HERE & NOW AND BEYOND IMMERSIVE ART
FEBRUARY 4TH, 2022
The mission of Here & Now is to create groundbreaking experiences that show the possibilities of what virtual art experiences can be on the blockchain and simultaneously support artists both emerging and established.
Fair enough.
H&N: Edition 4 - is an interactive art experience – that dropped on Jan. 26th. The Skinny: You purchase an Entry Token, and enter an immersive theater event with art.
Think of H&N as much of a journey as it is an art event.
The project is the brainchild of Beets. Based in Melbourne, Australia, for the past 5 years, Beets has been working exclusively on real-time virtual reality experiences.
“I have had good success with that, and more recently live film projects,” Beets explains. “It all came together on the blockchain and allowed me to push these ideas in a big way.”
Each H&N experience works with 6 established artists, who all create works specific for the event.
“The environments we create for the artists are intricate and based around the art itself so it feels like you’re stepping into their world.”
H&N works with the tezos blockchain – but it’s also platform agnostic. The pieces are either through custom contracts or on platforms such as Objkt and HEN.
THE H&N ORIGIN STORY
Two years prior, Beets had been pioneering a genre called ‘live film’ which is a film that is shot, edited, and experienced in real-time. Having a bit of success with that outside the NFT world – Beets thought it would be interesting to create smaller observational-type documentaries that were shot and edited live with creatives around the world. So Beets put it up on HEN as an experiment.
The result: People loved it.
“It gave me the idea of creating virtual art experiences, but instead of film, I’d create virtual worlds that showcase art in a much more immersive and experiential way,” he explains.
So Beets approached his artist friends, Sutu and Giant Swan, and created Edition 2 - which really took off.
“Edition 2 made me realize something even bigger, why not get artists to create original work, and then I create the worlds around that art!”
Beets was largely the sole auteur behind previous editions of H&N - on Edition 4, he pulled in the team of Opticnerd, Vectris, and George Bullen, with sound by Aston Archer.
CURATING H&N
Beets scours the marketplace for artists who really connect with his vision.
“The first thing I look for is whether the art inspires me to create an immersive world,” he explains. “It's complex and it takes time to create these things so I'm quite particular about the pieces all working for one another in a kind of narrative arc.”
H&N’s modus operandi is to create the experience from the art that is supplied - not the other way around.
Another big part of H&N is showcasing new and emerging artists.
“We run an artist in residency for each edition as well - with the end result that their art is displayed inside the edition,” Beets says.
An Entry Token is needed to gain access to the experience.
“It’s the only thing that we charge,” states Beets. “So, we don’t take any commission on the art sold within the experience.”
Regardless, Beets wants to make sure the Entry Token has value and is special.
“It is the face of the experience,” he exclaims. “The Entry Token is always a 1/1 piece made by an established generative artist and often goes on secondary for more than the original price.”
Edition 4 is also an interactive minting experience called ‘The Passage’ -
that generates each NFT in real-time, where the audience's choices and journey affects the design and traits of their Entry Token. The pieces are designed by MacTuitui.
“At the end of the experience their creation will be unveiled, and it will be automatically minted to their wallet,” Beets says. “It’s a new immersive platform that challenges the idea of what minting could be in the metaverse.”
THE EVOLUTION OF H&N
Beets’ big goal for the project is pushing towards the idea of personalized experiences, where the experience searches for the past H&N generative Entry Tokens - and creates a specific experience that is unique to you based on the traits of those Entry Tokens.
Such as the 1/1 Planet tokens a collector purchased in Edition 4 – will help them with the destination they go on Edition 6 – creating a 1/1 journey for that Edition.
“I really want to challenge the idea of how digital art can be experienced in virtual spaces, because we have unlimited possibilities,” Beets says. “I am greatly influenced by live immersive theater events. I really try to make everything I create have that quality to it, where you are invited to go on a journey and make that journey your own.”
“We haven’t even touched the surface of what live experiences can be in the digital world.”