From pandemic-based shifts to those manufactured out of technological breakthroughs, there are now uncharted waters all around us. One of the more exciting of these spaces is Web3, a decentralized web platform centered around the blockchain that’s being touted as the future of the internet. HXOUSE, a Toronto-based think-center, incubator, and accelerator, is bringing together multidisciplinary creatives from all facets to explore the future of digital community.
StockX has partnered with HXOUSE to deliver keynote discussions and events at a global scale. The result is a collaborative international tour that takes HXOUSE’s unique blend of cross-disciplinary learning and makes it accessible to new markets. This year, StockX and HXOUSE will host seven events in cities across North America in preparation for another five events internationally in 2023. At each event, StockX and HXOUSE will host cultural voices from each city to break down the creative’s unique points of view and talk about how they’re disrupting their respective industries.
Last week, the inaugural StockX x HXOUSE Panel took place in HXOUSE’s hometown of Toronto. The panel was hosted by Joey Gollish, also known as Joey Saturday, an entrepreneur who’s founded multiple tech companies as well as the Toronto-based luxury brand, Mr. Saturday. Sitting on the panel in Toronto were three of the city’s most prominent multi-disciplinary creatives: Sean Brown, Hallie Tut, and Ricky Baba. Throughout the panel, the audience got to know each of the panelists as they talked through the ways that they’ve wrestled with maintaining authenticity in their craft, especially as it relates to digital mediums.
StockX x HXOUSE Toronto Panel Host: Joey Gollish
Joey Gollish is the perfect creative to be hosting a panel about the intersection between authenticity and Web3. His multi-disciplinary talents transcend the domains of tech, fashion, and design – all of which he has a respective hand in. He kicked his career off in the tech industry, founding two separate tech ventures, Addo Labs and Openhouse. But after just a few years of work in that sector, Gollish’s interests began to lead him elsewhere. Before long, his attraction to fashion and industrial design became the foundation for Mr. Saturday, Gollish’s luxury brand that he runs out of Toronto. Over the last few years, Mr. Saturday has become a cult-favorite among its fans, giving the brand the opportunity to show its collections at Paris Fashion Week.
In his discussion with the panelists, Gollish makes it clear that accessibility is something he values very highly. “You can sit down and create the wildest thing your mind can imagine but part of creating real art is creating something that people can empathize with and something they can actually access,” says Gollish, “not so avant garde that nobody gets it. That’s kind of a cop out when it comes to art.”
StockX x HXOUSE Toronto Panelist: Hallie Tut
At the young age of 15, Hallie Tut was already in the full swing of a successful career in photography, shooting color-saturated shots of artists like Danny Brown and Lil Yachty. Not long after that, Tut started working with Nike Toronto and by the age of 18 she was directing music videos. Like so many of us, the pandemic brought a significant disruption to Hallie Tut’s work, which caused her to shift her attention to TikTok. It‘s on TikTok that Tut has reached her largest audience, one of nearly a million followers. Her TikToks, like the photography that originally put her on the map, feature vivid, often mind bending editing, colors, and storylines. Her most popular TikToks are labeled “Nightmares” and depict her falling asleep while watching another TikTok and then waking up to find herself being haunted by that video.
Authenticity for Hallie Tut seems to look like deep thoughtfulness. Her most viral work engages the ways in which our digital lives can intersect with our real ones. During the panel discussion, Tut expresses concerns about the confluence and competition she feels between her curated digital self and the one that exists in real life. “I’m working so hard to upkeep this person that just exists online, but so many more people know her and are waiting for her, is she more important than me?” Tut asks, “Is that version more real than the one that wakes up in the morning?” Additionally, Tut seems to be finding herself struggling with the idea of algorithm regulated content. “As an artist, you’re sort of battling against that urge to create specifically to cater to that algorithm or create things that are genuine to you.” As we approach something like Web3, questions like Tut’s will likely continue to become even more pressing and even more prevalent. Thankfully, digital creators like her are already wrestling with ideas like these.
StockX x HXOUSE Toronto Panelist: Sean Brown
As an archivist, Sean Brown surrounds himself in history every day. Presumably so that when he’s looking to the future, he knows what to look for. He finds his inspiration in unassuming things, things that people often miss. Over the last decade, he’s properly earned the title of multi-disciplinary creative through his work in the fields of music, fashion, fine art, and architecture. His resume features a number of once in a lifetime opportunities, ranging from working as Daniel Caesar’s creative director to his own interactive gallery exhibition titled “Curves”. More recently, Brown is collaborating with brands like RIMOWA and Jean Paul Gaultier and focusing on HYPATIA, his architectural design endeavor.
For Brown, it’s not authenticity if it’s not expressed fully. “I decided early on in my life to inject my art with my personality so that I wouldn’t need to create any branding or persona. So that I could just be myself,” Brown says. From there, Brown speaks to the importance of transparency, honesty, and talking to people like they’re real people. “I’m way more transparent. In a good way, in a very necessary way,” he says, “I think things have become a lot more transparent. I think it means that things have to be done with more intentionality, more thought.”
StockX x HXOUSE Toronto Panelist: Ricky Baba – Art Director
Ricky Baba is a 3D artist turned art director who’s looking eagerly to the abundance of coming opportunities in the Web3 space. Formerly a 3D artist for Dreamworks, the animation studio that brought us Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Bee Movie, and more, Baba is now an art director at Instagram. He works on the Augmented Reality team, literally developing the future of the metaverse. “I’m heavily inspired by Disney movies and Dreamworks movies. I look to those for inspiration.” After working for a brand like Dreamworks, an animation studio rivaled only by Pixar in its groundbreaking 3D animation technology, Baba sees immense potential and opportunity in the world of Web3 and is excited for the possibilities to come.
