Gavin Shapiro is a digital artist whose ultimate goal is to produce work that makes you smile, and these days he aims to do that by making vibrant, surrealist 3D animation that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still retains a high level of quality. He's lived in New York, Osaka and Paris, working on a large variety of projects including tv shows, commercials, outdoor displays, large-format stage visuals, and animations for casino games.

His personal work, released under the name “shapiro500,” has been used as visuals at music festivals and concerts all over the world, and has been shown on digital billboards as part of art exhibitions in New York City, Paris and Tokyo. His animations have accumulated hundreds of millions of views across Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Giphy, and have been sold as #NFTs on Nifty Gateway and SuperRare since mid-2020.

The socials for Web3, starting an Instagram before Twitter. What are the differences? Twitter as a conversation versus Instagram as a gallery.

The Social Dilemma - https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/

Beware of online filter bubbles Ted Talk (2014) - https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles

Gavin trying to buy bitcoin at $400 while in Japan, but couldn’t figure it out in 2013.

Japan’s influence on Gavin’s work, and how our mutual friend and previous guest Josh (@Awheck) lived there.

The evolution of his work form penguins to flamingos back to penguins.

Bonding over marathons, with very different experiences.

The different types of animation: 3D rendering; 2d animation (Deekay); type animation

One of Gavin’s early creations that is highly addictive, a game called Squares 2 - https://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/squares2

Finding royalty free music on Audiojungle for NFTs - https://audiojungle.net/

How Beeple (indirectly) taught Gavin in his early years - https://www.beeple-crap.com/

Onboarding my mentor AwHeck(Josh) and JackMa https://twitter.com/jackmaschka

The PFP from him and a collection made with love. https://opensea.io/collection/cryptobeanz

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