afx\/weirdcore\blockscanner is a collaboration between Aphex Twin and anonymous visual artist Weirdcore.
Aphex Twin is the latest musician to auction off artwork in the form of a NFT (non-fungible token). Aphex Twin, aka Richard D. James, surprised fans over the weekend by dropping a new digital artwork on the cryptocurrency marketplace Foundation. Titled afx\/weirdcore\blockscanner, the piece comes from Aphex Twin and long-time collaborator and visual artist Weirdcore. It features music from Aphex Twin and “additional technical input” from Freeka Tet.
Aphex Twin announced the one-day auction via Twitter. He later outlined plans to offset the widely-criticised ecological footprint of crypto-art, writing: “We will spend a portion of the money on planting trees and either donating to permaculture projects or setting them up ourselves, depending on how much we get.”
We will spend a portion of the money on planting trees and either donating to permaculture projects or setting them up ourselves, depending on how much we get .
— Aphex Twin (@AphexTwin) March 14, 2021
The auction finished last night (14 March). The winning bid of 72 ETH, aka $128,387.52 (at time of writing), came from user @artoninternet. At point of sale, 72 ETH equated to $136,349.28.
Aphex Twin’s surprise NFT drop follows a wave of auctions held by electronic music figures. Last week, digital art platform and marketplace Illust Space announced that it had partnered with MF DOOM’s wife Jasmine Dumile and record label Rhymesayers Entertainment to auction off a series of signed, augmented reality DOOM masks in the form of NFTs.
Back in January, we caught up with Weirdcore to discuss his first solo exhibition Orient Flux. In the interview, Weirdcore revealed that he was working on something with Aphex Twin. When asked about upcoming projects he said, “Some epic new Aphex stuff.”
