Currently, many NFTs focus primarily on visual elements, which are not as time-based. You don’t need to spend an hour to experience an NFT, similar to watching a movie or a drama. However, sound and music are inherently time-based. In the past, a song was typically four minutes long, but now there are hardly any NFTs that are four minutes in duration, or, to put it differently, take the duration as content. When an NFT is minted, even if it is generative art, it doesn’t need to be displayed on your computer screen for the entire duration of the artwork. It might not even need one minute, as even that could be considered too long.
I believe that for sound to enter the world of NFTs and blockchain and be appreciated by people, the underlying storage technology needs to be developed. Currently, the technology may not be able to handle it since the length of a song is typically three to four minutes.
Generative art can produce 256 or say even 1024 images. Now, let’s imagine if these images were replaced with sound or compositions, like generative music. For example, an artist has the ability to create 1024 unique pieces of music or perhaps 256 songs, each with a different length. Some may be 36 seconds long, while others may be 6 minutes long. This would heavily rely on the element of time for presentation, and blockchain technology needs to catch up to achieve this. In this example, it might not be easy to sell, considering that modern people have limited attention spans.
Here, I would like to discuss the characteristics of NFTs as a medium. Many people make a painting and turn it into an NFT, believing that it signifies the entry of their artwork into the world of non-fungible tokens. However, NFT should be seen as a medium. The way I understand it is this: Just like working with clay, the properties, materials, and types of clay can influence your ceramic artwork. Similar to making prints, the choice of either using woodblocks or steel plates can affect the style of the artwork. NFT is like clay, paper, or printing plate in this context. It’s not just a mere format like converting to MP3 or 256 Kbps. Now, converting it into an NFT, NFT should not be seen solely as a digital platform. Earlier, I mentioned that clay possesses certain qualities. Now, we need to discuss the characteristics of NFTs.
One of these characteristics is the decentralization within the platform itself. For instance, in generative art, the artist’s code is uploaded, and it requires a collector to trigger it, resulting in the creation of 256 unique artworks, which can be visualized and appreciated. Therefore, in this sense, the collector is also, to some extent, an author. Hence, I believe that when working with NFTs as a medium, one should consciously strive for a decentralized creative process. Back to the discussion of sound, if we were to mint a sound artwork, during the generative process, the collector could potentially have an influence on the appearance of the sound.
My discussion earlier leaned towards the aspects of collecting and consuming. However, if the artwork exists in the upstream of the entire industry, we should also consider storage. Drawing an analogy to the world of blockchain, it would be equivalent to the position of miners. In other words, it would not be the position of collectors, buyers, or consumers. To enable the circulation of tokens on the blockchain, miners must first create a unique code to obtain the right to record transactions. Therefore, I believe that decentralized sound storage should involve the miner level in order to discuss storage and the circulation of sound.
When John Lennon’s iconic song ‘Imagine’ got created, he might have been the one pressing its melody onto the vinyl template, using that template to produce thousands or even tens of thousands of vinyl records. This represents the initial node of music materializing and entering the consumer market. Today, when creating a sound artwork, achieving decentralization means it no longer involves handing it over to a record company. Instead, you must place it in an environment with many miners, where everyone competes to record the transaction of uploading that sound. This information should be widely known across the network, letting everyone know that the song has been uploaded and has come into existence. This is currently the concept I can imagine for decentralized storage of sound. –[SCR]
*The translation is edited for the clarity of the article.
** The header image is @IOvm After the Cave #42.
