Dave Bachinsky is a professional skateboarder, woodworker and visual artist based in Carlsbad, California.Since 2020 he has used a drone to film skaters' lines from directly overhead, editing each into a video that loops seamlessly forever, and ties each piece to a blockchain token as its certificate of ownership.,
Bachinsky grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he began skateboarding in 1992 after his uncles cut down a Santa Cruz board into a mini board with a jigsaw.He turned professional for City Skateboards at age 20 and gained international recognition in 2006 for landing a kickflip over the El Toro 20 stairs.,He has since competed in events including Dew Tour, Street League Skateboarding and World Cup Skateboarding, sold more than 25,000 signature skateboards, and set Guinness World Records. In 2023 he served on the Selection Committee for the USA Olympic skateboarding team.,
He launched the video series Roll Forever in 2020,after losing his woodworking shop during the Covid-19 pandemic and returning to Massachusetts with a drone he began flying over a local skatepark.Steve Caballero was the first skater he filmed for the project, at Alga Norte Skatepark after Bachinsky had relocated to San Diego. He discovered NFTs through a podcast, began collecting on Hic et Nunc, a digital art platform on Tezos, and became an early participant on the generative art platform fxhash before applying blockchain provenance to his own video work.
In 2022 he began Skylines, a planned set of 100 aerial videos of skate spots including plazas, schoolyards and abandoned locations.Its first release, filmed in Los Angeles in August 2022, was reworked into SKYLINES // PJ LADD, a set of 100 randomized color variations of the same line.,After more than 150 failed attempts at a trick for his twentieth video part in November 2023,Bachinsky created four generative artworks from the experience under the title Walls,using the Japanese Suminagashi technique of marbling paper with ink and water.He landed the trick two months later.
A separate series, The Fakie Files, gathers 14 pieces across Ethereum, Tezos and Base of lines that could not loop seamlessly enough for Roll Forever or Skylines, focusing instead on the symmetry of plazas, schoolyards, abandoned locations and bowls.Bachinsky also founded Shapethree, handcrafting sculptures and furniture from broken skateboards,,with a share of proceeds funding new skatepark obstacles in Lowell.His work has been shown in group exhibitions in the United States, London and Beijing.
