Nadia Says’ talk at W3b Lab virtual event:
About art and new tech.
The first time I really interacted with new tech in my job as a curator was for an art show I produced at Berghain. It was actually the first art show, not in the Halle, but really in the Berghain club on the dance floor. We mixed live music, traditional art, digital art, and new tech. The way we brought in new tech, in what I hope was an organic way, was that we paired artists with tech startups who provided them with solutions to enhance and bring their artistic visions to life. You know, sometimes as an artist, you’re a painter and you’re like, “Ooh, I would like my painting to glow when people interact with it or something”. And then the startup would give solutions to the artist to make this happen. So it was based on collaboration, and this is how I realised for myself firsthand that art and new tech were not enemies or opposite as many might think, but can really work together in ways that are not necessarily commercial, or cheesy, or gimmicky.
Oftentimes when some artists present something that uses buzz technologies, it’s gimmicky and it doesn’t really bring anything special to the art. So I think from both sides of the technologists and the artists, we have to dig a little deeper. And so now working quite a bit in tech, I realised it was a lot of white men, what we currently see in the scene with the stereotype of the tech bros. Like this Silicon Valley type of people that maybe don’t really connect to artists and creatives. It’s just not an attractive scene, we don’t always share the same values. And there’s other issues we already know of problems of racism, sexism, and other discrimination related issues in new tech.
About bias in new tech.
For example, an AI is going to be as racist or as anti-racist as what you feed to it so it learns. We’ve all seen in the press incidents with AI being racist, sexist, and so on. Facial recognition is also not very kind to people of colour. Interface creation is not necessarily racist, but it might be ableist or designed for a certain type of users and not really democratic. There may be problems of access as well, due to finances, due to red tape or because of different physical abilities. I wanted to share an example with you that you may have seen it in the press. So it’s funny because yesterday Mixmag was writing about this saying, “Oh my God, there’s an outrage, what is Capital Records doing?”
And today it was announced that Capital dropped this AI rapper. There were definitely racism issues. As I understood it without deep research, but as I understood it, a bunch of white guys took a lot of data from the rap and hip hop world, created an avatar who is supposed to be Black and mimics stereotypes from Black people and Black artists. So using the N word, although you know it was created by white people, and saying things against police brutality… But because it’s AI, there’s no real life consequences. While there’s a real life rapper, as I read recently, who’s actually in jail for the same types of lyrics as this AI artist, but this AI artist, of course, would never have this kind of problems.
And whatever money this AI artist is making using Black music tropes is going to white people. So this was a definite no-no. Luckily they dropped it, I just have to wonder about how much money was spent on this instead of going to a real-life Black artist. Hopefully this is a lesson for all labels, and we can do better in the future.
Additional challenges in new tech x music & the power of community.
There are other challenges, I think the main one is the eco challenge, especially when we talk about crypto. I follow a little bit what’s happening on the eco side with crypto, and Ethereum is moving to a less consuming system. Many crypto currencies are also trying to be more eco-friendly. I also believe, just because we used to have cell phones as big as a book, and now we have mini cell phones, I’m thinking that as technology evolves, it just gets better and consumes less, and offers more. So yes, we are going to do things about the eco problem, and also technology will at some point solve it itself because of evolution. That’s my hope on this.
It’s definitely a challenge and we have to talk about it, but I do get a little bit upset with people who say, “Oh, yeah, I will never go near NFTs because it’s so polluting”. Well, do you think CDs were not polluting, do you think that bio shirt at H&M is not polluting? Let’s put things into perspective before criticising something new.
So today’s theme, how do musical creatives build impactful space on Web3 when facing all these challenges, and especially for artists from marginalised communities?
Before we dive in, I have another example to share with you. It’s older, when Epic bought Bandcamp. I’m sure everybody’s familiar with Bandcamp. I was not familiar with Epic. I read a bit about them, and they seem to be the Bandcamp of gaming from what I understood. When I first read this article, I was shocked and horrified, and then as I read and I did a bit of research, I was like maybe it will be okay, we have to wait and see. But this article has a good passage that I want to read to you, “The ironies that Bandcamp has always positioned itself as a community rather than a marketplace. Yet that community has not been given a say in the fate of the value it has created.”
And this resonated with me because it’s like Soundcloud. All independent artists built Soundcloud from the ground, and then Soundcloud did all these questionable things that they’re still doing today, they are again letting go 20% of their workforce, to the staff and to the users, partnering up with – while censoring people who maybe play music from – major labels… Going back to the article, the solution, say some artists, is to take back control, either by moving over to a platform like Resonate, a streaming cooperative owned by its users (by the way, it’s made in Berlin, it operates with crypto, and the motto is pay to stream it till you own it – I recommend you guys to check it out) or exploring web3 protocols for collective ownership. So this is a big one, collective ownership on web3, that’s one of the major things about web3 I would say for creatives.
From the article: “Austin Robey, co-founder of alternative music platform Subvert, advocates for an exit to community, a model where startups are taken over by the users and stakeholders who depend on the product or service they’ve created. I’m all for socialism, still no other indie platform has yet achieved anything like the scale or appeal of Bandcamp. And the shift to alternative platforms will require a leap of technical literacy that most artists and fans are not ready to make. In short term, Bandcamp remains the slickest direct to fund operation in town, and is still paying out millions of artists.” The bit I find really interesting is about alternative platforms. “We require a leap of technical literacy that most artists and fans are not ready to make.” And that includes me, it’s not that I’m not ready to make it, it’s that honestly, it’s difficult.
From low tech to new tech.
I’m not a tech savvy person, and I need help basically. I also wanted to comment on this article about the gamification of the music industry. Nowadays, some of the biggest income for musicians is to make music for games. So we can’t bury our head in the sand. The game industry is coming for the music industry, and I think this is also somehow connected to the rise of the bedroom producer and DJ, to all these easy apps to learn to make music or to jam to improvise alone or as a group, and I am finding it’s connected to the public joining events in the Metaverse in an interactive way, and people being ready to take part proactively instead of just being receivers of the art.
So as I was saying, what about artists? If you’re like me, if you’re not super tech savvy, what are we going to do about this? Some concerns I have, for example, are about the safety of my wallet, my data. If you’re an artist, you may have concerns about the safety of your assets, of your copyright, etc. All these platforms and systems, they are evolving literally every second. It’s not always transparent how they work. So how can we dive into this world? The first super basic thing I recommend is to read, watch videos, talk to your friends, to your colleagues, attend events like this one, and get info from different sources. Super important, you know, because there’s definitely a main stream against crypto and decentralised systems and general things that give power to the people. So I’m not saying they’re all wrong, but it’s very important to have the two sides of the coin.
Something else is don’t be shy, don’t feel intimidated. Maybe you’re going to do or say something stupid. It happens you know, when you first ride your bike, you fall, you hurt your knees; it’s how it is. So even as adults, we can still be doing this, and make space and take space for yourself and your community. The way I see it, is that it’s not only an opportunity, but it’s also a duty, because if we do not make space for ourselves, nobody else will, and we will end up with new Metas, Spotifys, and companies that keep on milking artists without giving back. So what can web3 mean for artists? According to me, artists being in charge of the art distribution, connections to fans, not giving up big parts of payment to middlemen, having new ways to copyright the work on the blockchain.
Also, having new ways to collaborate and share payments with core artists, experiencing boosts of creativity thanks to new formats and possibilities, which bring us to the subject of having shows in the Metaverse.
Before we jump to the Metaverse, I wanted to do a quick note on NFTs, not just selling a piece of music on the blockchain; it can be as creative and as broad as your own imagination. It can be a piece of music, it can be stems for people to make their own music with your music. It can be a very special picture of you, it can be you covering your favorite song from Nirvana… I mean, it can be anything that your imagination can come up with, and you can share it directly with your fans. So it’s something very special. I do hope that artists will take advantage of it.
New tech in music can boost DEI if done right.
And so my last bit about the Metaverse. Recently on Facebook, I saw a colleague of mine, who’s a bit older than us, who commented on an article that was describing Metaverse concert from Live Nation. And his comment was very negative. I read the article and I can’t say I was thrilled by it. I mean, live Nation is a company I boycott personally. But even the way they presented it, it was just not attractive. You know, it’s kind of like everything that’s wrong with mainstream music, music that is not really art. Maybe I sound a bit snobby, but that’s how I was feeling.
I told him something along this: I see where you’re coming from. This article does not make the Metaverse desirable. However I do believe the Metaverse will create opportunities for underage kids who may not be able to join live events in real life, because their parents can’t bring them or because they’re not allowed in, or because it’s too expensive to buy a ticket for the kid and for the parent; people who live far from music hubs, not everybody lives in the big city where there’s touring bands. This will save gas and plane tickets to just go to the concert online. People with limited mobility or immune system issues – I do hope will no longer have lockdowns with Covid, but there’s still people who need to be protective of their own health, and a big concert is not a way for them to do that.
There’s also people who need subtitles for concerts because they cannot hear lyrics, so that’s a great opportunity for them. And also people who may have social anxiety and they love the music, they love the artist, but they just don’t feel like being next to 500 sweaty people. I think these people should also have a right to live music events. So I don’t see the Metaverse replacing mash pits, I’m someone who will always go to live music events in real life. I see it as an extra resource, a different platform for different purposes.
And the last bit, which I think is also why some people can’t really get on board with it, are the visuals and aesthetics. Right now we see a lot of visual and aesthetics that are kind of close to gaming, and that’s totally fine. It’s the beginning and I think this appeals a lot to a young crowd and the gamers’ crowd; it does not necessarily appeal to older folks and people with different tastes though. But in my opinion, there’s a lot of visual art out there and different music genres. And it means the Metaverse will also become super diverse and represent this scope, and have something exciting for people of every age and background. Whether you like pop and Hello Kitty, or metal and German expressionism, or why not, Hello Kitty and metal like me.