Conversation with the Artists
How do NFTs contribute to the support of cultural heritage?
Although an integral part of our rich cultural heritage, Indian classical music has not been mainstreamed into the digital platform in a big manner. There are a lot of visual interpretations of Psytrance Music, popular music, memes and many Audio visualizations that are ‘in the moment’, however, there is a need for a structured, precise timespan structure, of a raag alaap altogether in a single unique colour visual record, to archive the vast number of Raags in our rich heritage. Our Alaap NFTs intend to archive as many Raags as possible in our unique alaap style that collaborates with art, to showcase the unique nuances that we listen and respond to. 300 odd Raags lost over centuries, it is believed that only about 100 are known and performed today.
What makes this project unique and significant?
Alaap in itself is the beginning, the first step, the introduction, the intention, the opening. One can describe an alaap the way it means to them but it certainly sets the tone and mood to the presentation of a raag, an exploration as well as an elaboration. In our NFT Alaap project as well, the decision to choose an alaap over a song representing the raag was to keep the vocabulary of bandhishes / songs to ‘arrive home’ which essentially means to come towards the end of a journey to a place you live.
Project Alaap is a significant step towards marrying emotion, mood, music and art, and presents our rich heritage of Hindustani Music in a cool form to future generations.
What are the future plans for this project?
Some of our potential expansions are:
Although an integral part of our rich cultural heritage, Indian classical music has not been mainstreamed into the digital platform in a big manner. There are a lot of visual interpretations of Psytrance Music, popular music, memes and many Audio visualizations that are ‘in the moment’, however, there is a need for a structured, precise timespan structure, of a raag alaap altogether in a single unique colour visual record, to archive the vast number of Raags in our rich heritage. Our Alaap NFTs intend to archive as many Raags as possible in our unique alaap style that collaborates with art, to showcase the unique nuances that we listen and respond to. 300 odd Raags lost over centuries, it is believed that only about 100 are known and performed today.
What makes this project unique and significant?
Alaap in itself is the beginning, the first step, the introduction, the intention, the opening. One can describe an alaap the way it means to them but it certainly sets the tone and mood to the presentation of a raag, an exploration as well as an elaboration. In our NFT Alaap project as well, the decision to choose an alaap over a song representing the raag was to keep the vocabulary of bandhishes / songs to ‘arrive home’ which essentially means to come towards the end of a journey to a place you live.
Project Alaap is a significant step towards marrying emotion, mood, music and art, and presents our rich heritage of Hindustani Music in a cool form to future generations.
What are the future plans for this project?
Some of our potential expansions are:
- Multiplicity: We hope to do many more Alaaps, as our purpose it at once Archival, as well as Analyze the families of Raags.
- Geometry: 3D geometry is an exciting place where we have started venturing (but not quite there yet, for this Mintathon). Apart from 3D Video NFT Assets, and actual interactive Objects, there is an immense potential to feed this into VR models, 3D printers and performance projections.
- RaagMala Paintings: There is potential to use the traditional images of these vintage RaagMala paintings, as a visual base for our rendered Raags, with animation and audio and Video.
- Versatility: As artists and social workers, Gurupriya and I are interested in not just what artists can do, but what art can do. There are potential applications of the relevance of Raags to Nature and seasons, so we would most definitely use our work towards addressing climate change and mental health.