Art Appreciation in Upland
We love celebrating interesting holidays at Upland, and it turns out that August is American Artist Appreciation month!
Blockchain has a unique and expansive connection to the art world. We’re seeing art sold on the blockchain, art about blockchain, artistic games on the blockchain, and much more. Art and blockchain both push the boundaries of the human imagination. Both are mechanisms of creation and can change relations of power. Sophistry aside, art and blockchain go together like peanut butter and jelly. Read on to learn why!
Our First Art Walk
Miles the Llama is quite the art aficionado and is very excited about American Artist Appreciation month. So much so, that he has crafted a first-of-its-kind event for Uplanders. He’s calling it the “San Francisco Art Walk” and it takes place this Friday August 14th at 10am PT.
While this is not a competitive event, the Art Walk will function very much like a scavenger hunt, but everyone who completes it will receive a limited edition art-themed block explorer! The number of players who complete the walk will determine the number of these special block explorers on the market. Block explorers are unique in Upland because eventually they’ll be used as SFTs (Semi Fungible Tokens) and will be tradable in Upland’s upcoming Block Explorer Shops.
Here are the full details:
- There will be a ticket fee of 1,000UPX. At every gallery stop, you’ll get a treasure worth UPX, with the amount of UPX increasing at every gallery. By the time you complete the art walk, you’ll have collected more UPX than the cost of the event!
- Tickets go on sale 24 hours in advance of the event, starting on Thursday at 10am and ending at 9:55am on Friday.
- To register, select the “Treasure” icon after registration has opened, and select “San Francisco Art Walk”.
- The first gallery location, where we will all be meeting to start the Art Walk, will be announced via in-app message, Twitter, and Discord.
- When you send your block explorer to the first gallery, they will get a treasure and will unlock a piece of art for that location, as well as the hint to the next gallery.
- To see your gallery hints, select the “Treasure” icon in the quick menu and select the “San Francisco Art Walk”.
- The Upland community will be discussing the art at each gallery on the Discord channel #sf-art-walk. So make sure to join in and share your thoughts!
- You can also collaborate with other Uplanders to interpret the hint and determine the next gallery location.
- Even if you decide to do the Art Walk solo, you can still complete the hints and travel to the galleries on your own.
- If no player reveals the next gallery location, every 5 minutes we’ll publish the next hint to everyone on Discord, so no one gets left behind.
- You will continue to get hints until you reach the 8th gallery, where the event will end.
- In addition to the UPX prizes, everyone who completes the Art Walk will have access to a unique art-themed block explorer, which we will be revealing next week!
- The event will have officially ended at 10pm PT on Friday, after 12 hours, and the remaining treasures will disappear. This extended window gives a chance for players in every time zone to complete the art walk and follow the conversation on Discord.
This new type of Upland event is not a competition. Instead, it is a community event designed to help players explore Upland, interact with each other on interesting topics, and continue to blend the digital and physical world.
The Future of NFTs
Beyond events, Upland has some big plans when it comes to art, specifically in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). One upcoming innovation, “The NFT gateway” will allow Uplanders to take an external NFT (e.g. a WAX collectible card, or digital art work, or an Ethereum-based Cryptokitty) and ‘Upload’ it into Upland. This means that the actual NFT will be moved to an escrow service and a representing token to that NFT will be issued on the EOS blockchain, and assigned to the Uplander who has uploaded the NFT.
Here are some examples of why this feature is really cool:
- In each home, and according to the size of the structure, the owner will be able to display their uploaded NFTs as decorations. The escrow mechanics will provide the necessary proof of ownership of the displayed NFT by the owner. From now on, your NFTs have a place to be displayed, admired and commented on by your Upland neighbors!
- Later on, Upland will enable ‘NFT Galleries’ as businesses. Uplanders will be able to trade the representing NFT token with the ease of using the Upland game interface. Gallery owners can either trade their own NFTs, or allow other Uplanders to utilize their galleries as a marketplace. After the token has been traded, the new owner can always use it to pull the NFT back to the blockchain of origin for their personal use. This innovative, first-of-its-kind offering will make Upland an epicenter of NFT trading.
- Finally, we envision another highly specialized type of NFT business that would provide tokenization frameworks of real-world assets (think an oldtimer car or a Picasso drawing) via a collaboration with real-world financial institutions. More details coming soon.
This is just the beginning of art-focused events (and features) in Upland. Soon, you’ll be able to create your own galleries and upload your art. Who knows, maybe someday Miles will add your gallery to an Art Walk event, and all of Upland can come and visit.
We’re super excited about our first ever Art Walk, and even more enthused about sharing this unique community experience with you.
-The Upland Team
