Curatorial Statement

Welcome to the Metaverse is about spreading awareness regarding digital art and design, mainly what is happening with art in relation to cryptocurrency and the NFT space at this moment in time. We believe that this is a watershed moment for digital creative work. We see a continued meshing of digital and non-digital value systems. Curated by Chris Fussner of Tropical Futures Institute, and Gabby Dizon and Colin Goltra of Narra Gallery with support from Art Fair Philippines. The program includes a series of conversations and presentations exploring different aspects of the cryptoart space from anecdotal artist stories, early blockchain art history, and virtual tours of cryptoart galleries.

At this very moment, Runescape digital gold farmers in Venezuela are feeding their families by selling gold on third-party websites for bitcoin. Anonymous digital artists on remote islands of the Philippine archipelago promote their artworks on private Discord chatrooms and exhibit them in virtual worlds where collectors purchase them with ethereum on decentralized and permissionless marketplaces. A bedroom cryptocurrency trader can deposit their digital currencies into a permissionless digital bank that is yielding him 10% per annum, and they're able to take a collateralized flash loan against their deposit which he then uses to buy a new car for their family. These three scenarios, among many others, read like they are out of a near-future science fiction novel, but they're happening today, and they will be more commonplace in the future as the internet continues to evolve.

When this NFT bubble has popped or somewhat deflated, we look towards a new paradigm in the digital economy. As smartphone proliferation continues and last-mile data becomes cheaper, we will continue to see more people come online. This NFT moment might extend beyond what we all see, read, purchase, trade, and sell; NFTs are leading us into the next stage of the internet, web3.