🎨 Metaproof Art

Hey friends, this is Sophia from 🎨 Metaproof Art, the weekly newsletter where we keep you informed on how the metaverse and web3 are changing the art industry.

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📲 By the numbers

• A CryptoPunk, worth a minimum of $100,000, was traded for a full set of tokens from a collection called The Memes. The Memes collection, which declares viral images as "the most important thing in the world," was virtually unknown in the NFT market three months ago but has now increased in value 19-fold to 52,916 ETH or $83M, according to NFTGo data. (Source)

📫 News & trends

🧬 Art Heist brings new life to dead painters through science and NFTs

The anonymous artist duo DAT.XYZ is pulling off a marvelous fine art heist by creating art through the use of microbiological samples taken from famous works of art. The duo has taken samples from iconic pieces and created new artworks in their laboratory, turning their findings into "New Fungus Tokens," a unique take on NFTs.

A few choice details:

• The duo has so far taken samples from works produced by Monet, Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Banksy, Jeff Koons, and Kaws, to name a few. According to Hypemoon, they were assured that the works were treated with utmost care despite the samples being taken without authorization.

• The “heists” have taken place in institutions such as MoMA, New York, The Tate, London, Moco Museum, and Amsterdam.

• Once taken back to the laboratory, the growth of each artwork is captured on industrial high-resolution 8k cameras, then processed into a collection of evolving video loops.

• DAT.XYZ has also created an "unauthorized augmented reality exhibition" by taking videos or scans of the room, allowing viewers to experience the new artworks in a virtual space.

Groundbreaking yet extremely polarizing? Let’s see how things play out in this novel space.

📖 Beeple and HENI to release art book exploring EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS

The digital art NFT achievements of Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, is nothing to scoff at: His EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS work, which realized over $69M in a 2021 Christie’s auction and is still the most expensive NFT ever sold, is a certified record-breaker. Now, he’s archiving the works in a different medium and bringing them to the radar of the broader community, teaming up with art and technology group HENI to publish his first art book.

The book by HENI was created to offer a more curated and personal viewing experience. Another way that it stands out as a sought-after asset is the in-depth interview included, where Beeple reflects on his career and newfound fame in the art and web3 spaces. EVERYDAYS itself is composed of 5,000 digital works produced once a day since 2007 and contains abstract, political, grotesque, fantastical, and satirical imagery - the artist using advanced 3D tools to “make comments on current events, almost in real-time.”

📣 Art Blocks announces an official partnership with Bright Moments

Two innovative players in the art world, Art Blocks and Bright Moments, have teamed up to bring a new level of creativity and ownership to the world of NFTs. The collaboration is poised to birth a series of NFT releases and minting experiences, which will be available on both Art Blocks and Pace Gallery this year.

The alliance between Art Blocks, a generative art platform, and Bright Moments, a leader in IRL minting, will curate artists and provide them access to the Art Blocks minting process and Bright Moments’ IRL minting experience at physical spaces. It is one of the first web3 global spaces to exist around a new art experience, where artists and communities co-create an art form that pushes the limits of ownership and collecting.

⚔️ AI generated art: The biggest legal battle of the year over alleged metadata theft

AI-generated art has birthed not just a new wave of creativity, but also legal concerns about copyright infringement. Diffusion models, which are used to generate high-quality images from text descriptions, have been under scrutiny from the US Copyright Office, which has granted a registration for a comic book generated with AI but is now questioning the process.

In addition, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against AI-generated art companies, alleging that the use of diffusion models constitutes copyright infringement. This has led to a larger debate about the ethical implications of the practice.

A few remaining questions:

• Can a generated work created by a trained AI actually be copyrighted?

• Can copyright-protected data and/or works be used to train AI models like Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and others?

• How will lawsuits - such as one filed on behalf of artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz against StabilityAI, DeviantArt, and Midjourney, as well as another from Github programmers against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI for using their code without permission for the tool GitHub Copilot - play out?

🤩 Habytat by Smarterverse creates virtual Wynwood Arts District, offers 200 artists complimentary gallery spaces

Habytat, a photorealistic metaverse, is taking the art world by storm with its latest offer: giving 200 artists the opportunity to display and sell their work in a personalized virtual gallery, helping them reach a wider audience and expand their reach via locations people are otherwise limited from physically visiting. A few details:

• Technical support: Habytat is providing technical and backend design work to digitize an artist’s existing physical art and gallery. It announced it’s offering 200 artists complimentary virtual, personalized gallery spaces, empowering artists to display and sell their work at no cost to art lovers around the world.

• Wynwood-inspired galleries: The galleries will live within Habytat’s Geniuz City and are designed to resemble the Wynwood arts district in Florida, creating a unique and immersive experience for artists and their audience.

• Virtual marketplace: Artists can list their artwork for sale through Habytat’s dedicated virtual marketplace, offering a platform to reach a wider audience and sell their work online.

🖼️ A retrospective exhibition of Samuel López-Lago’s art and creativity, now available in a virtual-reality gallery

The metaverse is opening up new possibilities for art and culture, including virtual art exhibitions. One prime example is the retrospective virtual exhibition of Spanish-born, Belgium-based artist Samuel López-Lago. The exhibition constitutes an eye-popping journey, including artworks exhibited in the US, UK, and Dubai, and with recognitions such as the finalist for National Prize of Crafts of Spain (2016) and participation in the Spanish Pavilion of the World Expo of Dubai (2022).

The metaverse is increasingly offering novel ways to experience art fairs and exhibitions, allowing enthusiasts to enjoy beauty and creativity from the comfort of their own home. While the traditional experience of visiting a physical museum isn’t likely to fade anytime soon, relishing art in the virtual realm proves refreshing.

⚡ David Cash brings high-end large-scale artworks to curation of Decentraland’s metaverse art week

At Decentraland’s third edition of Metaverse Art Week, Decentraland Foundation curator David Cash interprets the theme "The World is Made of Code" with 3D sculptures and video works by renowned names such as Krista Kim, legendary image-maker Nick Knight, and Lady Gaga's creative Director Nicola Formichetti. These pieces will be exhibited alongside works from featured galleries that include Artnet and Sotheby's.

Additionally, the Cash Labs Gallery will be launching its permanent collection at Art Week, featuring the following:

• Cash’s personal NFT collection, highlighting NFT artists who have gone from the physical to the digital realm in their practice, such as Damien Hirst, Laurel Charleston, and Justin Aversano

• Digitally native art practices, from the likes of Krista Kim and Bryan Brinkman

• A takeover by SHOWstudio highlighting the first-ever NFT collection by image-maker Nick Knight, showcasing collaborations with over 40 web3 natives

🌟 Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum goes the metaverse way

Virtual reality and metaverse platforms are fast penetrating museums, enabling institutions to reach a wider audience and explore new revenue streams. The Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum in Pune, India has taken the lead in this trend by becoming the first museum in the country to embrace the metaverse harnessing its potential in democratizing and making art more accessible, as well as creating a new virtual space for contemporary artists.

Other art spaces are following suit. Mumbai’s Van Gogh 360 is proof of this as an immersive art experience that lets audiences immerse themselves in artworks through projectors, sensors, and even AR/VR glasses. The future of art is deemed digital, yet for experts it’s worth noting that it is also contingent on digital literacy, access to smartphones, and access to the other expanding AI-related apps, especially among the older generation, who were introduced to such kinds of interfaces later in life unlike digital natives.

🏝️ New Palm Beach Gallery sits at intersection of technology and fine art

The art world is rapidly evolving, and Oditto Gallery in Palm Beach, Florida is keeping up with its innovative approach to art collecting. Oditto Gallery claims to be one of the first fine art galleries in the world to offer an NFT with each piece of physical art purchased - part of a larger trend that reshapes the art market and is catching the attention of luxury brands, museums, and auction houses. The featured artists - established in the art world and with intrinsic value in their work - include names such as TRAN$PARENT, Paula Urzica, David Banegas, and Ron Burkhardt.

NFTs act as a digital certificate of authenticity, providing a unique identifier for each piece of art and are registered on a digital ledger called the blockchain. Buying the right NFTs right now has been likened to buying land in New York City in the 1800s: a “vast opportunity” besides being a sign of the art world’s constant evolution.

🎉 World of Women (WOW) launches Artfest, a unique 15-day holders-only drop

NFT collection World of Women (WoW) has teamed up with art platform Saatchi Art to launch Artfest, a seasonal celebration of art and creativity. This unique event will feature 15 artists from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of styles and mediums, including both established traditional artists and cutting-edge crypto-native creators.

Artfest will take place seasonally and will begin on the last full moon of each season. With eight dynamic mints coinciding with the planets of the WoW Galaxy, the event promises to be a visual feast for the senses. Each artwork will be released for eight consecutive days and will have an allocated mint supply, making each piece a true collector's item.

💬 Interview: Karen X Cheng on her LNY metaverse and how AI can benefit artists everywhere

This Lunar New Year, digital creator Karen X Cheng has joined forces with McDonald's to deliver an immersive metaverse experience, which involves an experiential AR filter, one of the first commercials to use NeRF (neural radiance fields) technology to create a 3D scene, and Cheng’s creative designs inspired by her own Asian upbringing.

Cheng created a celebration melding both her past and present for the new metaverse space. It features a solar, punk-inspired gallery showcasing a 3D sculpture that Cheng designed, as well as art created by emerging Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) artists to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. She believes that the rise of AI-generated art will benefit artists everywhere, allowing for new and innovative ways to express themselves.

👍 Sondra Bernstein is back at girl & the fig—this time with AI art

Sondra Bernstein, the founder of California restaurant girl & the fig, has returned to the establishment as its resident artist. With a lifelong passion for art, Bernstein has been exploring the medium of AI art, creating over 30,000 images in the last eight months and interacting with other artists in the digital space.

Bernstein became interested in AI art in 2020, just after taking a step back from running the day-to-day operations at the restaurant. After seeing ads online for AI art platforms, she started “playing around” and explored the “newness and flexibility” of the medium. It’s very mobile for her, such as if she has her iPad, Wi-Fi, or the internet. However, it’s worth noting that the AI art generator she uses, Midjourney, is currently under fire due to a lawsuit alleging that it has illegally used images produced by millions of artists.

🏛️ How metaverse can change the economics of museums

The metaverse, a virtual universe powered by high-speed communication networks and distributed data storage systems, has the potential to change the way museums operate. NFTs play a crucial role in its economy, and this technology is being used to create new revenue streams for museums and to offer immersive experiences to their visitors.

The pros:

• Museums can use the metaverse to provide virtual tours and exhibitions, showcasing their collections and preserving them for future generations.

• Visitors can experience exhibitions from the comfort of their own homes and have access to a vast library of information, making it easier for them to learn and appreciate art and cultural heritage.

The potential cons:

• Smaller museums may not have the resources to access the metaverse.

• The virtual experience may not be able to replicate the tactile experience of a museum.

⬆️ Technological advancements are bringing about a tectonic shift in the way art is appreciated

NFTs have been making waves in the world of digital art, giving artists the ability to protect their work and profit from it. These unique digital assets provide a platform for creative professionals to sell their work, adding an extra layer of security in the process.

A key advantage here is that NFTs provide a certification of authenticity for digital art, ensuring the digital assets cannot be duplicated, making it easier for artists to sell their work and profit from it. However, it’s worth noting that NFTs do not provide copyright protection, and how the interplay of these different factors guarantee or harm NFTs’ longevity remains to be seen.

👩🏻‍💻 Unlock the potential of the metaverse with Maticz

The metaverse NFT marketplace is growing in popularity, with more and more businesses looking to capitalize on its unique use cases. As the demand for Metaverse NFTs increases, so too does the need for high-quality metaverse NFT development services, which web3, metaverse, and blockchain development company Maticz promises to deliver.

Maticz offers these specialized services to help users tokenize their digital assets in the virtual space. Whether they're looking to launch their own metaverse NFT marketplace or simply want to take advantage of the growing trend, Maticz touts it has the expertise and experience to get them there. This business model is a futuristic one, maintaining the potential to yield a high return on investment.

🎨 Art in the age of the metaverse

As the metaverse continues to grow and evolve, questions surrounding the role of art within this virtual space have become increasingly important. To address these questions, the upcoming Art in the Age of the Metaverse conference in The Netherlands will bring together artists, curators, activists, and industry professionals from around the world.

The conference, happening from March 10-12, 2023, aims to:

• Explore key themes such as the forms of artistic expression at the nexus of physical and virtual, and the ethical, social, and environmental implications

• Showcase the work of individual artists and collectives who are using the metaverse as a medium for artistic expression

• Discuss issues such as decentralization and inclusivity

• Address the environmental impact of the infrastructure required to support the metaverse

💸 Finance buzz

• STGZ, a real-time live virtual events and concerts metaverse platform, announced a partnership with Klaytn, a global metaverse public blockchain platform, to strengthen its platform through Klaytn's fast, secure, and scalable public blockchain technology. Artists and fans now have a new platform to share and monetize their creative works and interactions in the metaverse with STGZ. (Source)

🗣️ Quote of the week

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All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.

If you are a startup building in the metaverse / web3 ecosystem and are raising capital, please reach out to Sfermion. Sfermion is an investment firm focused on accelerating the emergence of the metaverse.

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