Brand appropriation artist Teji launched the Phunk Force One token on August 19, marking his third permissionless collaboration with a major brand and pushing the boundaries of guerilla art and “web3” creativity.

Each token provides access to one of only 500 pairs of shoes TEJI has created using imagery from the Cryptophunks V2 collection and appropriating but then innovating off an inverted version of the famous Swoosh logo.

The tokens can be purchased by holders of the Tejiverse token and by Cryptophunks holders for .10 ETH each. The general public can purchase each token for .20 ETH.

Editor Note: I helped Teji draft up a press release for his launch and in return received a free mint pass for the token, but I wanted to write something on my own as part of my efforts to track the history of blockchain-related creativity since the explosion of NFTs in 2017. This is my attempt to describe what makes TEJI’s approach unique and to do so in the context of what symbols and art mean for pop culture. I hope it can be seen as a description of his method and practice, and his role in the expansion of blockchain-related technology and art.

TEJI is doing something in his art that a brand would consider threatening, but that an artist would consider liberating. He is doing something that the often hyped idea of Web3 is allegedly designed to do.

He is facing down corporate symbolism gatekeepers that have claimed imagery for themselves and said, as a David would to a Goliath, “I am going to take back this power, and make new things with it.” In a world saturated with imagery, information and brand noise, we can easily take for granted that brands’ perpetual use of imagery is indeed a factor in how symbols, metaphors and storytelling become stale. Art is meant to shake that complacency out of us.

Creating a permissionless shoe is a form of protest art, but it’s protest art that is beautiful.

When the general public do not interact in a deeper way with the power or the meaning of images it becomes easy to believe that an artist manipulating these images is doing something illegal, but as I will demonstrate with TEJI, the blockchain helps him stake a claim that, upon examination, separates his work of craftmanship from trademark infringement. His shoes are commentary and his shoes are a commentary.

TEJI’s permissionless protest begins before the shoe, with the offering of a token that is used for verification, not for flipping. Holders use the minted token to verify their ownership in a Discord chat [link]. Then they order their pair of shoes. TEJI will send these to each order manually.

In addition to this, in the run up to the mint, TEJI also documents the placement of a pair of shoes inside an actual NIKE store. This creates a form of performance and puts the work far away from some kind of ripoff of trademark. It’s a literal flipping of the script of how manufacturing works.

Here’s a video of him placing the Phunk Force Ones inside a store in Sydney.

This is not what typical NFT projects do. Typically, an anonymous team puts together and hypes 5,000 to 10,000 individual collectible NFTs, usually in the form of a profile picture and sized to look like trading cards.

The whole point of the mint series is to create a fanatical urge to rush in and buy as many as you can as cheap as you can to then sell them on the open market to get as high of a return as you can.

Honestly, it’s juvenile and completely anti-art.

With TEJI, you are looking at craftsman not just of textiles, but of public performance. It’s actually kind of exciting to watch. He’s done the same thing before in Australia’s largest art museum. After designing a profile picture NFT, he then stylised it into a painting format, and walked right into the museum, and attached it to a wall.

Here’s a video he shot of himself placing a digital art creation inside a museum in Sydney.

Artist-Provacateur

This creative provocation is making space for artists to take back control over powerful symbolism that is part of culture.

Luxury brands and well-known brands create the illusion that their images are permanent and have more power over consumers than anything that people can create on their own. There are strict rules about copyright and trademark, almost as sacrosanct in their existence as religious edicts.

But while there are creative designers responsible for brand imagery, those images are created by committee, and are reflections of the tight control that corporations have over imagery and symbolism. They are reflections of companies, not really reflections of communities.

By circumventing all the roles and permissions that are needed to get a NIKE shoe approved, TEJI works outside of the laws of corporate trademark and bureaucracy. Taking the next step, and putting things on blockchain ensures that anyone looking at an image will never confuse something that TEJI did with something that NIKE’s staff did. One might think that what TEJI is doing is bordering on the criminal, but the NFT gives the artist confidence and control when using their art to bend our concepts of reality, law and order.

“I’m not trying to pretend to be Nike or LV and the blockchain verifies this - it’s not hard to check what address has launched a collection and that’s the beauty of the blockchain, the transparency.”

“I just like remixing what I find interesting,” says TEJI. ”I’m like a producer sampling a classic hit for a new age remix. At the end of the day everything is really just a remix of a remix.”

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**By utilising blockchain technology and a smart contract for the Phunk Force One, Teji re-formats ideas about the NIKE brand and the story that it tells and makes them more personal and his own.

The Teji Story

As a child, TEJI (who also goes by his real name, Jet) was excited to create things on the web, but he fell afoul of complex trademark laws during a time when the internet was open and clashing with traditional legal ideas.

Using some software, he made and then uploaded a slideshow onto YouTube featuring the music of Sean Kingston, an American music artist. In a few moments, it was DMCA’d.

He was nine years old. He didn’t even know what a DMCA was.

“I was proud of what I’d created, it was a display of an early act of creativity from a kid who just wanted to make something for the fun of it — This kid wasn’t trying to make money or drive sales away from Sean Kingston, he was just trying to express himself,” says TEJI.

In 2016, he started mixing his own music and then releasing it on the web. He was DMCA’d again. This time, his Soundcloud account got rektd.

In 2017, he learned about blockchain and started making digital art for it. He had taken a trip to Vietnam and spray-painted a character he designed onto a wall under a bridge.

Eager to learn more about blockchain, he flew to Japan and met up with some digital artists and visited art galleries and digital installations.

“Going to Japan was really my first time seeing that this creative shit is possible,” he says.

“Visiting places like Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki Gallery and the Ghibli Museum really showed me there’s people out there making a living selling cartoons and clothes and it really made me think if they could, why can't I?”

A few months later, he designed a Louis Vuitton bag that TYGA was seen wearing, and that has made its way into press and social media photos as a “must-have” crypto icon of luxury and liberation.

He also made a Nike Hoodie, but with the upside down swoosh and quotes from the bitcoin white paper. A practice began to form. He began to insert the textile goods in the stores of their brands.

The Method: HYPE-DROPPING

The method of releasing the goods into the wild is called “hype-dropping,” which is a play on the term hypebeast and their expectation of the next “drop,” a play on the way the music world talks about new music releases.

Here’s how it works:

I will get one sample made and I’ll use that to make a video to promote the NFT with. Whenever I sneak something into a store it usually takes me less than five minutes to get my clips and dip.I’ve even had employees watch me record my videos and not even think twice about it. Because who the fuck would sneak something back into a store? Oh wait.. me, lol.

Worried about arrest, being caught trespassing or antagonizing staff? Worried that trademark infringement letters from legal teams will fill his mailbox? No, he says, because blockchain offers a whole new focus on the artist. You can pinpoint precisely who made an object, and tie it to the performance that satirises “brand or curatorial authority.”

“It’s not hard to check what address has launched a collection and that’s the beauty of the blockchain, the transparency,” he says. “I don't care [about the risks

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