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Filmmaker Erik Bulckens on Attributes as Discovery

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By Accident - The Negatives

@byaccidentthenegatives
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500
Filmmaker Erik Bulckens on Attributes as Discovery

Filmmaker Erik Bulckens took on a new challenge as a curator when he stumbled upon a box of photographs taken by his grandfather, Marcel De Baer. The negatives from those boxes would end up forming the basis for his latest collection of NFTs: By Accident - The Negatives. We had the opportunity to speak with Erik about his approach to curation, how attributes can be utilized as a tool for discovery, and the blockchain as a tool for archiving.

Could you tell us about your background as an artist?

I studied experimental film and have worked as a filmmaker and director, primarily on commercials and visuals for parties and VJing events. I have always been drawn to using archive footage, both still and moving images, and enjoyed animating the still images and creating motion graphics with my collective. Photography has also been a passion of mine, even though I wouldn't consider myself a photographer. I am more interested in the visual aspect of things.

In a way, my role changed from being a director to being a curator of this work.

The drop you produced is an archive of your grandfather’s documentary photography, how did you begin working with that archive?

I stumbled upon an archive of my grandfather's work, which blew my mind because it contained so many great photos. I realized that if nobody did anything with it, it would either be thrown away or end up in some unknown place. So I started selecting and archiving the photos. In a way, my role changed from being a director to being a curator of this work.

Erik Bulckens
Erik Bulckens

Could you explain a little bit about your grandfather's background and how the photographs came to be?

My grandfather started out as a mechanic, working on motorcycles and cars at his small garage. He was a successful motorcycle mechanic and assisted early dirt bike racers, including the Belgian champion. As cars became more popular in Belgium, people could easily obtain a driver's license without taking a test. This led to an increase in accidents, and the police officers were not qualified to investigate them.

By Accident - The Negatives #451, "By Accident - The Negatives," Marcel De Baer
By Accident - The Negatives #451, "By Accident - The Negatives," Marcel De Baer

In 1960, a school for collision investigation was started, and my grandfather was one of the first five people to complete the program after a two-year study. Belgium was divided among these five districts, and my grandfather was the only one for his district. He went to many accidents and had to create files describing what happened objectively for the jurisdiction to decide fault. He did this for 20 years; 15 of which he was the only investigator for the full district.

With the blockchain, we can be confident that our items will be preserved and accessible in the future.

Could you describe the photographs themselves?

Each photograph my grandfather took contained a lot of data about the accident, such as the time it happened, the weather conditions, and the length of skid marks. He would take the photos in such a way that they were clear to him, no artistic intention at all, these photos of wrecked cars, crooked bicycles and details of streets were purely utilitarian. They were then frequently used as part of the evidence used to create clear, easy-to-read files for judges who were not present at the scene of the accident. The clearer the files were, with photographs included, the easier it was for the judges to understand what happened.

And those became part of the attributes?

Yes, exactly. The attributes are something that we really paid attention to. At one point we decided we're going to do a lot of attributes and every accident is going to have the date and location. And even included the type of vehicle involved in the accident, such as a car, bicycle, truck, or train.

Then there are the more special ones such as Shoe, because in a lot of accidents, people would lose a shoe. There aren't many of these, but I really like the ones with the Shoe attribute because they're quite special. There are also a couple of negatives with my grandfather's shadow in them. The sun would be behind him, and his shadow would be captured in the negative. 

By Accident - The Negatives #374, "By Accident - The Negatives," Marcel De Baer
By Accident - The Negatives #374, "By Accident - The Negatives," Marcel De Baer

We wanted to create a way to discover his work and found that using blind minting, where a selection of random photographs were selected, was effective. This way, the photographs were not all from the same accident. Fred Arnal and Caroline Gutman, of the Fellowship team, did a hell of a job extracting the metadata from the images and making a CSV file out of it, which was then used as the basis for the drop attributes. I think that’s the most interesting way to discover this collection. 

Do you have a favorite attribute from the collection?

In a lot of these negative files from after '72, you'll find a small triangle cut out. These are known as Marcel's Rejects, but I love them because they have a more personal touch. Before 1972 my mother used to do the prints in the darkroom in the basement but when she moved out (to go live with my father) he needed the print-shop to do the prints for him. The negatives with the cutouts were the ones that Marcel didn't want printed, but the fact that they now have this small triangle cut out shows that he had a physical interaction with them, which is really nice.

By Accident - The Negatives #23, "By Accident - The Negatives," Marcel De Baer
By Accident - The Negatives #23, "By Accident - The Negatives," Marcel De Baer

What about a favorite piece from the collection?

There’s one photo that I consider the “grail.” It's a natural diptych, two photos of the same car (a Volkswagen Carman Ghia, the poor man's Porsche). I left the film intact in this scan so you can still see the transport holes and the negative numbers. It’s very special, it’s been so rewarding watching it trade hands on the secondary.

By Accident - The Negatives #208, "By Accident - The Negatives" Collection, Marcel de Baer
By Accident - The Negatives #208, "By Accident - The Negatives" Collection, Marcel de Baer

This is quite a large collection. How were potential collector's intended to engage with it?

Part of the idea behind this drop was to have collectors also function as curators in a way. We're really showing all of the unfiltered negatives in this drop, which is different then the more curated approach I employed with my previous collections. So the collectors can survey the collection and start to make connections of their own and really form a story. And then by collecting them on the secondary, you can start to create your own exhibition in a way, one that you own. 

Fernando Gallegos, who assisted on curation, created an attribute called Curator’s Choice, which is a series of 105 photos that he would have selected were he a curator. These photos make their own narrative when put together in any given order. It's a good mix of the material.

We decided to focus on the secondary market because of the many connections to be made with the attributes.

How did you think about pricing the work?

Myself and Alejandro Cartegena, the producer of the Negatives project, had a lot of discussions about pricing. At first, I wanted to price it a little higher because I thought it would still mint out, but Alejandro suggested making it cheaper so that we would attract new collectors, making it affordable across a broader audience and at the same time making sure to mint out. This could also be used as a promotion; the fact that it minted out.

We also decided to focus on the secondary market because of the many connections to be made with the attributes. So I followed his advice, and it has proven to be a successful strategy; it ended up minting out in under an hour with 500 pieces. And now about every two days there are some sales on secondary. So it's still working.

However, generally speaking, it's important to make it accessible to the people you want to reach. If you're aiming for high-end collectors, you'll have to price it at a higher level. But if you want it to be accessible to your circle and artist friends, you may want to consider a lower price. There are a lot of artists who are collecting now, and as an artist myself, I see a lot of great stuff that I want to buy. I’m buying lots of work that I can afford, mostly from friends, co-creators, but I wouldn’t consider myself a collector.   

BY ACCIDENT - THE NEGATIVES #306, "BY ACCIDENT - THE NEGATIVES" COLLECTION, MARCEL DE BAER
BY ACCIDENT - THE NEGATIVES #306, "BY ACCIDENT - THE NEGATIVES" COLLECTION, MARCEL DE BAER

What kind of role do you think that the blockchain and Web3 can play in terms of archiving bodies of work?

It's a very good way of archiving because if the blockchain doesn't fail, it would mean that it's a way of keeping things alive forever. This is important because traditional methods of storing items, such as making copies of hard drives, can be unreliable and may not last as long as we would like. With the blockchain, we can be confident that our items will be preserved and accessible in the future.

And it also offers the ability to make items discoverable to others. This is a nice feature because it allows us to share our items with others and make them more accessible to the public, it's all visible for everyone to discover.

If you could give any piece of advice to other creatives who are thinking about releasing a body of work this way, what would you tell them?

Get feedback from your friends or peers, whoever really. I shared a decent amount with my inner circle, just casually in a DM group. I was able to sense their enthusiasm, and thought, okay, if these guys and girls are with me, this is going to be a-lot easier.

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