1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Introduction
GLOA (Goa Global Arts) is a decentralised worldwide community, that includes popular Goa Music Lab (India), Universal Metropolis (founded in 2000 / 10K+ users), and the successful Whangerei Night Lights in NZ (<>5000 attendees). The crew is long underway with various immersive arts-tech projects, including developing blockchain-based solutions to ease artists’ age-old problems.
This year’s main undertaking is co-producing a pioneering arts-tech festival in Kathmandu - possibly the first multi-day blockchain/web3 conference in Nepal’s history - as well as a decentralised lakeside arts festival, near Pokhara. We’re also planning a takeover of India Blockchain Week in December.
Highlights of proposed NEAR-supported plans for the second half of 2023:
- South East Asia roadshow (KL and Bangkok) with DAO Records
- Nepal Tour, including co-producing boutique festivals near Pokhara and in Kathmandu
- India Blockchain Week Takeover
Pleasantly based out of tropical Arambol, Goa, India, Goa Music Lab is underway with our third season of Monsoon Sessions: experimental music, arts & arts-tech TV. While Season 1 featured weekly “studio sessions” with different artists each week, Season 2 unexpectedly became a rocking weekly live electronica music evening at Lush Garden, beside Arambol Beach, that ran for 3 months.
Each of the first two seasons culminated with popular showcase events, bringing together the community of performers, artists and fans. Season 2’s showcase was GLOA - Goa Global Arts Festival, which hosted <>800 guests, plus a metaverse component, spread over 4 days.
Presently, GLOA’s main live production is Robots & Animals, a global arts exhibition depicting the future of humanity and society, wherever the consequences of emerging technology could lead us. Robots & Animals lends awareness to emerging tech: notably, its risks and opportunities. The initiative seeks to remind today’s programmers of tomorrow’s societies, peacefully through art & cooperation, of the need to preserve and protect humanity, in whatever the future of technology might hold for us all. Coding immutable systems without prejudice or bias, breeds responsibility.
The live Robots & Animals production has been successfully prototyped on multiple occasions. There are two formats beyond our internal festival productions: R&A is intended for arts/music stages to be plugged into established tech events/conferences (e.g. as an “afterparty”), and/or to present mind-blowing “Knowledge Arenas” at more underground arts festivals.
We’ve been actively seeking to architect solutions to these longstanding issues for artists:
- Lack of budget
- Lessened time (usually working other jobs)
- Low visibility, in a highly noisy and competitive landscape
- Extremely slow to build an authentic fanbase
- Increased costs and difficulties of live tours
- In recent years of short attention spans, the music industry has been geared towards short snippets, constant/rapid-for-algorithm single releases (instead of albums), and trying (too hard) to luck onto viral sensations.
But what about artists who don’t want to follow formulas, and care about putting time and love into their crafts and followings?
With a work ethic of constantly experimenting with new ideas and challenging ourselves, Goa Music Lab sought to introduce decentralised / “web3” solutions from the outset. For instance, in season 1 (2021), we initiated a Theta-dot-TV channel, intended to circumvent YouTube altogether. However, Theta’s various usability shortcomings (notably the one-upload-per-week limit) made it unviable.
For over a year, we’ve been working deeply within various blockchain ecosystems (in particular: Filecoin, through Sea’s recent FVM F1 Early Foundry & Mainnet Cohort participation). Since last year, we’ve been manually simulating prospective DAO operations and tokenomics models (like an IOU for if/when the Treasury is filled). We’re actively architecting a long-term, creators-friendly UI/UX that helps self-seed and self-sustain creative and personal projects, for artists, freelancers, and volunteers (such as aid workers, animal carers, etc).
Monsoon Sessions - Experimental Music & Arts TV
GLOA uses Monsoon Sessions as a test and training ground for larger productions, while building connections and scaling the global community. This “TV” season, we’re planning to experiment with a wider array of web3 tools, such as Huddle01 for streaming live events, Livestream for streaming media, and a stable DAO platform to serve as the backbone for our festivals, events & tour planning.
The opportunity to intimately trial and utilise NEAR dApps, is truly marvellous, and something our crew started considering a year ago. Through our exploration and discovery of NEAR technology, this opens the possibility of spotlighting NEAR dApps, DAOS and creative projects across the coming 3 ½ months of Monsoon Sessions TV. We can run immersive and engaging campaigns that require the activation of NEAR wallets, while experimenting with dynamic NFT subscriptions for premium Live content & broadcasts, VR spaces, autonomous royalty sharing, exclusive digital drops (audio / visual / nft), and more.
There are different levels and aspects to our extended global community, widely represented across India, South East Asia and Australia/New Zealand. As each of us are highly nomadic, we’ve nurtured deep, long-standing professional ties and connections on six continents.
Through our regular engagement on socials and high quality local events, in 2+ years Goa Music Lab has cultivated a loyal local following, who’ve graciously and consistently attended our various live shows. Several of our regular female participants and crew are leaders in arts & business, and advocates for Women in Web3. We are very well represented with a balance of genders, nationalities, and particularly inner-India ethnicities, with individuals from across India. The age range is broad - guests from 18 to 69 have attended our events, but our regular participants are experienced music & events industry vets and established artists, typically in the 30-40 age bracket.
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What is the team experience and can they pull off the project proposed?
Our veteran international team is greatly inspired by the principles of Burning Man (combined attendance at over 50 Burning Man events globally), and boasts over a half century of collective professional festival, arts, and online production experience.
Sea Ansley (Goa / NZ / Canada / UK) has enjoyed a 3-decade career in the music industry, beginning as a volunteer at NIN and Soundgarden in 1994 (Molson Park, Barrie). A lifelong earlier adopter, including using early Macs and PCs (1984), Sea first came online towards the end of 1994. He became a professional web developer, festival producer & community leader, all in a landmark 2000 (Universal Metropolis). The architect of UM’s popular UMFM radio network, and the engineer of numerous long-running in-house shows, Sea was heralded as “One of the pioneers of Internet Radio” - Knowledge Mag, 2006.
After six years around Toronto CA, Sea moved to Melbourne, helping manage Heavyweight TV, a national hip-hop TV show in Australia. In 2007, Sea founded GASHE: featuring a print/online magazine, Internet radio and regular DJ-based club events. Sea has written two books, the most recent of which is Plan Sea (https://planseabook.com), and has long been working towards an immersive feature film, The Dogs Live On (2030).
Entering the crypto & blockchain space in 2017, SEA consults as a senior web & blockchain strategist. He became a Certified Holochain Developer in 2018, is a co-founder of LEGACY (preserving memoirs forever utilising perma-storage), and has spoken and moderated at numerous tech conferences (DomainX, BlogX, India Blockchain Week, Goa, Kathmandu). He is a founder and the lead producer of Goa Music Lab (2021). Sea’s musical alias is ANIMISM (animism.live), progressing towards organic live electronica accompanied by orchestras.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gashe/
Jarred Taylor (BPhil, BIR - New Zealand) facilitates immersive experiences through an orchestration of analog and digital mediums. Jarred coordinates workshops and events for the Quarry Arts Centre, is festival director of Whangārei Night Lights and the Chief Cat Herder at Northland Burners. Jarred was a Burning Man regional representative based in Sydney for over 5 years, and is a co-founder / co-organiser of a new regional Burning Man event in Northland, NZ. Jarred’s passion is the creation of outdoor interactive art installations and immersive virtual reality in the metaverse.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarredctaylor/
Valencia Selestina (Indonesia) is a long-time nomad, event and festival producer, including running operations for the Million Doge Disco and Decentralised Dance Parties (DDP). She is particularly adept at managing hybrid online event operations, including Production, Event Coordination, Event Management, Event Hosting, and Zoom Tech Support (incredibly useful for complex online events). A dancer and visual artist, Valencia is a strong communicator and coordinator, particularly on operational and artistic direction levels.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/valencia-selestina-8b7670b6/
This global team has been responsible for further innovative collaboration. Valencia’s Muertecita (November 2022) was hosted live from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, with further guests/artists online from Ecuador, San Francisco, Singapore and New Zealand. Goa Music Lab hosted and produced the official afterparty. MUERTECITA 2022 // Main Stage // Noble Luke & ANIMISM - YouTube
GLOA / Goa Music Lab include three further core crew, and dozens more regulars in the wider creative community. Samarth Jairaman (Tamil Nadu, India) is a co-founder of Goa Music Lab, with a professional expertise in digital marketing and project management. He’s exploring the world of audio field recording, and is largely responsible for the cameras and OBS video production/streaming operations of the TV series and bigger Lab events. Noble Luke (Punjab) - a professional voice actor and long-time live musician - hosts the annual ComicCon event in India. He is an integral part of the setup crew and performance roster at Lab events. CryptoKnyt (Kevin, Bangalore / Kerala) is a multi-talented visual projectionist and DJ, who crafts 3D projections as the backdrop of Lab stages. Alizah Fox (USA) hosted the Knowledge Arena at April’s inaugural Robots & Animals in Goa, and is an active Woman in Web3.
Can we pull off the project? We’ve pulled off everything we’ve set out to accomplish so far, and the Tour becomes our next reasonable challenge. The first Goa Global Arts Festival was a resounding success from October 27-30, with around 800 attendees between the four days, plus a metaverse world (reliable online connectivity and power backups need to be improved). Following a December 2022 tech-focused trial event in Arambol, that was supported by Filecoin, Goa Music Lab produced the sensational Robots & Animals at Tripfoundation in Mandrem, Goa.
In April 2023, despite being “after season”, the prototype Robots & Animals brought together around 250 guests (50:50 male/female), and hosted a stimulating mix of creatives, developers, founders & fans. There was an electronica Main Stage and a DJ booth, with a “Knowledge Arena”, that included presentations and workshops on Filecoin, ChatGPT, generative A.I, Women in Web3, 3D neural scanning, permanent storage, dynamic NFTs & more.
In May 2023, we successfully tested the tech event component in Kathmandu, where we maxed out the venue’s 40 capacity, and have since blossomed a fresh new web3 community in Nepal’s capital. The positive feedback, plus interest from creatives across Nepal, offers us support and confidence to execute an incredible Robots & Animals in Nepal later in November.
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What is the Value prop offered and how does it help CDAO and NEAR?
GLOA seeks to architect world class, artist-centric events, festivals, productions & experiences, through regular experimentation and organic growth, uniting diverse individuals, and teaching what it learns along the way.
While GLOA is well along its path to accomplish and self-seed its ambitions, the NEAR amplification opportunity offers mutual decadence. The prospect of NEAR’s support helps enable the Lab to take bigger steps into its more ambitious ideas, such as penetrating the Mumbai TV and film market, and ensuring that the quality of our Nepal festivals is extraordinarily high. The India Blockchain Week Takeover is an opportunistic, renegade play, that will assuredly be a viral sensation across the closing weekend of ETHIndia.
Furthermore, there is a legitimate pioneering aspect, akin to a digital DAO descendent of Sir Edmund Hillary (the first human to climb Mt. Everest). It’s likely that Robots & Animals is the first multi-day blockchain/web3 conference/festival in Nepal. If NEAR is able to coordinate senior representatives (and hopefully CreativesDAO members!) to attend, there is the direct, open opportunity to meet with officials, and help inspire Nepal government policy, as well as speak at universities. (These higher-level plans are in progress, and need to be discussed separately with NEAR representatives).
As Robots & Animals and Goa Music Lab are successfully underway, NEAR can tap into a growing, thriving community, and join us along GLOA’s visionary projects-in-progress. The mutual impact is gleaned from NEAR’s contributions as a multiplier, helping accelerate and scale Lab productions & reach, benefiting everybody (artists and fans at the forefront).
More on the vibe of Goa Music Lab: Goa Music Lab (@goamusiclab) • Instagram photos and videos
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Does this help in creating Brand awareness for CDAO? What are the numbers expected
GLOA & Goa Music Lab are on an upwards trajectory, through which we habitually share and showcase the work of our creative partners. One inherent mutual opportunity is the trial and possible implementation of NEAR technology. The Lab would be pleased to feature NEAR-related content weekly in our Monsoon Sessions TV / broadcast series. Topics could include how to set up a NEAR wallet, how to vote in a DAO, how to mint a dynamic NFT, and so forth. If we can coordinate with broader members of the NEAR CreativesDAO and developer communities, we welcome their submissions of such content - and also to showcase relevant NEAR arts/music-related projects.
While we have a solid presence in Goa, our reach across populous India is growing, and our efforts are amplified for bigger events that involve the global production team. Events that are supported by NEAR will be evident to attendees in both the pre-event buildup as well as through physical artefacts (posters, info booth, interactive installations if possible). NEAR would be prominent in the weekly Monsoon Sessions episodes, the regularity of which we use to help drive up hype and momentum for the bigger events, like the Nepal tour.
The Nepal arts-tech festival opportunity is particularly endearing, as it is a pioneering event in the country. We invite the larger NEAR Global Events team to coordinate possibilities for NEAR visibility and participation, such as hosting an entire day’s session of workshops & talks at our official tech hotel partner in Kathmandu (this will need to be discussed / negotiated separately). Through the same hotel partner, there is also the prestigious open invitation to meet with and workshop Nepal government officials, who are curious and inquisitive about advances in emerging technology, specifically web3, blockchain and AI/ML. A senior NEAR representative would be ideal for this unique interaction, with the ability to answer higher-level and technical questions related to government interests.
GLOA is a long-term project, intended to grow organically, while enjoying the journey. Our strategy has leaned towards running smaller test events, trialling a few experiments, while building broader interest and community. The intention is to return to desirable, warmed-up regions, buoyed by knowledge, experience and connections, and captivate crowds at cool venues through awe-inspiring and memorable experiences.
Numbers expected: Please note that venue discovery and/or negotiations are ongoing at time/date of this application, and the attendance estimates are based on the capacity range that are actively being sourced from corresponding venues.
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Monsoon Sessions & Showcase - Live showcase event: 150-200 guests + online broadcast into VR world. Near-weekly webcasts and broadcasts from live jams. Cumulative reach: >500K between participants. Budget allocation: $1200 - A/V production of season, A/V production at live showcase event, and covers artist/DJ treasury
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South East Asia Road Show - 50-100 guests between the two small meetups (20-40 KL, 30-60 Bangkok). Smaller cumulative global reach <100K. Budget allocation: $1200, covers A/V rental & production, artists, DJ for the 2 small events
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Nepal Tour - Through global media press releases and collective reach of artists / participants, cumulative reach should exceed 2m, between the tour and its 2 boutique festivals.
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Lakeside Festival - 150-200 guests + 40-50 artists & crew. Budget allocation: $2000, contributes towards covering venue rentals, fishing boats & their drivers for our intra-lake festival shuttles, artist / DJ payments, A/V rentals, promotions and artistic decor for the key venues
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Robots & Animals in Kathmandu - 200-300 guests + 40-50 artists & crew. Budget allocation: $4000, covers venue deposits and rentals, contribution towards artist/DJ payments, A/V rentals, promotions, and setting up art installations
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India Blockchain Week Takeover in Bangalore - Depends on venue capacity, but last year there were 10,000 devs & founders in town, and we intend to produce the best (/ only?) proper afterparty! Cumulative reach should top 1m, due to Indian influencers and our media outreach. Budget allocation: $1600, covers venue rental, A/V production, promo, artist & DJ budget.
None of these attendance figures include prospective online audiences. This is going to greatly depend on whether P2P streaming technology & virtual spaces have matured enough to be reliably used the way we intend (also if we can fill the roles required). We must assess the value of broadcasting specific events (online and in 3D worlds) - such as marketing to a global audience, if we determine there is legitimate interest. These are aspects we are regularly studying, practising and implementing over the monsoon season ahead.
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- How many monthly active wallets can the proposed project deliver?
Monsoon Sessions - <>100 (Wallets will likely be needed for viewers / crew to interact with suggested NEAR dApps)
South East Asia - 50-100 between small meetups in KL and Bangkok (also a planned stopover along the way could organise an informal blockchain/crypto chat)
Nepal Tour / Online attendees - 400-600 (noting the present legal implications of crypto / NFTs-as-investments in the country (soulbound tokens / non-transferable NFTs could alleviate this). We have Ministry of Law contacts in Nepal where we are gaining clarity and consent. However - at the very least, all online attendees can use wallets for their virtual tickets and access control, and all Nepal participants can be airdropped their dynamic NFTs once regulation is clearer)
Bangalore - 200-400, venue capacity dependent (We could issue NFT tickets through a NEAR NFT ticketing service, and require NEAR wallets for live event entry / online access / VR digital twin / dynamic NFTs / creative airdrops as appropriate). Some guidance from community members is welcome, sharing experience with NFT ticketing options, or access to events for people who can’t figure out wallets / NFTs.
Other than Nepal, where regulation of NFTs and crypto are still ongoing, it should be straightforward and ideal to issue tickets as dynamic NFTs for participants. Total active wallets are likely in the range between 600-1200 by the end of 2023.
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What kind of on-chain activity will the project deliver?
We’re excited to make the leap from manually testing systems, into on-chain administration. Likely activity, based on our 2023 dev/community plan, includes:
- Login / Digital Identity / zK checks
- Wallet creation
- NFT drops / rewards for community members
- POAP for live and online event attendance
- Dynamic NFTs - Ticketing and minting
- NFTs as digital ownership certificates
- Access control of private vs. public content & spaces
- Autonomous royalty tracking (will attempt this, no guarantees)
- Microblogging, if available
- Media asset storage / preservation
- Saving Profile & Preferences
- Whatever else of utility and/or intrigue that we discover in NEAR apps!
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Present a roadmap for the partnership
July through October 2023 - Music/Arts TV. Goa Music Lab is underway with Season 3 of its Monsoon Sessions experimental music & arts TV series (premiere screens next week). As we’ve been pushing arts-tech solutions for years, it’s a wonderful opportunity to try out NEAR dApps and showcase some of NEAR’s intriguing arts-based projects. In several facets, this aids us to onboard additional quality content for the show.
We’d like to put calls out to specific NEAR teams and artist cooperatives, asking interview questions and featuring short video excerpts introducing their projects.
During the same time, we are polishing our production / broadcast skills, and working meticulously on the Nepal tour and festival plans.
September 21-28 2023 - South East Asia Roadshow. Sea & Vandal (DAO Records) will host two casual arts-tech meetups, in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, in conjunction with our various arts-tech initiatives. This trip serves as a reconnaissance / networking / test-event opportunity, building the base of a bigger network. This lays the groundwork ahead of organising a more prolific GLOA tour to South East Asia, including producing at least one Robots & Animals festival, in Q1 2024. There will be an opportunity to showcase NEAR projects, and the interior decor will include NFT artwork and multimedia experiences, followed by a humble afterparty with DJ and low-key live music.
October 14 2023 - Monsoon Sessions Showcase. Our annual live showcase unites the Goa-based artists who contributed to the third season of Monsoon Sessions: experimental music & arts TV. The first year’s showcase jam maxed the venue’s capacity, in the 60-80 person range. Last year’s showcase became GLOA - The Goa Global Arts Festival, including a metaverse replica of Arambol. GLOA ran over 4 days, bringing out around 800 guests across the weekend. In particular, we hosted a legendary, renegade drum & bass takeover outside La Vie en Rose, where hundreds of excited attendees danced on the beach through the early hours!
November 1-26 2023 - Nepal Tour. Goa Music Lab & the global GLOA team visit Nepal to co-produce two boutique festivals. There are workshops and meetings planned with Nepal Government officials, and speaking opportunities at national universities. The first festival is Lakeside Festival, hosted at Begnas Lake (near Pokhara), from November 8-12. It’s a sheer arts-first, decentralised festival spread across 4-5 lakeside venues, requiring fishing boats to shuttle guests between participating facilities. We prefer Lakeside Festival to be as un-commercial as possible, unlike the more tech/corporate-supported Robots & Animals.
The second festival brings Robots & Animals to Kathmandu, November 23-26, spread between a tech hotel venue, and a creative arts / music Courtyard, featuring its own Knowledge Arena. This is a landmark event in Nepal’s technology history.
December 8-10 2023 - India Blockchain Week Takeover, Bangalore. 10,000+ guests attended last year’s IBW (Sea was a speaker at 2 Filecoin-run conferences) and there was a major demand, yet no solution, for a proper afterparty. GLOA will source an inspiring space - like a warehouse or arts hall - and offer generative AI art, immersive VR experiences and an electronica mainstage on the main Saturday night. NEAR’s art-tech solutions will be on display, and hopefully enables our online/VR world ambitions.
Looking further into the future, the GLOA roadmap looks as follows:
Q1 2024 - Robots & Animals in Mumbai, Goa and South East Asia. We will likely wrap up the global Robots & Animals arts exhibition in March 2024.
Q2 2024 - Cape Town, Afrikaburn, Malawi, Nairobi (likely 1-2 Robots & Animals (or equivalent), 1-2 smaller tech meetups, and a particular focus on artistic endeavors for African creatives).
Q3 2024 - New Zealand (R&A at Whangerei Night Lights?) Europe and/or North America are realistic possibilities under consideration following the completion, and post-decompression, of this year’s events.
Following a successful run through the end of 2023, our New Zealand community is particularly keen on evaluating NEAR as a potential creative partner for their region. This includes enhancing their popular Whangerei Nightlights festival, that recently attracted 5000 guests in the north of NZ. https://www.whangareilights.com/
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How does your partnership proposal align with CreativesDAO’s purpose?
With the core team’s extensive working experience both in technology and arts / music / events, it’s a harmonious open marriage. We seek to utilise emerging technology as tools to aid and assist our artistic & administrative ambitions. For example, we have been manually testing tokenomics concepts and DAO structures, for over a year, and have experimented with all sorts of (unstable) apps related to streaming, content management and social tools.
Builder-minded, we are architecting our own platform and systems to manage our projects and creations, should we remain unable to source reliable solutions, which has so far been the case in web3. Assuming we can implement the technical upgrades for a fully-working web3 replica of its original system, Universal Metropolis (10K+ old users from the 2000s) could become a next-generational virtual world, where the wider global community hangs out, discusses and organises its projects.
We’ve been actively decentralising our global governance, to ensure the longevity of the project, beyond the participation of the original founders. We’re striving to find / commit to a steady DAO management dApp to manage all of our related processes. We are regularly onboarding participants and fans through our dual angles of the arts, and more recently through our foray into tech events, that should translate adequately into competent and engaged web3 users.
The core team’s task for the remainder of July, is to discover and experiment with existing NEAR solutions, that could represent options for DAO management, dynamic NFT ticketing, NFT minting and more. The shortlist will be used to target potential featured projects and teams on Monsoon Sessions, and possibly book relevant NEAR artists for our various live shows.
The road map could take the wider projects to six of the Earth’s seven continents by the end of 2025, while spending extended time in Antarctica for creative research, has long been a SEA dream.
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One time or milestone based funding?
One time.
While we’d typically prefer the Milestone method, particularly for accountability, for some of these events - particularly the unique Nepal opportunities - critical advance deposits are soon required.
Total request number: USD10,000
DAO on-chain address (target wallet): gloa.near
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Thank you for your consideration!
