Galacticamendum enter the blockchain (and leave through the back door)

As you know, we're not very big on sending many emails to people, so we hope you'll stick around for this one. If all would have gone according to plan, the beginning of this e-mail would have read something along the lines of 'Nid & Sancy enter the blockchain' or 'Nid & Sancy send unreleased Galacticamendum tracks into the crypto universe.' The reason being that over the last 10 days or so we have been excited to learn and immerse ourselves in the world of NFT's. If you have no idea what they are have a look here.

In fact we immediately felt that the core value of NFT's, is very close to the idea of what we set out to do with our first incarnation Galacticamendum a few years back.

Back in 1999 (yup) we created a collection of tracks with essentially an Atari computer, a Gem S2 keyboard, a Playstation 1, and a E-mu sampler. We set out making the music we heard in our heads. What we heard in our heads was something loud, noisy, digital and brash.

Making the music was one thing. Getting it out there another. At the time there was one radio show we loved called Krapuul De Lux on Brussels national radio. We decided to make things t as simple as possible and send him our track. On CD-R that is, sent by regular post, including some very personalized artwork. Think medical bandages, a molten cd case, and drilled holes.

Much to our surprise, when 'Krapuul De Lux' came on the radio that week, our track got played and opened the show. That set the scene for about 19 tracks to follow. One each week. With mail art style crazy artwork. Anonymously. No one knew who we were and it got to the point where people would listen to the show and had their tape recorders ready to record the new weekly GA track.

Fast forward to 2021. The last month we have been making preparations to release 'The Lux Files' after summer, for the first time ever.

And then, about 10 days ago, we stumbled upon the world of NFT's and crypto art and music. Right away we figured this was the perfect way to bring this collection of music and artworks back to life. They are relatively new, drive on digital technology, and have the ability to become a new and exciting way for artists to engage with their audience. One on one. Just like sending music or a piece of art to someone you appreciate. A radio host for example.

We set up shop and Open Sea, one of the crypto platforms and minted the track WATCHDOG as an AV file, which would have gone into auction just about now. That is until three nights ago when we came across an article summing up the HUGE ecological cost of minting an NFT file. And that is just staggering. We learned that the carbon footprint of an average single NFT is equivalent to driving a car for 1000 km. That is just for ONE single piece of digital art. Some pieces will have the footprint of a few transatlantic flights attached to them.

This just stopped us right in our tracks. As much as we still believe in this new technology as a way for artists to finally take back the power, the power it consumes to transfer NFT's is just not in relation to what is on offer. And that needs to be fixed for this to become a sustainable and valid thing we can actually work with.

We are confident that it can be done. And it should be done as soon as possible. The Watchdog NFT by Galacticamendum is currently listed in our wallet on Opensea. We are not auctioning it at the moment, but we ARE accepting offers on it. We have a ballpark figure in our mind and if we recieve an offer in that range, we will consider transferring it to the new owner, donating 80% of the net proceeds to one or several organizations working to create a better world and restore the balance on our planet.

Until then, Watchdog stands as an audiovisual manifesto to remind ourselves that while this is undoubtedly an exciting new area for artists and audience to engage, the ecological impact of NFT's should be reduced for it to become the great thing it obviously is.

Visit the Watchdog NFT listing here (offers go directly in our account)

Visit the Youtube version of this listing here (explore a Youtube version of the Galacticamendum Watchdog NFT)