“What am I doing ?”
a first introduction to connecting the dots on my web of activities in the crypto-art community.
I became aware of the possibility that my experimental nature in combination with my scattered output across the blockchain can be somewhat disorienting since people started asking me how they should see my work and how to collect my work.
I believe exactly how I managed to get to the point where I am right now — by experimenting with many mediums and techniques throughout my life as an artist — the same approach I am executing in how I navigate the crypto-art landscape.
- While I’ve got most of my artwork on mainnet (ETH) : Knownorigin, Makersplace, Rarible, Blockchain Art Exchange, Mintbase (ETH), Async Art, Foundation, Mintable, Opensea, …
- I joined projects like Artvatars, Kolectiv, …
- I love experimenting on Hic et Nunc (TEZOS), Game Credits (MATIC), Mintbase & Paras (NEAR), SignART (FLOW), Cheesecakeswap & AirNFTs (BSC), Curate (X-CHAIN), NFT Showroom (HIVE), …
- and Testing platforms like Terra Virtua (TVK), K-Base (KLTR), …
- I’ve build an extensive crypto art gallery network in Somniumspace VR
To the question “Why ?” the answer simply states : “To learn and experience”
To learn how to use different wallets, chains and platforms and metaverses to get a broader perspective on this very young crypto art landscape.
For me personally the glue has always been my 360° artwork so that’s where I’ll start to unravel the path …
Why Somniumspace VR ?
Well, to be able and experience truly what a 360° artwork is, one needs a device that gets you on the other side of the monitor, a VR headset that can teleport you away from your 2D experience on your flatscreen TV, directly INSIDE such an artwork.
And since Somniumspace VR is the only virtual reality platform entirely build on the blockchain ( or the only crypto metaverse fully focused on VR ) this seemed like the only logical and extremely useful choice.
While this indeed was the main reason I landed on the platform, I created many things there such as solo and group exhibitions for many fellow crypto-artists, but this is something for another story.
You can find some highlights of these crypto galleries bundled on my website.
Now, Why Knownorigin ?
Knownorigin is still the ONLY crypto-art platform where an artist — when preparing to tokenize their artwork for the blockchain — can upload a 360° image, have the platform automatically detect the ‘equirectangular metadata’ and show an interactively navigatable 360° sphere in their native panoramic 360° photo viewport ( so you can test it before actually tokenizing it ).
Check this 360° NFT collection as an example to discover these interactive results.
- Collectors of my 360° NFTs at KO receive an additional, unique intertwined piece airdropped from the “Intertwined 360° Revelations” storefront at Opensea into their wallet.
Now on top of this, you can experience these 360° NFT spheres directly in VR. By having such a 360° NFT in your wallet while managing your virtual estate you can place it on your parcel, then boot the Somniumspace world and literally step inside the artwork with your avatar. It’s mindblowing, I can’t explain, you will have to test this for yourself.
Ok, then why all the other platforms ?
I’m not going to justify each and every specific platform I’m on but I can tell you about the choices I have made to be able and separate different series, experiment with max filesizes, range of compatible filetypes, visualisation of portfolio storefronts, different blockchain and wallet experiences etc, …
Baseline is 99% of my art you can find out there is in direct contact with my 360° art and 360° video work. Some pieces have backgrounds made of 360 renders, -are derivates & abstractions of, -use elements or are mash-ups, all of my 360° core design.
So, Where to find what ??
I had a time where I was often sculpting 3D birds in VR — I think I liked the freedom they represent — which then I placed onto one of my psychedelic 360° background creations and started painting over those in 2D.
Most of these results landed on my Makersplace.
Also some the best of my previous work from 2017–2019 landed in my Makersplace portfolio since at that time ( beginning of 2020 ) it felt as the most established marketplace I had landed on.
Some of those first VR sculpt/360° combo experimentations you can check out on the old BAE website, where we embedded both the interactive 3D VR Sculpted object and the 360° interactive panorama viewer to show off the elements used in the end result.
Example : Self Reflection
A very obvious choice since unique 1/1 programmable multilayered NFTs aren’t to be found anywhere else.
My first piece “Ever changing Horizons” there was a night/day
( my introduction to the medium )
My second piece “One of these days” speaks about the human perception of the now and has a master layer with 216 different outcomes ( fed by 3 underlying layers with each 6 variations ) You can manually test out those combinations here.
While I’ve used Rarible for a couple experimentations, most interesting at that time were the unlockable files we could attach to them.
For example my blotter art pieces were my first NFTs that came with both physical products ( the signed blotter sheet, shipped worldwide) and digital unlockable files.
On this platform I have released the first batch of a video series of “Scopes into the Unknown”, these act as looking glasses peering into the details of my 360° artwork rendered as videoloops. This way people without a VR headset can also enjoy — without effort — the entire piece.
- Mintbase
On both Mintbase (ETH and NEAR) I have been releasing a series called “Intergalactic Multicellular Organisms”
Before Mintbase was build on NEAR I tokenized the first pieces on the Natural Warp / MB storefront at Mintbase/ETH, and in fact this specific NFT here below named “VOSH” kickstarted my entire crypto-art adventure somewhere early 2020 :
Now, one by one, more of these “Intergalactic Multicellular Organisms” are being spotted in the metaverse and from now on they are all appearing in “Intergalacticmcorgs” storefront on Mintbase/NEAR.
- New BAE
I have been messing around with 2D mashups of renders of my 360° artwork which resulted in a couple nice compositions all available here in my profile on the NEW BAE website. With one of the highlights the following collage :
Now these previous series of compositions brought me to a “Next Level” of understanding and the first appearance of this series was dropped at my profile on Foundation.
Now since the level of complexity here and intensity this piece contains I don’t expect to often drop a new piece on Foundation.
Those that know my work may recognize 5 different 360° artworks contained in here, so as you may have come to understand, working up to the point I can even think about starting to prepare such a piece this requires a ton of work at first.
I may at some point bring myself to explain the entire workflow which I have constructed to create these 360° artworks, but this will highly likely be in the shape of an online course or something somewhere in the future.
I can say my workflow involves some freehand VR sculpting, right into the creation of a high res. full blown seamless 360° videoloop, then filtering this output back into basic elements and start building the setup for the 360° canvas to start painting on. After that it’s repeat, multiple layers, 2D painting ( holding all geometrical math in balance ) and so on … until at last I can test the result of the equirectangular canvas in my VR headset after which often I go back to the canvas to make the last adjustments and work towards perfection.
Speaking of seamless high res. 360° videoloops , on Mintable the filesize restrictions go through the roof ( 2GB IPFS upload and 200MB max preview files ) Which is exactly why I have chosen that platform to tokenize my fulblown 360° video pieces.
Splitted into 3 ( sharded if you want ) I have presented a couple sets of 3 different high res. seamless loops at 4K, where when a collector buys the full set he/she gets the original 360° videoloop 8K ( 100 secs ) on top.
- Hic et Nunc (TEZOS)
To bring to light different aspects of the 360° image, At H=N I have tokenized a mini series based on “Intelligent Design” a 360° artwork represented by the one .glb 1/1 edition ( interactively navigatable spherical 3D object with a projected equirectangular map) and a set of detailed renders “taken inside” the 360 artwork. ( 3/3, 5/5, 10/10, 20/20, 50/50 editions )
- AirNFTs (BSC)
I haven’t gotten into all the platforms I’m on but I’ll be concluding this series with this little setup right there at AirNFTs on the Binance Smart Chain, a set of “Eternal Keys” just to illustrate how I love to explore and separate all different series, chains and platforms.
Now, since I believe it’s quite obvious at this point that I need a ton of variation in my life, I can only assure you I will keep on going, searching and creating and for many up and coming experimental series I will highly likely find again a new platform or — when I feel they are compatible with a previous series — it might appear somewhere they will feel right at home.
For a quick overview into my whole visual output you can best check out
my linktree.
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