What if a dancer could dance a painting? Or a poem could represent an image? Or an image could paint a song? How can artistic expressions have representations beyond their primordial medium?
When a ballerina performs Chopin’s Nocturne in C# minor, she is unlocking a physical dimension of the musical piece. It’s as if the initial partitur had a hidden layer that goes beyond its primary objective of conveying the message in the form of sound waves.
Let’s call this a medium transfer.
While expressing music through dance is a well-known medium transfer, from early humans dancing around the fire to the sound of drums, to the XXI century’s TikTok choreograph frenzy, the same cannot be said about converting music into image.
The same way the universe produces frequencies that can be translated into sound – the sound of universe –, each song has a visual representation of the set of sounds that express its musical idea. This representation is called a waveform. A waveform is a fingerprint, unique to each song. Even the various 4-chord pop songs that we all know, as similar to each other as they may be, have different waveforms, due to the variation in instruments, pitch, patterns and even how the music was produced, thus creating a unique signature that belongs only to that song.
This medium transfer – turning music into image through waveforms – is untapped by most artists today. And it can be a point of intersection for both musical and visual artists, regardless of how physical of digital they are. A song can hardly be merged with a painting unless they share the same medium.
When a musical artist converts their work from audio to image through the creation of a waveform, they are penetrating the visual territory of, for instance, a painter or a designer. If then the designer builds on this by creating an artwork merged with the waveform, we are no longer in the presence of music that is only mean to the listened to. It is now visual music.
This is the value proposition of Iconic Waves: music to be seen. In essence, artworks born from songs through their waveforms and album covers, or even any other artwork. But not just that. Iconic Waves provides waves to be experienced, as NFTs represent a new engagement opportunity for artists and their fans. Each wave will give access to curated online and real life experiences that will bring the artist and their fans closer together.
The first drop of Iconic Waves is comprised of 6 waves, visual representations of 6 of the most iconic songs of all times: Bohemian Rhapsody, Hotel California, Black, Purple Haze, Like a Rolling Stone and Stairway to Heaven. Each wave corresponds to the blend of the song’s waveform with the respective album cover, mixed by an AI algorithm. Each wave is unique. The process of creating a new wave, if repeated, would generate a completely different output. And for each digital wave sold, a physical twin will be sent to the NFT owner.
In case you’re wondering why a digital art collector would want to have a physical copy of his NFT – they may not, and the physical artwork is optional. We see the world becoming more digital and we like the road – we want to be part of it! - that is being paved for it. However, we strongly believe that physical assets won’t go away, as the digital experience cannot fully mimic the real world: the paper texture, the touch, the smell, the way ink adheres to the paper. And since each wave is rich in shapes, colours, and elements, we want our collectors to be able to fully experience the beautiful artwork they acquired – a way to experience music with all the senses. We have also prepared the tech that will allow to prove the authenticity of each print. More on that on the next post.
Take a look at the Iconic Waves collection and follow me to get all the alpha of what we are working on.
