A non-fungible token, better known as NFT, is the big thing right now, and who better to jump on-board the craze than Madeon, currently riding high off the back of his critically acclaimed and Grammy nominated album ‘Good Faith’.
So what is an NFT, and how does it work? Essentially “fungible” assets are things like cash – if your friend had two £5 notes and you had one £10 note and you were to swap, you’d both still have assets of the same value. “Non-fungible” assets are nothing new either – a house, a painting, indeed any one-off physical object that cannot be copied. This is obviously a major issue for digital assets, given they can be copied and shared at will, and indeed the issue of piracy is one that has plagued the music industry since the internet became popular in the 90s. Enter the NFT, essentially a digital token that works along the blockchain principle used by the likes of bitcoin – it’s just some data that can be copied and copied and copied, but it is specifically designed so that whoever originally owns it, can prove so and it only has any worth or value to the original owner. As a result, an NFT can still be copied and shared at will, but think of it like owning a poster of the Mona Lisa (a couple of dollars) or the original painting (an untold amount of money).
So what of Madeon’s debut NFT offering? Like many NFTs, it takes the form of “digital art” which combines both visuals and music. Called The Dischead, the preview posted on his Twitter feed shows a short visual clip with some ambient music in the background. It’s the work of Madeon himself, and the team behind the visuals for his Good Faith Live tour, namely Mollie Tarlow, OSEANWORLD, Shin OSM and Mike Kluge.
In a Twitter thread, Madeon explains the meaning behind the project, saying
“I thought it would be a great way for us to reunite, make cool art that continues to explore GFL and support my friends.” also noting “the world of NFTs has evolved faster than anybody could have expected, it’s pretty wild!!”
The collection is available via Nifty Gateway on March 18th at 3:30PT.
Madeon isn’t the only artist to hit up the world of NFTs, with many many artists from across a range of disciplines making use of the concept, such as Steve Aoki who made a record breaking sale, and a brief look at Nifty Gateway’s front page shows that there’s serious money to be made. Are NFTs a fad and the bubble will soon burst? Well looking at both the centuries old world of art collecting, and the continued massive rise of bitcoin, it would seem that that warnings of the “bubble bursting” could well be predictions that history will laugh at.
So I made a collaboration with each of the four Architects of GFL visuals :
Mollie Tarlow, OSEANWORLD, Shin OSM and Mike Kluge
I love this team so much ? pic.twitter.com/fh3fPA5yX7
— Madeon (@madeon) March 12, 2021
Image Credit: Jaylex
