Decentraland’s Third Annual Art Week Sets A New Standard For Metaverse Galas

Why is Decentraland’s third annual art week something the entire industry should pay attention to? Well, it is “rebuilding the retail narrative”, according to Decentraland’s Lead Event Planner, Gigi Graziano.

Being able to connect consumers to brands on a more personal level is something that Gigi is excited about. Through what she explains as a “co-creation process”, creative teams and designs can come to life in a way that is more collaborative than ever before.

Decentraland is leading the way as the metaverse gains popularity. As the decentralized community grows, so does the demand for an exhibition of creative potential. After a successful event, both brands and consumers were thrilled with the experience.

The use of blockchain technology in the entertainment industry has opened up an entirely new paradigm for programmatic art and is redefining what a complete immersion is. Decentraland’s third annual art week featured A.I art to showcase the capabilities of this new technology.

These innovative technologies were accompanied by legacy brands from the contemporary art world. Artnet is one such example. As one of the biggest art communities online, it explored the idea of the Metaverse through performance art, live poetry, and AI during Metaverse Art Week. This experience was heightened by collaborations with renowned artists Sasha Stiles and Hsinyen Wei, and others.

Jiayin Chen VP, Artnet explains, “Artnet was founded over 30 years ago as the first art platform online in the world, and technology has always been at the core of our DNA. 

“As a brand that prides itself on developing critical conversation around art and technology, we wanted to explore the Metaverse in a meaningful context, to provoke thought and create truly unique encounters with art — that is why we are inviting performance artists, poets and AI, human and non-human to interact with each other in Decentraland.” 

We wanted to onboard our users to experience something uniquely valuable in the Metaverse.” Jiayin Chen VP, Artnet.

Sotheby’s also attended the event. As one of the most famous auctioneers in the world, it was only a matter of time before they dived into the Metaverse. Sotheby’s saw Art week as the perfect opportunity to test the Metaverse’s waters and explore its possibilities. 

This brand launched the first jewelry sculpture in the metaverse with Metagolden during the event and showed the potential of NFTs in the luxury market.

Decentraland has been pivotal to Sotherby’s explorations into the Metaverse. According to  Michael Bouhanna, Vice-President of Sotheby’s.

The VP of Sotheby’s explains, “Our Decentraland space has allowed us to curate creative and thoughtful exhibitions of both digital art and a number of physical works of art too, such as Sandro Botticelli’s ‘The Man of Sorrows’, for which we transformed one of the galleries into an immersive cathedral-inspired space.”

Opensea was also a supporter at the event. As one of the largest NFT marketplaces and leading platform for Web3.0-based digital assets, Opensea is at the forefront of innovation. This company believes in creating the best experiences for its users and Decentraland’s annual art week was the perfect place to do just that.

Estée Lauder, a cosmetic powerhouse, saw Art Week as an opportunity to engage its consumers in a new and innovative way. This brand’s support of Decentraland and the metaverse shows a strong belief in the power of this new technology to change the way we interact with brands.

With a unique POAP experience designed by Dr. Alex Box, one of the world’s leading identity designers and forefathers of Beauty Futurism, Estée Lauder enabled a unique experience during the event.

Attendees were able to collect and garner access to future Web3 activations from the Estée Lauder brand. This creates an exclusive and intimate experience that cannot be found in the physical world.

As evident in the interests of major brands, Metaverse Art Week was a resounding success in providing a platform for exploration and innovation. This event has shown that the Metaverse is more than just a gaming platform, but rather a new way to experience the world.

With so many different talented artists, creatives, designers, and legacy brands, it goes to show that Decentraland is ready to be the go-to platform for all things Metaverse.

In addition to industry leaders showcasing their interests, an interactive experience was promoted during the event. Through the A.I Pixel Mind Gallery visitors received the opportunity to create, mint, and collect their own art. This interactive gallery showcased the capabilities of synergistic technological tools such as A.I, blockchain, and the metaverse.

Courtesy of @Tangpoko, Event Planner at Decentraland

Gigi Graziano, Decentraland’s Lead Event explains that this part of the event was “one of its kind”. If you missed the Gala, you can still check out the plaza as it’s available for the next 12 months.

Rarible, Known Origin, Makers Place, Super Rare Labs also each had their own exhibitions and showcased the growing interest of artists entering not only the NFT industry but the metaverse industry as well. As Decentraland enabled users to explore the different sections of the event, visitors were excited to discover the potential of this new world.

The interest of these companies demonstrates a promising future for the metaverse. Decentraland proved that its platform is a game-changer for the industry by hosting such a successful event.

Decentraland’s Art week was a much-anticipated event that lived up to the hype. From poetry to A.I art to plazas to even models changing into cats, Decentraland’s ‘The World is Made of Code’ had it all. And to top it all off, a closing party featuring Metaverse entertainers NiftySax, Nikki Fuego, Angel & Dren, and Simon Sez set a new standard for Metaverse galas. This event was a blazing success.

Everyone that participated in the event, from the legacy brands to the artists and the spectators are all trailblazers in the industry. To cover every exciting detail and take away from this event would be a difficult task as each moment was filled with innovation and creativity.

To get a better understanding of how the event went down, we caught up with Decentraland’s Lead Event Planner, Gigi Graziano to receive her impressions of the event.

This event really cements Decentraland’s position as the leading gateway for mainstream brands to enter the Metaverse. Why do you think it’s important for brands to step into the Metaverse now?

First of all, I do believe Decentraland Leads the way in doing things in an unorthodox way, showing to users and brands how a communitarian approach moves a strong economy to all. Specifically about your questions of brands, it is clear to me that virtual worlds are the place of experimentation, rebuilding the retail narrative, connecting consumers to brands on a more personal level through co-creation process. The consumerism model is changing and as a brand I would pay attention to that. 

As a designer or creative team from a brand, I feel it is exciting to explore the impossible architectures, the fashion beyond reality and the global village perspectives.

Decentralnd’s Art Week had incredible partners involved featuring big names like Estee Lauder, Sotheby’s, Opensea and many more. What was your experience like working with this year’s partners? Are most of them new to the Metaverse?

The experience was quite positive. I believe some like OpenSea are very close to web3 and its capabilities, but some more traditional fields are making an incredible effort to build unique experiences for their customers, or are slowly entering this space to reach a younger audience.

Estee Lauder has a powerful vision, and also brings diversity to their activations, trying to explore their brands discourse above the products per se. But also, brands like D&G brought a new perspective to fashion by changing the models into cats, and this is exactly the abstractions possible in the metaverse that strengthen a brands narrative. 

In general, we are all learning, and brands are attentive to the changes, open to learn and incorporate new technologies.

What was this year’s goal for the event? And did you achieve that goal?

Yes we did achieve! The goal was to create never seeing mechanics and inspirational installations, also un framing the NFT art into special experiences. We had other smaller targets, such as repurposing a Plaza for the Arts; having performance arts and poetry; creating an audio guide for the visitors; improving onboarding to the plaza. 

All the new mechanics will be available to the community on GitHub so they can reuse the code.

What were some of the highlights of the event?

There are many, but for me the AI Pixel Mind Gallery is one of its kind because it gives the opportunity to visitors to create, mint and collect their own art. I honestly think the whole plaza is a statement, and it will be available for the next 12 months.

What’s the next big event coming to Decentraland?

The Metaverse Festival, our music event, is coming in mid November. Last year it brought around 50K users, and we are targeting high for this years’ edition. Soon, more information will be released, and we are kicking off production during September. 

For the Metaverse Fashion Week, also, production is kicking off with brands in September, aiming to have a longer project lifecycle, allowing brands more creative freedom. For this case we have many surprises coming, but for now I will keep it a secret!

The key takeaways from this interview are that the Decentraland team is focused on creating unique experiences for users and brands alike. They are constantly experimenting with new ways to engage their community and attract new partners.

The team is also committed to providing immersive experiences that go beyond simply selling products or services. Their goal is to create an environment where users can interact with brands on a more personal level and co-create content. Co-creation allows for a more intimate and personal relationship between brands and their customers, which is essential in the Metaverse.

With strong backing from multiple industries, Decentraland looks poised to become the leading Metaverse platform. These brands and platforms would not partner with just any metaverse experience. With their reputations on the line, by showing support for Decentraland, they are effectively declaring that the platform is ready for mainstream adoption.

Decentraland is setting the standard for how galas should be done in the Metaverse, and we can’t wait to see what they come up with next!