Hey! It’s been a minute! Our long-time editor and now GM of DJ TechTools – Dan White told me “Ean, people are probably curious what you are up to lately”. Fair enough, considering I haven’t posted any new articles myself in quite some time. After 12 years, 500 articles, and 300 videos, I needed a little break from content production and have been exploring a lot of non-DJ opportunities.
Here is a little update on me, my DJ career, and something that feels a lot like the early days of DJTT: an experimental art project.
Do I still DJ?
Absolutely, I started way back in 1997 and will likely never stop. I still DJ every week live, and love the craft more than ever. Retired from late night clubs (my body couldn’t take the hours any more) I have been playing mostly at a daytime event I founded in Santa Barbara California.
Click the image below to see me playing with nothing but an S2 and a laptop – the simplicity of it has been very rewarding.
What am I inspired by these days?
I founded this blog in 2007 as a way to share things I was excited about in digital DJing. If something was inspiring to me – then I shared it here. Well, that was 15 years ago and the DJ world has changed a lot since.
In 2002, when Traktor DJ Studio was brand new and a MIDI controller for DJing didn’t even exist, DJing with digital technology was a wide open ocean of opportunities. Today most people use standard equipment again, and innovative experimentation has slowed down a lot. This is normal and happens when new technologies go through the classic S curve of mass adoption:
Instead of re-inventing the well established arena of digital Djing, I’ve been focused on territories where early adoption is low and the possibilities are – once again – endless.
NFTs and Blockchains
Yes – those are some dirty words in some circles. Love it or hate it, the underlying technology gives me the same feeling of endless possibilities when we switched from analogue to digital DJing. Before you write it off, consider this:
In 2002, DJing with a MIDI controller was considered very silly by most people.
Real DJs use turntables!
Thank goodness many of us persisted and kept on building anyway, it’s now obvious that digital DJ technology is a good thing.
Today, NFTs have a similar hurdle to overcome. Outside the hardcore converts and speculators, this nascent technology stack is not considered very seriously. For good reason – many “NFT”-based projects today are scams and nothing short of an unregulated casino. Before we throw the baby technology out with the dirty bathwater, consider this:
- A NFT is simply a wrapper that can hold anything (a song or a painting)
- A blockchain is a place where we can work together, trade those things, and seamlessly collaborate with less friction.
The issue is not the technology itself, but how it is being used. Smart contracts and blockchains are incredible platforms that are enabling creatives to build new worlds of art, and I have been very inspired to join them.
Bridging the analogue and digital
I love physical objects we can touch and interact with. Grounding digital experiences in the physical world is a passion of mine, along with expanding access to technology.
Today almost all NFTS are digital, and not very accessible. I wanted to change that and offer something different.
- Allow anyone to create art together with very limited barriers to entry
- Have those creations be tangible and physical.
- Make the process fun, relaxing and connecting.
- Allow everyone that participates to share in any financial benefits.
For the last 8 months, with a team of talented engineers, I have been building a system that does these things. It’s the first time in a long while I have been really excited to share something, so I made a special video for you all.
To join me and make some art together, head over to Fluint.art – we will be hosting live sessions there from 10am to 1pm PST every day (open this week only)!
If you are interested in following along with Fluint as it evolves, follow us on Twitter for everything.
