Creatives First: Gayance

Gayance's mix traverses the Black diaspora, playing each track on their own terms and allowing us to see the vibrancy and vitality of Black culture outside of cultural gentrification and fetishization.

Refraction Japan: A Discussion with Co-Curators of Our Upcoming Tokyo Events

Refraction Tokyo × MUTEK.JP and Refraction Tokyo Gallery Exhibition explore Tokyo's cultural pandemonium through music, performance, and digital art with cutting-edge creatives.

The Refraction Local Guide to Miami

Leading up to our 3-day festival during Miami Art Week, we’ve asked some of the local talent on our lineup to share what they love about their city, how it’s changing, and some of their go-to spots.

Refraction x Miami Art Week: Mapping a New Landscape for Digital Culture

Taking place over two days, with over 30 visual artists and 15 musical acts, Refraction aims to challenge the framework and systems of contemporary culture — Miami Art Week is the perfect platform from which to achieve that mission.

Creatives First: Kontronatura

Moving with dexterity through his record bag, Brazillian DJ Kontronatura builds lines of solidarity throughout the Black diaspora. Starting with some of the most exciting names in contemporary Brazilian club music.

Can DAOs Save Community Radio? — The Local vs Global Approach of MCR

Behind the good vibes, internet stations are having something of a crisis. But recent Refraction grant recipient Miami Communiity Radio believe that web3's community focus holds the key to longterm sustainability.

Creatives First: K6V & David Zhao

Tellingly titled, "Functional Music 4 Dysfunctional Mind," DJ K6V describes the mix as "hard music for fantastic babies in hard times." 

The REFRACT PASS: Bringing Utility and Art to Collectors and Culture Fans

Refraction is releasing a pass that truly reflects its success and contributes towards building its future. Here's a look at the artists who's work will be included in our REFRACT PASS.

World View: The Global Reach of Refraction S02/03 Grant Recipients

The global reach of Refraction's Season 02/03 Creative Grants points to a potential future for web3: a diverse group of voices, existing in both real and virtual space, creating projects that transcend current conversations around creativity on the blockchain. 

Creatives First: Perpetual Care

Joel Eel of Perpetual Care comes through with the first in our seasonal mix series. Intimate and warm, filled with moments of beauty and surprise—this is the sound of a community coming together to create, as he puts it, "our own universe of sound." 

Rewind: Surveyors of Magic - despace (Berlin) Curated By Tabitha Swanson

For our latest Berlin event in partnership with the Tezos Foundation and Infite Objects, Tabitha Swanson curated 16 artworks from the Refraction collection, describing the magic of memories, dreams, and experiences refracted through the digital lens.

Meet Our S02/S03 Refraction DAO Creative Grant Recipients

The 24 selected proposals included a sustainable fashion label expanding into digital wearables; an in-person web3 flea market in Miami; an on-chain Romeo & Juliet-style play co-written with GPT-3; a project to bring community radio on-chain, & more.

A Subaquatic Journey Through Sound: Father Dukes Playlist

The ocean is the site of rebirth, a place of curiosity and a home for an alternative, Afrofuturist ideology that continues to pulse through Black culture. In her mix for Refraction, Father Dukes explores the resiliency of culture, and music as a force of vitality and creation.

Minted Chaos: Season 02 Community Mint Results

We invited the wider Refraction community to dive into Abstract Turntablism by applying some of the techniques developed by Detroit's Pure Rave collective. Listen to the results, now available to mint on Nina Protocol.

Black Exodus Technology: In Conversation with Abu Qadim Haqq

For over three decades, visual artist Abu Qadim Haqq has created artworks for Detroit techno and adjacent electronic music that depict entire worlds, decolonial incursions beyond human experience, fragmented within the space and format of vinyl records.

Surveyors of Magic: A Chat With Curator Tabitha Swanson 

Bringing together artists that explore the natural and geological worlds, unexpected glitch and non-human intelligence. Fuelled by irreverence, playfulness and humour, ‘Surveyors of Magic’ offers a space to explore and rebuild.

Chaotic Mix: Pure Rave

For the final Chaotic Mix, Detroit collective Pure Rave set aside expectations about DJing as we're reminded of the sheer wonder that electronic music can bring.

Chaotic Mix: quest?onmarq

For the third instalment of our Chaotic Mix series, the New York native presents an eclectic three-act mix that spirals from chaotic good to chaotic evil.

Chaotic Mix: Leevisa

For our second Chaotic Mix, the Seoul-based DJ, producer and composer Leevisa delivers immersive world-building through contrasts and unexpected left turns.

Tracing the Blurry Lines of Experimental Turntablism

John Chiaverina explores the history of turntablism and its interactions with dance music, culminating in the work of Pure Rave, a Detroit collective working with Refraction as part of its Minted Chaos season.

Chaotic Mix: Bergsonist

For this season's theme, we asked New York-based artist and musician Bergsonist to create a chaos-inspired mix. Listen here as she touches on everything from Swedish field recordings to classic Detroit house to percussive African workouts.

Minted Chaos: A Community Experiment in Chance Dance with Pure Rave

For this season's theme of Minted Chaos, Refraction and Pure Rave are partnering on an audio experiment inviting the extended Refraction community to create their own Chance Dance audio piece in Pure Rave style. Selected tracks will then be published on Nina Protocol.

Incidental Party Music: Pure Rave Brings Experimental Turntablism to the Dancefloor

While Pure Rave cites experimental turntablists like Christan Marclay and Maria Chavez as influences, they also are working within the rich history of Detroit electronic music, with an origin story linked to the Motor City's robust and historic dance music scene. 

REWIND: Refraction x Magma - The Force (São Paulo) with D3lcu, EPX, Kontronatura

Centered on the work of eight digital artists, including the decolonial textual work of RIKKA and Jean Petra's sci-fi hyperpop, and soundtracked by eight incredible DJs, Refraction worked with Brazilian collective MAGMA to create an immersive, energetic, and thoughtful night in São Paulo.

REWIND: Refraction x Panke (Berlin) with Muqata'a, MC Yallah & Scotch Rolex

Crossing both geographies and genres, and mixing DJing, live sets, and everything in between, Refraction's two-night event at Berlin's Panke Culture was a series to remember. Listen to the recordings here.

REWIND: Refraction x Safe & Jezebel - The Boombox (Miami) with Danny Daze, Amelia Holt & Yumi, Sel.6

Partnering with two of Miami's most forward-thinking party crews, Safe and Jezebel, Refraction's most raucous party to date was held in Miami on March 19 at The Boombox. Revisit the mixes from Danny Daze, Sel.6, and Amelia Holt & Yumi.

REWIND: Refraction x Zerospace (NYC) with Aluna, LATASHÁ

Working at the boundaries of hip-hop, deconstructed club, and stoner electronics from the likes of 063N13, JWords, dreamcastmoe, LATASHÁ, Prefuse 73, and Aluna, the ZeroSpace lineup complemented the visual world that reflects the diversity and vision of the Refraction community.

REWIND: Refraction x Pacific Rhythm - Paradise (Vancouver) with Byron the Aquarius

With crates full of the wiggly, funky house—and a Korg keyboard to jam over top—Atlanta's Byron the Aquarius took over Vancouver's Paradise for an unforgettable night of jacked up sounds. Revisit the magic with an exclusive mix he recorded for Refraction.

Signal Strength: How Internet Radio Is Creating a New Space For Global Sounds and Culture

Internat radio stations have popped up in cities on almost every continent, dedicated to platforming a diverse array of sounds from places big and small, bringing local micro-scenes to the entire world.

REWIND: Refraction x Carnegie Hall - Public Records (NYC) With Epic B, Hitmakerchinx & Uninamise

FLEX AVE showcased Flex Dance Music icons Epic B, Hitmakerchinx, and Uninamise, who set the stage for the subculture's distinct contortionist choreography, tracing the kinetic connections across Black music history while building Afrofuturist worlds of sound and dance.

Afrofuturism and Democracy: The Age of Disorder and the Coming Pluriverse

REWIND: Refraction x FWB - Bambi's (Toronto) with Teen Daze

Teen Daze takes us back to an unforgettable night in Toronto with this exclusive Refraction Radio mix ✨

REWIND: Refraction x FWB - Public Records (NYC) With Ron Trent

Relive the energy of our March event with Ron Trent, the don of house music past, present and future.

RECAP: Refraction NYC

Four events across three days, involving over 80 artists and more than 1500 attendees — we took over New York during NFT.NYC to manifest the web3 we want to see.

Announcing: S02/S03 Refraction DAO Creative Grants

For Season 02 + 03, Refraction DAO will launch a Creative Grants programme through an open call worldwide to the community.

Rethinking the Value of Music in Web3

The advent of web3 presents an opportunity for alternatives that exist outside of this imaginary stranglehold but, in order to start thinking about music outside of our current model, we need to start thinking about the value of music differently.

Sounds and Visions: An A/V Playlist of Nicolas Sassoon's Work

French-Canadian visual artist Nicolas Sassoon walks us through some of the highlights of his catalogue, featuring works inspired by electronic music as well as the natural landscape of British Columbia.

Refraction NYC

3 days. 4 events. Over 80 artists. Find out what we've got planned this week during NFT.NYC.

Real and Imagined Landscapes

Exploring Island geography with Nicolas Sassoon and Yu Su

Curatorial Governance: An Interview with Tony Lashley

Tony Lashley discusses how Web3 could change the very idea of curation—hopefully for the better.

Deciphering Mondoneoh with The Allegorist

"World-building" has become a cliché in the sphere of experimental electronic music, but the idea is taken almost literally in the tracks she releases as The Allegorist.

Imagining a New Creator Economy

As the Creator Economy begins to enter a new phase, there is an opportunity for us to design what comes next.

Revolution or regression? Changing perspectives on music NFTs

While much of the talk within the world of Web3 is prone to hyperbole — there are endless promises of revolution, not to mention the tech world's favorite buzzword: disruption.