Who is TheDigitalCoy?

I am a self-trained AI multimedia poet focused on telling private and intimate stories through nonfiction and alternative mythologies. I strive to be a creator and collector of beautiful things that make people think and change or alter their perspectives. I have been creating art since childhood and have mostly kept things to myself for the last 30 years. I have a background in music (vocals, piano, violin) and worked in the film, media, and entertainment industries and was a graphic designer for a time. 

I was first a creator and collector of physical artworks and then began experimenting with digital art (both visual and auditory) in 2003 while living in NYC. For the last 20 years, I've mostly kept my art to myself, writing poems or sketching on planes, trains, and automobiles. Along the way, I discovered Bitcoin and bought some in 2015, followed by my first NFT purchase in 2017. My immersion in the world of web3 brought me to collect digital art in 2021, and with encouragement from friends and family, I minted my genesis piece at the beginning of 2022. It has been an amazing journey, and I plan to continue creating art for the rest of my life.

In 2024, I revealed my in-real-life (IRL) identity on twitter as originally planned. I still have other anonymous artist identities you may have collected from over the last few years. In time, I have plans to reveal some of these as well. 

Where did the concept of “Publicly Private” come from? 

Publicly Private is a term I coined nearly 25 years ago while experiencing the completely anonymized chat rooms of the semi-early internet. I was intrigued by how people could talk about the most private aspects of their lives to complete strangers when they would never reveal it to those “closest” to them in IRL (in real life) or to those who “knew” them. 

I see the next evolution of this concept of "Publicly Private" playing out in Web3 and the Metaverse in an even more complex and interesting way. In Web3 people lead very publicly private lives through displays of who they are while remaining anonymous (anon). Today, people reveal similar things about themselves to people 25 years ago but also include more private things like how much money they have or are making, what they are spending their money on, what art, stories, and memes resonate with them, all while having the ability to live the lives of as many monikers/pen names/alter egos as they desire and can manage. 

Why does "Publicly Private" matter?  

In the IRL world (and even in Web3) our identities and the perception others have of us can be a door opener or closer, and sadly, prejudice and stereotypes do exist. The Web3 world presents an interesting experiment: in a world where complete anonymity is possible, can people reach a higher level of contentment and "success" in their life if their image is of their own making and based completely on the merits of their imagination, talents, and abilities? And can strong emotional connections be made between a piece of art and the collector and people within Web3 communities based on these identities created from scratch? 

I aim to explore and find answers to these questions with my Web3 lives. 

What is your perspective on privacy? 

Some of the more interesting stories are the one's rarely or never told. So in that regard, for storytelling, privacy is very intriguing to me. For Publicly Private, I tell some of the most private and intimate stories across generations of my family that were captured in heirloom photos. For Private Poet Salon, I tell the private and intimate fictional, imagined, or alternative history-focused stories for mythological and historical figures and hope you enjoy them.

One thing I will not compromise on and will always protect most will be the stories of the IRL subjects in my pieces (especially children). I will not reveal anything about them (aside from a silhouette/shadow and the theme/setting of the moment) unless given full consent. 

I want to thank my parents and my wife for believing in me and for giving me the permission to share these stories with you through the Publicly Private Collection. 

Thanks and I look forward to going on this journey with you.

Cheers,