The
Stormtrooper Scandal
Ben Moore
Pictured:
Ben Moore. Image credit: Stuart Bernard
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2024/25/the-stormtrooper-scandal
This
stranger-than-fiction new documentary uncovers the tale of an audacious
get-rich-quick scheme from inside the art world.
When a
London-based curator and artist called Ben Moore announced in 2021 that he was
about to launch a sale of digital artworks known as NFTs, with images based on
the iconic stormtrooper helmets from Star Wars, interest was sky-high. Buyers
and investors around the world competed to own one of these prestigious
artworks, many customised by leading contemporary artists. When the sale went
live on 6 November 2021, every piece sold out within seconds and Ben and his
colleagues became instant millionaires.
But within
days, it became clear that all was not what it seemed…
The film has
access to key figures at the heart of the story, including Ben Moore, the
charismatic London curator at the centre of the apparent con-job, as well as
artists who had their work featured without their knowledge, including Jake
Chapman, D*Face and Chemical X, as well as the collectors who were caught up in
the frenzy - before being left with nothing.
The
Stormtrooper Scandal is a story of speculation, greed and betrayal that took
place on a new digital frontier - an unregulated world where appearances can be
deceptive. But was this a scam, or a well-intentioned bid to make a fast
fortune that spiralled out of control?
The
Stormtrooper Scandal is a DSP production (part of Banijay UK) for BBC Two and
BBC iPlayer. The Producer is Isabelle Rogers, the Director is Stuart Bernard
and the Executive Producer is Magnus Temple. The commissioning editor for BBC
Arts is Alistair Pegg.
Publicity
contact: CB
Review
The
Stormtrooper Scandal review – inside the Star Wars art sale that wrecked lives
This look at
how a charmless impressario and a bevy of cryptobros made millions from an NFT
scheme – only for it to collapse into a legal nightmare – is just mind warping
Lucy Mangan
Thu 20 Jun
2024 22.30 BST
Here’s a
tricky ethical conundrum – how much can you command yourself to care about the
suffering of a monumental dickhead? Do you say a breezy “Not at all!” and move
on with your day? Do you say “I have limited resources and prefer to expend
them on non-dickhead entities, ta?” Do you say “No dickhead is all dickhead,
just as none of us is entirely free of dickheadery ourselves – thus our common
humanity demands of us always a degree of empathy and compassion?” Have a
think, then test yourself again at the end of 90 minutes of The Stormtrooper
Scandal. Send the results on a postcard to the usual address.
The
Stormtrooper Scandal tells the tale of West London art curator Ben Moore, who
came a cropper when he moved into the shadowy world of NFTs (non-fungible
tokens, here in the form of digital art) and cryptocurrency without,
apparently, knowing a damn thing about NFTs, cryptocurrency or the intellectual
property that inheres to art of various kinds.
Moore had
been putting on Art Wars shows – assemblies of Star Wars stormtrooper helmets
customised by various artists, including big names like Damien Hirst, the
Chapman brothers and Anish Kapoor – for several years since 2013 for charity.
They improved his profile but didn’t bring him in any decent money. What to do,
what to do?
Artist Bran
Symondson, a friend of Moore’s, introduced him to the idea of selling as NFTs
pictures of the helmets he had accrued over the years. As far as I understand
it – and the film does such a good job of trying to explain it that if I
haven’t then I can only apologise and/or suspect that trying to understand it
is a fool’s game – this means taking a picture of a customised Stormtrooper
helmet and giving that picture a unique digital identifier on a blockchain
(think of it as an invisible watermark) so only one person can “own” it. The
owner – or “owner” – can then trade it on the NFT open market with people who
also understand or purport to understand what’s going on, what they’re getting
and why it’s worth anything at all.
Anyway.
Moore finds some “cryptobros” online who can help him with this, commissioning
further artists to create non-physical customised helmets (and here I confess,
I really do begin to part ways with an understanding of events). He then
announces a massive “drop” of these items/non-items, and the hype starts
building.
Come the
day, the entire collection sells out in five seconds. Furious trading ensues
and Moore and the cryptobros take a cut of everything and make (estimated)
millions. Then some of the artists become aware that pictures of their work
have been taken and sold without permission. To the apparent total surprise of
Moore, this matters and ultimately ends in the NFTs becoming worthless. Irate
artists, investors – including some ordinary people who can ill afford to lose
their money – and lawyers start, and continue to this very day, to make his
life a misery.
The question
of whether Moore was unlucky, thick, neglectful, incompetent – or worse – is
the question that pervades the film. Artist Chemical X calls him “a posh boy
chancer”, which is a description that certainly seems to match the vaguely
shambolic yet complacent figure who is interviewed about his failures and
possible transgressions on screen. Perhaps he was at least partly duped by the
crypto team, who disappeared back into the cybershadows without leaving him any
way of tracing them (he never learned their real names). Perhaps the greed of
investors and their lack of due diligence played their parts. But the idea that
Moore didn’t know he was sailing close to the wind seems highly improbable.
Moore’s lazy
charmlessness and shifty equivocations on camera don’t help his cause. He was
eager to get the project off the ground, he explains, and thought he would sort
out “any problems” later rather than risk delay or abandonment. He thinks
anyone would have been tempted to do what he did with the prospect of so much
money “on the other side”.
Perhaps
appropriately, given the heavy online dependencies of everyone involved, a
popular phrase (or meme, if memes can be non-visual) from social media keeps
running through my mind as the dismal story unfolds – god grant me the
confidence of a mediocre white man. It seems to be a bottomless resource, but
one without which we might all be better off.
The Stormtrooper Scandal aired on BBC Two and
is available on iPlayer.
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