williamlu_PROSE

 William Lu

ART 291

May 4, 2021

Project

Whether we like it or not, Digital art is becoming more and more a part of our everyday lives with no sign of dying down.  This project aims to take advantage of the new and ever increasing wave of interest in digital art, specifically regarding the world of NFT’s or Non fungible tokens.  An NFT is a digital asset that is untradable and represents a unique piece of art in the digital realm, like a digital certificate of authenticity that allows interaction with a piece of digital art within virtual and augmented reality spaces.  The goal is to create a unique 1 of 1 NFT that is visually created using Blender or similar 3d modeling and animation software, paired with a musical production to evoke the feeling of relaxation.  There aren't many pre determining factors when dealing with the creation of NFT’s save for the fact that you want to make sure you’re not copying another artist’s work, but we will need to mint said project on a site like niftygateway to ensure its success.  The NFT will be the depiction of the Hindu god Ganesha animated on a loop with an accompanying soundtrack that will also be a 1/1 and only released within the work of art.

Research

NFT’s have remained an interest of mine this semester and I have seen both really good, and really bad NFT’s put up for sale by artists.  One of the most successful NFT sales occurred this year when digital artist Beeple posted a work of art titled Every Day is the First 5,000 Days which sold for over 60 million dollars as a culmination of over 5000 daily digital art uploads compiled into one sale.  On the opposite end of the spectrum there have been NFT’s that have sold that are as simple as a smiley face drawn in MS paint sold for nearly a thousand dollars.\

There is a solid middle ground as seen with This NFT purchased by producer Apashe and another sold by electronic music producer EPROM.  They demonstrate what it means to sell a successful NFT based on only the visual aspect seen in Apashe’s purchased work and what it means to sell a work based only on the sound aspects and our project will be unique in the fact that it will combine these elements in a way that is unique to our desired outcome of making the one who buys this piece feel a sense of relaxation.

Other inspirations for our pieces come from the Producer Flume that has created animated objects that are respondent to sound design, but this differs from our goal as he attempts to animate in response to the sounds created.

Objective

The objective of this piece as previously stated is to make the purchaser of the NFT in question interact with our piece on niftygateway and feel a sense of relaxation.  If we are able to evoke this emotion with an interactive piece of art we will have succeeded.  The audience we are in a sense pandering to is the audience that has recently taken an interest in NFT’s.  We want this piece of art to speak to anyone who has felt stress before in their lives and has felt that stress melt away once a huge weight is off their shoulders and they are able to release whatever tension they need to.  This piece will definitely be more of an individualized experience as only one person may technically officially own the piece of art, but until the piece is auctioned off anyone may view it and make the decision for themselves on whether or not they really relate to the piece and whether or not they end up purchasing it.  This piece will demonstrate that Digital interactive art is in fact one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle that leads us to the future of art and artist compensation when it comes to selling works and creating interactive content.  The main objective of this project is not how much we can sell out work for, but rather if we can create a work compelling enough for someone to want to buy our piece for even an extraordinarily low price like .001 ether (.001 ether is Approximately 3.50$ at current market price).  As stated before we want the person who experiences this piece to have a sense of relaxation so it wouldn't make sense to charge exorbitant amounts unless bids raised the price.

Strategy:

Required Materials:

• A PC with a working Graphics card, preferably an RTX 3080

• Software what will allow us to animate and model 3d objects  like Blender or Unity

• Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software like Logic X or Pro Tools for Music Production to create the 1/1 production to go with animation

• Niftygateway Account to post the final work up for auction

• Any Additional plugins and instruments needed to record

Important dates:

These dates are important to adhere to to allow maximum exposure of our work in a small amount of time, taking advantage of the increasing public interest in NFT’s

• May 12th- Finalize designs for our digital piece

• May 19th- Finalize Score and musical component of the digital work

• May 26th- Finish rough models in Blender or Unity or combination of both and have started recording score into DAW of choice

• June 2nd- Complete 3d animated models in Blender and Unity

• June 9th- Have a finalized mix and master for the audio used in the digital work

• June 16th- Finish combining both aspects of the work into one coherent piece 

• June 23rd- Upload completed work to NiftyGateway

• June 30th- Finalize auction if anyone has bid on our piece and sell our NFT

Funding Needs

For our NFT to get off the ground the funding we need will be fairly substantial and the money made will be donated back to the arts.  We would need at least 2,800$ for a PC with a top end graphics card and shell out at least another 1,000-3,000$ on software. If we want to hire musicians to collaborate on the audio aspect including professional studio time that would be at least another 5,000$ and other miscellaneous costs I believe would bring the total cost of funding required for this project up to anywhere from 10-15,000 dollars.

Permits required

Luckily this digital work will not require the use of permits.

Others Involved

Other individuals may become heavily involved, at least on the music production side.  At the very least Brady Yelverton, Local Pueblo producer would help with score and music production, but besides that there wouldn't be many others who would need to get involved unless hiring additional help from coders or those offering help in Unity and Blender would come into play.

Travel Arrangements

There will be little travel needed as this work takes place entirely within the digital realm save for hiring additional musicians.  If additional musicians are needed we will hire within the local community trying to keep costs down, but if a great opportunity presents itself but with a little bit of travel that's what part of the miscellaneous funds stated in the funding needs section would be allocated towards.  For the most part though, since we will be working with digital files, travel will not be necessary and the sending of information can be done quickly and easily.

Execution

The execution of this NFT is not the lengthiest when it comes to time spent making it.  With Every deadline spaced out weekly over the summer and no potential hangups, this project could honestly even be moved up regarding it’s time frame, but to ensure accurate portrayals of every aspect of this projects form we want a minimum of two months with a maximum of one month additional time should anything go wrong in the initial production that should cause for more time to be spent on the work.  This project will be able to  move quickly because there is no need for court or permit approval. Again our timeline is as follows: May 12th- Finalize designs for our digital piece

• May 19th- Finalize Score and musical component of the digital work

• May 26th- Finish rough models in Blender or Unity or combination of both and have started recording score into DAW of choice

• June 2nd- Complete 3d animated models in Blender and Unity

• June 9th- Have a finalized mix and master for the audio used in the digital work

• June 16th- Finish combining both aspects of the work into one coherent piece 

• June 23rd- Upload completed work to NiftyGateway

• June 30th- Finalize auction if anyone has bid on our piece and sell our NFT

I believe having these goals all spaced a week apart is realistic, measurable and essential to the success of this project and once this project is complete, serious consideration into the creation of a more emotionally themed NFT can be taken and the process further refined from that point.