NFTs are the current buzzword in the art world and street artists are getting quite excited about their potential for street art.  Street art overlapping the digital realm is nothing new and one of it longest standing exponents is the self-styled guerrilla animator Dr Cream who has been producing street art animations for the past decade.

Springbot by Dr Cream feat also the Rolling Fool, Cat Rider and Shark Army, 2017

In the famous Star Yard off Brick Lane there is at the moment a lovely collection of paste ups from Dr Cream comprising the full set of frames required to replicate one of his famous street art animations.  You can do this yourself, take a few quick snaps and hey presto with a bit of photoshop   create your own replica of one of Dr Cream’s animations.   Other animation makers may be available.   The Star Yard collection yielded this version of Daisy Riot’s strike.

Daisy Riot Guitar Swat

For years we had failed to locate every necessary frame to make a seamless replica of one of his animation, this changed at the London International Paste Up festival last year when Dr Cream obligingly put all the frames for another Daisy animation.

Daisy Riot animation frames by Dr Cream

You may wonder why bother with this complex process fusing the real and the virtual when you could just make a wholly digital animation.  There are several great reasons for doing it this way: the fun, the audience but most of all it is the beauty of introducing random chance abstract colours and textures from the street into the animation.

Daisy Riot back lift axe

As for NFTs, hey are coming to street art and there will benefits and there will be negatives, maybe we’ll go into that another time.

Check out the long history of Dr Cream’s street art animations HERE

Photos and animations: Dave Stuart