With a mission being to empower and protect creators, Mubert strives to help artists to promote themselves and earn revenue through creating tokenized collections, which was why NFTs were chosen as one of the prizes for its first Generative Music Competition Open Call.
The submissions were taken from July 13 to August 22, and the winners were picked by the judging panel — Shane Woolman, Jay Glass Dubs, and Simon Ballard — and announced on September 1. Berke Can Ă–zcan won first place and the chance to be featured in The Wire Magazine’s November edition full-page ad layout, while Jodi Rose, Cecilia Thorausch, FuturFrukt, and ĐĐ”9Đś came in as the rest of the top-five artists.
Being an ardent The Wire magazine reader and finding out about the open call, Berke initially decided to participate because it involved artificial intelligence, with which he had no previous experience. “[I] never ever [went] anywhere near AI before,” he explains. The artist also shares that this collaboration with AI gave him more room for experimentation, as he wasn’t entirely in control and, in his words, therefore let him focus on seeing the colors more than trying to look at the whole image.
When finding out that his work, Sorrow is nothing but worn-out joy, was chosen as the winner, he was surprised, laughed, and texted his wife. “Being on The Wire is something special [to] me because I [have been] a follower for many years,” Berke adds.
For Jodi, it was the potential for collaboration with Mubert AI and the possibility to release an NFT together that caught her attention. Although not unfamiliar with technology in music, she found that other programs required a “steep learning curve” and an overwhelming amount of coding. “When my first generative track of Mubert AI music started playing, I was surprised by how intuitively the AI works and musically satisfied with the creative composition we made together!” the artist shares.
Talking about her process of working with Mubert Studio, Cecilia Thorausch describes it as almost meditative. “At first I found it annoying because I couldn’t do what I wanted to do — then I found it exciting to have to cooperate with the Machine,” she says. Originally wanting to reproduce, as the musician puts it, the tension and the chaos of the Kottbusser Tor aurally, Mubert impacted her sounds and the compositions grew to become much more “mellow and gentle”.
Going into the contest, Cecilia admits that The Wire magazine was the big motivator, but she is also very excited about the non-fungible token. “I enjoy being close to major progressive trends, understanding them, and then forming my very own opinion about them,” she adds.
Rose agrees that the sudden hype bubble around NFTs has created some skepticism in the artistic community, but she still believes that they are a valuable tool and will continue to evolve. “Having the chance to release my first NFT with Mubert & The Wire is an incredible opportunity, and this was my dream on entering the contest!” she concludes.
Stay tuned for our NFT collection, which will soon be available on Rarible.
Artist Interviews, Artists, Interviews, NFTs, OpenCallAbout us
Mubert is a platform powered by music producers that helps creators and brands generate unlimited royalty-free music with the help of AI. Mubert's mission is to empower and protect the creators. Our purpose is to democratize the Creator Economy.
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