Techstory Guest
With the crypto industry as a whole growing at a rapid pace, cryptocurrency is starting to become a part of everyday life. More than that, crypto is becoming an integrated part of so many major industries like the sports industry, the fashion industry, and even the art industry.
We saw the success of Crypto Fashion Week earlier this year, now well-known metaverse project, Decentraland is getting ready to host the third annual Metaverse Art Week. Decentraland is a 3D, virtual world, browser-based platform where users can purchase virtual plots of land on the platform as NFTs via the MANA cryptocurrency that uses the Ethereum blockchain. The Metaverse Art Week is titled “The World is Made of Code” and includes “mind-bending” work by contemporary artists and various contributors from a Ukrainian NFT project.
The third annual Metaverse Artweek is inspired by this year’s Venice Biennale titled “The Milk of Dreams”. As a celebration of art and architecture, the Biennale explores themes of politics and contemporary cultural & social issues through performance, sculpture and installations. Inspired by this, the third annual Metaverse Art Week will explore how the human spirit is hardwired to evoke an emotional response when presented with art based on mathematical designs present in nature, as well as how metaverse technology is pushing the boundaries of programmatic art and redefining what an immersive experience is. Because of this influence, a large component of this art week will focus on sculptural and architectural design, “showcasing the next generation of what virtual worlds will look like”.
This year’s Metaverse Art Week will run for a duration of four days in August. It will feature works from a range of artists and designers from around the world as well as major art houses such as Sotheby’s and various art communities like Artnet and UXartlab. Amongst others, the Metaverse Art Week will also feature NFT and crypto marketplaces, including OpenSea, Bitcoin Smarter, and Rarible among others.. In addition to this, big names in the contemporary art industry will exhibit thought-provocative installations, some of these big names include Burton Morris and Frida Kahlo’s Family. Among the contributors will also be the Ukrainian Meta History – Museum of War, a charitable NFT project launched to document facts about the ongoing war in Ukraine. Metaverse Art Week 2022 will host a series of activities throughout dedicated spaces inside Decentraland, centred around a 3D Sculpture garden known as ‘Art Plaza,’ a gravity-defying open-air museum. Adjacent to this, there will be community-designed and art collective gallery exhibitions, which will introduce panels and round tables.
For the Frida Kahlo’s Family installation, the group will launch the “Frida Kahlo Red House” in a collaboration with crypto art community, Ezel. This installation will serve as an immersive experience showcasing the first half of Frida’s extraordinary life. This unique partnership is bringing never-before-seen artwork from Frida Kahlo to the metaverse through Ezel’s newest NFT collection, enabling access to future Kahlo content launches. The pair noted that “we are thrilled to partner with Decentraland to bring Frida Kahlo’s family home, The Red House, into the metaverse. This experience will uncover many untold stories and memories about Frida Kahlo’s challenges and triumphs that add depth to her exceptional life as an artist”.
Creative Director of the Decentraland Foundation, Sam Hamilton has expressed that “Metaverse Art Week 2022 is coming at a pivotal moment for the larger adoption of Web3 technology and decisions about our digital reality. We believe that the future of the internet should be built by decentralized communities who do not seek to profit off of user data, imagination, and creativity” According to Sam, this year’s Metaverse Art Week will serve as “ a love letter to what the next generation of artists is doing in the metaverse”.