3 Nov 2023/64 min/Batzdu
MLow X Batzdu
A full hour with meme artist Batzdu on Geometric Pepes, the Opepen collaboration with Jack Butcher, free drops that did 200 ETH in volume, and why memes are contemporary art.
MLow sits down with Batzdu, the designer turned artist best known for Geometric Pepes, for a full hour that traces a whole career: teenage years making Call of Duty clan signatures on gaming forums with a copy of Photoshop, DeviantArt and digital collectives like Depthcore, a decade as a working graphic designer, then the moment NFTs clicked and he entered as both artist and collector. His thesis anchors the conversation: memes are the ultimate form of contemporary art in the digital age, and he intends to keep making them and advocating for those who do.
The middle of the episode is a project by project walk. The Nine, a triptych of triptychs of self portraits released in February. Geometric Pepes, born inside the Darkfarms collector community and launched when Paul Tran replied to a morning tweet asking to buy one. The Jack Butcher arc, from being invited into the Visualize Value Discord to co-creating Opepen set number three, Full Circle, and airdropping a Bong Rip Pepe Opepen to his collectors when it did not fit the set. Pepedenzas, hand made Fidenza and Pepe hybrids given away entirely free that still did over 200 ETH in volume. And Keys, an open edition built from hostile DMs, left open until April 20 against every objection, now becoming a generative collection where four keys unlock an output.
Around the art the two trade practical notes: MLow shows Batzdu DALL-E 3 inside ChatGPT and describes converting a thousand piece edition into unique works with Stable Diffusion and Runway ML, Batzdu explains metadata swapping as a way to keep collectors on their toes, and both talk up Transient Labs and Foundation as builders enabling artists. The episode closes with the gym (the Creeping Death push pull legs program), a promise to meet at Art Basel, and five words for his art: memes, edgy, lighthearted, expressive, personal.
What this episode teaches
- A large edition is a curated audience
Batzdu argues the untalked about upside of big editions: if a thousand pieces land with four or five hundred collectors, you now have a direct line to them and can build a next step, the way his Keys open edition feeds a generative collection where four keys unlock an output.
- Free can still make a market
Every Pepedenzas drop was free: airdrops to Geometric Pepe holders, burns for lower editions, free claims. Nobody paid anything, and the collection still did over 200 ETH in secondary volume, which Batzdu counts among his proudest results.
- Reduce the object, keep the essence
His design method is to take a recognizable object, Pepe, and break it down visually as far as possible while still capturing the essence of the original. The same constraint logic shaped The Nine, where every panel had to connect into one canvas.
- Turn hostility into material
The Keys open edition literally prints the nasty DMs artists get (bong rip pepe make floor price go up). He kept it open for months until April 20 while collectors hammered him to close it, because the point was the piss take of the open edition meta.
- Study artists whose structure is legible
William Mapan's Distance and Sketchbook releases taught Batzdu how a generative output can be read as layers (color, highlight, shadow, texture), which reshaped how he structures his own code even though he does not call himself a developer.
- Give collaborators free rein
Jack Butcher handed him total creative freedom on the Opepen set, no art direction, and Batzdu contrasts that with platforms that try to creative direct. The freedom is why the collaboration was an easy yes.
- Keep a habit that clears the cache
Batzdu has lifted for over eight years, now less out of vanity than as meditation: workouts clear the junk from his head and he comes out with mental clarity. He treats it as a necessary habit, not an optional one.
The conversation, topic by topic
From clan signatures to a design career
Batzdu started in high school making clan tag graphics for Call of Duty forums with a copy of Photoshop, moved through DeviantArt and digital collectives like Depthcore (run by Justin Maller), studied graphic design, and has been a designer for the past decade. He has been in crypto since 2017, but seeing artists release NFT work is what pulled him in as artist and collector.
Memes as contemporary art
His work is known for memes, but he says that was intuition rather than intention. He states it plainly: he truly views memes as the ultimate form of contemporary art in the digital age, expects people to name the movement decades from now, and will keep creating and advocating for meme artists.
The Nine
Released February 14, The Nine is a triptych of triptychs that forms one piece from nine connected panels. Batzdu calls them all self portraits, traits and experiences personal to him, each with personal anecdotes. Eleven portraits followed: one for each collector of The Nine, plus The Cells (his own profile picture) and one for the collector who bought the first piece off the original owner within hours, as a thank you.
Geometric Pepes
His best known collection came out of the Darkfarms collector community (he bought into the Pepe profile picture project the transcript renders roughly as Smalls). Paul Tran became the first collector after replying to a GM tweet. The series snowballed to a hundred pieces, finished almost exactly a year before this conversation, with a core collector group he credits as lovely, genuine people.
Jack Butcher, Checks Pepe and Opepen
A designer named Ian by Design shared his work in Jack Butcher's Visualize Value Discord. Jack later released an open edition Checks Pepe based on Batzdu's work and the Checks form, part of the lineage that evolved into Opepen. For a career designer who had followed Jack for years, he says the whole thing never gets old.
Full Circle and the Bong Rip airdrop
For Opepen, Jack gave him free rein on a set. The result was set number three, Full Circle, an ode to the original Geometric Pepe form inside the Opepen silhouette, refined in late night design sessions with Jack. His Bong Rip Pepe Opepen did not fit the set, so he airdropped it to every collector of his set instead, and loves spotting it in replies in the wild.
Pepedenzas
Pepedenzas combine the forms of Tyler Hobbs' Fidenzas with his reductive Pepe treatment (the red, the blue, the white, the black eyes), every one made by hand since he is not a generative wizard. All drops were free: airdrops, burn mechanics for rarer editions, open claims. The collection has done over 200 ETH in volume with nobody ever paying for a mint.
Editions, Ledger and metadata swaps
His editions include a Nouns pattern piece, one based on an official Art Blocks collection, the piece MLow calls roughly Come and Meme It, and a Pepe Ledger made in collaboration with Ledger, which he can barely believe he gets to say. He teases updating the Pepe chart edition early next year and praises metadata swapping as a way to surprise holders. MLow shares his own version: converting an edition of 1,000 into unique pieces using Stable Diffusion and Runway ML.
AI tools and the hidden Limbo collection
MLow demos DALL-E 3 inside ChatGPT and offers to share the AI tools artists have shown him; Batzdu, a vocal advocate for AI art despite the detractors, immediately plans his afternoon around it. He also reveals his quiet AI work: a three piece collection called Limbo from December of the prior year, where the piece The Exile hides Pepe drawings etched on a wall.
Keys and the generative turn
Keys began as a piss take of the open edition meta: an image of what trolls think is on his keyboard, kept open three or four months until April 20 while people raged at him to close it. The larger plan: collectors holding four keys unlock a generative output. He worked in Processing a decade ago, is debugging the code himself, and says layouts and palettes feel done while he perfects a dithering texture. He credits the collector known as 4156 with first planting the generative idea.
Favorite artists
He rattles off influences and friends: William Mapan above all for Distance and Sketchbook, Alpha Centauri Kid, Emily Edelman (whose typographic Art Blocks drop makes him want to explore typography as art), Darkfarms, Die With The Most Likes (whose prose he loves as much as the art), the Acid Pepes artist, and more, plus a story of watching an artist sketch live at a CryptoPunks event in Charleston.
The workout regimen
MLow asks about the gym, since Batzdu is one of the most ripped people he has interviewed. The answer: a push pull legs split, currently the Creeping Death program by bodybuilder John Meadows, which he warns is too intense for most. After eight plus years the gym has become his meditation, the place he clears the cache in his head.
Transient Labs, Foundation and what is next
Looking forward, Batzdu wants more in person events and points to builders: Transient Labs seemingly shipping something new daily and now working with Foundation. MLow shares that he was among the first to list a Transient Labs contract on Foundation and describes a twelve artist collaboration (with Max Osiris and others) where layered pieces live in an array on a Transient doppelganger, letting the owner choose what displays.
Pepe forever, and five words
Favorite meme: Bong Rip Pepe, and Pepe himself, the mascot intertwined with internet culture until the internet ceases to exist. He also argues color palettes have become memes in their own right, citing the Goose and Grant Yun's palette. His five words: memes, edgy, lighthearted, expressive, personal, because memes are literally how he and his wife have talked since high school.
In their words
“I truly do view memes as the ultimate form of contemporary art, at least in our digital age.”
Batzdu“Nobody was paying point one or point zero six nine eight for any of these. They were all free.”
Batzdu“I don't care. I will mint as much work as I want to, and just whatever feels right to me.”
Batzdu“I always come out of my workouts just with a lot of mental clarity.”
Batzdu“Pepe is the mascot that is so intertwined to the internet and internet culture, and will be that until the internet ceases to exist.”
BatzduCite this conversation
Batzdu in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Batzdu," The MLow Show, 3 Nov 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-11-03-mlow-x-batzdu.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.