Recently, I've been having fascinating conversations with creatives from many disciplines- and my favorite conversations are when those disciplines overlap in someone who is bursting with creative passion. Enter BT.

Can you begin by introducing yourself to our community? Your name, where you are based and the mediums you work in?

Absolutely - great to be here. My name is BT. I’m a Grammy nominated electronic music artist, film composer and software developer. We spend a good amount of time on the east coast in the country outside DC but split time between here and LA. I’ve been working in art and music since I was a kid but I consider programing to be a similar sort of artistic expression. To me, programing is the modern equivalent of poetry.

I've had the privilege of getting a peek at an upcoming project... frankly, I'm blown away. Can you share a bit about what you've been working on?

For sure, and thank you. Okay here goes…It’s been an 11 month development process and a real labor of love. We are 100k of lines of code into this now at launch build.

Genesis.json is a 1 of 1 piece of software containing a 24 hour audio visual composition. It features 15,000 hand sequenced audio and visual events including vintage synthesizer performances, beats and rhythmic figures I hand coded, field recordings, orchestra, guitars and hundreds of other elements. Everything is. delivered through custom audio visual software from permaweb to web browser. It is a 24 hour piece of music that changes all throughout the day from sunrise to sunset. It’s a lot of firsts and one of my favorites is, it’s the first NFT that puts itself to sleep every day and even dreams during the night.

And something important:

The audio and video are not bound to one another, so they happen completely independently and are live sequenced. At any given time there can be multiple audio and visual events happening simultaneously. So anywhere in the world you are - you will see the piece differently.

Just incredible, what a monumental undertaking and a thoughtful mixing of mediums.

Appreciate that so much. It's been like living in a cave making this. Getting to show it to people such as yourself that "get it" is my own personal finish line. It's thrilling to share.

It's one thing to imagine it but you actually put the time and brought it forth into reality.

The way I got this idea first inspiration was doing the music for Shanghai Disneyland Tomorrowland, this was my first installation piece. This project was so inspirational. Getting to work with 'Imagineers' (that's what the engineers there call themselves) is indescribable. They think so big, deep and wide. Nothing is impossible there. It was a tremendous inspiration that project. So getting to work with Disney Imagineers on a 12 hour, 9 interlocking composition installation piece was a big part. It was so cool too, I got to install it in person in Shanghai on site.

So many of my fans have asked me to release the compositions, but we really can’t because it’s written for 256 discrete channels and evolves through the day. That got me thinking, how can I recreate the feeling of an art installation piece but in a digital context. Seeing the art and music being made for decentralized projects, I thought, What about an installation piece for the blockchain that involves my three greatest loves: beautiful art, meaningful music and elegant code? And 11 months later, here we are.

It's fascinating how when we link art to technology, art evolves exponentially, because the technology itself does.

That is so true. I love the idea of like "functional art" - that's kind of how I think about this piece and the things I hope to contribute. Art with utility.

Agree, art to unlock potential is compelling to me. And this is dropping tomorrow?

Yes.

You have had quite a creative career. What do you trace this all back to?

I can trace this back to a specific thing. I grew up in a house with a grandfather clock. It was really frustrating listening to that as a kid. Every 15 minutes - the quarter hour, then half hour and so on. And then the number of rings each full hour. But it did something pretty profound to me that clock... Weirdly melodically too but I wont go into that (it was all pentatonic major).

Anyway-This clock was so important to my father and I never understood why. He loves this thing (he still has it). It was his grandfathers. As an adult - I understand it so much now. It's about the appreciation of the passage of time. And it's beautiful and sad, and all the things remembering time is passing and you can't jump back or forward and all you have is the moment you are sitting in.

What advice do you have for people who are earlier on their creative journey?

New in their journey - what I'd say - is dream fucking BIG. The coolest thing about blockchain, crypto art, DeFi and decentralized technology in general is the rule book isn't written yet. It's the wild west. Dream HUGE - nothing is too big. Think up the craziest thing you can, parse it down into actionable steps and get to work.

And also, don’t feel like you have to carry it all. There are so many remarkable, creative, cool people that want to collaborate. There are people WAITING to help breathe life into your big ideas. Dream big, parse it out into small achievable goals and get into crush mode. And don’t quit until it’s done. That's my man down by the river speech and I mean every word of it.

Well BT, you truly are pushing the envelope for all of us, and for that I must thank you. Wishing you all the success on this piece and I hope someday soon we get to discuss these ideas in person. Until then, wishing you all the best!