?
This is definitely the hardest question! We guess if we had to summarize ourselves we would go with: quintessentially eccentric English couple, we like sarcastic humor, cups of tea and partying. Maybe a few examples of some things that people have genuinely said about us / to us would be a great insight into who we are:
Kane:
“the most passionate man about NFT’s that I have ever met”
— someone at an NFT event in London
“you’re like a crackhead Jesus”
— that’s what you get for preaching “Redemptionism” whilst wearing a tracksuit
Jessica:
“you literally speak like yoda”
— my dyslexia affects my speech
“I honestly thought you were a vampire, I’ve never seen you out in the day before”
— Lovely lady I used to see whilst I took my elderly neighbors dog out for an evening walk
Since it’s valentine’s day, after all, let’s speak about romance for a minute. How did yours start?
The universe works in mysterious ways, and sometimes, it’s really cliché, a lot like the story of how we met — what would most likely fall into the Romantic Comedy genre if it was a film. We met at Kingston University, London; Jessica was studying fashion & Kane Fine Art, specializing in Animation. We weren’t really in the same friendship groups but we’d seen each other around University a few times. We both attended the end-of-year fine art show in the second year, we bumped into each other and we hit it off.
We have, pretty much, spent every day together since. We stayed up night after night sharing our distaste for postmodernism, our interest in art & political manifestos, animals, alien life, and space exploration. What started off as material attraction, soon developed into the deepest connection we have ever experienced.
Dr.Death’s art was the first NFT to be sold on our platform and will forever be a piece of Multeez history. What was that experience like for you? What significance does mutual ownership of NFTs, and art in general, mean to you?
We would like to praise and highlight the telegram group specifically. Within the telegram community, Multeez has created a functional platform that allows for an effective experience of buying, placing bids, contacting collectors, as well as checking current bids & current percentage of active co-ownership bidding.
To us, mutual ownership means accessibility. Co-ownership of an asset opens up the optionality for anyone to buy and sell art, which until now has been seen as primarily an upper-class ‘rich people’ form of investment. What mutual ownership in fact offers, is a blur of these boundaries, creating a bridge that allows individuals to be able to group together and input an investment of their own caliber
This is just how we started off, when we were looking to invest in cryptocurrency, or trade on the stock market, we didn’t have the available money to put in for a Mona Lisa sized investment, instead, we were able to invest a percentage of a lot, and through this investment, we are able to capitalize on the potentiality of positive price action. This is now being offered in the art world with authentic, digitally verifiable NFT’s and we think it is magnificent.
Additionally, the independence of each holder is key to the co-ownership functionality. Family-owned assets, a group of friends, a company asset split between the workers; the fact that each holder is able to transfer and sell their percentage independently within the group allows for a neatly decentralized operation. This is a brilliant concept.
So let’s talk about redemption. It’s a central theme, embedded throughout your work. What inspired it, and why is it so important for you?
Redemption is an important term for us, as we create and lead “The Era of Redemption: a social and artistic movement. The Era of Redemption is an age of self-realization, equality and a state of liberation for both our planet and ourselves. Through the exploration of Redemptionism’s key ideologies we will help aid the world’s predetermined transition into the next Golden Age.
You can also find out more about our philosophy and read our manifesto on our website.
Your work is very multidimensional, from digital art to music, animation, and fashion. What are some of your biggest influences?
It’s fair to say that there is a great deal that influences us. The more we study the world and its history, the more we read about culture, study art, philosophy, science and religion, we notice these universal recurrent patterns. These patterns and images, these emotional visions that we try to rationalize from our dreams, are intra-personal as they are spread across hundreds of thousands of years of human development. From modern art to cave paintings, these symbols are archetypal, and behind those symbols are ideologies that sew together the fabric of the will of the universe.
This is what influences us, the discovery and exploration of these patterns, the micro-macro, the above, the below and the chasm that lies in-between.
What’s next for Dr.Death?
Dr.Death has a huge 2022 planned, and we are very excited for the future of our work. In March we are 1 of 6 guest designers at the notorious St. Andrews Fashion Show at which we will be exhibiting some of our high-end sustainable fashion collection. We recently featured in CR Fashion Book and can’t wait to be back at an IRL ‘in real-life’ event! The proceeds of the event will be going towards two non-profit organizations: Impact Arts & Domestic Violence Project.
We are also excited to announce that we will be setting up our first Dr.Death Rave at a private event that will merge our Zilliqa based NFT’s with an IRL party. We’ve missed out on a lot of parties due to covid and we are going to bring back the scene, swinging. We will be headlining the night with our 45 minute set ‘To the Nigredo & Back Again’ that premiered at a Mixcloud Online Festival in November 2021.
Currently, we have a limited edition sale of our 2nd Dr.Death Cult Club eco-t-shirt! This is available only as an NFT, which acts one as the authenticity for the garment and secondly as the sustainability specification, as well as the care instructions. These are available via a private sale — you can message us on Twitter or drop us an email to get yours. They are a limited edition of 50 and will only be available for 10 days, ending on the 22nd of February, so get in while you can! All purchases will grant access into the Cult Club, come join us!
Our Tarot Deck and comic series ‘Dr.Death’s Redemption’ are well underway and we will be continuing to release weekly comic episodes and Redemption tickets for people to star as a character in the comic. We’ll also be asking our next ‘pivotal question’ for the community to decide on a move that Dr.Death makes in the comic. This allows a form of decentralized engagement between the development of the story and a collective decision, as even the smallest of choices that we make can have the ripple effect of the highest magnitude; as the butterfly flaps its wings, the tornado comes into being.
We have been working on some large scale digital fine art pieces that we are excited to release on two new NFT marketplaces that are coming to the Zilliqa ecosystem, Zilkroad & Rialto. We are going to explore the relationship between our digital NFTs and our physical works: sustainable garments and jewelry, as well as our physical drawings and paintings.
We are also excited to announce the release of our first NFT essay! We’ll only be minting 100 copies and giving them out to the Cult Club members, before offering them to the public, for free.
Finally, we would like to hint at a project that we will be building on Zilliqa that we will be announcing soon. A project merging our music, animation, sustainable fashion & illustration work in one. We are talking about a fully animated music video, film festivals and a one off super storyline. It’s going to be very Dr.Death, and he’s ready to kick some fudders out of this world.
Thanks again, it’s been wonderful speaking to you. We welcome you to the ‘Era of Redemption’ and look forward to our exciting future, just as we embrace our enjoyable present.
The future is bright,
Jessica & Kane
aka
Tighe-Mearns-Smith: The Summoners of Dr.Death
Join the revolution
If you want to be a part of the excitement and looking to get involved, sign up for our Private Alpha Platform, reach out to us on Twitter, follow all the latest updates and join the conversation.
See you on the other side.
