About

Signals is an exploration of the struggle of coherence – collaging noisy fragments into narrative wholes. The theme of collage extends through the work, which itself operates as an interactive superstructure of three artistic disciplines: audio, visual, and evm art. Each artist will explain their contribution to the collaboration below.

Signals invites you to participate in the exercise of coherence.

Every token begins as $NOISE. It is up to you (pl.) to find the $SIGNAL.

EVM

hypervisor

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is not just a system for securing tokens, it is a massive shared computer – the "world computer."

Signals advances the multiplayer potential of the runtime frontier by building with Spells, a new kind of Functional NFT that can be cast across the blockchain on other NFTs and addresses.

Each token in the Signals collection begins as $NOISE. It is left to the holder to use spells (their own as well as those cast by others) to cohere the $SIGNAL hidden within. As you cast spells on your token, the art and music will evolve first into $SIGNAL, and then up through the 5 signal levels. Each level has 2 tracks of unique audio and visual art, and increases in rarity. Levels that are full will block new tokens from entering that level.

Holders may also open their tokens to spells cast by others by setting their tokens to OPEN (you may correspondingly CLOSE your token as well).

Music

TRAPCHAT

Over my two decade career in the music industry, I have had the pleasure of working across disciplines as a record producer, songwriter, engineer, and label owner; and across genres working with both new talent and A-list artists like Mark Ronson, Jennifer Lopez, Flume, Charli XCX, Sean Paul, Q-Tip, and others. I've spent the last year and a half quietly exploring web3 projects, as both a collector and producer, and waiting for the right project to enter as an artist. Signals is that project.

The story of my life in music is complex, at times winding, explosive, quiet, full of luck and light, but also pain and darkness. Signals is a true expression of this journey and my love for music across its many forms. It weaves electronica, lofi hip hop, dub, and noise into a collage of sound that revels in its everything-ness. Maximal and minimal. Exhilarating and unsettling. Romantic and desolate.

Rather than seek to create a single, cohesive narrative, I have instead created a series of tracks that are meant to be experienced in a variety of ways. Listened to in sequence, but also in isolation. Listened to alone on positionally-calibrated speakers, but also on apple earbuds while you work. In a club, but also in a forest. On the subway, but also in a spaceship.

Signals is a multiplayer project. I requested the help of two long time collaborators and friends, Roses Gabor and MNDR, to fully realize the music of Signals.

Visual

Ted Mineo

Born in 1981 in New Orleans, New York based artist Ted Mineo earned his BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2002, and his MFA from Yale University in 2004. He has since exhibited across the United States and around the globe, with shows in Venice, Lisbon, Tehran, and Paris. Working across varied media, Mineo draws inspiration from the ever-increasing multitudes of derivative and disposable detritus that inundate our daily lives. In his work, fragments of accessories, gadgets, and household items are melded together with organic matter, some of identifiable origin and much more completely unrecognizable. Through this incredibly thorough and realistically rendered collaging, Mineo produces uncanny and unsettling reimaginings of mundane objects, transforming the most familiar forms into something entirely alien.