IMATERIALA perspective on the Metaverse.

By J. Scuderi

What is real?
- Morpheus

At the beginning of 2020, I gave a talk at EdgeOF, a creative nurturing hub in the heart of Tokyo, Japan. It was a discussion about the interconnected relationship between commercial and personally focused projects.

I have always made a conscious decision to separate the two, but at the same time utilized aspects from both to achieve creative results. For example, if I wanted to learn a new 3D or animation program, I would begin at work. I was a director and had clearance to request access to purchase programs that may be of use for production as well as learning packages that may help team members advance their capabilities if they wished to do so.

Though I used the opportunity as a guise to give me an alibi to learn new and interesting techniques as my true intention was to use the knowledge for personal projects — conceptual visualizations, higher grade illustration work, and short animated films I yearned to produce, it ultimately helped me achieve a better understanding of workflow which in turn, reflected in productivity at work.

However, looking back at the situation of forcing myself to pretend I was interested in the corporations’ bottom line and how I could help using new skills only lead to dismissal from the position after it was made clear the ‘higher-ups’ weren’t interested in nurturing such ideas. Not to say that any creative vision I had for product campaigns, advertisements, or new logo designs for the library of applications they constantly developed was going to change the P&L of the company, but toward the end of my residency, I contemplated what any of it meant.

Soon after the company had laid off half of my team and others in various departments, I began freelancing for the second time in my life. The first happened to be after a studio I previously worked at was shut down because of the financial collapse of 2008. They had lost three top clients and needless to say, it was not the most ideal situation to remain open.

Truly wondering if I simply had bad Karma, I found myself in an existential creative void between what head-hunting agencies and company HR departments, in general, consider the value of commercial versus non-commercial work.

I realized that the majority of projects I had produced that garnered more attention and allowed for a deeper conversation happened to be the personal work I had passionately focused on all those late nights.

In my mind, the dark void I swam in seemed a little brighter. I could see that rather than allowing the idea of this ethereal space to drown me in lost time and personal vision, the space between space now had form.

This space is called — IMATERIAL.

IMA is a Japanese word meaning NOW.
IMMATERIAL is defined as not consisting of matter — BODILESS or METAPHYSICAL.

Together, I believe the idea of ‘IMATERIAL’ exists when any creative paradigm shift takes place on an intimately personal or more vastly societal scale.

It is the space between an idea and a fully materialized vision to openly experiment — an invisible chrysalis woven together by transformative threads composed of conceptually advanced ideologies and technologies.

As for my creative transition, it is a space that allows me to focus more keenly on art and technology and how I utilize tools and knowledge in my creative pipeline to produce work that has emotional relevance.

When viewed more broadly as an evolutionary advancement, the idea of creating and using technology is a naturally occurring continuum of our ever-expanding knowledge as a collective entity.

From the stone age to the industrial age, to the internet age, we have witnessed these grand shifts in survival, construction, engineering, design, and society. And for the next era, we are beginning to see hints of its existence and what it might mean for the next stage of technological evolution via blockchain technology and now, the METAVERSE.

Just as the physical universe is mostly composed of dark matter, and expands from a single point of existence, in a way, the metaverse is the very definition of IMATERIAL — an ethereal neutral state where physiological composed users and digitally designed interactive space merge.

This momentary electric and material state meshed together via digital connective tissue is the next phase of interactive existence beyond the internet.

This connective tissue will be constructed of DSNs decentralized social networks in the form of smaller metaverses such as games or simple exploratory platforms designed as communities.

Within these communities, users will have the ability to buy virtual land, trade digital goods, govern, socialize, and in general, exist as digital entities — digitally native avatars or piped into the various spaces via video feeds for meetings, events, concerts, etc.

NFTs will exist as a kind of tangible transferable material. These goods in the form of art, collectibles, tickets, music, film, fashion, luxury goods, insurance policies, contracts, etc, will contain unique properties that will also have the capability of programable defined growth structures that could never exist in the physical world — a digital seed that blooms into a digital tree that births unicorns that fly and paint the sky with rainbows, for example.

In some ways, we are already connected to this digital space on a hybrid level via computers, mobile devices, and other hardware and as technology progresses in AR, VR, MR, etc, there will be new and innovative ways to interact and transfer information.

These spatially connective tools to materialize functionality and substance we can see, touch, hear and feel on a conscious level will only make the idea of the metaverse more sustainable via tangibility.

As the current migration of businesses and individuals populate these platforms as well as continue the development of new ones, the expansion of the metaverse into our subconscious and everyday lives will only solidify. Furthermore, as our current state of connection to this digital world becomes more decentralized, interoperable, and invisible, the idea of IMATERIAL will fade until the next paradigm shift takes place — perhaps the integration of AI implants into the human mind and the birth of the biomechanical age.

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Lasergun Factory (J. Scuderi) is a Digital/Crypto Artist based in Japan. His work can be found on various platforms including BAE, MakersPlace, Known Origin, and Foundation. His past commercial work as a Creative/Art Director allowed him to collaborate with globally recognized brands such as; Reebok, Nike, Mikimoto, Chanel, Mitsubishi, NBA, McGraw-Hill, Nissan, and more.