What happens when a trio from New Zealand threads both virtual and physical worlds by releasing an electronic dance track complete with embedded access to their metaverse where reality and art collide? Trying to follow the intertwining threads of art, music and commerce flowing between sound, vision, crypto-currency and non-fungible tokens is not for the faint of heart. I needed a guide, so I spoke to Ryan Ferris of the group Beacon Bloom and Scott Ashby their manager.
Sometimes art is self-evident as when a two-minute song of the summer hits the radio recorded in a single take in 4/4 time or a painting of a fruit bowl. Other times art is complex, think about the rise or surrealism with Dali’s melting clocks or Magritte’s collisions of time or scale.
In this new world where silicon enables creativity and commerce with the same underlying technology it was entirely predictable that art and commerce would merge in ways which were previously unfathomable.
Beacon Bloom is a multi-genre electronic music trio comprised of Ryan Ferris, James Allen and Joss Doge. Their idea was to combine virtual and physical worlds, surround both with music, build a video portal which leads the curious or the adventuresome through endless permutations of narratives and mystery which include the ability to buy NFTs (non-fungible tokens) representing ownership of electronic art or sound, and make crypto-currency based transaction. Beacon Bloom are on the cutting edge of blurring sound, vision and commerce in a way which allows fans to take ownership of what they find appealing, interact, and ultimately trade within a space defined only by the limits of their creativity and the willingness of the audience to engage. Think MTV videos as presented by the Home Shopping Network as the new projection while you hurdle through Space Mountain with the ability to buy and trade any of the motion you observe within the space.
The video is Nothing Here But You, which is a music video with QR codes which are accessible throughout. Play the video and see how it is possible to play games, win contests or enter deeper into the metaverse where the NFTs are available. Some of these NFTs include merchandise, access to future shows or even Beacon Bloom playing a private show at a location of the NFT purchaser’s choice.
Beacon Bloom is donating 10% of their take to charities including The Orangutan Foundation and Regenerative Agriculture which is a great way to further build community. In addition to Beacon Bloom, this project had input from Mango at Charged Particles, Beat and Path records, Richard Dixox’s NFT Virtual Gallery on Cryptovoxels and the Ashby Projects who manages the band.
The conversation I had with both Ryan Ferris and Scott Ashby was one of my favorites because it traveled from the real worlds of New Zealand and San Diego deep into the worlds of virtual reality and synthetic commerce. They are really pushing the boundaries of music and technology.
Ryan explained how NFTs which are tradeable digital assets can exist into both physical and virtual worlds. Within Beacon Bloom’s video there are memes and items which display into a virtual art gallery many of which were featured in the video such as a fanny back worn in the video. The buyer receives the physical fanny pack, plus an NFT of the fanny pack and digital access deeper into the metaverse than those who have not acquired an NFT. Essentially. it’s an ever winding thread interweaving the real world, the digital world, the metaverse and the process of travelling between them. In other words: art. Or, alternately a bundle which is physical products, digital products and access to the virtual world in which both the physical art and the digital art interact with those who travel between them.
The conversation I had with Ryan and Scott was deep and challenging. Here it is in both video and audio podcast format:
The future as seen by literalists is not the same future as seen by digital natives. Those who were raised in the world as it presently exists are not yet ready to receive the way digital natives think about the flow of traffic and commerce in both the real world and the digital world. However, the future is the blended reality of what you know and what you can imagine. In a world in which there are trillions of dollars invested into currencies which only exist on computers, in which reality is only bounded by imagination and one where art is what artists can imagine or create using the power which was formerly reserved for the military, nothing is too avant-garde to imagine. Beacon Bloom is an early mover building community among its fans and making that community sticky through clever design, utilization of incentives from gamification to competition to acquire digital assets with the prospect to appreciate. They are no longer just a group of musicians building traffic driven by music, they are architects of how commerce can evolve once we abandon what once was and open our imaginations. The future will be built by those with the courage and capacity to imagine what does not yet exist. Beacon Bloom is already working in music, metaverse, digitally distributed assets, merchandising, marketing, and creating a community which communes with the digital space they have created. This is the future, and it is set to a danceable beat.
"complete" - Google News
June 21, 2021 at 09:59AM
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Beacon Bloom Trio Builds A Musical Metaverse Complete With NFT Options Within Their New Video - Forbes
"complete" - Google News
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