Introduction and Statement put together by V5MT

Personnal note: I would like to thank the entire team for their work, especially V5MT who managed the team during the drop and wrote this statement, as well as Zora's team and every collector*.*

N3XTWAVE Collective, the inaugural drop on ZORA

Theme: WAVE

Minting start: September 18th

Platform: zora.co

Network: ZORA Participants:

Ugo / Bleu281 / V5MT / Danctrl / Francoise Gamma / Datura / Lucas Lejeune / mostwrongking / Nicholas Dietrich / k0ch / Element Lee

• What is N3XTWAVE?

N3XTWAVE is an art collective that was started spontaneously in June 2023 by our artist colleague bleu281 via twitter group chat. He gathered a small group of visual artists of various generations and styles, different backgrounds and nationalities, yet all based in Europe, and all exploring the digital medium. Through brainstorming we quickly established N3XTWAVE as a perfect name for us. As ‘N3XT’ symbolizes the concept of advancing towards the future, while ‘WAVE’ refers to the waves of innovation and creativity - we agreed that N3XTWAVE embodies the essence of our collective as the new, fresh influential art group, that will possibly impact the current art scene. For now N3XTWAVE consists of 12 members located in: France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, and Poland.

Here are brief introductions for each of them:

Ugo - Ugo is a new generation artist and jeweller based in France and active on the NFT space since May 2021, starting on Tezos. He explores the digital art in these experiments (pixel art, glitch art, VR, 3D, abandonware). He also created ‘OK digital’ a curation of digital artists in the blockchains space and which allows to discover the current computer art scene.

Danctrl - Danilo Xhema is an Italian digital artist with a background as a traditional painter. The constant search for the concept, the various chromatisms and simplicity are the basis of his work. Through gradients and vectors, the fluidity of chance meets digital painting.

K0ch - Emiliano, better known as k0ch, is a multidisciplinary Argentinian artist who lives in Spain. Trained as a programmer and software developer, he has worked in diverse areas such as generative art, interactive installations, sound art, collage, and performance. His works often explore the relationship between humanity, technology, and nature.

Bleu281 - is a digital artist from Germany. Through old releases of open source image manipulation software, namely GIMP, he creates on-chain artwork ranging from retro-RPG art to abstract pieces.

V5MT - has been releasing her GIFs since Tumblr ‘2010, and took part in many net art projects and shows. In her motion designer career she has created engaging animated stickers for numerous popular apps and brands. She still enjoys making experimental animated art and has been minting it on the blockchain since early 2021.

Datura - French designer, art director, 3D modeller, and digital artist based in Paris. Her work revolves around generative moving patterns and animated landscapes or objects.

Francoise Gamma - highly acclaimed artist that has been around for almost 3 decades creating online art in the early Internet era. With their highly recognisable style of low-polygon pixel glitchy GIFs, that often explore retro computer graphics tools, they have been showcased in many online and IRL exhibitions. Before N3XTWAVE member of the legendary net art ‘Computers Club’.

Nicholas Dietrich - painting since the 1990’s, Dietrich now employs pixels instead of brush marks. His main area of interest is how our thinking is affected by science and how this can be reflected in art. His most significant influence is early Twentieth Century painting, characterised by a cool palette, simplified forms and dithering.

Mostwrongking - digital artist with a background in indie gamedev who started a blog called ‘POST-WEB’ on Tumblr in 2016. Main directions: abstraction, GIFs, pixels, psychedelic aesthetics.

Lucas Lejeune - French contemporary artist, motion designer, VJ and writer, exploring a wide variety of disciplines and formats. 2D radicalist. In the context of N3XTWAVE and web3 - mostly focused on the GIF format with geometric-based, organic, eerie, hypnotic monochrome loops.

Element_Lee - is an artist known for experimental pixel art made with a cellphone.

• Mission

Our mission is simple: we aim to unite active European artists in the ever-evolving digital art scene, with a straightforward yet powerful goal — to create and share our art with the world. Our collective is also a response to all the art groups representing other regions of the world - we wanted to join our forces locally in Europe. Although we may come from different countries and other continents, we are all situated in Europe, where we live and work in nearly synchronized time zones, simplifying our collaboration. Through this vibrant team, we mutually inspire each other, fostering creativity through our diverse backgrounds and artistic perspectives. We are eager to explore exciting themes for the N3XT collaborations and drops, and developing new exciting projects, while keeping on exploring blockchain with its all new technologies and possibilities.

• Why WAVE?

Choosing ‘WAVE’ as a theme was strongly inspired by our collective’s name. ‘WAVE’ in the meaning of an impactful force seemed perfect for a collective drop as it symbolises us coming together with a simultaneous mint. ‘WAVE’ also conveys the idea of constant motion, which can be associated with the ever-evolving Web3 and NFT markets that we are actively shaping everyday. With its multiple meanings, we decided the theme to be open for interpretation for each artist. And so each member of the collective created their own WAVE - some more literal, some more metaphorical or abstract, each in personal artistic style and chosen technique. As a result, we have stylistically diverse pieces - from minimalistic and linear to pixelated and glitch aesthetic, making a versatile collection that can appeal to a wide range of tastes. We hope everyone can find their favourite WAVE to mint, or maybe even mint all of them, to show support for all the artists and the project.

• Why ZORA Choice as a minting platform for the collective’s inaugural drop?

We chose ZORA because we like how this platform and its network focus on building a self-sustainable ecosystem for creatives, where everyone participating is rewarded, so we can all truly support each other and keep on creating. We wanted to become a part of this community. We also highly appreciate that ZORA promotes great art and features a daily spotlight on numerous artists, whether they are well-known or emerging talents. We wanted to contribute to this continuous body of creative efforts. Another factor that influenced our decision was the cost-effectiveness of the ZORA chain, made possible through L2 bridging. As artists exploring different blockchains we wanted to enter this new technology space too.

• N3XTWAVE future Will there be THE N3XT-WAVE?

The WAVE drop acts as a starting point in the N3XTWAVE journey, with similar collective projects, collaborations and drops to come. We aim to create a network for european artists, to encourage exchange in a purely digital realm. N3XTWAVE is also dedicated to bridging the gap between Web3 and traditional arts, providing analog possibilities to online artists. Therefore, we are also open to organizing physical exhibitions. We also consider inviting new members to our crew, further enhancing the diversity and creativity of our team. We already have some exciting new ideas for the next N3XTWAVE event. However, our focus right now is entirely on the current drop, and we couldn't be more thrilled about it.