The 888 Inner Artist Initiative — December 2023 Update & Year End Review

15 min readJan 6, 2024

Note: There are many links in the below article, including many to artist Twitter/X pages. Like with all things in Web 3.0, please be careful with respect to your personal security, particularly when clicking on links. We have made reasonable attempts to link to credible sources, as known to us at the time of writing. However, sites such as Twitter/X pages, can sometimes be hacked or compromised over time. Please exercise due diligence and do your own research when clicking on any links, particularly links that may take you to a site that asks you to connect a wallet. Please exercise caution and be safe.

2023 was an incredible year for the 888 Inner Artist Initiative

Perhaps the best way to contextualize the year we had is to look back to the 2022 end of year update, published over a year ago, and chart the progress that we’ve made.

In last year’s update, we stated, “To date, we have purchased 20 pieces of art, and our latest event has received over 100 submissions, which is a record for us.” As seen below, we have continued to consistently purchase a new piece of art every week for the past year. We can now say, “To date, we have purchased over 70 pieces of art.” Also, our weekly event now regularly gets well over 100 submissions every week, so what was a record a year ago has now become routine.
In last year’s update, we stated, “We have grown our ‘Verified Inner Artist’ community in an organic fashion, one artist at a time. Just last week, we passed a major milestone. To date, we have assigned the Verified Inner Artist role to over 88 artists.” Today, we can now say, “To date, we have assigned the Verified Inner Artist role to over 550 artists.” That is 525% growth in the course of a year. We are also still accepting applications for new Verified Inner Artists here.
In last year’s update, we stated, “In addition to working directly with artists, we have also been exploring strategic partnerships in order to provide increased opportunities for artists.” Perhaps our most significant milestone of 2023 was our “In Real Life” (IRL) event in Barcelona, where we partnered with the wonderful Mrs. Toolip Art Gallery to showcase art from over 50 of our Verified Inner Artists. The full recap of that event can be found here. Also, as seen below, beyond opportunities IRL, we have also explored opportunities for our artists in the metaverse, and beyond.

In this update, you will find links to every monthly update published over the past year. We have done a lot, so we encourage you to visit our past updates for further details.

SuperCommunity Event

At the beginning of the month, our friends at Paladin Punks (which was founded by one of our Verified Inner Artists and token holders) invited us to a very unique opportunity that was co-organized by them, the VAVortex AI Art Community (led by another Verified Inner Artist), and the LinkedByArt community. We were invited to participate in a “SuperCommunity” event that brought together many independent artist communities within Web 3.0; in total, there were 18 communities represented, each with a mini-exhibit within the amazing SuperCommunity OnCyber metaverse museum, which was designed by 0xWolfgang, one of the premier metaverse architects in the Space.

The event was an incredible metaverse experience, a true representation of the potential of Web 3.0 for online communities. There was music; there was dancing (via avatar); and there was a lot of art displayed. It was an honor and a privilege to connect with and learn about different projects that share the same values that we do, which is to support and empower artists.

Here were some of the artists and independent artist communities that were represented at the event:

Here were the Verified Inner Artists from our community that were represented in our SuperCommunity exhibition:

We encourage our audience to check out the amazing SuperCommunity museum at https://oncyber.io/supercommunity.

MoonMars Representation by MONTREAL.AI

In addition to organizing the SuperCommunity event, Paladin Punks and VAVortex AI Art Community, along with 0xWolfgang and @frankNFT_eth, also founded the MoonMars project, an ambitious project that seeks to bring art to the moon.

The MoonMars project is on a journey to bring the best of humanity into the future through the universal language of art, science, and technology. It will begin by sending 47 pieces of art to the moon. These artworks, representing a diverse community of artists, will be in digital form. They will be transported via a chip that is housed in a capsule and placed aboard a moon lander. An analogue disc with the 47 artworks will also be sent with the digital versions. It will be printed on a nano-fiche that will also go inside the moonlander payload.

In addition, the project will be creating the MoonMars Museum, which will display, in the metaverse, the digital art that will be physically carried to the moon. In time, the MoonMars Museum aims to create art installations on multiple and various spacecraft, becoming a combined digital and physical interplanetary museum on the moon, Mars, and beyond.

The theme of the first collection of art being sent into space is, “DNA of Humanity: The Essence of Being Human.”

The art in this collection will be among the first ever pieces sent up to the moon, giving it a potentially great amount of technological, cultural, historical, and artistic significance.

The MoonMars project also represents a great amount of significance for the 888 Inner Circle. This is because Paladin Punks has graciously given us the opportunity to have our project and community represented through one of the 47 lunar-bound pieces.

We needed to find an artist who was not only talented but who also had a deep understanding of our project and our community, someone who would not only create beautiful art but who could also tell the story of the 888 Inner Circle community through that art. We could think of no better candidate to represent us than Vincent Boucher, aka MONTREAL.AI (as he is known in our Server).

Vincent is not only an 888 Inner Circle “OG” and one of our most significant token holders. He is also acclaimed, accomplished, and successful in his field, working hard to build decentralized AGI. Beyond his many accolades and accomplishments, he’s an incredibly talented Verified Inner Artist who is a pioneer in AI art, and from whom we’ve previously purchased art. But what truly sets Vincent apart is his unwavering support for our community. He consistently shares his time, talent, good vibes, and expertise with us all. He’s also made significant sacrifices for our community, like when he volunteered to provide Genesis Drop 4. We announced this during our IRL event in NYC, where Vincent made a special video appearance to address our community members.

We approached Vincent, and as is customary for him, he dropped what he was doing to help us. Here is what he came up with. Suffice it to say, we were awed.

This is the piece that will be representing the 888 Inner Circle community on the moon. The level of care, consideration, and detail that Vincent put into this piece blew us away. We kept coming back to the piece again and again, finding new intricacies every time we looked at it.

Here were some details about the piece that were especially intriguing and fitting:

An incredible vast digital network, beautifully symbolized by an intricate web of wondrous light, connecting the beautiful tokens and avatars. This web is to represent the forever blockchain — the underlying technology of the Web3 space — beautifully tying together the incredible essence of humanity with the grandiose future of technology and artistry.
A ‘Gallery of Eternity’, displaying timeless artworks that transition and evolve, symbolizing the perpetual evolution of art in the incredible digital age. Within this grandiose gallery, the tokens serve as keys to an immortal legacy, granting access to a virtual space where art and human identity are preserved forever.

For those that would like to participate in the MoonMars project, MoonMars Museum tickets are on sale here. These tickets will enter you in a raffle for one of the 47 pieces going to the moon. For those interested in potentially owning an NFT that is connected to a beautiful piece of artwork on the moon, please feel free to check it out!

Finally, we would like to express our gratitude for this unique and amazing opportunity. Thank you to Paladin Punks, and thank you to Montreal.AI. You exemplify the kind of members we cherish in our community — generous, talented, and visionary. Your kindness and contributions are sincerely appreciated. We are grateful for your active participation and for the positive impact you continue to make within our community.

Weekly Celebration of Art (Updated Policy)

To help keep everyone up to date about the rules, guidelines, and policies surrounding our weekly celebration of art, we have created this separate document, which we plan to keep updated.

Weekly Celebration of Art (Purchased Art)

Here is the art that we purchased in the month of December. As discussed here, all of the purchased pieces will now be stored in an IAI Vault, and we will seek different ways to continue to spotlight these pieces.

Week 67

RIVER by @asef_azi

Week 68

Snowscape by @nilyphoto

Week 69

Akari by @magicalords

Week 70

The Kiss by @HanizHamdami

Week 71

Golden Gate by @Yanaa_art

2023 Monthly Updates Recap

Here were all of the 2023 monthly updates, including a brief glimpse at all of the art that we purchased. Please see the updates for full looks at the art and more info about the artists behind the pieces.