Sarah Friend, Jonas Lund, and Serwah Attafuah are among the artists added to the Gwyneth Paltrow-backed Web3 platform.
According to Decrypt’s interview with founder and CEO J. Douglass Kobs, Wildxyz (or Wild) is standing out among the numerous NFT platforms in the Web3 world by emphasizing on “experiential” artwork. In addition, Wild is also implementing a residency program to assist artists in fully engaging with the Web3 environment, as well as providing them with a community of like-minded creators.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Reid Hoffman, Kevin Lin, and Daryl Morey, the president of the Philadelphia 76ers, all agree with this model. Wild just announced a $7 million seed round led by Matrix Partners and including these investors and others. Also, well-known NFT artist Emily “pplpleasr” Yang is advising the company.
Wild announced the residency program and the first group of artists for “Season 0” last fall. Among them were Mitchell Chan, Aluna, and Harm van den Dorpel. Each artist will eventually release new NFT-based art through the platform, but a new Season 1 group is already set to follow in their footsteps.
Revealed today, the Season 1 cohort includes artist and software engineer Sarah Friend, who’s known for experimental blockchain projects, as well as artist and musician Serwah Attafuah, who has worked with GQ and Paris Hilton on NFT drops and who Kobs said he believes is “gonna be a household name someday.”
Jonas Lund, who has his own DAO and token, is joined by Nic Hamilton, Anna Lucia, Beryl, Lisa Odette, Gabriel Massan, Idil Dursun, Matto, and Tim Maxwell, among others. StupidGiant, Santiago, Jerk Beasley, Nygilia, Sam Hains, Jenny Jiang, Yuma Yanagisawa, and Mia Pixley round out the Season 1 cast.
It includes artists from all over the world, some of whom are better known or have more Web3 experience than others. Curating such a diverse group of artists seems like a deliberate choice, since Wild makes unique pairings for each participant during the 12-week virtual residency program and helps them learn.
A Y Combinator for creative professionals
The residency, according to Kobs, includes classes taught by artists to the rest of the group, allowing them to share their skills and experiences. The influential pseudonymous generative audiovisual artist Deafbeef mentored Caleb Ogg for his recent Machines NFT release in the first group.
Kobs says it’s like Y Combinator for artists and calls it a “accelerator” for creators who want to learn more Web3 skills and make and release new art through the platform. Kobs said that the goal is to surround the artists with a bunch of badasses from whom they can learn, so that community can grow and unique blockchain art can be made.
“I’m always excited to connect with and learn from artists in any respect, but have always lacked some sort of structure, I guess,” Attafuah said. “Wild gives me a place to riff off of a really solid community of diversely talented creatives, and I really look forward to the Wild sessions as I take away so much more to reflect on.”
Constructing the Wildverse
Wild is a new company that wants to make the internet more immersive and spatial so that it can be used with VR or AR. Each NFT released by Wild has a 3D environment that the viewer can explore. The Wild Oasis NFTs, for example, give holders access to platform benefits and let users roam around in a jungle setting. The Machines NFTs have both 2D art and a virtual art gallery where you can see it. Kobs sees the work that the cohorts are doing now and will do in the future as steps toward a thriving community of artists that can support even more ambitious Web3 projects.
Content Source: decrypt.com
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