The digital artist and fragrance maker on their new NFT perfume and bridging scents and the Metaverse

Internationally renowned digital artist FVCKRENDER (aka Frederic Duquette) partnered with New York-based immersive fragrance brand D.S. & Durga to create a non-fungible perfume called Manticore Musk—which launches today at 3:33PM ET. Merging scent (both real and digital) with the Metaverse, the new fragrance recreates the mythical aroma that is believed to have been found in a clay jug discovered in 1924 in the ruined temple of Technaós and labeled with the same name in Cretan Doric. The collaborators not only revived this fabled aroma, but they also translated it into algorithmically-created, digital perfume bottle NFTs which each comprise different notes of the fragrance.

Engaging multiple senses is how you really blow someone’s mind. Scent is the perfect pathway for that, showing people what the capabilities of digital art and virtual world building really are.

There are 5,555 NFTs in the collection that are each priced at 0.11 ETH. Every Manticore Musk token holder will receive the physical scent in addition to access to FVCKRENDER’s Metaverse platform LVCIDIA, private Discord chats, in-person events and exclusive perfume releases. To learn more about the unique and innovative project, we spoke with artist and David Moltz on smelling the digital cosmos, evolving the olfactory world and the significance of the senses.

How was this collaboration born and what was the creative intrigue to work together?

David Moltz: Supaku came to me about making a non-fungible perfume. I didn’t understand it at first, but I was very intrigued. I am always excited about pushing the boundaries of what perfume can be. I love the idea of freedom to create perfumes not of this world and then make versions of them IRL. We can make our own mythology with ingredients that could never be made like stardust from Antares and Manticore muskpods.

Are you passionate about scent? Have you wanted to bridge the sense of smell into the virtual world for a long time?

FVCKRENDER: I’m passionate about innovation. Engaging multiple senses is how you really blow someone’s mind. Scent is the perfect pathway for that, showing people what the capabilities of digital art and virtual world building really are.

Was it challenging to figure out what LVCIDIA smells like?

FVCKRENDER: Working with D.S. & Durga, we dug into folklore to figure out what the smell of LVCIDIA is. It’s rooted in history but also completely otherworldly, striking the ideal balance. Manticore Musk toes the line between fantasy and reality, just like the world of LVCIDIA itself!

Thinking about decentralization, blockchain, tokens and the Metaverse, what scent notes come to mind? Are they in Manticore Musk? Or is the composition more an aromatic expression of FVCKRENDER’s visual work?

David Moltz: It’s absolutely endless. I tend to work in small details and build a whole aromatic narrative. Manticore Musk is a recreation of a fabled jar of nether secretions found below a ruined temple in 1924. FVCKRENDER’s crystals definitely get an aromatic nod in the versions I’ve made thus far.

D.S. & DURGA has always created multi-sensory worlds to express their scents including moodboards, playlists and narrative. Was it different this time thinking about virtual space?

David Moltz: It actually was the same process—me writing out the whole world first and brainstorming. But I could go wild creating so many notes. Now I have that world and can make a real world version to sniff!

Today the scent is singular. Can you imagine a scenario where the properties of each NFT dictate the formulation to the aroma?

FVCKRENDER: Absolutely. I can imagine a million different ways for this to grow and change. It would be super dope to have a more specialized formula for sure. The most important thing is that we’re innovating and experimenting.

The Manticore Musk project and minting information can be found here.

Images courtesy of the artist/D.S. & Durga

Lambro cargo e-bikes, produced by Italian e-mobility company RePower, are “real design objects” with “a sturdy and functional structure with unmistakable lines,” the company says.

Designed by industrial design consultancy Makio Hasuike & Co., the Lambro features a rotomolded body that comes in two flavors: An open-bed LambroGino version suitable for carrying passengers or cargo, and an enclosed LambroGio cargo version with a front lid that doubles as a canopy for the operator, providing some relief in rain.

“They are designed to be recyclable,” writes MH&Co, “with all the part that make up the bodywork in recyclable polyethylene.”

The LambroGio:

“Fast deliveries, material and equipment transport, goods handling and the ability to accommodate a passenger in addition to the rider. Manoeuvrable and sturdy, with a closed and capacious load compartment, LAMBROgio is the sustainable alternative to move quickly in the short and medium range.”

“The front compartment can accommodate practical pockets made of recyclable material, removable and of different sizes, in which to store documents, small objects and small packages. The rear compartment can be equipped with a platform that can be used both to improve the capacity and stability of the load and, if placed vertically, as a clothes hanger.”

The LambroGino:

“Comfortable, compact and extremely versatile, LAMBROgino becomes an “exceptional” fun means of transport to move your guests, suitcases included! And just remove the bench to increase its load capacity and also move products and work tools. All with zero emissions.”

“An optional retractable and removable hood, made of waterproof fabric of nautical origin, protects riders, passengers and any load against atmospheric agents. For greater support and comfort on board, there are also removable shockproof protectors on the side handrail and anti-slip protections on the climb.”

On video at least, the bikes are pleasantly silly-looking and adorable. Here’s the LambroGio:

And the LambroGino:

RePower is offering these both for sale and for 36-month leasing periods, for €150 (USD $153) per month.

So you’re an architect or environments designer, and your client absolutely needs a massive sliding glass door that weighs over 2,000 pounds. I’m talking like, this kind of massive:

For this exact situation, Italian hardware manufacturer Secco produces a Zero-G Passive Magnetic Levitation System. Yes, you can use mag-lev to lift the door up, floating it on a cloud of zero-friction magic so your client can actually slide the door open using minimal force.

“ØG® [zerø gravity] consists of a levitation unit recessed into the floor which contains the sliding rail, the Ironlev® magnetic pads and the beam connecting to the door. The system is accessible for maintenance through movable roof profiles that can contain the same finishes as the floors in their visible surface, for a perfect continuity between the inside and outside of the building. Only an 8 mm gap, closed by brushes, remains visible in the floor along the entire sliding of the door, without any protrusion and therefore tripping.

“In the upper part of the door ØG® provides mechanisms to counteract the lifting thrust of the magnets and lower the door or window bringing it to the closing level. The system does not require electricity, it works manually even with heavy weights over 1000 kg.”

I know what you’re thinking: Won’t those powerful magnets, like, rip the metal eyelets right out of my shoes? Of course not, they’ve got that figured out. Here’s a look at how the system works:

FDM 3D printers must contend with the trade-off between throughput and resolution. High resolution prints require a finer nozzle, through which less material can travel, increasing print times. Increase the nozzle size and you get faster prints, while sacrificing resolution. Neither sacrifice is easy to live with: Time is money, and post-production steps required to smooth rough prints also cost money.

A team of research engineers at Rutgers reckon they have solved this dilemma in a low-cost way.

“The new approach, called Multiplexed Fused Filament Fabrication (MF3), uses a single gantry, the sliding structure on a 3D printer, to print individual or multiple parts simultaneously. By programming their prototype to move in efficient patterns, and by using a series of small nozzles – rather than a single large nozzle, as is common in conventional printing – to deposit molten material, the researchers were able to increase printing resolution and size as well as significantly decrease printing time.”

The hardware required to put together an MF3 system all exists, and can be purchased off-the-shelf. The Rutgers team’s true innovation is in the software, which slices the object-to-be-printed into layers, distributes those layers amongst the nozzles and determines the toolpath. This allows a single printer to “concurrently print multiple, geometrically distinct, non-contiguous parts of varying sizes.” Some examples:

“MF3 will change how thermo-plastic printing is done,”says Jeremy Cleeman, a graduate student researcher at the Rutgers School of Engineering.

You can read more details of the system in the team’s research paper, “Scalable, flexible and resilient parallelization of fused filament fabrication: Breaking endemic tradeoffs in material extrusion additive manufacturing.”

Field-to-bottle rum crafted with a strong sense of place and history

Over 1,000 years ago, in 600 AD, Polynesians set sail for the Hawaiian islands on canoes and brought with them select varietals of sugarcane. This was about 500 years before Christopher Columbus ever got to the New World and spread the crop throughout Europe. Hawaiians valued the plant holistically and medicinally, using its sweet juice to maintain gum and teeth health, relying on its leaves for thatching, and honoring the plant in ancient religious and love ceremonies. It’s a history and concept of sugar that existed long before European contact—a legacy that Kō Hana seeks to celebrate.

One of the world’s only field-to-bottle distilleries and the only rum-makers using Hawaiian noble canes, the O’ahu-based crafters create unique and pure flavored rums that honor the land and the significance of each varietal.

Despite sugarcane’s ancient roots in Hawaii, the crop is no longer produced there in the industrial scale it once was, as the mechanization of mills and rising labor costs forced all of Hawaii’s mills to close. Over time, the abundance of Hawaiian heirloom varietals has grown scarce. “Nobody has grown them for hundreds of years, [but] we only grow those,” says Kō Hana’s general manager, Kyle Reutner, on a recent visit.  “There are 34 of those varietals growing on our property and we think there’s close to 40 at a maximum. All of them have their own flavor, their own growing patterns, their own coloration.”

To date, Kō Hana has revived more than 200 varieties of heirloom sugarcane and plants some in large enough quantities to use them for producing rum. Each year they make several rums from single varietals, and one special edition that blends all of the canes. From the citrusy Kea White Agricole Rum, made from the Manulele varietal, to its lychee and tropical counterpart crafted from Pilimai, the one-of-a-kind distillers offer connoisseurs a rare opportunity to revel in the subtleties that each strain presents.

The idea for Kō Hana took hold in 2009 when co-founders Robert Dawson and Jason Brand learned about the early Polynesian seafarers. From there, they worked with ethnobotanist Dr. Noah Lincoln to find and traverse the lineage of the plants. “All of them were basically gifts from botanical gardens, asking aunties for cuttings from their backyards and finding our way through all of this,” continues Reutner. They began cultivating the crops on their 25-acre farm, which is expected to grow to 340 acres by the end of the year.

To tour their fields, located on a former pineapple plantation now owned by the state that’s used to support local agricultural start ups, is to see how lovingly and intentionally they harvest the plant using minimal to no intervention. Kō Hana relies on perennial grasses that regrow between four to five years and allow the plants to grow after harvesting. “We leave all the leaves and cuttings in the field as wheat mat, and it just pops right back up,” says Reutner. This method is an underlying ethos of the brand which is encompassed in the distillery’s name. He explains, “‘Kō’ is the Hawaiian word for sugarcane and ‘hana’ means work, so Kō Hana means the work of the sugarcane.”

Just as the process on the field allows the sugarcane to thrive on its own, the distillation, which happens alongside the growing fields, lets the plant define the spirit. Aside from cane juice, the only additional ingredients that go into the sealed fermentation tanks are a proprietary yeast developed in Martinique. After 72 hours, it is converted to alcohol in a fully dry and pure expression of sugarcane.

Everything is then rested for a minimum of three months in their modern, upgraded still, replete with an agitator that allows the distillers to experiment with flavors and even other creations (like hand sanitizer, which they made during the pandemic to donate to the state). Be it floral notes, robust textures or tropical finishes, Kō Hana’s innovative distillation teases out each varied and complex layer.

Afterwards, the cane juice heads to the barrelhouse, where an array of different woods further allows the brand freedom to experiment. While they primarily use American Oak barrels made specifically for them, Kō Hana also employ bourbon, cherry, pinot noir and Koa barrels, which are crafted from endemic Hawaiian hardwood and made on the island. They continually swap or lend out them out. As Reutner tells us, “We’ll use our barrels two or three times before they’ll find retirement as a barrel-aged poppy, barrel-aged honey, brewery or whoever may want to trade.” Some lended barrels result in collaborations, like with local makers Manoa Chocolate, who crafted chocolate bars out of beans aged in Kō Hana’s used rum barrels.

The most important part of Kō Hana, Reunter emphasizes, is that everything “must be from here.” This dogma runs throughout the brand’s offerings, including Kila, a cask-strength rum; Koho, a barrel-aged rum; Kea, a white rum; and Kokoleka, an infused rum using local cacao and honey. In every flavor profile, varietal and methodology, Kō Hana imbues their artisanal rums with the spirit of aloha.

If you live in California, you can find Kō Hana at a local retailer. If not, visit Kō Hana to order directly.

Hero image by Josh Rubin