ArtMeta’s ‘OCAM’ Metaverse Contemporary Art Museum Debut in Davos, Commissioned by Tezos
Since its inception, ArtMeta has been building its team, aesthetic and metaverse, with a demo premiere in Basel, June 2022. The demo was a huge success and kicked off the next phase for us, where we began to solidify new partnerships and subsequently began to curate metaverse, art and NFT exhibitions with these partners, around Europe. Tezos was always a partnership in ArtMeta’s sights and in the second half of 2022, the two companies found a common goal to work towards: ArtMeta was building a metaverse museum, Tezos was looking for a metaverse partner.
ArtMeta’s first metaverse island is named Tchan-Zaca, conceived by acclaimed artist Jonathan Delachaux. Each element on the island is a work of art in itself, with its own story. The metaverse museum is no different. The floating island of Tchan-Zâca is the probable result of several underwater volcanic eruptions. In the Mesozoic era, a Kraken ran aground in the heart of the city. The ashes of the volcanoes still active at that time agglutinated on the viscous skin of this giant octopus. The octopus became fossilized in a sort of half-life state. Some Tchan-Zâcians believe that it still moves slightly, that its tentacles sometimes take different routes. Indeed the tentacles which can reach up to 8 meters high and 300 meters long, are so well integrated into the streets that they are hardly noticed from the outside.
The ArtMeta development team transformed the inside of this beast to become its first contemporary art museum called the Octopus Contemporary Art Museum, or ‘OCAM’. The first tentacle was commissioned by Tezos and curated by ArtMeta in collaboration with the largest Tezos-based NFT marketplace, objkt.com.
The metaverse museum was first unveiled to the public at CV Labs’ ‘Davos Networking Lounge’ during the WEF in Davos last week, 16–19th January 2023. There ArtMeta, along with adjacent partners TrustSwap and Kuble Metaverse Academy, presented an immersive exhibition of physical art works, contemporary art NFTs and the metaverse. Over 1100 people RSVP’d to attend the lounge space across the 4 days.
The response was incredible! People loved that they “CAN touch” the art — unlike in a physical museum. The quality of our metaverse was the constant compliment across the board.
Some favorite quotes from visitors who went into OCAM:
“I forgot I was wearing goggles, it was so realistic!”
“Amazing quality”
“Very immersive”
“Impressive”
“Very cool”
“I really want to see it online with my friends”
“The feeling of the Ocam as a huge structure is really intense”
“Best experience I’ve ever had in VR”
“This is exactly what I want to look at, in the future”
and also, someone was sad to go back to our sad reality, after a very long trip around the OCAM.
Some shots from inside OCAM:
At this debut, ArtMeta not only offered guests the chance to explore the OCAM through VR, but also showcased the artists work on a curated saloon wall style exhibition, mixing physical contemporary and fine art pieces with digital via screens of all sizes.
All the NFT art was credited to the artist with a QR code leading the user to the artwork on objkt.com. The exhibition showcased a total of 30 artworks from objkt.com, 26 of which were sold and traded during that week.
The exhibition revolved around two axes: the everyday and the sacred, the digital and the traditional. We included strong, unique positions on Objkt.com, including well known artists like Kenny Schachter and Operator with ties to the traditional art market as well as emerging positions like Linda Dounia, a female illustrator from Senegal and Parin Heidari an Iranian born artist. Other artists include Claudio Bel, Helio Santos, asleepsleepyhead, nipetrov, Rob Evans, and Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack, represented by Night Gallery LA, who was one of the first artists to be featured in Tchan-Zâca. During ArtMeta’s premiere event in Basel June 2022, two buildings in Place des Mascarades were entirely dedicated to his works. It is therefore fitting to open this exhibition at the OCAM with one of his set of works — “tell-a-lie-vision”. To showcase this set of broken objects that cite the artist’s childhood, each piece is presented on an individual pedestal. Spectators are invited to touch the objects and move them from pedestal to pedestal, to offer new narratives — something you could never do in a live museum.
ArtMeta worked with the objkt.com and Tezos Foundation teams to ensure a diverse global representation of artists.
As you entered the CV Labs Davos Networking Lounge space and after you registered as a guest, you found yourself directly in the ArtMeta immersive art & metaverse exhibition. The VERI POAP NFT was the first screen to greet you as you entered the exhibition.
Anyone who picked up this free NFT was put into the draw to win an NFT artwork from one of the featured artists on the last day of the exhibition. In total, 31 people claimed our OCAM Veri NFT. Five winners were randomly chosen to win a piece from artist Claudio Bel, and were announced across ArtMeta social channels that day.
The week was incredible, we talked to hundreds of people about the future of digital art in the metaverse, and we enchanted our visitors with the work of our incredible team at ArtMeta and our partners at Kuble Metaverse Academy, TrustSwap and CV Labs.
Over the course of the week, ArtMeta was mentioned multiple times by companies: CV Labs, Spatial, Kuble Metaverse Academy, TrustSwap, Swappable, Objkt.com as well as participating artists, prominent attendees as well as attending associations. Please check out ArtMeta on your favorite social media platform to stay up to date on our news and developments:
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