Atlanta-based Megafauna Studios partners with OKC Zoo to present NFTs of Elok the orangutan – WABE

Primates can amaze us with their demonstration of abilities to engage in human-like efforts. Koko the gorilla spoke in sign language; Gordo, a squirrel monkey, went into space in 1958; and now Elok the orangutan makes NFTs.

Atlanta-based Megafauna Studio collaborated with Elok and zoologists at the Oklahoma City Zoo to present the world’s first NFT collection made of a great ape. All sales of Elok’s NFT artwork go to benefit orangutan conservation. Megafauna Studio founders Becky Scheel and Mathieu Kuhne joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about their organization.

Interview Highlights:

The surprising affinity of great apes and other mammals for creative expression:

“I worked at Zoo Atlanta for 10 years and was constantly amazed at all the animals being cared for and noticed that they use paint a lot for enrichment, which I was very curious about. Some animals just walk across the canvas and don’t seem to notice. Great apes take a lot of care with it, and so do other animals like elephants, which I’ve also worked with in this room,” Scheel said. “I wanted to go back to grad school to study more of this, and there’s a fascinating amount of academic work being done here looking at ‘Why do primates draw?’ And it seems to be the same reason humans do – pleasure for the act of drawing or painting or creating.”

Scheel explained, “[Elok] has a very interesting story where he was hand raised because his mother couldn’t take care of him. So he is very familiar with the goalkeeping staff and has close ties to them. He really appreciates human interaction where he can get it with his keepers, and actually paint, which we were able to witness. So he was the perfect artist to work with on this.”

Exploring Elok’s process with the Kinect motion tracking system:

“It’s simply a motion tracking camera. I used to play stupid video games with my old roommate and dance. It’s a very interesting tool because it’s very affordable, says Scheel. “For this work with Elok, we decided not to stray too far from his normal painting process, which is pretty cool. We could witness it a few days beforehand, where the keepers gave Elok a PVC pipe. At the end, they fix a brush, and then a few meters back, the keeper is holding a canvas. And then Elok manages to put the brush on the canvas. And the reason they use this PVC extension is because orangutans are amazing creatures. They have this engineering-like curiosity, and they want destroy that paint brush. So to prevent that from happening and them eating a lot of paint, they put it on this extender.”

She added, “There’s this really fascinating study in science that looked at color preference in orangutans. Elok’s keepers didn’t say he had a color preference, but they said he really loved bubbles. We made warming applications for him as well, including, the more he moved a brush, the more bubbles would appear, just to try to make this a personal experience that he likes.”

How cryptotechnology bridged Elok’s art to conservation:

“A lot of people were donating to orangutan causes in the crypto community at the time, and we thought, along with my previous work with Zoo Atlanta, there was a way to take that momentum and build a really great fundraiser around it that would make a great connection to conservation , Scheel said. “It would expand people who care about animals and wildlife, and that would be new, not for nothing. This enrichment experience is a bit extraordinary and new for the animals too, so it just seemed like a win-win.”

“We chose to create our NFTs on Ethereum, since the merger just happened … which reduced energy consumption by 99.5%,” Kuhne said. “It is a step in the right direction. These blockchains care about the environment; it just takes a while for them to become effective, and they see the future, they understand this, and these NFTs are not only eye-openers for conservation, but they also show that these blockchains and cryptocurrencies in general can be good and positive for humanity. “

More information about Megafauna Studios’ collaboration with the Oklahoma City Zoo, and the new NFT collection created by the orangutan Elok, can be found at megafaunastudio.org.