For musician and visual artist Jimmy Edgar, NFTs are invisible, but that’s not a bad thing.
in the world of music, Edgar worked with Vince Staples, Charli XCX, Miguel, Machinedrum, and others on a remix of Lady Gaga’s “Babylon.” But he’s also run his own business with NFT.
edgar released ethereum The NFT collection, called OXYGEN, which took place on August 11th, consists of 13 artworks that play with viewers’ notions of immaterial, liquid, air, and adult consumer symbols.
“Imagination is solidified as a literal object through a metaphysical process Jimmy calls ‘Digital Condensation,'” the press release reads.
The NFT will be on display at the Vellum LA NFT Gallery in a solo exhibition in Los Angeles from August 11th to September 11th, and will also be available for sale at the NFT Marketplace Foundation. Alice Scope and Sinziana Velicescu curated the exhibition.
NFTs—A unique blockchain token denoting ownership—is attached to the digital art it authenticates. Edgar is comfortable with the abstract concept of blockchain and digital tokens. This is because OXYGEN NFT directly deals with the following concepts: intangible and the potential state change of matter.
“I look at Ethereum like a medium layer of art,” he said. Decryption In an interview, he added that Ethereum NFTs essentially serve as “futuristic proofs of authenticity” for digital art.
Like the OXYGEN collection, Edgar’s previously released NFT collection object OPTIONZ also incorporates 3D rendered imagery, surrealistic physicality, punchy color gradients, and sometimes draws inspiration from artist Jeff Koons.
“There’s always a bit of humor in my art,” Edgar says of his work. “There’s always a little bit of sarcasm.”
Edgar first worked on NFTs in early 2021. His friends in the music industry were excited about the potential of his NFTs, and Edgar immediately jumped on the idea, but he wanted to apply it to his visual art.
“Most of my life exists in the digital realm,” he said, reflecting on why digital art is so important to him.
Also, immateriality (the idea that something can exist as a “non-object” without physicality) does not detract from NFTs for Edgar. Instead, he sees it as part of the evolution of thought and the visual arts, and the intangibility of digital assets is a theme explored in his work.
“We are like this generation that is moving into the immaterial. We are stepping up and becoming more immaterial,” he said. “I have a lot of patience and confidence in cryptocurrency as a digital medium.”
When it comes to music, Edgar sees songs like invisible sculptures.
“I always viewed music as something that sculpts in a way,” he said.
Edgar sees immense potential for NFTs in visual arts, but he doesn’t feel the same way about current NFT applications in music. royal or elsewhere soon.
“As you know, I’ve seen a lot of talk and hype about music NFTs, but I’m very skeptical about removing NFT songs. It feels empty and pointless,” he said.
However, Edgar, who comes primarily from a musical background in DJing and producing, believes that music NFTs can work if they are considered community assets.
“For NFTs to work with music in the future, we envision a platform where musicians can create, produce, exchange, sell, collect, and create new communities.”
