David Lynch, the American filmmaker beloved for his darkish, surreal, and decidedly authentic physique of labor, handed away this week on the age of 78. An avid experimenter and experimentalist, Lynch was all the time open to the brand new—even when it got here to blockchain know-how.
In 2021, again when NFTs have been new and unusual to most individuals, Lynch labored with the indie rock band Interpol to create a sequence of eight audiovisual collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain.
A decade prior, in 2011 Lynch had—at Interpol’s request—created a sequence of visuals for the band’s efficiency at Coachella. These visuals turned the five-minute animated quick movie “I Contact A Purple Button Man,” which accompanied Interpol’s then-new music, “Lights.”
For the NFT sequence, that collaboration was revisited to create a number of immersive, psychedelic-feeling clips of “Purple Button Man” located in rusty tv displays—and uploaded onto the Ethereum blockchain eternally.
Excited to announce the Lynch X Interpol challenge by @DAVID_LYNCH and @Interpol
This collaboration will drop seven distinctive one-of-one NFT artworks each two days for 2 weeks on SuperRare as timed auctions.
The first NFT “I Contact A Purple Button”
Bid now: https://t.co/kKLoN5oEqy pic.twitter.com/VnJthg1bug
— SuperRare 💎 (@SuperRare) October 26, 2021
“To be frank, Interpol is loopy about David Lynch, and we’re over the moon to have ever been in a position to align our identify together with his in a creative discussion board,” the band’s frontman, Paul Banks, mentioned in a press release on the time. “Humbly, we imagine that as digital artifacts go, these are worthy of preservation within the infinite digital realm.”
When the gathering went dwell in late October 2021, it instantly struck a chord with collectors. One of many NFTs, which featured the video’s title sequence, bought inside hours for 20.7 ETH—a sum price over $82,000 on the time.
Lynch was no specific evangelist of crypto or digital artwork. He by no means labored with blockchain tech once more. However he was famously arduous to pin down, and of the numerous traits that outlined his singular life and profession, one was a continuing willingness to discover and embrace the unusual and new.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
