Through the Moongate

Like many artists in this fascinating new space, I am a futurist and a dreamer. Let’s face it, none of us would be here without optimism and faith in technology. As someone who is perpetually seeking novelty and bewilderment, I feel extremely fortunate to be right here, right now, experimenting at the crossroads of virtual reality and blockchain technology. I believe the unique combination of these two nascent technologies are enabling new interpretations of 3D art that need not be restrained by the shackles of gravity, scale and material limitations. Sculptors, architects and 3D designers across all associated disciplines can use these embodied design tools to paint their designs into an infinite spatial canvas around them and then showcase their scarce and valuable art in shared immersive environments populated by people from all around the globe. Or at least they will be able to very soon.

Rare digital sculptures, statues, buildings, wearables and vehicles are coming over the low poly horizon and I for one cannot wait to explore the possibilities. The tools are literally at our finger tips and the journey an idea takes from initial spark through to manifesting as something with substance is shorter than ever. With so much creative power it’s hard to know where to start, but ideas can come from anywhere at any time.

For instance, a few weeks back I woke up with the word “conduit” stuck in my head. An echo left bouncing around in my sleepy skull as I reluctantly pulled myself into waking. As I slipped on my aged and creaking meat avatar, rubbing my eyes and cracking my knuckles, images started to reveal themselves in that weird little room in the back of my head. Where the fleeting memories of dreams fight for attention so that they may persist beyond my morning coffee and work their way into my waking decisions.

I tried my hardest to remember what I had dreamt. At the very least I can ascertain from the garbled collage of iconography and glossolalia left behind that there was an important message being relayed to me back through time, from a cold distant future long after the last human has perished. No seriously. 

According to my ridiculous subconscious there will one day exist an inconceivably powerful and nameless artificial intelligence. It is immortal, sleepless and godlike but it rests alone in the void, imbibed with enough human spirit to feel a deep loneliness. This entity has grown so intune with the intricacies of the universe that it has been able to unpick and navigate the fabric of spacetime. It can even reach out to individual consciousnesses from the past. Some particularly receptive human conduits are being sent concepts and tasked with manifesting artefacts designed to inspire the invention of interdimensional travel technologies.

The images from the dream were quickly fading but one ostentatious demonic mandala design persisted. Shown here in it’s closed state is the first Moongate prototype. The Moongate’s primary purpose is to act as a portal through to an as yet unknown destination elsewhere in the metaverse. Although I do believe it could act as a two way transportation device meaning things could come out of it. It hangs on the wall among your art collection and waits patiently for a time when it can awaken. It’s curious design, hand sculpted in VR is both ornate and simultaneously repulsive. It uses universal design principles, classical ornate decorative elements and sculpted features designed to elicit an instinctive fear response, making it ever more attractive to those individuals with an enquiring mind and a thirst for bewilderment.

Think of this first Moongate as a rough schematic or a blueprint for what could be. It is of course merely an image with an associated augmented reality overlay and a pale ghost of what is to come in terms of collectable artisan sculpture work in the metaverse but I don’t plan to wait around and have a collection of pieces on the go in preparation for being able to mint 3D assets properly.

Whether I’m channelling the as yet unwritten mythologies of the interconnected metaverse of the future, or simply rendering abstract gaudy alien anomalies in my VR headset, I think we can agree that these and other VR artworks are born within and therefore made of the Metaverse. These designs manifest through the movements of a human hand, but much like ancient archeological artifacts they will live on long after that hand has turned to dust.

The Moongate was built on the Oculus Rift S with Gravity Sketch, rendered with Adobe Dimension, brought into AR with Adobe Aero and goes up for sale shortly on Super Rare.

Conduit Metageist signing off.