| English | Japanese |
Susumu Mukai





The animations are exhibited at NFT. Are you also interested in the fields of digital art and crypto art?
It all started when I spoke to Multi Culti, the label, about the animated video Eli and Stav had made for the release of Zongamin’s O! Versions EP, which I thought might be good for NFT. I think the concept of NFT is interesting, but I don’t pay much attention to what’s going on these days.
While I do not think NFT is very common in Japan yet, does the concept of NFT have a foothold in Europe?
Last year, it was featured in the news, and auction houses such as Sotheby’s handled it and became a hot topic. There were pros and cons, including environmental issues, but recently I have an impression that it has not been in the news, but I believe there is still a scene. I think it was a concept like the fine art world where the owner’s record is engraved every time it is resold, such as daring to give value to media things that anyone can own with copy-paste, and increasing the value when a famous collector buys it. Some of the works had only one pixel, some had dumbfounding ideas, and others, such as the idea of auctioning the music concert itself, and I had the impression of what would stick and remain from all the different people’s ideas.
Digital distribution is becoming mainstream in music, but do you think it will be difficult to make a living with just music alone?
Before the pandemic, music festivals grew to the point where I felt there were almost too many. I think it developed in that direction from difficulty for musicians to earn income from recordings due to digital streaming. But now, the pandemic made the holding of music festivals difficult. With the exception of a few large mega-events, festivals and live concerts may become more local and smaller. There may be more developments like NFT.