Art innovation lab Snark.art has opened a new series of extended reality (XR) art backed by emerging technologies, it was announced this month.
The leading platform for merging cutting-edge blockchain technologies and immersive art, Snark.art has opened its platform to legendary British artist Mat Collishaw.
Collishaw has also teamed up with digital artist Danil Krivoruchko and EL-GABAL, a collective of metaverse architects for the project. The artists have produced Heterosis for the OG.Art platform, which infuses the blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) with art for a major immersive experience.
The artwork will allow attendees to breed virtual flowers growing in a metaverse greenhouse recreated from a section of London’s iconic National Gallery. The setting imagines the building as an abandoned property reclaimed by nature, and each flower in the virtual space offers bespoke, curated artworks.
Together, the flowers create a blockchain-based garden of digital works as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) created by the collective of artists. The works also engage visitors by responding to their interactions, allowing them to participate in games and stories.
Heterosis and Web3 Technologies
Regarding the technologies, artists mint each Heterosis flower with the blockchain and several interactive responses. Using hybridisation techniques, XR artwork collectors can explore each flower’s qualities and mutations similar to real species.
Each flower offers collectors a new species, pattern, colour, bloom, or form to boost engagement with audiences, along with time-lapsed changes in their behaviour.
The artworks were developed with SideFX’s Houdini 3D animation and visual effects platform. Artists have used the advanced tool to create adverts, major films, and video games rendered on Redshift.
Advanced technologies also drive the hybridisation process to evolve the content. Teams using Epic Game’s Unreal Engine designed the greenhouse metaverse setting. This has provided audiences with an interactive collective experience across devices, including headsets, smartphones, and PCs.
Flowers are hosted on OpenSea, where collectors can view and interact with their individual properties.
Comments on Designing XR Metaverse Art
Regarding his latest offering, Collishaw said he wanted to create extended reality art that “could not exist in any context other than the metaverse.” The digital network formed the basis of the exhibit, allowing audiences and creative content to interact, “bringing the artwork to fruition.”
He continued,
“The fact that the work can evolve through time, depending on what the owner will or won’t do, was something very interesting for us. Danil managed to encode all the different traits into DNA and designed an evolution process. These mechanics, are essential to the Heterosis project and are especially valuable to us as something that’s possible only in a decentralized space”
“The most complicated digital art collection” of his career, Krivoruchko explained,
“Mat wanted Heterosis NFTs to be real flower species. A real life reference, which is super complex on the one hand and so familiar to everyone on the other, meant that even the goal of achieving a photorealistic visual was technologically very complex.”
Collishaw, Krivoruchko Projects
The news comes after Collishaw debuted his BEDLAM XR masterpiece at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in August last year.
The world-first exhibit took four years to research, develop, and complete. London’s Bethlehem Hospital (BEDLAM), the world’s oldest mental health hospital, inspired the creation of his exhibit.
Collishaw received widespread acclaim for his metaverse masterpiece for its depth of detail, interactivity with attendees, and intricate storyline. Audiences can also unlock additional content via their avatars by exploring the exhibit further individually. This aims to link the theme of technological isolation in the modern world with the developments of characters in the BEDLAM metaverse.
Additionally, Krivoruchko joined Snark.art’s OG.Art collective and Web3 tech hub Pace Verso to host a novel NFT collection with Random International.
The project featured a collection of 3D origami ‘Boids’ backed by blockchain technologies. Each boid changes in number, shape, and behaviour, leading to a major project with long-term adaptive properties for collectors.
