For the past months VR DAO has focused its resources in its main project 3xr.space, generating a successful web VR platform for artists to exhibit and trade digital works within the Near ecosystem. Without a doubt, 3xr is a huge contribution to the community which embodies the democratization of technical tools which the DAO system represents, and its value has been proven through its technical consistency and growing community engagement. Today, 3xr has reached a status that allows their developers to gather funding without VR DAO support, creating an opportunity for VR DAO to explore other dimensions of Virtual Reality with the same dedication, effort and strength that was given to 3xr.space.
For the next stage of VR DAO we propose to approach VR from artistic research perspectives aiming to contribute (as a community) to the reconfiguration of art and technology relations through VR practices. For this, we will support creatives to engage in artistic processes that bring forth reflections about VR, questioning its role, limits and/or tensions in the current state of the world through artistic research methods. Artistic research as a conceptual tool might render to the community the means to create VR works meaningful for themselves and the way they relate with the world.
What is the relation between VR and Artistic Research that inspires us?
There is not only one way of making research through art. But if we could simplify what might characterize artistic research is the immersive state of the artistic gesture that catalyzes some sort of fluid object of study, an object in constant change which sometimes becomes the subject. It is a process that externalizes itself through its spatial and temporal unfolding and gives rise to what we might call art pieces. It produces something. Whether this something is art or not is always debatable, but we can not negate that this something informs the world as the world informs it, it generates knowledge. The value of this something is given by the relation the artist establishes with the world, with culture, nature and technology. So this something is local, something unique that takes value in the special encounter between all dimensions of reality, in the relational aspect of multiple scales.
Artistic Research represents the possibility of bringing forth locality, and with this the possibility of acknowledging different cultures, natures and technologies, different from hegemonic white-western-male worldview. Virtual Reality represents the possibility of other realities, different from the singular and universal reality that is reinforced through digital dynamics and objects. If VR gets caught by an universal technology it will reinforce the same utilitarian system that has ultimately brought us to global warming, migration crisis and war.
This makes VR not only a formidable ground for artistic research, it makes VR a necessary space for artistic gestures in the symbolic war of the digital world.
How do we articulate this relation?
We have thought in two conceptual lines or axes to articulate the relation between VR and Artistic Research, VR Ecologies, and The Techno-diversity of VR. Both lines aim to reconfigure higher order concepts, Ecology and Technology respectively.
VR Ecologies
Which kind of ecology we live in today? Is the relation between nature and humans enough to think about ecology, or should we stretch the concept and acknowledge the agency of technology as something more than human externalization? This research line aims to reflect and produce artworks that reflect about the condition of what we could understand as ecology from a VR-based practice.
The Techno-diversity of VR
Are we doomed to a future shaped by the technological singularity? Or, Is the multiplicity of technologies possible, and could we shape different futures departing from this multiplicity? This research line aims to speculate in theory and practice about the future from a VR-based practice.
What do we need to do now?
As you might have perceived, there is a delineated conceptual frame which needs to take a certain amount of forms in order to generate community engagement. For this we define two fundamental aspects that need to be defined in detail, a Multi-scale Strategy of Knowledge Transfer and an Artistic Research Outcomes Strategy.
Multi-scale Strategy of Knowledge Transfer
We need to generate a broad strategy of engagement through communal knowledge transfer strategies on different scales. We identify the need for some sort of social practice that might help VR practitioners of the community to understand what could mean a strong conceptual background and an artistic research process in their own practices. This could go from meetups for discussion about the research lines, to an open call for project follow-up. Meetups or any alternative social dynamic has the advantage of reaching many people, but at the cost of lower engagement by the community with a diluted knowledge transfer. Project follow-up could reach only a limited number of people, but it could generate a deep engagement with strong artistic outcomes given some participation conditions. Also, the educational aspect of project follow-up would allow for the participants to become mentors of future follow-up candidates. Other activities might include master-classes and workshops. During the next month we will delineate the details of a multiscale strategy of knowledge transfer, with clear goals, methodology, process, schedule and costs.
Artistic Research Outcomes Strategy
Additionally, we need to create a system for artists to share the artworks/outcomes of their research. We need to establish which kind of outcomes are valuable in this context and in which format should be presented. For example, 3xr.space might be a well-suited platform to exhibit not only a digital artwork, but also to show a research process, or to make an occupation or activate an installation. Also, more complex forms as applications might be produced and we should investigate how we could present such outcomes to the public and community. Theoretical production might also be valuable, but could be rendered in experimental forms and formats. And above all this, we need to decide in which way we will bring in artists to participate in this, through open calls or curatorial research, and in which format we will bring such artists, how many artists per month, etc. During the next month we will define an Artistic Research Outcomes strategy, again, with clear goals, methodology, process, schedule and costs.
This restructuration of the Creative Direction of the VR DAO will take the form of a manifesto that aims to provide guidelines, not only for the projects proposed to the DAO, but also will work as a tool to preserve the autonomy of the DAO.
This document will have the following structure:
- DAO’s mission
- Standards for proposals
- VR Ecologies
- The Techno-diversity of VR
- Multi-scale Strategy of Knowledge Transfer
- Artistic Research Outcomes Strategy
20h/month of work @nearestchico => 500$
20h/month of work @nico => 500$
Total request: 1000$
Thank you!