Designing a 360 VR NFT, providing an immersive context-preserving experience to future urban art aficionados
About Vermibus
Ephemeral urban art
Berlin-based artist Vermibus critiques contemporary beauty standards, focusing on how advertising often replaces individual identities with brand identities.
He targets the depersonalizing effects of these ads by using chemical solvents to alter official posters in his studio. He dissolves faces and removes brand logos, then returns the transformed ads to their public spaces.
This process humanizes the depersonalized figures, providing a strong critique of the advertising industry's practices.
Problem Statement
“HMW preserve the full contextual experience of ephemeral street art installations, allowing future generations to engage with the work in its original setting?”
Ephemerality & Post Removal Experience
Street art is meant to be experienced in its original setting, where viewers can fully grasp its context and meaning. Unfortunately, the ephemeral nature of street art means that future generations may never get the chance to experience it.
The traditional solution to this problem has been to preserve street art in galleries, but this strips the art of its context, transforming it from public to private, spontaneous to planned, and street art to fine art.
The Vision
Capture the Ephemeral Context in VR
To provide viewers with an immersive experience of street art, Vermibus aims to capture the context of each installation through the use of 360° audiovisual technology paired with the blockchain.
This collaboration between the artist and experience designer Juanca Cardell seeks to challenge the ephemerality of conventional urban interventions by allowing viewers to experience the installations long after they have disappeared.
The Solution
Development of a 360 VR Experience hosted in the blockchain
Create a series of 360 VR experiences of the installations that can be acquired on the blockchain as NFT collections. These experiences are available for free on YouTube and at art exhibitions, while their NFTs can be purchased on the Ethereum blockchain.
In this way, we aimed to preserve the context of the installations and make street art accessible to a wider audience long after the installations have been removed by the authorities or the passage of time.
IRL Experience
Experienced in Museums, Galleries, Institutions & Crypto-Clubs
As part of the experience, users could enjoy the VR experience in real life at exhibitions held in various galleries and institutions. POP Kudamm, Mazel Galerie, Colab Gallery, Unit London, and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien were some of the selected venues where users could try out the VR headset.
Additionally, the VR experiences were featured at numerous events organized by the NFT Club Berlin.
Scalability & Availability
Native Augmented Reality Feature from the Youtube App
Free availability was essential for various reasons. We uploaded all videos to YouTube, allowing users to experience them with both VR headsets and smartphones through the YouTube app.
This provided a convenient alternative for on-the-go viewing or for users who did not own or have access to VR headsets.
Moreover, this approach promoted scalability, as the videos had the potential to reach all 360 video enthusiasts on YouTube.
Results & Conversion
Half of the collection sold & Access to a historic show
➔ The works were experienced by over 1000 people in several gallery exhibitions and institutions.
➔ Got invited to the most relevant and complete NFT exhibition at the time, NFTism curated by Kenny Schachter.
➔ We sold half of the NFT collection at a total value of 3.4 ETH.
