Harry Yeff (Reeps100) and Trung Bao, two of the world’s leading vocal experimentalists and creative technologists has been commissioned to create a special edition artwork Voice Gem #1042 for the media artist, curator and critic Kenny Schachter, to be debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach 2021. Harry Yeff, who developed his Voice Gem system over 10 years, can now visualise and preserve sound thanks to his innovative Voice Gems system. Using unique features found in the voice, the colours and form of the Voice Gem #1042 are generated directly from the voice of Kenny Schachter. Yeff’s Voice Gems system sculpts over 200,000 particles with fingerprint-like voice data.
The exhibition “Breadcrumbs: Art in the Age of NFTism” is curated by Kenny Schachter, and presented by the Cologne-based gallery Galerie Nagel Draxler, their first exhibition dedicated to artists working with blockchain technologies and NFTs. At Art Basel Miami Beach 2021, together with Schachter, Nagal Draxler will unveil an LED wall presentation of an interactive gallery space located in the metaverse, on which Yeff’s Voice Gem #1042 – Kenny Schachter will be displayed for the first time. This state-of-the-art virtual environment was architecturally designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, and brought to life by Journee – The Metaverse Company™.
The Voice Gem #1042 – Kenny Shachter was generated to capture the ‘NFTism’ philosophy of Kenny Scachter, who commissioned the NFTism building and metaverse space. The term NFTism was coined by Schachter in 2021, to encapsulate the NFT movement. Kenny Schachter said “NFTism doesn’t necessarily disrupt anything but rather presents a market alternative to the traditional gallery system. In the process, it ushered in an unexpected audience of crypto collectors, empowered a whole new generation of artists with easy access to that audience, and instilled the (potential) windfall of a 10 percent resale residual to NFT artists in perpetuity.”
In 2019 Harry Yeff created the world’s first digital sculpture generated from the voices of two lovers. The work was used as a marriage proposal gift, replacing the traditional diamond gemstone and offering a viable alternative to an industry historically associated with environmental depletion and human conflict.
Yeff’s lifelong collaborations with the world’s leading voice artists and academics have shown him that voice is mankind’s most precious tool and of one of nature’s greatest achievements: it is the purest form of self-expression, predating language. His multidisciplinary work encompassing AI, VR, and new media Installation. His ongoing work collaborating with brilliant technologists, engineers, technicians, and academics to actualise artistic representation of voice has culminated in the Voice Gems series: a visually stunning way to inspire dialogues about value and humanity using new media and technology. Yeff has created Voice Gems using the voices of Ai Weiwei, Felipe Pantone, Lily Cole, Klause Schwab (Executive Chairman of WEF), Johann Koenig, Sougwen Chung, Platon and Herbert W. Franke.
