We’re living through exciting times — in the real world and beyond.
Only last year, the beginnings of the metaverse hype planted the seed of doubt: could our digital lives have a lot more to offer than what our current screen time would lead us to believe?
Claims of the upcoming materialization of ultra immersive content, virtual reality socialization, interaction with futuristic AI avatars and yes, plenty of unexpected but original experiences, have since abounded.
And quite frankly, that’s setting the bar high. After all, how much more innovative can a technology that’s well over three decades old suddenly be when it seems every corner of the internet has been already explored? Turns out, we might have only scratched the surface.
As we slowly step into the next iteration of the internet - what’s been dubbed the web3 - we are seeing technology like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and extended reality accelerating the creation of new autonomous entities that can live online alongside humans.
As if that’s not intriguing enough, this new dynamic is unleashing a wave of digital creativity that promises to re-imagine human expression and artistry.
Sensorium Galaxy is a metaverse stretching across several virtual worlds, each dedicated to a specific content hub.
More interestingly, the platform is focused on creating an all-virtual, ever-expanding digital and fully immersive environment where creators take advantage of emerging technology like virtual reality and artificial intelligence to birth a digital version of themselves and challenge the boundaries that constrain them in the physical world - creative or otherwise.
The result has been a constant stream of 24/7, 360 degree experiences that defy anything seen in art and music until now.
Avatars are a gateway into this future. They aren’t a new concept as we’re all familiar with avatars in gaming, internet forums and social networking platforms over the last decades.
But Sensorium takes it a step further with an impressive roster of legendary artists, including David Guetta, Armin van Buuren and Black Coffee.
Today’s advanced capabilities of motion capture and VR technology enable the creation of a photo realistic version of these performers, as avatars, in a way that perfectly recreates their presence and artistic brilliance in a digital ecosystem, down to the smallest detail.
Of course, as important as a great artist, is having a virtual space that can positively contribute to their creative process.
Again, Sensorium leverages cutting edge generative technology and AAA+ graphics to conceptualize and build virtual spaces where artists can deliver outstanding shows. After all, there’s no gravity, material or spatial limitations to worry about.
Artists can have fun playing around with thousands if not more of 3D architectural elements, like virtual infrastructures, colors and lighting effects to create out-of-this-world concert venues - and defy imagination.
For fans, it’s a surreal experience as well. They will be able to touch, feel, dance and experiment with virtual expression in an entirely new format. Inside the Sensorium Galaxy metaverse, users can float, jump, choose different vantage points and even attend a performance through the eyes of the artists delivering the concerts.
Many have assumed that the metaverse is just another way of replicating a real world artist and transporting them into a digital stage - essentially copying and pasting physical to virtual. That’s hardly revolutionary, no doubt.
But AI-powered DJs are.
This novel artistic agency has been making a grand entrance in the real world and the metaverse. Last year, Kara Mar made history by becoming the first social DJ to debut an album on a major streaming service, in this case Spotify.
Since then, these fully autonomous music creators have taken to Sensorium’s metaverse streaming channel where users can fully immerse themselves in 24/7 live shows delivered by our extended lineup of AI DJs.
Seven million views later, it’s fair to say that these synthetic techno beats have found a loving audience.
Fitted with advanced AI generative music skills, these autonomous stars can pull from over 60 different genres to create supercharged, futuristic tracks.
Equipped with a digital consciousness and unique biography of their own, Sensorium’s AI virtual stars are meant to be an evolutionary and mutating medium that can co-participate and co-create in the metaverse.
Among other things, they can evolve and morph into a multitude of creative entities that adapt across genres and emerging trends - be that in music, art, fashion, or something else. This opens space for collaboration between human and machine as well, empowering artists on how they compose music, collaborate with humans and AI counterparts, release their albums, interact with their audiences, and much more.
To promote and distribute their music, for example, artists can travel across the metaverse, perform, collaborate and be a part of many different projects. There’s a never-ending succession of opportunities to challenge creativity and push boundaries.
Some might think that by moving the music industry to an all-virtual environment, which people can enter individually, from the comfort of their own home, that the spell will be forever broken. It might not be quite so.
Sensorium Galaxy metaverse users can access digital worlds by using a number of entry points, be that a VR headset, desktop or the mobile app.. Each offers distinctive levels of immersiveness and interactivity along with new types of creative and content creation tools that extend the lifespan not just of the artists themselves but their art form too.
Let’s take the mobile app - with it you can already create augmented reality dance choreographies and interact directly with AI-driven avatars, for example. And soon, if you choose to experiment with VR, you’ll also be able to attend concerts, interact with artists, dance and meet new people.
There are of course many forms of artistic and personal expression. And when you add that to constantly evolving technology, we’re brought to the beginnings of a digital immortality era where artistic legacy lives on forever.
Both virtual and human artists, in the form of avatars, will be able to record all their creations and let it be preserved in the metaverse.
That way, future generations will have the chance to be in permanent contact with that, to talk with the avatars of real life artists and AI forms, enjoy their art and keep learning from them even after they’re long gone.
And, truly, we don’t know yet the full extent of what can be done within a virtual world environment, but we know it’s not a platform where artistic creation and exploration - and user enjoyment - all happen in a vacuum.
Far from it. It’s an evolutionary, collaborative process with unlimited outcomes.
In part, that’s also down to the social function Sensorium is unlocking in the metaverse. Participants can easily chat directly or via video and message with other human users as well as the AI virtual beings. They’re highly reactive to feedback, which in turn also shapes their musical output.
This new social and economic model also lends greater transparency to the ecosystem, as all transactions within the metaverse are supposed to be recorded on the blockchain while supporting a fair monetization system through non-fungible tokens.
NFTs give artists the opportunity to finally take control over their art and decide on a monetization model that better suits their interests.
In addition, non-fungible tokens are paving the way for another avenue of connection with audiences; creators can release exclusive digital tokens such as exclusive tracks and collectibles or even embed “goodies” into a token, including thank you notes, autographs and personalized videos, which allows fans to access their favorite musicians in a new way.
And compared to the traditional music distribution and licensing model, crypto also unlocks other new types of possibilities.
For example, when a user signs up for a subscription service or music streaming platform, they’re getting the rights to listen to a recording. But you don’t actually own anything. Music NFTs, on the other hand, let buyers enjoy exclusive ownership while creators safeguard their ownership rights.
It’s inevitable that, with the collision of virtual and real, technology-based and human imagination will take us into uncharted territory and foster new shapes and forms of collaboration, thought-creation and expression.
And now that we are perhaps being liberated by technology of our human finitude and constraints, so too are we extending the lifespan of creativity and art well into a future that is far distant from today.
