“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” - Edward Hopper
https://www.loom.com/share/65165e2edc4e4182895ed1bb5fdc00aa
Art is an always will be a joint societal initiative. Artists often create pieces not for themselves but for the general “world” to see, experience and interpret. The history of art and the individuals that create it is a beautiful story of emotion, change and adaptation intricately interwoven into the changes in society and individuals lives. We - society - are just as responsible for the creation and maintenance of art as the artists themselves (if not more); therefore, art and the meta-data that surrounds it is perfectly suited to be immortalized onto the chain.
Scholars have written tomes upon tomes of critiques on art, artists and broad concepts of style; however, none of this knowledge is readily available for individuals at the point of visual experience. Furthermore, the way we classify art and describe its attributes is a fluid process and not easily available at the point of interaction. Modern visual AI has provided tools for training machines to extract and classify visual characteristics; however, the long-tail of art that is commercially available is neither uniformly classified nor consolidated.
While most individuals think of art that sits in museums or in history books, today most art is experienced passively - as aesthetically pleasing home decor. The global wall art market was valued at $20.4 billion (2021) and is estimated to grow to $34.77 billion by 2031. Given the medium, prospective customers are unlikely to know the specific style, visual trend or art category of a potential piece; however, the majority of consumers know what they want when they see it and often collect example images of pieces that they like to seed a “visual style” in the weeks leading to purchase (a la Pinterest).
Arthaus owns and operates a leading print on-demand art prints marketplace for independent artists in the UK (myArthaus.com). We represent thousands of artists that use our platform to reach potential customers in the UK and EU - and we have been building out a new platform to help them develop a richer connection with their social media audience as well as create more tailored digital storefronts (Easel). We are proposing to build an extension of our Easel platform that will enable artists to extend their digital social presence to the “metaverse” via Immersive Art Portals that can be activated by existing or prospective customers right on top of their physical works of art. These Immersive Portals will enable new ways for end-consumers to engage with the Artist and their personal styles
As part of this pilot program, we are intending to extend the original vision of the Immersive Art portal by connecting existing and new pieces of art to an adaptive, on-chain Art Knowledge Graph that will let consumers discover new, interesting concepts related to art as well as providing ways for the community to contribute to and improve that Art Knowledge Graph - all right from their phones in an integrated immersive augmented reality experience.