10 Nov 2023/36 min/Tustont
MLow X Tustont
Zak Tustont on branding detailed work as garbage, the fake Vogue cover, a broken TV that became an artwork, and two years of training his own StyleGAN models.
MLow catches Zak Tustont on a work break for a conversation about the strangest positioning problem in the archive: an artist who makes highly detailed, time intensive work and insists on calling it shitty garbage. Tustont opens with a PSA that there is more to his art than meets the eye, then spends the episode showing exactly how much: the fake Vogue cover he made overnight after Vogue tried to get OpenSea to pull an Alpha Centauri Kid piece over the word Vogue, the broken TV from his day job that became a glitch piece in a style he had never tried, and the hidden links to free mints buried inside a commentary series about the shitcoin meta.
The origin story is a cross media entry path. In February 2021 he answered an Instagram post from a visual artist who needed a musician for soundscapes; he had 15 years in music and audio production, the collaborative piece sold for 4 ETH, and he assumed that was normal until the market taught him otherwise. Nearly three years later the space has become part of his identity, and he has put over half of everything he has earned back into other artists' work.
The back half digs into craft: color theory as pure feel from an untrained eye, the balancing act between emotional work like his Moments in Abstraction series and shitpost energy, why his garbage concept is a performance turned normalcy rather than a branch of the trash art movement, and two years of quietly building his own StyleGAN models so he can train AI on his own artwork. Along the way MLow tells his own origin story: a photograph published in the New York Times through an open call when he was 14, which he now plans to mint with a story inscription.
What this episode teaches
- Self deprecating branding has a cost
Tustont is candid that calling detailed work shitty garbage put him in a hole he has to climb out of: collectors who miss the context get confused, and one SuperRare buyer had to be reassured by DM after the replies congratulated him on buying a worthless piece. The posture works, but only when the context travels with it.
- Your first sale is not your baseline
His first collaborative piece sold for 4 ETH in early 2021 before he even knew what that meant. He assumed it was normal and was terribly disappointed afterward, a warning for anyone whose entry coincided with a mania: there was no rhyme or reason to early 2021.
- Put the context on the token
Both agree story inscriptions (via Transient Labs) are game changing. A tweet announcing provenance reaches a fraction of future holders; an inscription on the mint reaches all of them. As Tustont puts it, context is everything, and it is harder to distribute now than it was in the bull.
- Enter through the craft you already have
Tustont got into crypto art not as a visual artist but as a musician: 15 years of audio production became sound design collaborations, which kept the lights on after a Covid layoff in 2021 and only later grew into his own visual practice.
- Train your own models instead of renting the tool
He has spent two years building his own StyleGAN models so he can train AI on his own artwork and combine it with other subjects, accepting that a week of training can produce nothing usable. The payoff is reaching things he could never do by hand, especially photorealism and the interpolation frames between images.
- Accidents are material
When he dropped a TV at work and smashed the screen, the boss called it garbage; Tustont saw a piece. The glass broke in a pattern uncannily like the abstract work he had made the night before, so he built a glitch piece with moving text around the image of the broken TV, in a style he had never tried.
- Rotate mediums to stay unblocked
He alternates between three distinct styles of work, part neurodivergence management and part creative block insurance. Switching mediums keeps him busy and keeps each body of work fresh.
- Feed the ecosystem you live in
Well over half of the ETH he has earned in the space has gone back into collecting other artists, even in stretches when he needed to withdraw for bills. Collecting is not a side activity for him; it is how the relationships that anchor him here were built.
The conversation, topic by topic
Garbage with depth
Tustont opens by explaining his position: he describes his art as shitty garbage while it actually carries depth, meaning and detail that take real time to create, and he has to work his way back from his own framing. MLow compares the move to Die With The Most Likes, and Tustont agrees he has fallen into that same pocket.
The fake Vogue cover
After Alpha Centauri Kid received what Tustont understood as a cease and desist or DMCA from Vogue over using the word Vogue, with pressure on OpenSea to remove the work, Tustont made a mock Vogue magazine cover. Enough people believed it that his DMs filled with congratulations, including, MLow admits, one from him. Tustont's verdict: by design the bar is set so low, but not that low.
Color as feel
He never went to art school, so color theory is literally a feel: if it looks good he keeps going. His work leans on high contrast, sometimes every color he can get his hands on, and he has banked hundreds of color templates over the years but still works to each piece's vibe.
The February 2021 entry and the 4 ETH sale
One night on Instagram he saw an artist asking for a musician to create soundscapes. With 15 years in music and audio production he answered, the piece was minted on Ethereum, and it sold for 4 ETH before he knew what that meant. The disappointment that followed taught him the madness of early 2021 was not a baseline.
Three years as identity
Almost three years in, the space has gone from something he expected to keep separate to something embedded in his everyday life. He and MLow agree on the reason: it is hard to do anything for three years, except have fun with your friends on the internet.
MLow's New York Times photo
MLow shares that a photograph he submitted to an open call ran in the New York Times ten years earlier, when he was 14, a fact he had forgotten until a conversation about open calls the day before. He plans to mint the piece with a story inscription documenting the feature, and both agree inscriptions fix a real context distribution problem.
The broken TV piece
Tustont dropped a TV at his day job and smashed it; instead of trashing it he decided to sell the broken TV on SuperRare, which snowballed into a glitchy piece with moving text built around the image of the set. He had planned to ship the physical TV to the buyer, but a coworker threw it out while he was home sick.
Emotion versus shitposting
He describes balancing on a line between serious emotional messaging (his Moments in Abstraction series) and shitpost energy, and finds it hilarious when the garbage crowd dunks on work that was never part of the bit. He embraces all of it, including collectors who need the concept explained after buying.
Not trash art
Asked whether his work belongs to the trash art movement of ROBNESS and Max Osiris, he says no, with huge respect for ROBNESS. His concept was presented differently: a performance that turned into normalcy, something he no longer has to put on. He credits Die With The Most Likes with tirelessly making that translation work.
Collabs and the collective
Early on he did many sound design collabs (including with Jeremy Torman) because income mattered after a Covid layoff; now he has pieces in progress with Nev and others, though he notes artists struggling to sell their own work are wary of sharing that disappointment. His ongoing collective of 50 or 60 artists is collaboration in another form. MLow describes his own 12 artist piece on a Transient Labs doppelganger contract, where every artist's layer lives in the array.
Collecting and favorite artists
A collector since childhood trading cards, he has put easily over 50 percent of his crypto art earnings back into artists. Favorites off the top of his head: Andres, Die With The Most Likes, Space Case (he owns a shitload of his work), Nev, and photographers whose names the machine transcript garbles.
StyleGAN and the attraction of the unknown
Introduced to machine learning through the visual artist Jeremy Torman, he released AI collections in mid 2021 now buried in the OpenSea shared contract and has been building his own StyleGAN models for two years. Weeks of training sometimes yield nothing, but he loves training models on his own art. Both agree the unknown is the draw; MLow adds that image to image models find color combinations he could never reach himself, and Tustont says AI reaches an uncanny valley his vector work cannot.
One tale, held up as a mirror
Asked where all his pieces would lead if strung into a single tale, he says his vector work from this year is a clear chronicling of the space: cheeky commentary that holds a mirror up to people whether they like it or not. Every piece is meant to impact, through laughter or something more cerebral.
Five words and hidden links
His five words: this shit is garbage (he counts four and lands on intention as the fifth, since intention is everything). His Easter eggs are real: during the shitcoin meta, when influencers were getting people to send ether to wallets, he made a commentary series with links hidden inside the pieces that led to free mints.
In their words
“Although I do describe it as shitty garbage, it actually does have depth, meaning and detail that takes time to create.”
Tustont“By design the bar is set so low, but not that low.”
Tustont“Context is everything.”
Tustont“It's like coming out of nothing, but you're behind the wheel and you have no control over it.”
Tustont“It's like holding a mirror up to people in a way, and whether they like it or not, it is what it is.”
TustontCite this conversation
Tustont in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Tustont," The MLow Show, 10 Nov 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-11-10-mlow-x-tustont.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.