Image: 4 NFTs from the collection
Shy Creatures of Staggering Beauty
Comprising four digital still images and nine videos, themed around planetary justice and our intimate and phenomenological connections to the world, Shy Creatures of Staggering Beauty launched in June 2022 on the (now defunct) NFT platform voice.com
Alexa's NFT work was presented under the alias Heliotrope, an imagined rover which scans the cultural universe for traces of humanity, retrieving 'digital lichens' - art objects which synergise their analogue and digital elements.
Diving back into a long time partnership with the composer Donna McKevitt, the sound for the video works in the collection is designed and composed by Donna.
Shy Creatures of Staggering Beauty - List of works:
1. Cephalopod (digital still NFT)
2. Mesh (digital still NFT)
3. Crustacean (digital still NFT)
4. Congratulations! (digital still NFT)
5. Cephalopod or Just the Pure Magnificence of Her (digital video NFT/0min 13sec)6. Mesh or I Can Build you a Vagina Modelled on the Cathedral of Notre Dame (digital video NFT/0min 40sec)
7. Crustacean/De Beauvoir and Sartre on Holiday, Accompanied by his Crustaceans (digital video NFT/0min 4 sec)
8. Congratulations! You Have Been Awarded $3,000,000 by the Liquid Gold Lactation Fund (digital video NFT/1min 15sec)
9. Orange Kiss (digital video NFT/0min 4sec)
10. Techtonic (digital video NFT/0min 22sec)
11. The Fallopian Origins of Love (digital video NFT/2min 39sec)
12. Meteor (digital video NFT/0min 7sec)
13. We are the Dead on Furlough. And the Trees? (digital video NFT/0min 10sec)
NFTs explained
Alexa was drawn to the playful nature of some digital art sold as NFTs and to the fact that the recent surge of interest in NFTs has placed digital art in the limelight. This provided a new field for experimentation, fresh inspiration and, potentially, new audiences for moving image work. It also led Alexa to make her first set of digital still artworks.
NFTs purchased on voice.com are licensed to the buyer for personal use and the original digital file is made available to them accordingly. The buyer is also licensed to sell their NFT to other buyers, setting their own price, and can transfer the NFT to other compatible marketplaces.
Although this is becoming more commonplace, Voice was previously unusual amongst digital art and NFT marketplaces because it is carbon neutral and takes payments in 'normal' currencies as well as cryptocurrency.