In a world where anyone and everyone can mint, the value of NFTs boil down to artwork, rarity, and real-world value. Amidst a gold rush of meme and dystopian profile picture NFTs that supposedly sells for thousands or millions, one NFT collection stands starkly in contrast.
Based off the classical 300 Tang Dynasty Poems (唐诗三百首), the Tang300 NFT collection features original works of literally translations using English literally techniques, physical art pieces that can only be forged by burning the base NFTs and Augmented Reality experiences that extends the physical artwork into a totally different dimension.
An effort aimed at “serious art” and new-generation Chinese art collectors, the collection of 300 Poem series and a finite quantum of 30 NFTs each will be progressively released over a 3-4 year period and minted on the Cardano blockchain.
“These are not templatized artwork that we can simply run a script to generate hundreds of images and hope to sell as NFTs.” H.M. the lead artist of the project explained. “It takes effort to understand the historical context for which every poem is written and blending that with English poetic technique is a challenge on its own.”
For instance, the NFT artwork for Dreaming of Li Bai II, written by the renown poet Du Fu, described a period when his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai was exiled, and he worried for his well-being. The Tang300 original English version did not just translate it but incorporated techniques like Acrostics. Yet another piece which has yet to be released and dubbed “The Longest Sorrow” by famous Poet Bai Juyi describing the love story surrounding Yang Gui Fei is 15 paragraphs and more than 500 characters long. The team is still figuring out how best to bring that to life.
Beyond a focus on genuine artistic value, the team behind the project has also emphasized three key elements in the overall project setup.
Forge, a concept borrowed from leading NFT games like Gods Unchained allows Tang300 NFT collectors to combine specific sets of their NFTs in exchange for AR-Enabled Physical Artwork that can be placed on the collector’s display wall. With each forge, the base NFTs are burnt and reduces both the total circulating volume and forgeable options for the collection.
The team has also been keenly working around a key complaint about NFTs, which is that they are just a “receipt” of a URL pointing to an image maintained (usually) by a third party such as a NFT marketplace. Aside from the forgeable physical artworks, the Tang300 team works with its parent company Zerroo Inc. which maintains its own IPFS node and Cardano node.
Unlike physical artwork, a key challenge for NFT art is that it is still difficult today to show off art assets publicly. “Many are still viewing their NFTs through marketplaces or a wallet application. We are working with the Tang300 team to bring the artwork into Block360 – The World’s VR NFT Showcase Museum, so that NFT owners can lease and showcase the art they own”, explained Kayden who leads Blockchain software development for Zerroo Inc.
With 300 poem series slated for artistic development and minting over the next few years, the project team is off to a humble start and is in no rush to monetise by pushing sales or setting unrealistic prices. Release 1 has been fully sold out and release 2 is now available at US$100 per NFT, available exclusively on tang300.art
