The Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) is internationally renowned as one of the most influential, educational, and experimental gatherings of creatives celebrating electronic music culture. It is as significant a week as they come in the global dance music scene, where over 400,000 artists, professionals, and music lovers descend on the dam to conjointly manifest 1,000 events across 200 or so venues.
My first experience of ADE was running the Amsterdam Marathon in 2019 (which happens the same weekend). Residing memories are of phenomenal energy pulsating through the streets, colourful bursts of enthusiasm that spill over into the canals. An intoxicating mix of revelry and collaboration underpinned by community, free spirited acceptance and integration of the nuances in our collective multiplicity.
During this year’s @ADE_NL, leading art & technology platform VCA (@VerticalCrypto) partnered with NXT Museum (@nxtmuseum) to expand beyond the physical & into WEB3.0 and present #WhatsNxt — an exploration of the opportunity for music and art to thrive by bridging technology and education to support artists and onboard fans into new forms of immersion.
Across the three Day #ADE2022 programme VCA played the role of elevating guests’ experiences with NFT programming, enabling the transformation of physical moments into digital memories on the blockchain. In addition to this, Nxt Museum and @verticalcrypto launched a series of Limited Edition and Live Minted NFTs as well as bespoke talks, featuring works by leading musicians & visual artists the #ADE2022 programme.
This was run alongside the XENOPUNK VR installation by Transmoderna.
Conceptualised by Ana Ofak; digital artists Giusy Amoroso and Aaron Jablonski; Trikk and co-founder Dixon: Transmoderna is a sonic experience synergising roots in the electronic music scene and its future in immersive world building. A combination of spatial sound elements, animation and motion captures from the Queer Movement archive by IOR50 studio.
Twitter Spaces
In the build up to the event a series of twitter spaces highlighted creative forces diving into how music and digital art fuse to elevate each other.
Co-founders of #NxtMuseum Merel van Helsdingen (@MereltjevanH) and Natasha Greenhalgh (@_g_natasha) featured to inspire audiences with their vision for art technology & sound. Pushing the boundaries of what a museum can be beyond traditional, and even contemporary, expectations.
Introductions to artists such as 3D Artist Stacie Ant (@whosthereplease) enabled a deep dive into the digital tools used to make art that empowers female identity and sexuality. Stacie’s work offers a critique & rejection of the male gaze, enhanced by a modern culture of digital immersion.
Furthermore the head of education, research & curation at #NxtMuseum — Bogomir Doringer (@BogomirDoringer) — was able to share aspects of his wide ranging experience: currently doing an Artistic Research PhD, with an ongoing research project “I Dance Alone” that observes clubbing from a birds-eye-view as a reflection of and reaction to social and political change.
Live Minting
Throughout the ADE programme, guests were able to collect digital memories only available in the moment. A selection of musicians & visual artists from this and last year’s ADE programme released Limited Edition NFTs across the three days.
📅19th — 20th — 21st October
https://nxtmuseum.verticalcrypto.art/
Berlin based Visual Artist Sam Madhu (@sammiw0rld) draws you out of this world to dance with the divine deities & dazzling demons within. Her projects range from rendering a giant cyber-goddess for a live DJ set, to dropping 3D animated, dystopian NFTs.
Live Mints
“Labyrinth” by @sammiw0rld 1 of 1
“Divine” by @whosthereplease & @Nsasi_ug 1 of 1
Nsasi (@Nsasi_ug) is known for their fluid energy. Ready to bluntly dislocate the conventional and challenge the ordinary, they elegantly balance between the traditional and the hyper-modern. DJ , producer and co-founder of queer collective @antimass__; challenging the ordinary using diverse rhythms and disparate sounds.
@nsasi_ug (first) | @sammiw0rld (second)
BJARKI (@bbbbbbjarki) is a producer, performer and founder of record label bbbbb. Known for his eclectic, highly varied musical output, his volcanic hybrid sets get under your skin as they embody his outsider take on techno integrating rave, jungle, breaks and IDM.
Live Mint
“Consumer Product” by @trytocaremore & @bbbbbbjarki 1 of 1
Thomas Harrington Rawle — London-based multidisciplinary artist. His ever-growing artistic world uses a combination of 3D, AI, CG and hand-drawn animation to explore accidental beauty, disturbing imagery and captivating characters on the edge of conscious creation and random generation.
Thomas Harrington Rawle (first) | @bbbbbbjarki (second)
Other artists the #ADE2022 programme included:
Jesse Damiani (@JesseDamiani): #NxtMuseum Curator & Director of Simulation Literacies
Post Neon (@Post_Neon): the Amsterdam-based creative studio exploring alternate realities between the physical & non-physical, focused on developing digital experiences, installations and 3D content, they translate complex contemporary culture into consumable creations.
Nene H: Berlin based DJ & producer. Hailing from Istanbul, she has transformed her upbringing & heritage into a key influence in her work. Her devotion to the crowd & nonconformist attitude turn her performances into memories.
upsammy ~ Amsterdam native DJ & producer. With a keen ear for crystalline melody & intricate rhythm, her music sculpts a certain perpetuity & spatiality, sliding across tempo scales, while retaining an organic touch.
upsammy (first) | Nene H (second)
Panels
Alongside the live minting experiences, audiovisual drops, and performances came the fantastically well attended panels covering topics from NFTs & Music, Digital Art & Electronic sounds, to unpacking the impact of the ADE programme.
Photo Credit: https://verticalcrypto.art/
Photo Credit: https://verticalcrypto.art/
A full house was experienced at @ADE_NL Lab for our panel on art, music and web3 with @richiehawtin, @MereltjevanH (@NxtMuseum) and @sammiw0rld talking about @prooofofpeople and #PROOFOFPERFORMANCE with Richie Hawtin and explaining how musicians can utilise web3 and blockchain.
The music metaverse [Pixelynx], Proof Of People, and Proof Of Performance: https://medium.com/coinmonks/proof-of-people-london-tezos-music-and-nfts-in-web3-90556f75cfd3
Impact
Much akin to the overarching ethos of ADE, and the “Xenopunk” installation which this project stood alongside, the intention is to fuse the digital with the physical and push the boundaries of how we experience music.
Through a marquee partnership — between Nxt Museum & Vertical Crypto Art — music & art were brought together uniquely onto the blockchain in a series of limited edition drops and live mint NFTs alongside epic performances.
https://nxtmuseum.verticalcrypto.art/
Papa — linktr.ee/papajams