The day before Grimes gave birth to X AE A-Xii, her first child with Elon Musk, the Canadian electro-pop star took part in “The Last A.I. Robot On Earth,” a photoshoot conducted by Chinese visual artist Chen Man. The first fruit of this collaboration is an NFT collection, Silent Noise: Episode 01, which drops today.
The release is comprised of a limited-edition run of 500 NFTs priced at $100 each on LiveArt, an art and culture-focused Web3 platform.
Silent Noise is Chen’s first venture into the world of NFTs and has been designed as a multi-chapter experiential adventure offering collectors added opportunities and perks with each new drop.
An NFT from the collection Silent Noise: Episode 01 by Chen Man. Courtesy LiveArt.
The central image sees the high-end fashion photographer lean heavily into digital fantasy and manipulation. Grimes stands on the rubble of an urban wasteland surrounded by the fuchsia smoke of rocket ships and the tendrils of multicolored seaweed.
She stares down the camera (and into our soul) with supreme confidence—perhaps such calm in a moment of collapse stems from her cyborg identity and the fact she’s holding a golden sword. The musician, who has herself earned $5.8 million in NFT sales, is also depicted wearing a tattered shirt that reads “X AE A-12 MUSK.”
Grimes on the photoshoot with Chen Man. Photo courtesy LiveArt.
The timing might be coincidental, but at a moment of growing anxiety surrounding the potentially calamitous directions of A.I., Chen and Grimes present an alternative, open-armed approach with the creators expressing a passion for A.I., its origin, and future.
“Photography is a fantasy, it allows one to dream, it allows artists to create new worlds,” Chen said in a statement. “This NFT collection has allowed me to have more experimentation with photography. I am much freer to impose my own artistic vision into the genre, to push the limits of photography without any constraints.”
Preparatory work for the Grimes NFT. Image courtesy LiveArt.
The host, LiveArt, was founded by former auction market veterans and differentiates itself from other platforms in part through the use of a token, $ART, which grants holders additional rewards and exclusive opportunities. “This is one of the most innovative, complete, and well-thought-out projects we’ve seen,” Boris Pevzner, CEO of LiveArt, said in a statement. “It has rockets, A.I., and the Musks, who are tech royalty. The buzz is off the charts.”
Following the “Silent Noise” NFT drop, the second chapter will offer The Memory Brick, in which collectors will be “immortalized” through putting forward “biological memories” that will be stored in a hybrid physical-digital art piece.