Cryptowave: Sculptures and Music by Studio Nouveau

Project Studio Nouveau is a collaboration between Ture and Kaja Olson, who strive to create multimedia pieces that are greater than the sum of their parts.

As Ture has been a professional musician for much of his life, Studio Nouveau was partially born out of the havoc wreaked on the live music industry by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Once it wasn’t possible to perform music live, my creative energy naturally flowed to my deepest passions, which are the intersection of visual art, music, and blockchain.”

Kaja, who has academic training in fine art and art history, and now focuses on digital drawing and photo editing, offers a curatorial and technical eye, being very key to the process of melding the disparate elements being combined in each piece –  “I apply my knowledge of the foundational elements and principles of art to help refine Ture’s pieces during earlier parts of the creation process, and I assist in merging the pre-video visual components together into one cohesive final image.”

Studio Nouveau’s works take the form of audiovisual pairings, with a striking abstract style that incorporates digital sculptures, GAN-generated landscapes, music, and video effects. Presented in a video format, the duration is dictated by the music, which is usually structured to be between 1:00-1:30 minutes.

In constructing the audiovisual pairings, the idea is to create a cohesive yet abstract respite for the viewer to experience.

Ture digitally handcrafts the sculptures and music for each piece and places a high premium on creating a world of fine details for the listener to seek out, creating a fresh experience with each repeated watch and listen.

In terms of the musical style Ture employs in his work, it is very much a conglomerate of different genres and styles that have been internalized throughout his life. The resulting sound is meant to be a musical rhetoric that is accessible yet refined.

The blockchain-native nature of Studio Nouveau’s work, in addition to the electronic elements of Ture’s music, have led him to describe Studio Nouveau’s style as a new genre he is calling “cryptowave.”

Commenting on the state of the music industry today, “In the world of unfettered music streaming, music has an infinite supply, and therefore very little value that can benefit the creator. When art and music are native to a blockchain, an artist can share their work with the world, while maintaining an immutable digital link to the original creation of their work.”

During the early stages of Studio Nouveau’s development, Ture discovered the platform “Artbreeder,” which allows users to generate new images through different types of open-source GANs (Generative Adversarial Network). Ture was particularly inspired by the landscapes he was able to create using the platform, and this quickly became a staple of Studio Nouveau’s work.

Another of the early experiments that inspired the initial creation of Studio Nouveau was Ture’s creation of abstract sculptures in the digital modeling software Blender. It became a medium of expression that has snowballed into the work that you see today.

The sculptures that are used in each audiovisual pairing are displayed in Studio Nouveau’s recently opened art gallery and sculpture park in Decentraland, an ethereum-based virtual world.

In creating a sculpture park in Decentraland, Ture was particularly inspired by the famous sculpture park “Storm King,” north of New York City, which is a beloved place for Ture and Kaja.

In addition to his artistic pursuits, Ture has also been a crypto-enthusiast since mid-2017. “Ever since I dove deep into learning about crypto, Ethereum, and ERC-721 tokens, I knew that I had to find a way to tokenize my work. Decentraland became a part of the vision for how I would achieve this.”

Initially, Studio Nouveau presented Ture’s sculptures independently from the GAN landscapes and music. However, after discussing Studio Nouveau’s work with artist Bryan Brinkman, Bryan suggested that it might be interesting to combine the sculptures, GAN landscapes, and music into one cohesive composition. Ture loved the idea, and immediately seized on it.

The resulting pieces are what helped Studio Nouveau to become accepted as a SuperRare artist, and is consequently the work they have begun tokenizing.

Studio Nouveau can be found on SuperRare at: superrare.com/studionouveau

To learn more about the project, visit Studio Nouveau’s website: www.studionouveaudcl.com