When tech meets Tholkappiyam: Chennai artists collaborate for NFT musical project that can be heard in 19,440 ways | Chennai News
CHENNAI: On a chilly evening earlier this month at Manhattan’s glittering Terminal 5, thousands watched as digital artist Beeple’s iconic $69 million non-fungible tokens (NFT), ‘Everydays — The First 5000 Days’, made its public debut.
And setting the tone for this historic event — the world’s first NFTfocused music, art, and technology festival titled ‘Dreamverse’ — were sounds from the Tamil soil.
In the project ‘Pann’, the musical moods that outline landscapes such as Kurinji (mountain), Neidhal (ocean) and Marudham (agricultural fields) in ancient Sangam literature, are woven into a sublime arrangement of programmable music by 41 visual and musical artists from Chennai.
The project was commissioned for the mega event by MetaKovan (aka Vignesh Sundaresan), and in what will be a colossal milestone for artists from Tamil Nadu, ‘Pann’ will be minted as an NFT on Async Art — an experimental art movement built on the blockchain — in November. The initiative promises to open artists like Chennai singer and music composer Pradeep Kumar and Tamil folk star Anthony Daasan up to the global market of connoisseurs fuelling the NFT market.
“When we started, we had one strong drive: to connect as many artists as possible directly to a global audience,” says Pradeep, also the brain behind ‘Pann’. “The greatest gift of a block chain-powered art space is that it enables the artist to perform with complete ingenuity and freedom, and witness their value in a vast and decentralised space,” he says.
The musical piece comes in 19,440 combinations it can be heard in. These are created out of nine layers containing an eclectic range of instruments, vocals and ambient sounds. So, if a collector buys one layer, they can literally fashion out the master track as per their choice using the variations available to them. Variations for each layer have been recorded live — including sounds from various landscapes of Tamil Nadu and electronic layers from a modular synthesiser.
The technology has been developed on the Etherium blockchain with smart contracts coded into it. So, for every layer and master track purchased, the artist will get paid through an automated system.
“NFT cuts out the intervention of record labels and streaming platforms. The artist gets their due and the audience gets the worth of the artwork they’re purchasing,” says Radar With a K, an independent music producer and artist in ‘Pann’.
For artists like Anthony Daasan, who has worked his way up from singing at funerals to becoming a powerful voice of folk art in Tamil cinema, this is a novel opportunity. “It’s a way to keep precious performing traditions alive,” he says.
And setting the tone for this historic event — the world’s first NFTfocused music, art, and technology festival titled ‘Dreamverse’ — were sounds from the Tamil soil.
In the project ‘Pann’, the musical moods that outline landscapes such as Kurinji (mountain), Neidhal (ocean) and Marudham (agricultural fields) in ancient Sangam literature, are woven into a sublime arrangement of programmable music by 41 visual and musical artists from Chennai.
The project was commissioned for the mega event by MetaKovan (aka Vignesh Sundaresan), and in what will be a colossal milestone for artists from Tamil Nadu, ‘Pann’ will be minted as an NFT on Async Art — an experimental art movement built on the blockchain — in November. The initiative promises to open artists like Chennai singer and music composer Pradeep Kumar and Tamil folk star Anthony Daasan up to the global market of connoisseurs fuelling the NFT market.
“When we started, we had one strong drive: to connect as many artists as possible directly to a global audience,” says Pradeep, also the brain behind ‘Pann’. “The greatest gift of a block chain-powered art space is that it enables the artist to perform with complete ingenuity and freedom, and witness their value in a vast and decentralised space,” he says.
The musical piece comes in 19,440 combinations it can be heard in. These are created out of nine layers containing an eclectic range of instruments, vocals and ambient sounds. So, if a collector buys one layer, they can literally fashion out the master track as per their choice using the variations available to them. Variations for each layer have been recorded live — including sounds from various landscapes of Tamil Nadu and electronic layers from a modular synthesiser.
The technology has been developed on the Etherium blockchain with smart contracts coded into it. So, for every layer and master track purchased, the artist will get paid through an automated system.
“NFT cuts out the intervention of record labels and streaming platforms. The artist gets their due and the audience gets the worth of the artwork they’re purchasing,” says Radar With a K, an independent music producer and artist in ‘Pann’.
For artists like Anthony Daasan, who has worked his way up from singing at funerals to becoming a powerful voice of folk art in Tamil cinema, this is a novel opportunity. “It’s a way to keep precious performing traditions alive,” he says.