May 13, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of The Wealth Effect, we sit down with Julius, a digital content creator whose artistic vision is shaped by a life rich in culture, travel, and transformation. Born in South Africa during a time of great change, Julius brings a global perspective to creativity and entrepreneurship. We explore how his experiences with high-profile projects and his decision to become a full-time artist in 2021 have influenced his approach to content, brand building, and digital NFTs.
Website: https://fineart.juliusjooste.com/
Social Media: juliusjooste.com/contact
NFTs: https://fineart.juliusjooste.com/nfts/
Julius' Show notes: https://fineart.juliusjooste.com/articles/interviews/the-wealth-effect-an-interview-with-julius-jooste/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to The
(00:00):
Wealth Effect.
Today, we
welcome Julius.
Julius is a digital
content creator.
His work is inspired by cosmopolitan
culture and stems from his travels and
multitude of
high-profile projects.
He's worked on before becoming
a career artist in 2021.
Of Africanist background, he was born in
Rupert during the end of the Aperture era
(00:23):
and grew up alongside a vibrant and
flourishing South Africa democracy.
He studied motion picture, music,
information technology, and electrical
engineering.
Thank you for being on
the podcast, Julius.
Thanks for
having me, Alvin.
Starting off, how was it
growing up in South Africa?
(00:46):
South Africa is a
great place to be from.
It's very diverse.
We're also known as
the Rainbow Nation.
And when Mandela came into power in 1994,
we rewrote our constitution to focus
predominantly
on human rights.
So, in black and white, South Africa is
(01:07):
one of the most liberal or most human
rights-aware constitutions
on the planet.
And it's interesting growing up in an
environment like that, where we actually
value life, regardless of economic
status or social, cultural heritage.
(01:28):
And being from there, how
was growing up in schooling?
Because I think most people have an image
of South Africa as being very poor,
very, like, almost like third world,
when it might not be the case.
So, South Africa is definitely
classified as a third world territory.
(01:49):
But we do have pockets of
first world infrastructure.
So, I grew up in Johannesburg, which
is one of the largest
cities in Africa.
And also, because of the way the city got
its start, which was in the gold rush,
I think in the 1800s, we have a lot
of first world infrastructure, be it
(02:10):
electricity, street lights, internet,
highways, municipal installations.
So, I grew up in Johannesburg,
which is considered, you know,
to be first world.
And today, I find myself living in Cape
Town, which is one of three other first
(02:31):
world pockets in
Southern Africa.
So, it's pretty
interesting.
And what did you study while you were
in South Africa, like, your major?
And how did
that work?
So, I am
pretty much...
Well, for a very long time, I was
considered to be a professional student.
I spent about eight years after high
(02:54):
school focusing or studying full time in
different fields.
So, the first one was
in IT engineering.
So, I'm an internationally accredited
IT engineer, which has a lot to do with
networks and
hardware.
After that, I felt like my
student life was too short-lived.
(03:14):
And I convinced my father
to extend my studies.
And that brought me onto a wonderful path
at AFTA, which is the South African School
for Motion, Picture, Medium, and Live
Performance, which is a mouthful.
But to sum it up, it's one of the
top film schools on the planet.
(03:36):
And in South Africa, it's considered
one of the top six private institutions.
So, there, I started off as a music
student, where I was doing music
production for stage
and for narrative.
But after my first year of studies,
even though it went very well,
my sponsors felt like there was not
enough job security as a performer.
(03:56):
So, I was given,
like, the ultimatum.
Either go behind the camera and study
something like producing or cinematography
or whatever the
case might be.
And we'll continue paying for your
studies or you have to stop studying.
And as unfair as I thought that was at
(04:17):
the time, it was actually very wise.
And when returning to film school the next
year, I enrolled as a producing student.
So, I got my degree in producing with my
second major in cinematography and then a
sub-major in
script writing.
After that, I started doing some work in
the international sports production space.
(04:40):
And it went
really well.
I worked with the Brazilian media for the
CONFIT Cup, with the German
media for the World Cup.
But in between those assignments, I
somehow managed to squeeze in my trade
test as an
electrician.
So, I have an international red seal as
a trade electrician, which is low voltage
(05:01):
and medium voltage.
Did that.
That led to a really long assignment
in KwaZulu-Natal for about three years.
And in 2012, when I moved down to Cape
Town, I enrolled at the Soul Candy
Institute for Music, where I did my
DJing 101 and advanced music production
techniques.
(05:22):
And that's pretty much the gist
of my academic qualifications.
But I'm also like
an eternal student.
So, I'm always reading something,
listening to something, trying to expand
my knowledge base
and just tinker.
You know, I love exploring
and figuring things out.
How was it, working for
(05:44):
FIFA and the World Cup?
Because I know that's a big dream for a
lot of people, to go see these big events.
And you got to
work at one.
Yeah.
That was awesome.
I'm not going
to lie to you.
That was probably, like, one of the best
things that could ever
have happened to me.
Because once I finished film
(06:04):
school, I was recruited.
So, I was headhunted by a local sports
production company in
anticipation of these two
tournaments.
So, we have the big tournament
in 2010, which is the World Cup.
But the year before, we have the
dress rehearsal, which is known as the
Confederations Cup.
And I got to be part
(06:25):
of both of them.
So, for the dress rehearsal for the Confed
Cup, I was touring with
Banderantes TV out of Brazil.
And I was a production
manager for them.
So, that meant that I was their local
liaison, but also made sure that their
preparations were intact
before they got here.
So, I made sure that they had all their
equipment, all their crew, accommodation,
(06:48):
transportation, whatever they would need
to do their assignment here for six,
eight weeks.
That was my
responsibility.
And then the next year, I got recruited
by ZDF, which is a German broadcaster,
but also, I think they're the
largest broadcaster in Europe.
And working with them
was just amazing.
You know, to see the level at which
(07:09):
broadcasters in that space operate really
set the tone for
things to come.
Because they have, like, a whole bunch
of containers packed and
shipped way in advance.
So, their container for the World Cup
in 2010 maybe arrived in South Africa as
early as 2008.
(07:29):
And what happens is they
unpack it for the tournament.
They have it set up running
for maybe a month, two months.
And then from there, it's packed
up in a very specific way.
Because, let's face it, they're
Germans and they love being organized.
And then once it's packed up, it's set
off to the next destination, which at that
stage, I think, may have
(07:49):
been, like, the Olympics.
I want to say Russia,
but I don't think...
It may have
been Russia.
I'm not sure.
But they informed me that they had
at least eight containers like these,
like, eight mobile studios that they're
just waiting to unpack and assemble for
these huge sporting
events at all times.
(08:10):
And that just gave me phenomenal insight
into the level of which one can plan and
anticipate.
And when I got on to my next assignment,
which was in a completely different
industry, having worked with Best in the
World on one of the biggest, if not the
biggest production on the planet, it
(08:31):
gave me a really good baseline from
which I've always
been operating from.
So, very thankful
for that opportunity.
It opened up so many doors because from
the get-go, people understood that I know
what international broadcast quality looks
like, but I also know how to deliver and
(08:52):
execute on
that level.
Yeah, that must be amazing to work
with such a big company right away.
And did you feel intimidated or,
like, when first going into it?
Because I know, like, when you get
a high-profile job, you might feel,
like, nervous or scared that you might not
be as ready as you can, but
(09:13):
you're willing to learn.
I think it's a
combination of both.
I'm thankful that I got to do the
dress rehearsal with the Brazilians.
I mean, the style of the two production
companies is completely different.
With Brazil, there's
a lot of anticipation.
Things are happening
in the moment.
You get the call in the morning, it
(09:34):
has to get done in the afternoon.
But with the Germans, everything is
planned in advance, and your only
responsibility is to operate in the
tasks that have been delegated to you.
So, with Brazil, you have to be
multifaceted and think on your toes.
But with the Germans, you have one job,
but you have to make sure that you do that
one job to the best
of your ability.
(09:56):
So, yeah, I mean, it is definitely
intimidating, but also the training that I
had received,
the experience.
And I also think, like, the fact that I am
South African and I've been exposed to so
many different cultures and ways of
working together with different people.
So, yeah, I still had the
(10:17):
confidence to proceed.
And I understood that whenever I was stuck
or if I needed help, there were people in
my senior positions or people employed
above me that I could
reach out to for assistance
and guidance.
So, yeah, it
was excellent.
It was great.
That's pretty
good to hear.
(10:37):
And then after that, I read
that you went to Ibiza.
How did you go
about that shift?
Because I know from what I've seen, I've
never been to Ibiza, but it's like a
party city.
And I'm used to, like, a lot of people
would want to go to, like, a calm area.
Like, I enjoyed going to Cancun where
it's a calm vibe, like,
peaceful, not much going on.
(10:59):
But how was
that experience?
Okay, so before I get into Ibiza,
I just want to fill in the gaps.
So, I finished up
with the World Cup.
And then I was working with my dad,
who owned a construction, reticulation,
and lighting company in
South Africa at that stage.
And I was asked to go to KwaZulu-Natal,
(11:19):
which is like the Miami of South Africa,
and do a graphic information system for
them, which means is we're building a
Google Earth-like environment of the
low-voltage and medium-voltage
assets on the grid.
So, I had developed a curriculum or
workflow and employed people below me.
(11:40):
I think at one stage we were 30 teams
with 70 full-time employees and 500
freelancers.
And all they had to do day in and day
out was go to the equipment, log a GPS
coordinate, take a
collection of photos.
Each piece of equipment had its own shot
list, and then fill in an inspection form.
And when we did the pilot project, we
(12:01):
had it all printed out and filling it
in by hand.
But around that time, the iPad had become
available on South Africa, which allowed
us to, in the last month of the pilot
project, pivot into a paperless solution
where it was all digital
and all immediate.
So, yeah, I did that assignment
(12:22):
for about two and a half years.
We did... I would have to guess about
35 million photos over 18, 20 months.
And at the end of it, I ended up in a
hospital with stress-related illnesses,
if you want to
call it that.
So, yeah, it was
pretty severe.
I thought that it might be a
(12:43):
terminal or chronic illness.
But thankfully, I
was still young.
I was fit before all this happened,
so the body responded easily.
But it was definitely
a wake-up call.
Because when you're in, like, a frail care
hospital with all these uncertainties and,
you know, all this pressure, you start
(13:04):
asking yourself some
pretty important questions.
Like, am I happy?
If I were not to be here in a year's time,
would I have achieved
what I set out to achieve?
And so forth.
You know, I was in that
hospital bed for about a week.
And when I eventually got into a
space where I was healthy and all the
(13:25):
rehabilitation had been done, I made a
very conscious decision to step out of
corporate and explore
the creative world.
And it's around that time where
I moved down to Cape Town.
I studied at Soul Candy, the
DJing course I mentioned.
And towards the end of it, my lecturers
were like, Hey, dude, we're
(13:45):
going to Ibiza for IMS.
It's the International Music
Summit for, like, one or two weeks.
Do you want
to come with?
And I was like, that actually
sounds like a lot of fun.
So long story short,
I had the funds.
I got all the visas
sorted out in time.
And I went to Ibiza for what was
supposed to be a two-week holiday.
(14:07):
And while at the IMS, I met
a colleague from Germany.
So I hadn't known him yet, but he was
a regional manager for DiggyNights.com,
which is Europe's
largest event portal.
And long story short, he needed a
photographer to cover all the high-profile
events in Ibiza.
He couldn't pay me because
(14:28):
there was no budget.
But he could give
me accommodation.
He could drive
me around.
And he could give me access to
all the nightclubs in Ibiza.
So what was supposed to be a two-week
holiday turned into, like, a three-month
working holiday or just an experience
of pure excitement and escapism.
(14:50):
And, you know, the way Ibiza works is
nowadays it spreads about 100 to 120 days.
But with the South African passport,
you're only allowed a maximum of 90.
So I got to experience the first part of
the Ibiza season and felt that I missed
out on not doing
the second half.
(15:11):
So immediately when I got back home, I
spoke to my friend from Germany and we
started making preparations for the next
season, where I would join towards the
second half,
which happened.
So that was my
second season.
For the third and fourth season, I'd
secured a residency with the German
company so I could work
in Europe for two years.
(15:32):
And during those four years, I probably
covered a thousand high-profile events
between Ibiza, Germany, a little bit of
Switzerland, and then Johannesburg and
Cape Town here
in South Africa.
Wow, that's
pretty crazy.
How was it working with these,
like, DJs and other artists, like,
(15:53):
filming them, like, being in that moment
of them performing and, like, they enjoy
their performance?
So how was it
seeing them?
Yeah.
So if I can try and sum it up, because
it's nearly infatimable to express
an experience
like that.
But one of the key things I observed
(16:15):
is that magic is contagious.
So now I'm in a DJ booth with David Guetta
or with Black Coffee or Carl Cox or Bob
Sinclair or
whoever, you know.
The fact that they're there and I know
their music intimately, I've grown up with
it since a very young age, it just
(16:36):
reinforced that belief that you can make a
living from
your art.
You can make a living as a creative
because, look, here are all these people
that you've only heard of right in front
of you and they are happy, they are
fulfilled, they
are excelling.
And that, I think that was the biggest
(16:57):
thing or the best thing I could ask for is
that proximity because a lot of their
magic, their confidence, their creative
spirit stuck to me.
And even though I haven't been in the
island since before lockdown, it's still
got very deep roots in
my creative process.
(17:17):
So, yeah, that's probably the best
I can answer it at the moment.
And then where did
you go from Ibiza?
Did you continue photography or did
you switch to any other formats of art?
So, my first seven years, I think I
started going to Ibiza 2012, 2013.
(17:40):
Like when I had the residency
in Europe, I stayed on.
So, I would finish my season in Ibiza,
go to Germany, do some assignments there,
back to Ibiza
and then Germany.
But for the other four years, I would do
three months of Ibiza and then come back
to South Africa.
So, yeah, up until lockdown, so that's
2019, I was predominantly operating as a
(18:03):
photographer.
But towards 2019, my last season in Ibiza,
so that was my seventh season in Ibiza,
I realized that I was no longer
enjoying it as much as I should.
You know, now, I've
done about 1,200 events.
I've seen all the clubs, I've been in all
the backstage and DJ booths, been to all
(18:26):
the after parties.
And now, it's just
become routine.
It's become
monotonous.
And with that sort of like
stagnation-averse approach, I
intentionally started not accepting
assignments for Ibiza anymore and instead
focused on how do I capitalize
(18:48):
on my existing portfolio?
Because, I mean, I have hard drives upon
hard drives, high-resolution, raw photos
of crazy stuff.
And I'm sure that there's a way
that I could monetize those.
Because keep in mind, while doing these
assignments for the German company,
it was effectively
(19:08):
an unpaid internship.
So, it's pretty much
the same arrangement.
They don't
have a budget.
They can give you
accommodation.
They can give you access
and a little bit of fuel.
But everything else, you know,
paying for your flights, getting your
visas, eating, whatever it is that you
needed to do, you had to do on the side
additionally.
So, that definitely helped me
(19:29):
cultivate a very strong work ethic.
But, yeah.
So, at the end of 2019, I
came back to South Africa.
And I said, look, I love doing these
events, but they're not generating as much
revenue as
I'd like.
So, let me figure out how
I can sell these online.
(19:50):
Because the fact is, people meet a lot
of important people in those settings.
So, either you go to Ibiza as a tourist
and you meet your significant other or
your future life
partner there.
Or maybe you meet a
set of good friends.
Or you go there
with family.
(20:10):
Whatever the case might be, the experience
that people have there is
of such a high intensity.
It's got such an impact on them that I
figured they would always want a reminder
of that experience,
of that event.
So, yeah.
That was the seed
for the fine art.
And I think it was in 2016,
(20:33):
yeah, 2016, I approached the IMS.
So, again, the IMS International
Music Summit, they have a gala dinner,
which they use to raise funds for a music
school here in Cape Town
called Bridges for Music.
So, I volunteered to donate some of my
photos that I had taken the year before of
Carl Cox and Pepe Rosilio,
(20:54):
who was the founder of Space.
And when those images went on auction,
we raised quite a lot of capital.
So, we had
two photos.
The first one
sold for £2,000.
The second one
sold for £3,000.
(21:15):
But Pepe, the person who was being
honoured at this gala dinner, loved one of
the pieces so much that he offered
to put down another €10,000.
If we would print
one for him, too.
So, that's three pieces of art that we
sold in maybe two hours and it generated
(21:36):
about €12,000 for the music school,
which in South African rands, my local
currency, that's a quarter of a
million rand with three pieces of art.
And all of a sudden, you know, this
inclination, this intuition that I
had, had now
been verified.
They had confirmed, they had given me
proof of concept that, yes, these events
(21:58):
are special.
And when put in front of the right
clientele, people will buy it.
And could you go more in
depth on what fine art is?
Because I think most of us, including
myself, don't really have a clear picture
of what it
actually is.
Because we see it online, but we're
not sure what it is really about.
(22:22):
Yeah, I mean, it's
a very vague term.
But I think to understand what fine
art is, you have to understand what its
companion art
form looks like.
So, the companion art
form is commercial art.
Commercial art being, I'm an artist
and the brand approaches me to create
something to help
them sell a product.
So, either you do something and Nike
(22:44):
puts your design on their shoes or on a
t-shirt, or you work with a high-profile
DJ or their album art or their press kits
or whatever the
case might be.
Those are all
commercial assignments.
People pay you for a result, and that
result is then leveraged
to generate additional
revenue for them.
(23:05):
Fine art is a little
bit more experimental.
It's a little bit
more ethereal.
So, for me, as a fine artist, I see
immediate parallels between being an
entrepreneur and
being a fine artist.
Because there's a lot of
experimenting going on.
There's a lot of, like,
(23:26):
what am I experiencing?
What am I feeling?
What do I feel life, in
general, is guiding me towards?
Like, what are the
insights that I'm having?
And how do I effectively
communicate those concepts?
So, it's a little
bit of storytelling.
(23:46):
It's a lot of
entrepreneurship.
But at the end of the day,
fine art is experimental art.
It's people just figuring it out and
making it available to traditional art
collectors as opposed to selling it to
a brand or a DJ or a client like that.
So, does that answer
your question?
(24:07):
Yeah, yeah.
That's a pretty
good description.
I'm pretty clear.
Very simple
to understand.
Did you use your art
to express yourself?
Because I think everyone finds
a moat to express themselves.
Like DJs through music, artists
through different formats.
How did you see your art as
the expression of yourself?
(24:31):
Well, I think it's important to understand
that fundamentally, all human beings are
creations and, as such,
have the ability to create.
Ego, we are all
creative or creatives.
Some people choose to use that creative
energy in an administrative component,
(24:52):
you know, by being
bookkeepers or managers.
Other people do that by being educators or
being in the healing and medicinal fields.
But, yeah, for me, I felt that I could
add the most value using an art form and
(25:13):
specifically using
a visual art form.
Because by the time I arrived in Ibiza,
I had just finished a huge, I mean,
a massive photography assignment,
which had us do 35 million photos.
I had spent four
years at film school.
I'd made
short films.
I had worked with many top,
(25:34):
excuse me, top-tier creatives.
And then, of course, we
had the World Cup as well.
So, you know, when I started studying
music and I was exposed to, like,
very successful South African DJs here,
it became immediately apparent that for me
to start here and to meet them where
(25:54):
they are would take me,
like, five or ten years.
You know, there's a lot of investment of
time for me to get to that level where I'm
like, okay, now I'm an internationally
acclaimed musician slash DJ.
But what I realized is because of
my photography and everything that I
mentioned before, I was sort
of, like, already there.
And if I could just use or find the
(26:15):
correct opportunity to leverage it,
I could put myself in that same
bracket, but as a visual artist or as a
photographer.
So, that's pretty
much how it happened.
I have a really good understanding of
lighting because of working in my dad's
lighting factory for many, many,
many years because of the academic,
(26:38):
like, theoretical training in
film and lighting there as well.
So, yeah, those are the decisions that
helped me decide what kind of artist I was
going to be.
And it's mostly based on
what I had already done.
So, yeah.
And how did
you go...
(26:58):
I hope that
answers.
Oh, it does.
How did you go from
shifting also to NFTs?
Because I saw on your
website, you have NFTs.
And I really enjoy the more modern stuff
that some people, like, that stick to the
classics don't
find, like, art.
They're just like, oh, it's just an
(27:20):
image online, but there's more to it.
How did you
discover it?
How did you push yourself to get into
the space when other artists would,
especially at the beginning, a few
years back, would say, oh, it's nothing.
Just nothing to not
be a part of it.
So, have you ever heard the expression,
when the student is
(27:40):
ready, the master appears?
No way, I have not.
Okay.
It's something that's very
prominent in Eastern philosophy.
And that is
what happened.
So, we had gone
into lockdown.
I had stopped taking any
assignments from Ibiza.
And now, the only way that I could
(28:01):
generate revenue or income was in the
online space, you know, specifically
because everything else had shut down.
I was an event
photographer, you know.
I was a boudoir
photographer.
I was out on
the beach.
I was in a nightclub
and I was taking photos.
And all those things
had shut down.
So, what happened was, is I started
building my own website, because I have an
(28:22):
aptitude and I
have some training.
And then later on, other photographers,
other artists reached out to me saying,
hey, dude, I really like the
websites that you're building.
Can you build
one for me?
Like, how much
do you charge?
And that has become sort of like
a business solution in its own.
But keep in mind, the first year, two
(28:42):
years that I was building my fine art
collections and putting it on my website,
I was gumping it, you
know, like Forrest Gump.
I was just figuring it out, thumb sucking,
figuring out how the software works,
how to build it.
And late 2020, I saw an ad
online for Jason Matthias.
(29:03):
He had a course called
The Art of Selling Art.
And this was a career creative out of
North America, who had already exhibited
in all the spaces that I could wish to
exhibit, had an abundance of experience,
and he was also
educated by profession.
So, he knew how to impart his
wisdom in meaningful ways.
(29:25):
So, that's when the big shift
happened, is I found a coach.
I found a mentor that could help me bridge
sort of like all the unfamiliar territory.
Like Jason is somebody who's done what I
want to do, and instead of me sort of like
tripping over myself the whole time
and figuring things out the hard way,
(29:47):
now I had a resource, somebody that
I could reach out to and say, hey,
how did you
do this?
How do I
approach that?
And I've been part of that
community for about four years now.
So, early on, I think I was part of the
course for about a year,
maybe less, let's say
nine months.
Jason put up a video
(30:08):
explaining blockchain and NFTs.
And it's like, well,
this is what it is.
And here are
collectors.
And this is how you build a community
and all these sort of things.
And that just completely resonated with
where I was in my career at that stage.
Because you've got to keep
in mind, I'm in Cape Town.
So, Cape Town is on the
southernmost tip of Africa.
(30:30):
It's that first world pocket
that I alluded to earlier.
But everything north of me, sort of like
on the continent, is
very much third world.
My closest first world
territories are Europe.
And then across the pond, you've got North
America and maybe a little bit of South
America in Argentina.
(30:52):
So, if I print something here in South
Africa and I frame it, to ship it from
Cape Town to, let's say, Germany or from
Cape Town to the U.S., more often than
not, costs more than the
actual piece of art costs.
So, that's a huge deterrent for potential
investors, okay, for people who want to
(31:15):
buy my art.
But when you go online, when you go onto
blockchain, when you use NFT and the
technology behind that, all of a sudden,
the logistical dilemma, the logistical
bottleneck just
falls away.
Because now we have a mechanism
that can prove provenance, okay?
(31:38):
So, provenance is just a fancy way of
saying this is a history of the art from
the creator and all
its different owners.
Because that's where
the value in art is.
If you look at your classical arts,
your Van Goghs, your Picassos,
all of these have to have
provenance in order to be valuable.
If there's no provenance, if nobody can
(32:00):
prove that it's all the way back from Da
Vinci, then it's just a piece of, you
know, cloth with some paint on it.
But as soon as you have the
provenance, then it becomes valuable.
And blockchain does
all that inherently.
So, that's why
I got into it.
It was putting my work, which was very
much for the developed world, or for the
(32:22):
first world, in an environment where there
was no logistical bottleneck, and putting
it in front of people in economies
that have the disposable income.
Meaning that I don't have to market it
locally, where it's a completely different
economy, and people don't have
that kind of disposable income.
Wow, that's
pretty good.
(32:43):
And then how did you go, or how did
you discover to put it on Cardano?
Because that, for me, is one of
my best of my favorite platforms.
And I've been on it so early that I
actually own one of the very first NFTs on
the blockchain when it first
started allowing for that.
(33:05):
And I think I own over 500
NFTs because of the art.
Like, it's something about it just
resonates with me, just owning it
digitally, because I'm like, I can have a
whole collection without
physically being here.
And then it's also smaller artists that
express themselves from different parts of
the world that I started realizing,
(33:26):
like, oh, these artists are from,
a lot of them are from South America, or
that they wouldn't have access to show
off their art to the world if they didn't
come to, like, these NFT platforms.
How was that?
Yeah, so I think my first NFTs were on
(33:47):
Ethereum with OpenSea, where you had to
put some ETH in your wallet, and then
you had to pay a transaction fee just to
synchronize your wallet
with the blockchain.
So that's costly for me as a South
African, okay, because we have a
completely different
economic bracket.
(34:07):
But still, I saved up, I put the money
in, and I could synchronize my wallet,
and the first collection I had
available was my Shadow Work collection.
But around that time, Jason, in the art
of selling art, introduced us to Cardano,
and he's like, hey,
guys, look at this.
This is something that's a
little bit more manual, okay?
(34:30):
But look at the gas fees, like,
they're virtually non-existent.
Look at the
transaction fees.
Look at what you
can do with this.
And because of my technical aptitude
and my background, like,
it all just resonated.
I was like, oh, wow,
this is really cool.
And the more I got into it, the more I
(34:50):
understood that Cardano was not a Silicon
Valley, like,
initiative.
You know, it wasn't supposed to be,
like, the blockchain of the world.
Instead, they had taken
a more academic approach.
So they reached out to professors and
(35:11):
masters in the computer science field way
ahead of time and asked them for theses,
for papers, for, you know, an academic
approach on what does the
ideal blockchain look like.
And Cardano as a blockchain
is the end result of that.
So, I think that as a result of that
(35:34):
approach, this is why Cardano is also
called the people's blockchain because it
was developed with the everyday man sort
of, like, in mind.
Where something like Ethereum,
which I understand Hoshkins was,
he played a key development role in the
beginning, it does have that Silicon
(35:57):
Valley bravado attached to it, you
know, because when Ethereum opened up,
they immediately had endorsements for,
like, Adobe and, you know, all the big
players in
those games.
But Cardano was just
like the little guy.
You know, it's just like, we're going to
do something that impacts everybody and
(36:18):
we're not going to roll it out through
Apple, Microsoft, Adobe,
all those big players.
It's just going to be sort of like
an open source kind of blockchain.
So, yeah, there were many, many principles
and, like, the ethos of Cardano that
resonated with me.
And that's why I
went that route.
(36:38):
So much so that my NFTs had been shown
in Cardano-based, like, festivals or
conferences.
In Dubai, in
Las Vegas.
I was the.
..
So we had a Cardano center
open up here in Cape Town.
We'll circle back
to that in a bit.
(36:58):
But, yeah, I mean, because of blockchain,
my work has now been all over the world.
And I've done all that from the
comfort of my laptop here in Cape Town.
Wow.
I know Cardano has a lot of
initiatives, especially in Africa.
They have a presence in all of these
developing countries and locations so that
(37:21):
people have access to these financial
tools that they wouldn't
otherwise have access to.
And also see things or
also, like, investments.
Because art is
an investment.
And people want to
be a part of it.
Even if they don't have a lot of money,
they want to be a part of this new,
like, world
economic, like, tool.
(37:43):
How is that?
How do you go
about that?
Like, for one, like, how do
you consider art an investment?
And two, how was that Cardano
center in South Africa?
So, yes.
The key way to go
about it is education.
(38:04):
You have to educate people
about the technology.
You have to explain to them
that you can earn royalties.
You have to teach them how to market
and how to talk to the developed world.
Because the day-to-day conversation
in a country like South
Africa is just different.
And the way we sell to each other is
different than the way the Americans want
(38:25):
to be sold to or the
Germans want to be sold to.
I feel like the Web3 NFT wave hit South
Africa, but mostly all of the negative
things associated
penetrated.
So, by the time the Cardano center opened
(38:47):
up, firstly, I had a meeting with them and
we got into agreement that I would be the
first ever featured artist
at a Cardano center.
And I built a collection in partnership
with them called Prism, which is on the
website and the NFTs
are available too.
But in addition to me having the
exhibition at the center, we were hosting
(39:11):
a set of workshops, of
which there were three.
So, the first one was
for the art galleries.
So, we invited local galleries to
say, guys, this is what blockchain is.
This is OPSEC.
These are all the important things that
you need to know in order to participate
in the global sort of
like scheme of things.
The second workshop
(39:32):
was for the collector.
So, if you're just somebody who's got some
crypto and you want to understand what the
buzz is about, here's
some basic theory.
And then the third
one was for artists.
So, if you're a photographer, if you're a
painter, if you're somebody in the visual
space and you want to leverage this new
technology to get your work into the hands
(39:54):
of collectors abroad, like
this is a workshop for you.
And we aggressively
promoted it.
Like, we did
interviews.
We were
running ads.
I was speaking one-on-one with all
the gallery owners in Cape Town.
And we had
zero turn up.
It was
heartbreaking.
And the reason, like, after the
(40:14):
fact, you do like a post-mortem.
You're like, why
didn't this work?
Like, what are
we doing wrong?
And my only conclusion is that when
I was speaking to the gallery owners,
for example, and explaining to them Web3
and, like, we're doing a workshop for
artists, they had already been exposed
to, like, the scammy part of NFTs,
(40:37):
where they receive
a DM from some guy.
Like, oh, I saw your
picture on Facebook.
I want to buy
it as an NFT.
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
And then some of them, not knowing
any better, fell prey to these scams.
And now their opinion of this
technology is forever tainted.
So that's why, when you asked the
(40:58):
question, I emphasize the
importance of education.
In order for blockchain, in order for
Web3 and NFTs to be utilized to its full
potential, you have to explain to
the masses what it is, you know.
But if it's just a buzzword and their only
experience with it is somebody trying to
(41:19):
scan them out of their hard-earned
money, it's not going to take off.
So, sadly, the Cardano Center closed down
last year because there isn't interest for
that in South Africa
at the moment.
But I do know that they have earmarked
other territories for similar initiatives,
(41:40):
which include Bali,
which include Dubai.
The founders of the Cardano Center are
based in Singapore, and they're developing
some really cool
technology called...
I think it's called
OpenFrame or OpenWindow.
I'll have to
(42:01):
double-check with you.
But essentially, what it is, it's a
digital frame that connects with your Web3
wallet so that when you travel,
whether it's, you know, from hotel to
hotel or from hotel to yacht or wherever
you are, your art can
follow you wherever you go.
And it's a beautiful
piece of hardware.
(42:21):
Where they've done really a lot of work
to make sure that it looks high-end,
that it presents well, as well in a
gallery space as it would in somebody's
bedroom or office.
And, yeah, that was
part of the initiative.
So, they did a hardware solution
and a software solution.
(42:41):
So, the software solution
is called Curate.
And they...
I've been working with Curate for quite
some time, like, bug testing and fixing
and giving
suggestions.
So, I'm very excited
about that space.
But keep in mind that, you
know, proximity is power.
And for me to be, like, this small
(43:02):
little ember in Cape Town, as opposed to,
like, these huge wildfires in North
America and Europe, it's very difficult to
maintain enthusiasm without, sort of,
like, the mental anguish that goes or
something like that.
But, so, yeah, I mean, like I
said, I'm very optimistic about it.
(43:24):
But locally here in South Africa, I've
had no other choice but
to step back from it a
little bit.
And have you been, like, helping other
artists as well, like, in any way,
whether it's NFTs or how to go about
building their brand as an artist?
Yeah.
(43:45):
So, we mentioned early on that after Ibiza
and during COVID, I was building websites
for myself.
And people took notice and asked
me to build websites for them.
These days, that's the majority of my
revenue, is building online presences for
(44:05):
established artists.
So, there's a difference between somebody
who's just starting out and still figuring
out their style, as opposed to somebody
who's been doing their art form 30,
40, 50 years, and is considered
an absolute master in their field.
Those established artists, those are
my ideal clients, because they know
(44:26):
everything they need to know about their
art form, whether that's painting or
writing or whatever
the case might be.
What they don't know is
the coding component.
How do I build
a website?
How do I create an online
identity and brand?
How do I do
social media?
Is social media, like,
the right thing for me?
(44:47):
And that's where I've been able to add
the most value, is helping established
creatives onboard
their creativity.
And in that repertoire,
I've helped...
So, I think my highest-profile client
is Professor Pumla Gabordo Maliki Zela.
(45:09):
She is the 2024 laureate of the Templeton
Prize, which is sort of like the
equivalent of a Nobel
Prize, but for psychology.
So, I built her website maybe two or three
years ago, and every month I do updates
for her, make sure the website
is nice and secure and safe.
(45:31):
And whenever there's content that
she wants to upload to the internet,
I am her gateway.
I am her
contact person.
So, instead of her having to learn how to
build a website, she just does her work at
an exceptional level, sends it to me as
a PDF or a Word document, and I make sure
(45:52):
that whatever's online is on par with
her caliber, her quality of work.
Wow, that's
pretty crazy.
One of the last questions is
about your art, the Ember Flow.
Ember Flow, I think it looks really good,
and I hope everyone in the audience,
because it's a podcast, can go to his
(46:13):
website, which will be all linked below,
to see his art, because
I think it's so vibrant.
Can you go
more on it?
Yeah.
So, Ember Flow was the first piece in my
Prism collection, which I built with the
Cardano Center.
So, keep in mind that one of the key
(46:35):
objectives we had when building this
collection is we wanted to show
off the digital gallery space.
So, I felt like the best way to do that is
to create a collection that goes through
the entire color spectrum, which is
why the collection is called Prism.
And with lighting theory, we understand
(46:57):
that visible light starts at reddish,
so non-visible light is infrared,
then goes to red, orange, yellows,
greens, and then blues,
magentas, purples.
So, that's the entire
color spectrum.
So, each piece of art in the Prism
collection is a representation of a
(47:18):
specific color.
And Ember Flow is the first
piece of that journey.
It's in that reds, oranges, and when you
see it on a high-resolution HD digital
frame, it just pops.
And this photo
is essentially...
I think it was a 30-second exposure,
maybe longer, maybe like a one-minute
(47:39):
exposure of a
fire dancer.
And I just managed to do some overlays,
some magic in Photoshop, to make it as
vibrant as possible.
Yeah, I hope everyone checks that out in
the audience, because I
think it really is a really
good piece.
And for the final things, do you have any
(48:03):
tips for, like, aspiring artists or that
want to go into art but aren't
really sure if they should?
Advice for artists?
Find coaches, find mentors, find people
who have achieved who you want to achieve,
like, what you
want to achieve.
And build community.
(48:23):
Like, the only way you are going to make
this sustainable is if people know you,
trust you,
and like you.
Because when they do either one or all
three of those, they are willing to part
with their hard-earned
money to support you.
But if you are just going to be showing
(48:44):
up online saying, buy this, buy this,
buy this, buy this, buy this, you
are not going to have any success.
You know, nobody signs onto social media
with the intention of, hey, I wonder what
ads Alvin is
running today.
People go online because they want
to learn, because they want to be
entertained, because they
want to improve themselves.
(49:05):
And if you want to do that with your art,
those are the things that
you have to focus on.
Focus on message.
Focus on value.
And from there, you can start
going into the sales mode.
But just doing the cold call, hard
selling, it's nearly impossible without
(49:26):
the proper context and building
relationships with people.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for
being in the podcast.
All your links will be
in the description below.
And I hope everyone can check out your
artwork to see what you described and
other pieces that
you have available.
Yeah, I would love
for that to happen.
(49:46):
If people want to learn more about me and
my creative journey, they
can go to my website,
juliusshuister.com.
That's J-U-L-I-U-S-J-O-O-S-T-E
dot com.
For the fine art, I have
created a dedicated subdomain.
And that can be found at
fineart .juliusshuister.com.
That's F-I-N-E-A-R-T dot
(50:08):
J-U-L-I-U-S-J-O-O-S-T-E dot com.
And from the fine art subdomain, you
can view the physical
pieces and the NFTs.
So obviously, NFTs are
available internationally.
But physical pieces are printed,
framed, and packaged in Germany.
And then distributed to 48
countries around the world.
(50:29):
So yeah, add one to
your collection today.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you for
being on podcast.
Thanks for
having me.
Welcome to The
(00:00):
Wealth Effect.
Today, we
welcome Julius.
Julius is a digital
content creator.
His work is inspired by cosmopolitan
culture and stems from his travels and
multitude of
high-profile projects.
He's worked on before becoming
a career artist in 2021.
Of Africanist background, he was born in
Rupert during the end of the Aperture era
(00:23):
and grew up alongside a vibrant and
flourishing South Africa democracy.
He studied motion picture, music,
information technology, and electrical
engineering.
Thank you for being on
the podcast, Julius.
Thanks for
having me, Alvin.
Starting off, how was it
growing up in South Africa?
(00:46):
South Africa is a
great place to be from.
It's very diverse.
We're also known as
the Rainbow Nation.
And when Mandela came into power in 1994,
we rewrote our constitution to focus
predominantly
on human rights.
So, in black and white, South Africa is
(01:07):
one of the most liberal or most human
rights-aware constitutions
on the planet.
And it's interesting growing up in an
environment like that, where we actually
value life, regardless of economic
status or social, cultural heritage.
(01:28):
And being from there, how
was growing up in schooling?
Because I think most people have an image
of South Africa as being very poor,
very, like, almost like third world,
when it might not be the case.
So, South Africa is definitely
classified as a third world territory.
(01:49):
But we do have pockets of
first world infrastructure.
So, I grew up in Johannesburg, which
is one of the largest
cities in Africa.
And also, because of the way the city got
its start, which was in the gold rush,
I think in the 1800s, we have a lot
of first world infrastructure, be it
(02:10):
electricity, street lights, internet,
highways, municipal installations.
So, I grew up in Johannesburg,
which is considered, you know,
to be first world.
And today, I find myself living in Cape
Town, which is one of three other first
(02:31):
world pockets in
Southern Africa.
So, it's pretty
interesting.
And what did you study while you were
in South Africa, like, your major?
And how did
that work?
So, I am
pretty much...
Well, for a very long time, I was
considered to be a professional student.
I spent about eight years after high
(02:54):
school focusing or studying full time in
different fields.
So, the first one was
in IT engineering.
So, I'm an internationally accredited
IT engineer, which has a lot to do with
networks and
hardware.
After that, I felt like my
student life was too short-lived.
(03:14):
And I convinced my father
to extend my studies.
And that brought me onto a wonderful path
at AFTA, which is the South African School
for Motion, Picture, Medium, and Live
Performance, which is a mouthful.
But to sum it up, it's one of the
top film schools on the planet.
(03:36):
And in South Africa, it's considered
one of the top six private institutions.
So, there, I started off as a music
student, where I was doing music
production for stage
and for narrative.
But after my first year of studies,
even though it went very well,
my sponsors felt like there was not
enough job security as a performer.
(03:56):
So, I was given,
like, the ultimatum.
Either go behind the camera and study
something like producing or cinematography
or whatever the
case might be.
And we'll continue paying for your
studies or you have to stop studying.
And as unfair as I thought that was at
(04:17):
the time, it was actually very wise.
And when returning to film school the next
year, I enrolled as a producing student.
So, I got my degree in producing with my
second major in cinematography and then a
sub-major in
script writing.
After that, I started doing some work in
the international sports production space.
(04:40):
And it went
really well.
I worked with the Brazilian media for the
CONFIT Cup, with the German
media for the World Cup.
But in between those assignments, I
somehow managed to squeeze in my trade
test as an
electrician.
So, I have an international red seal as
a trade electrician, which is low voltage
(05:01):
and medium voltage.
Did that.
That led to a really long assignment
in KwaZulu-Natal for about three years.
And in 2012, when I moved down to Cape
Town, I enrolled at the Soul Candy
Institute for Music, where I did my
DJing 101 and advanced music production
techniques.
(05:22):
And that's pretty much the gist
of my academic qualifications.
But I'm also like
an eternal student.
So, I'm always reading something,
listening to something, trying to expand
my knowledge base
and just tinker.
You know, I love exploring
and figuring things out.
How was it, working for
(05:44):
FIFA and the World Cup?
Because I know that's a big dream for a
lot of people, to go see these big events.
And you got to
work at one.
Yeah.
That was awesome.
I'm not going
to lie to you.
That was probably, like, one of the best
things that could ever
have happened to me.
Because once I finished film
(06:04):
school, I was recruited.
So, I was headhunted by a local sports
production company in
anticipation of these two
tournaments.
So, we have the big tournament
in 2010, which is the World Cup.
But the year before, we have the
dress rehearsal, which is known as the
Confederations Cup.
And I got to be part
(06:25):
of both of them.
So, for the dress rehearsal for the Confed
Cup, I was touring with
Banderantes TV out of Brazil.
And I was a production
manager for them.
So, that meant that I was their local
liaison, but also made sure that their
preparations were intact
before they got here.
So, I made sure that they had all their
equipment, all their crew, accommodation,
(06:48):
transportation, whatever they would need
to do their assignment here for six,
eight weeks.
That was my
responsibility.
And then the next year, I got recruited
by ZDF, which is a German broadcaster,
but also, I think they're the
largest broadcaster in Europe.
And working with them
was just amazing.
You know, to see the level at which
(07:09):
broadcasters in that space operate really
set the tone for
things to come.
Because they have, like, a whole bunch
of containers packed and
shipped way in advance.
So, their container for the World Cup
in 2010 maybe arrived in South Africa as
early as 2008.
(07:29):
And what happens is they
unpack it for the tournament.
They have it set up running
for maybe a month, two months.
And then from there, it's packed
up in a very specific way.
Because, let's face it, they're
Germans and they love being organized.
And then once it's packed up, it's set
off to the next destination, which at that
stage, I think, may have
(07:49):
been, like, the Olympics.
I want to say Russia,
but I don't think...
It may have
been Russia.
I'm not sure.
But they informed me that they had
at least eight containers like these,
like, eight mobile studios that they're
just waiting to unpack and assemble for
these huge sporting
events at all times.
(08:10):
And that just gave me phenomenal insight
into the level of which one can plan and
anticipate.
And when I got on to my next assignment,
which was in a completely different
industry, having worked with Best in the
World on one of the biggest, if not the
biggest production on the planet, it
(08:31):
gave me a really good baseline from
which I've always
been operating from.
So, very thankful
for that opportunity.
It opened up so many doors because from
the get-go, people understood that I know
what international broadcast quality looks
like, but I also know how to deliver and
(08:52):
execute on
that level.
Yeah, that must be amazing to work
with such a big company right away.
And did you feel intimidated or,
like, when first going into it?
Because I know, like, when you get
a high-profile job, you might feel,
like, nervous or scared that you might not
be as ready as you can, but
(09:13):
you're willing to learn.
I think it's a
combination of both.
I'm thankful that I got to do the
dress rehearsal with the Brazilians.
I mean, the style of the two production
companies is completely different.
With Brazil, there's
a lot of anticipation.
Things are happening
in the moment.
You get the call in the morning, it
(09:34):
has to get done in the afternoon.
But with the Germans, everything is
planned in advance, and your only
responsibility is to operate in the
tasks that have been delegated to you.
So, with Brazil, you have to be
multifaceted and think on your toes.
But with the Germans, you have one job,
but you have to make sure that you do that
one job to the best
of your ability.
(09:56):
So, yeah, I mean, it is definitely
intimidating, but also the training that I
had received,
the experience.
And I also think, like, the fact that I am
South African and I've been exposed to so
many different cultures and ways of
working together with different people.
So, yeah, I still had the
(10:17):
confidence to proceed.
And I understood that whenever I was stuck
or if I needed help, there were people in
my senior positions or people employed
above me that I could
reach out to for assistance
and guidance.
So, yeah, it
was excellent.
It was great.
That's pretty
good to hear.
(10:37):
And then after that, I read
that you went to Ibiza.
How did you go
about that shift?
Because I know from what I've seen, I've
never been to Ibiza, but it's like a
party city.
And I'm used to, like, a lot of people
would want to go to, like, a calm area.
Like, I enjoyed going to Cancun where
it's a calm vibe, like,
peaceful, not much going on.
(10:59):
But how was
that experience?
Okay, so before I get into Ibiza,
I just want to fill in the gaps.
So, I finished up
with the World Cup.
And then I was working with my dad,
who owned a construction, reticulation,
and lighting company in
South Africa at that stage.
And I was asked to go to KwaZulu-Natal,
(11:19):
which is like the Miami of South Africa,
and do a graphic information system for
them, which means is we're building a
Google Earth-like environment of the
low-voltage and medium-voltage
assets on the grid.
So, I had developed a curriculum or
workflow and employed people below me.
(11:40):
I think at one stage we were 30 teams
with 70 full-time employees and 500
freelancers.
And all they had to do day in and day
out was go to the equipment, log a GPS
coordinate, take a
collection of photos.
Each piece of equipment had its own shot
list, and then fill in an inspection form.
And when we did the pilot project, we
(12:01):
had it all printed out and filling it
in by hand.
But around that time, the iPad had become
available on South Africa, which allowed
us to, in the last month of the pilot
project, pivot into a paperless solution
where it was all digital
and all immediate.
So, yeah, I did that assignment
(12:22):
for about two and a half years.
We did... I would have to guess about
35 million photos over 18, 20 months.
And at the end of it, I ended up in a
hospital with stress-related illnesses,
if you want to
call it that.
So, yeah, it was
pretty severe.
I thought that it might be a
(12:43):
terminal or chronic illness.
But thankfully, I
was still young.
I was fit before all this happened,
so the body responded easily.
But it was definitely
a wake-up call.
Because when you're in, like, a frail care
hospital with all these uncertainties and,
you know, all this pressure, you start
(13:04):
asking yourself some
pretty important questions.
Like, am I happy?
If I were not to be here in a year's time,
would I have achieved
what I set out to achieve?
And so forth.
You know, I was in that
hospital bed for about a week.
And when I eventually got into a
space where I was healthy and all the
(13:25):
rehabilitation had been done, I made a
very conscious decision to step out of
corporate and explore
the creative world.
And it's around that time where
I moved down to Cape Town.
I studied at Soul Candy, the
DJing course I mentioned.
And towards the end of it, my lecturers
were like, Hey, dude, we're
(13:45):
going to Ibiza for IMS.
It's the International Music
Summit for, like, one or two weeks.
Do you want
to come with?
And I was like, that actually
sounds like a lot of fun.
So long story short,
I had the funds.
I got all the visas
sorted out in time.
And I went to Ibiza for what was
supposed to be a two-week holiday.
(14:07):
And while at the IMS, I met
a colleague from Germany.
So I hadn't known him yet, but he was
a regional manager for DiggyNights.com,
which is Europe's
largest event portal.
And long story short, he needed a
photographer to cover all the high-profile
events in Ibiza.
He couldn't pay me because
(14:28):
there was no budget.
But he could give
me accommodation.
He could drive
me around.
And he could give me access to
all the nightclubs in Ibiza.
So what was supposed to be a two-week
holiday turned into, like, a three-month
working holiday or just an experience
of pure excitement and escapism.
(14:50):
And, you know, the way Ibiza works is
nowadays it spreads about 100 to 120 days.
But with the South African passport,
you're only allowed a maximum of 90.
So I got to experience the first part of
the Ibiza season and felt that I missed
out on not doing
the second half.
(15:11):
So immediately when I got back home, I
spoke to my friend from Germany and we
started making preparations for the next
season, where I would join towards the
second half,
which happened.
So that was my
second season.
For the third and fourth season, I'd
secured a residency with the German
company so I could work
in Europe for two years.
(15:32):
And during those four years, I probably
covered a thousand high-profile events
between Ibiza, Germany, a little bit of
Switzerland, and then Johannesburg and
Cape Town here
in South Africa.
Wow, that's
pretty crazy.
How was it working with these,
like, DJs and other artists, like,
(15:53):
filming them, like, being in that moment
of them performing and, like, they enjoy
their performance?
So how was it
seeing them?
Yeah.
So if I can try and sum it up, because
it's nearly infatimable to express
an experience
like that.
But one of the key things I observed
(16:15):
is that magic is contagious.
So now I'm in a DJ booth with David Guetta
or with Black Coffee or Carl Cox or Bob
Sinclair or
whoever, you know.
The fact that they're there and I know
their music intimately, I've grown up with
it since a very young age, it just
(16:36):
reinforced that belief that you can make a
living from
your art.
You can make a living as a creative
because, look, here are all these people
that you've only heard of right in front
of you and they are happy, they are
fulfilled, they
are excelling.
And that, I think that was the biggest
(16:57):
thing or the best thing I could ask for is
that proximity because a lot of their
magic, their confidence, their creative
spirit stuck to me.
And even though I haven't been in the
island since before lockdown, it's still
got very deep roots in
my creative process.
(17:17):
So, yeah, that's probably the best
I can answer it at the moment.
And then where did
you go from Ibiza?
Did you continue photography or did
you switch to any other formats of art?
So, my first seven years, I think I
started going to Ibiza 2012, 2013.
(17:40):
Like when I had the residency
in Europe, I stayed on.
So, I would finish my season in Ibiza,
go to Germany, do some assignments there,
back to Ibiza
and then Germany.
But for the other four years, I would do
three months of Ibiza and then come back
to South Africa.
So, yeah, up until lockdown, so that's
2019, I was predominantly operating as a
(18:03):
photographer.
But towards 2019, my last season in Ibiza,
so that was my seventh season in Ibiza,
I realized that I was no longer
enjoying it as much as I should.
You know, now, I've
done about 1,200 events.
I've seen all the clubs, I've been in all
the backstage and DJ booths, been to all
(18:26):
the after parties.
And now, it's just
become routine.
It's become
monotonous.
And with that sort of like
stagnation-averse approach, I
intentionally started not accepting
assignments for Ibiza anymore and instead
focused on how do I capitalize
(18:48):
on my existing portfolio?
Because, I mean, I have hard drives upon
hard drives, high-resolution, raw photos
of crazy stuff.
And I'm sure that there's a way
that I could monetize those.
Because keep in mind, while doing these
assignments for the German company,
it was effectively
(19:08):
an unpaid internship.
So, it's pretty much
the same arrangement.
They don't
have a budget.
They can give you
accommodation.
They can give you access
and a little bit of fuel.
But everything else, you know,
paying for your flights, getting your
visas, eating, whatever it is that you
needed to do, you had to do on the side
additionally.
So, that definitely helped me
(19:29):
cultivate a very strong work ethic.
But, yeah.
So, at the end of 2019, I
came back to South Africa.
And I said, look, I love doing these
events, but they're not generating as much
revenue as
I'd like.
So, let me figure out how
I can sell these online.
(19:50):
Because the fact is, people meet a lot
of important people in those settings.
So, either you go to Ibiza as a tourist
and you meet your significant other or
your future life
partner there.
Or maybe you meet a
set of good friends.
Or you go there
with family.
(20:10):
Whatever the case might be, the experience
that people have there is
of such a high intensity.
It's got such an impact on them that I
figured they would always want a reminder
of that experience,
of that event.
So, yeah.
That was the seed
for the fine art.
And I think it was in 2016,
(20:33):
yeah, 2016, I approached the IMS.
So, again, the IMS International
Music Summit, they have a gala dinner,
which they use to raise funds for a music
school here in Cape Town
called Bridges for Music.
So, I volunteered to donate some of my
photos that I had taken the year before of
Carl Cox and Pepe Rosilio,
(20:54):
who was the founder of Space.
And when those images went on auction,
we raised quite a lot of capital.
So, we had
two photos.
The first one
sold for £2,000.
The second one
sold for £3,000.
(21:15):
But Pepe, the person who was being
honoured at this gala dinner, loved one of
the pieces so much that he offered
to put down another €10,000.
If we would print
one for him, too.
So, that's three pieces of art that we
sold in maybe two hours and it generated
(21:36):
about €12,000 for the music school,
which in South African rands, my local
currency, that's a quarter of a
million rand with three pieces of art.
And all of a sudden, you know, this
inclination, this intuition that I
had, had now
been verified.
They had confirmed, they had given me
proof of concept that, yes, these events
(21:58):
are special.
And when put in front of the right
clientele, people will buy it.
And could you go more in
depth on what fine art is?
Because I think most of us, including
myself, don't really have a clear picture
of what it
actually is.
Because we see it online, but we're
not sure what it is really about.
(22:22):
Yeah, I mean, it's
a very vague term.
But I think to understand what fine
art is, you have to understand what its
companion art
form looks like.
So, the companion art
form is commercial art.
Commercial art being, I'm an artist
and the brand approaches me to create
something to help
them sell a product.
So, either you do something and Nike
(22:44):
puts your design on their shoes or on a
t-shirt, or you work with a high-profile
DJ or their album art or their press kits
or whatever the
case might be.
Those are all
commercial assignments.
People pay you for a result, and that
result is then leveraged
to generate additional
revenue for them.
(23:05):
Fine art is a little
bit more experimental.
It's a little bit
more ethereal.
So, for me, as a fine artist, I see
immediate parallels between being an
entrepreneur and
being a fine artist.
Because there's a lot of
experimenting going on.
There's a lot of, like,
(23:26):
what am I experiencing?
What am I feeling?
What do I feel life, in
general, is guiding me towards?
Like, what are the
insights that I'm having?
And how do I effectively
communicate those concepts?
So, it's a little
bit of storytelling.
(23:46):
It's a lot of
entrepreneurship.
But at the end of the day,
fine art is experimental art.
It's people just figuring it out and
making it available to traditional art
collectors as opposed to selling it to
a brand or a DJ or a client like that.
So, does that answer
your question?
(24:07):
Yeah, yeah.
That's a pretty
good description.
I'm pretty clear.
Very simple
to understand.
Did you use your art
to express yourself?
Because I think everyone finds
a moat to express themselves.
Like DJs through music, artists
through different formats.
How did you see your art as
the expression of yourself?
(24:31):
Well, I think it's important to understand
that fundamentally, all human beings are
creations and, as such,
have the ability to create.
Ego, we are all
creative or creatives.
Some people choose to use that creative
energy in an administrative component,
(24:52):
you know, by being
bookkeepers or managers.
Other people do that by being educators or
being in the healing and medicinal fields.
But, yeah, for me, I felt that I could
add the most value using an art form and
(25:13):
specifically using
a visual art form.
Because by the time I arrived in Ibiza,
I had just finished a huge, I mean,
a massive photography assignment,
which had us do 35 million photos.
I had spent four
years at film school.
I'd made
short films.
I had worked with many top,
(25:34):
excuse me, top-tier creatives.
And then, of course, we
had the World Cup as well.
So, you know, when I started studying
music and I was exposed to, like,
very successful South African DJs here,
it became immediately apparent that for me
to start here and to meet them where
(25:54):
they are would take me,
like, five or ten years.
You know, there's a lot of investment of
time for me to get to that level where I'm
like, okay, now I'm an internationally
acclaimed musician slash DJ.
But what I realized is because of
my photography and everything that I
mentioned before, I was sort
of, like, already there.
And if I could just use or find the
(26:15):
correct opportunity to leverage it,
I could put myself in that same
bracket, but as a visual artist or as a
photographer.
So, that's pretty
much how it happened.
I have a really good understanding of
lighting because of working in my dad's
lighting factory for many, many,
many years because of the academic,
(26:38):
like, theoretical training in
film and lighting there as well.
So, yeah, those are the decisions that
helped me decide what kind of artist I was
going to be.
And it's mostly based on
what I had already done.
So, yeah.
And how did
you go...
(26:58):
I hope that
answers.
Oh, it does.
How did you go from
shifting also to NFTs?
Because I saw on your
website, you have NFTs.
And I really enjoy the more modern stuff
that some people, like, that stick to the
classics don't
find, like, art.
They're just like, oh, it's just an
(27:20):
image online, but there's more to it.
How did you
discover it?
How did you push yourself to get into
the space when other artists would,
especially at the beginning, a few
years back, would say, oh, it's nothing.
Just nothing to not
be a part of it.
So, have you ever heard the expression,
when the student is
(27:40):
ready, the master appears?
No way, I have not.
Okay.
It's something that's very
prominent in Eastern philosophy.
And that is
what happened.
So, we had gone
into lockdown.
I had stopped taking any
assignments from Ibiza.
And now, the only way that I could
(28:01):
generate revenue or income was in the
online space, you know, specifically
because everything else had shut down.
I was an event
photographer, you know.
I was a boudoir
photographer.
I was out on
the beach.
I was in a nightclub
and I was taking photos.
And all those things
had shut down.
So, what happened was, is I started
building my own website, because I have an
(28:22):
aptitude and I
have some training.
And then later on, other photographers,
other artists reached out to me saying,
hey, dude, I really like the
websites that you're building.
Can you build
one for me?
Like, how much
do you charge?
And that has become sort of like
a business solution in its own.
But keep in mind, the first year, two
(28:42):
years that I was building my fine art
collections and putting it on my website,
I was gumping it, you
know, like Forrest Gump.
I was just figuring it out, thumb sucking,
figuring out how the software works,
how to build it.
And late 2020, I saw an ad
online for Jason Matthias.
(29:03):
He had a course called
The Art of Selling Art.
And this was a career creative out of
North America, who had already exhibited
in all the spaces that I could wish to
exhibit, had an abundance of experience,
and he was also
educated by profession.
So, he knew how to impart his
wisdom in meaningful ways.
(29:25):
So, that's when the big shift
happened, is I found a coach.
I found a mentor that could help me bridge
sort of like all the unfamiliar territory.
Like Jason is somebody who's done what I
want to do, and instead of me sort of like
tripping over myself the whole time
and figuring things out the hard way,
(29:47):
now I had a resource, somebody that
I could reach out to and say, hey,
how did you
do this?
How do I
approach that?
And I've been part of that
community for about four years now.
So, early on, I think I was part of the
course for about a year,
maybe less, let's say
nine months.
Jason put up a video
(30:08):
explaining blockchain and NFTs.
And it's like, well,
this is what it is.
And here are
collectors.
And this is how you build a community
and all these sort of things.
And that just completely resonated with
where I was in my career at that stage.
Because you've got to keep
in mind, I'm in Cape Town.
So, Cape Town is on the
southernmost tip of Africa.
(30:30):
It's that first world pocket
that I alluded to earlier.
But everything north of me, sort of like
on the continent, is
very much third world.
My closest first world
territories are Europe.
And then across the pond, you've got North
America and maybe a little bit of South
America in Argentina.
(30:52):
So, if I print something here in South
Africa and I frame it, to ship it from
Cape Town to, let's say, Germany or from
Cape Town to the U.S., more often than
not, costs more than the
actual piece of art costs.
So, that's a huge deterrent for potential
investors, okay, for people who want to
(31:15):
buy my art.
But when you go online, when you go onto
blockchain, when you use NFT and the
technology behind that, all of a sudden,
the logistical dilemma, the logistical
bottleneck just
falls away.
Because now we have a mechanism
that can prove provenance, okay?
(31:38):
So, provenance is just a fancy way of
saying this is a history of the art from
the creator and all
its different owners.
Because that's where
the value in art is.
If you look at your classical arts,
your Van Goghs, your Picassos,
all of these have to have
provenance in order to be valuable.
If there's no provenance, if nobody can
(32:00):
prove that it's all the way back from Da
Vinci, then it's just a piece of, you
know, cloth with some paint on it.
But as soon as you have the
provenance, then it becomes valuable.
And blockchain does
all that inherently.
So, that's why
I got into it.
It was putting my work, which was very
much for the developed world, or for the
(32:22):
first world, in an environment where there
was no logistical bottleneck, and putting
it in front of people in economies
that have the disposable income.
Meaning that I don't have to market it
locally, where it's a completely different
economy, and people don't have
that kind of disposable income.
Wow, that's
pretty good.
(32:43):
And then how did you go, or how did
you discover to put it on Cardano?
Because that, for me, is one of
my best of my favorite platforms.
And I've been on it so early that I
actually own one of the very first NFTs on
the blockchain when it first
started allowing for that.
(33:05):
And I think I own over 500
NFTs because of the art.
Like, it's something about it just
resonates with me, just owning it
digitally, because I'm like, I can have a
whole collection without
physically being here.
And then it's also smaller artists that
express themselves from different parts of
the world that I started realizing,
(33:26):
like, oh, these artists are from,
a lot of them are from South America, or
that they wouldn't have access to show
off their art to the world if they didn't
come to, like, these NFT platforms.
How was that?
Yeah, so I think my first NFTs were on
(33:47):
Ethereum with OpenSea, where you had to
put some ETH in your wallet, and then
you had to pay a transaction fee just to
synchronize your wallet
with the blockchain.
So that's costly for me as a South
African, okay, because we have a
completely different
economic bracket.
(34:07):
But still, I saved up, I put the money
in, and I could synchronize my wallet,
and the first collection I had
available was my Shadow Work collection.
But around that time, Jason, in the art
of selling art, introduced us to Cardano,
and he's like, hey,
guys, look at this.
This is something that's a
little bit more manual, okay?
(34:30):
But look at the gas fees, like,
they're virtually non-existent.
Look at the
transaction fees.
Look at what you
can do with this.
And because of my technical aptitude
and my background, like,
it all just resonated.
I was like, oh, wow,
this is really cool.
And the more I got into it, the more I
(34:50):
understood that Cardano was not a Silicon
Valley, like,
initiative.
You know, it wasn't supposed to be,
like, the blockchain of the world.
Instead, they had taken
a more academic approach.
So they reached out to professors and
(35:11):
masters in the computer science field way
ahead of time and asked them for theses,
for papers, for, you know, an academic
approach on what does the
ideal blockchain look like.
And Cardano as a blockchain
is the end result of that.
So, I think that as a result of that
(35:34):
approach, this is why Cardano is also
called the people's blockchain because it
was developed with the everyday man sort
of, like, in mind.
Where something like Ethereum,
which I understand Hoshkins was,
he played a key development role in the
beginning, it does have that Silicon
(35:57):
Valley bravado attached to it, you
know, because when Ethereum opened up,
they immediately had endorsements for,
like, Adobe and, you know, all the big
players in
those games.
But Cardano was just
like the little guy.
You know, it's just like, we're going to
do something that impacts everybody and
(36:18):
we're not going to roll it out through
Apple, Microsoft, Adobe,
all those big players.
It's just going to be sort of like
an open source kind of blockchain.
So, yeah, there were many, many principles
and, like, the ethos of Cardano that
resonated with me.
And that's why I
went that route.
(36:38):
So much so that my NFTs had been shown
in Cardano-based, like, festivals or
conferences.
In Dubai, in
Las Vegas.
I was the.
..
So we had a Cardano center
open up here in Cape Town.
We'll circle back
to that in a bit.
(36:58):
But, yeah, I mean, because of blockchain,
my work has now been all over the world.
And I've done all that from the
comfort of my laptop here in Cape Town.
Wow.
I know Cardano has a lot of
initiatives, especially in Africa.
They have a presence in all of these
developing countries and locations so that
(37:21):
people have access to these financial
tools that they wouldn't
otherwise have access to.
And also see things or
also, like, investments.
Because art is
an investment.
And people want to
be a part of it.
Even if they don't have a lot of money,
they want to be a part of this new,
like, world
economic, like, tool.
(37:43):
How is that?
How do you go
about that?
Like, for one, like, how do
you consider art an investment?
And two, how was that Cardano
center in South Africa?
So, yes.
The key way to go
about it is education.
(38:04):
You have to educate people
about the technology.
You have to explain to them
that you can earn royalties.
You have to teach them how to market
and how to talk to the developed world.
Because the day-to-day conversation
in a country like South
Africa is just different.
And the way we sell to each other is
different than the way the Americans want
(38:25):
to be sold to or the
Germans want to be sold to.
I feel like the Web3 NFT wave hit South
Africa, but mostly all of the negative
things associated
penetrated.
So, by the time the Cardano center opened
(38:47):
up, firstly, I had a meeting with them and
we got into agreement that I would be the
first ever featured artist
at a Cardano center.
And I built a collection in partnership
with them called Prism, which is on the
website and the NFTs
are available too.
But in addition to me having the
exhibition at the center, we were hosting
(39:11):
a set of workshops, of
which there were three.
So, the first one was
for the art galleries.
So, we invited local galleries to
say, guys, this is what blockchain is.
This is OPSEC.
These are all the important things that
you need to know in order to participate
in the global sort of
like scheme of things.
The second workshop
(39:32):
was for the collector.
So, if you're just somebody who's got some
crypto and you want to understand what the
buzz is about, here's
some basic theory.
And then the third
one was for artists.
So, if you're a photographer, if you're a
painter, if you're somebody in the visual
space and you want to leverage this new
technology to get your work into the hands
(39:54):
of collectors abroad, like
this is a workshop for you.
And we aggressively
promoted it.
Like, we did
interviews.
We were
running ads.
I was speaking one-on-one with all
the gallery owners in Cape Town.
And we had
zero turn up.
It was
heartbreaking.
And the reason, like, after the
(40:14):
fact, you do like a post-mortem.
You're like, why
didn't this work?
Like, what are
we doing wrong?
And my only conclusion is that when
I was speaking to the gallery owners,
for example, and explaining to them Web3
and, like, we're doing a workshop for
artists, they had already been exposed
to, like, the scammy part of NFTs,
(40:37):
where they receive
a DM from some guy.
Like, oh, I saw your
picture on Facebook.
I want to buy
it as an NFT.
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
And then some of them, not knowing
any better, fell prey to these scams.
And now their opinion of this
technology is forever tainted.
So that's why, when you asked the
(40:58):
question, I emphasize the
importance of education.
In order for blockchain, in order for
Web3 and NFTs to be utilized to its full
potential, you have to explain to
the masses what it is, you know.
But if it's just a buzzword and their only
experience with it is somebody trying to
(41:19):
scan them out of their hard-earned
money, it's not going to take off.
So, sadly, the Cardano Center closed down
last year because there isn't interest for
that in South Africa
at the moment.
But I do know that they have earmarked
other territories for similar initiatives,
(41:40):
which include Bali,
which include Dubai.
The founders of the Cardano Center are
based in Singapore, and they're developing
some really cool
technology called...
I think it's called
OpenFrame or OpenWindow.
I'll have to
(42:01):
double-check with you.
But essentially, what it is, it's a
digital frame that connects with your Web3
wallet so that when you travel,
whether it's, you know, from hotel to
hotel or from hotel to yacht or wherever
you are, your art can
follow you wherever you go.
And it's a beautiful
piece of hardware.
(42:21):
Where they've done really a lot of work
to make sure that it looks high-end,
that it presents well, as well in a
gallery space as it would in somebody's
bedroom or office.
And, yeah, that was
part of the initiative.
So, they did a hardware solution
and a software solution.
(42:41):
So, the software solution
is called Curate.
And they...
I've been working with Curate for quite
some time, like, bug testing and fixing
and giving
suggestions.
So, I'm very excited
about that space.
But keep in mind that, you
know, proximity is power.
And for me to be, like, this small
(43:02):
little ember in Cape Town, as opposed to,
like, these huge wildfires in North
America and Europe, it's very difficult to
maintain enthusiasm without, sort of,
like, the mental anguish that goes or
something like that.
But, so, yeah, I mean, like I
said, I'm very optimistic about it.
(43:24):
But locally here in South Africa, I've
had no other choice but
to step back from it a
little bit.
And have you been, like, helping other
artists as well, like, in any way,
whether it's NFTs or how to go about
building their brand as an artist?
Yeah.
(43:45):
So, we mentioned early on that after Ibiza
and during COVID, I was building websites
for myself.
And people took notice and asked
me to build websites for them.
These days, that's the majority of my
revenue, is building online presences for
(44:05):
established artists.
So, there's a difference between somebody
who's just starting out and still figuring
out their style, as opposed to somebody
who's been doing their art form 30,
40, 50 years, and is considered
an absolute master in their field.
Those established artists, those are
my ideal clients, because they know
(44:26):
everything they need to know about their
art form, whether that's painting or
writing or whatever
the case might be.
What they don't know is
the coding component.
How do I build
a website?
How do I create an online
identity and brand?
How do I do
social media?
Is social media, like,
the right thing for me?
(44:47):
And that's where I've been able to add
the most value, is helping established
creatives onboard
their creativity.
And in that repertoire,
I've helped...
So, I think my highest-profile client
is Professor Pumla Gabordo Maliki Zela.
(45:09):
She is the 2024 laureate of the Templeton
Prize, which is sort of like the
equivalent of a Nobel
Prize, but for psychology.
So, I built her website maybe two or three
years ago, and every month I do updates
for her, make sure the website
is nice and secure and safe.
(45:31):
And whenever there's content that
she wants to upload to the internet,
I am her gateway.
I am her
contact person.
So, instead of her having to learn how to
build a website, she just does her work at
an exceptional level, sends it to me as
a PDF or a Word document, and I make sure
(45:52):
that whatever's online is on par with
her caliber, her quality of work.
Wow, that's
pretty crazy.
One of the last questions is
about your art, the Ember Flow.
Ember Flow, I think it looks really good,
and I hope everyone in the audience,
because it's a podcast, can go to his
(46:13):
website, which will be all linked below,
to see his art, because
I think it's so vibrant.
Can you go
more on it?
Yeah.
So, Ember Flow was the first piece in my
Prism collection, which I built with the
Cardano Center.
So, keep in mind that one of the key
(46:35):
objectives we had when building this
collection is we wanted to show
off the digital gallery space.
So, I felt like the best way to do that is
to create a collection that goes through
the entire color spectrum, which is
why the collection is called Prism.
And with lighting theory, we understand
(46:57):
that visible light starts at reddish,
so non-visible light is infrared,
then goes to red, orange, yellows,
greens, and then blues,
magentas, purples.
So, that's the entire
color spectrum.
So, each piece of art in the Prism
collection is a representation of a
(47:18):
specific color.
And Ember Flow is the first
piece of that journey.
It's in that reds, oranges, and when you
see it on a high-resolution HD digital
frame, it just pops.
And this photo
is essentially...
I think it was a 30-second exposure,
maybe longer, maybe like a one-minute
(47:39):
exposure of a
fire dancer.
And I just managed to do some overlays,
some magic in Photoshop, to make it as
vibrant as possible.
Yeah, I hope everyone checks that out in
the audience, because I
think it really is a really
good piece.
And for the final things, do you have any
(48:03):
tips for, like, aspiring artists or that
want to go into art but aren't
really sure if they should?
Advice for artists?
Find coaches, find mentors, find people
who have achieved who you want to achieve,
like, what you
want to achieve.
And build community.
(48:23):
Like, the only way you are going to make
this sustainable is if people know you,
trust you,
and like you.
Because when they do either one or all
three of those, they are willing to part
with their hard-earned
money to support you.
But if you are just going to be showing
(48:44):
up online saying, buy this, buy this,
buy this, buy this, buy this, you
are not going to have any success.
You know, nobody signs onto social media
with the intention of, hey, I wonder what
ads Alvin is
running today.
People go online because they want
to learn, because they want to be
entertained, because they
want to improve themselves.
(49:05):
And if you want to do that with your art,
those are the things that
you have to focus on.
Focus on message.
Focus on value.
And from there, you can start
going into the sales mode.
But just doing the cold call, hard
selling, it's nearly impossible without
(49:26):
the proper context and building
relationships with people.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for
being in the podcast.
All your links will be
in the description below.
And I hope everyone can check out your
artwork to see what you described and
other pieces that
you have available.
Yeah, I would love
for that to happen.
(49:46):
If people want to learn more about me and
my creative journey, they
can go to my website,
juliusshuister.com.
That's J-U-L-I-U-S-J-O-O-S-T-E
dot com.
For the fine art, I have
created a dedicated subdomain.
And that can be found at
fineart .juliusshuister.com.
That's F-I-N-E-A-R-T dot
(50:08):
J-U-L-I-U-S-J-O-O-S-T-E dot com.
And from the fine art subdomain, you
can view the physical
pieces and the NFTs.
So obviously, NFTs are
available internationally.
But physical pieces are printed,
framed, and packaged in Germany.
And then distributed to 48
countries around the world.
(50:29):
So yeah, add one to
your collection today.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you for
being on podcast.
Thanks for
having me.
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