Sour Grapes of the Metaverse
In the realm of traditional culture and its existing institutions, we encounter a significant challenge amidst today's zeitgeist of creative destruction. The demand for new media is unmistakable.
by Aida Dzhanhirova
The distinctive feature of today's scientific and technological progress is its speed. Top managers of the ‘old cultural world’ are not always able to adapt to new challenges in time. Numerous projects of traditional institutions in VR, AR, AI, blockchain technology, NFTs, and the Metaverse often declared revolutionary at a launch moment but either lack continuation or quickly lose relevance shortly after implementation. Such a leap to the point of no return, in the speed and complexity of technical progress, which is becoming less accessible to humans, is known as technological singularity. Cultural singularity1, as an ‘intellectual explosion’ in the cultural environment backed by the technological leap, enters the world of humans almost unnoticed by their consciousness. And the key challenge is if the traditional paradigm succeeds to adapt to new digital experiences.
Earlier, the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop observed the human tendency to reject an impossible task and justify such a decision by deeming it futile. In his fable The Fox and the Grapes, a hungry Fox walks away on its own, dismissing the grapes as sour.
Facing the brave new world of the Metaverse, one can still change the old approach and meet the challenges of innovation.
The Church's Experience
The breakthrough revolutionary shift that defines the current state of society is the digital revolution that began in the 1980s. The advent of the internet radically changed the way people interact. The reaction to this tectonic shift in communication is particularly interesting within the most conservative social institution - the Church, as there was a natural risk of biblical caution about ‘New Wine in Old Wineskins.’2
The picture was generated by DALL-E
In 2002, a key document was published by the Vatican, outlining the Holy See's position regarding the Internet and the role of state institutions in the context of new means of mass media and communication3. In general, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications welcomes ‘earthly progress’ if it is crucial for the Kingdom of God and if it contributes to the expansion and enrichment of the human mind.
‘At the same time, the Council has placed Individuals on the forefront of the stage of our lives: ‘the media has the ability to make every person everywhere a partner in the business of the human race’ [5].
Regarding innovations such as blockchain, the Metaverse, and NFTs, there are different approaches within the Church. In the social doctrine proposed by the Orthodox branch of Christianity, the position is more radical. The Patriarchate of Constantinople, in the document ‘For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church,' acknowledges the inevitability of the introduction and development of parallel digital worlds but, at the same time, expresses concern that they 'stimulate im-moral and egocentric behavior' (§70)4. This, in turn, leads to an identity crisis. And the splitting of personality is already a reference to diabolical influences.
The Catholic branch of Christianity demonstrates greater flexibility, embracing experimentation. Plans were announced for the Vatican Apostolic Library to use blockchain and NFT technologies to digitize its collection of manuscripts, books, and historical documents. In May 2022, news pages were abuzz with reports of the Vatican's plans to create an NFT gallery in the Metaverse.
Less centralized Protestant churches boldly employ artificial intelligence. A young German theologian, Jonas Simmerlein, experimented with one of the basic tools of the parallel digital world - neural networks. In the Lutheran church in the Bavarian town of Fürth, over 300 parishioners listened to a prayer broadcast by a 'digital priest' in the form of a black pastor in the summer of 20235.
All this indicates that, despite the contradictory position towards digital processes and technological progress, the unprecedented experiment with Individuality in the conditions of the Metaverse is not doubted by the Church. The Pontifical Council, even with respect to Web2, placed significant responsibility on state institutions. Their function is to create and maintain such websites. 'Cyberspace should be a resource of comprehensive information and services available to all free of charge and in a wide range of languages [10].
In the situation of Web2, where users interact with each other while facing a screen (computer, smartphone, iPad), it can be acknowledged that state institutions, with the task of regulation, generally cope. But regarding blockchain, NFTs, the Metaverse, and Web3, where in the virtual world, everyone becomes a participant 'behind the screen,' the situation is so unstudied and unregulated that the best decision (from the officials' point of view) should make by leaders of the institutional state world is 'to make no decision.' And this is understandable, as processes in the new digital environment are still not legislatively regulated, there is no accepted terminology and understanding of even basic questions, for example - how can an avatar in the Metaverse be correlated with a specific person?
The Experience of the State
The state, like Aesop's Fox, still appears helpless. The main reason is the semantic contradiction between the tasks of the 'old' structure of society, the key element of which is the state, and the newly born but rapidly growing new virtual world. The idea of the former is the centralization of crucial social functions, while decentralization is the foundational principle of the latter.
The picture was generated by DALL-E
While leaders of state institutions await the introduction of national digital currencies, the adoption of new laws on digital assets, and detailed regulatory instructions, the situation in the virtual world relentlessly moves far ahead, leaving behind the yesterday's and day-before-yesterday's problems of the old hierarchical world. For example, all without exception state and non-state institutions, whose task is to systematize and preserve artifacts of their time, today cannot answer several questions.
How to record and preserve the writings of bloggers?
How to store NFTs, and is it necessary at all?
How to preserve immersive projects?
What knowledge should specialists possess for such tasks?
The role of a state institution is to act as a guarantor of preserving key information critical for the existence and development of society.
But do these institutions have enough knowledge about the world of innovations for this? Are their employees ready to consider the Metaverse as part of their professional duties?"
The Gap Between Systems
We know that there is no new without the old. Therefore, the new virtual world of the Metaverse is being created based on models of the 'old' real world. Using the terms 'old' and 'traditional,' crypto activists boldly introduce different meanings. For example, during the early days of blockchain, there were already companies positioning their activities as blockchain art. However, these companies were involved in selling precious stones, using this new technology.
In the Metaverse, Cryptovoxels introduced the Alexandria Library in 20176; resources for books on the blockchain (books about blockchain) are being created, art festivals, music festivals, and fashion shows are held, and there are already authorities among collectors of new digital art, such as Cozomo de Medici or Vincent Van Dough (with a direct reference to authorities of the old cultural world).
Today, the principles of selection and cataloging in NFT museums are unlikely to be systematically structured. However, numerous blockchain forums enthusiastically discuss NFT art issues, with almost no involvement from people close not only to art but at least to culture in a broad sense. This is a side effect of speculation on NFTs and their million-dollar sales in 2020-2021. NFT art was then sold by lawyers, economists, marketers, etc. Later, the art system woke up and included this new segment, introducing it into festivals, biennials, fairs, etc. These examples are given to illustrate the semantic gap between two systems - centralized and decentralized.
For the centralized, 'old system’ of the real world, the question of whether it needs to interact with the new digital 3D reality is still open. But for the decentralized world, the question is not posed this way; the answer is always 'yes,' as any interaction increases the digital project's capitalization.
Fashion Experience
The picture was generated by DALL-E
The digital world lives its own life, and we see the most vivid examples in the segment of digital fashion. The Silicon Valley based Metaverse Fashion Council is creating a new community, Commonwealth as they put it, based on DAO principles7, relying on the rich experience of the traditional world. Its ideology is based on a deep philosophical approach and the development of modern concepts such as fashion singularity and cultural singularity. Being the biggest community in the metaverse fashion this initiative already influences all the nascent society of web3 pioneers.
Various collaborations of major fashion brands implement bold projects in the phygital direction (Nike, Adidas, Diesel, Sephora, etc.). This tells us that brands understand their competitive advantage in the digital world and prefer to allocate budgets for experiments in this environment, at least to have their own experience.
If fashion is mentioned, it is reasonable to add another case that can provide new cultural contexts in the digital world. Premium French brands such as Céline and Zadig & Voltaire are active in innovation. They have inadvertently 'appropriated' these names from the literary world. And if we assume that these brands enter the world of the Metaverse, then surely their names will not evoke associations with traditional culture. After an aesthetic video shot in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Céline brand will be remembered, at best, with a beautiful model sensually taking a weighty volume with flashy gold letters Celine from the shelves, rather than with the name of a modern French writer.
As for Zadig & Voltaire, if it starts selling digital clothing in the Metaverse, it will surely not inspire a desire to read philosophical tales about the wise Zadig by the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. But in the virtual world, these names will retain the right to be the first association with fashion brands.
What can the public sector do in such a situation?
Not only distribute grants for bold immersive projects but also emphasize the establishment of pop-up laboratories within institutions, including specialized experts and business representatives. Moreover, such groups should be part of the organization's staff. This is the best recipe for achieving results, taking into account the interests and internal structure of each institution based on its tasks. Otherwise, the often average and clumsy utilization of innovations proposes a uniform implementation scheme for their projects, disregarding the specifics and intricate nuances of the bureaucratic world. As a result, we observe numerous launches of NFT projects measured along the same line. Most often, such project lines lack development, and unsuccessful experiences are simply labeled as experiments. However, there may be instances where a project is implemented on a platform that eventually ceases to exist, and all digital traces of its projects simply disappear. In such cases, ready-made tools for storing digital files could be useful for institutions responsible for this "for the record."
Speaking of the Metaverse as a digital evolving world, it is important to note some of its key features. This includes decentralization, a cryptocurrency-based economy (the term DeFi has emerged), avatar interactions, and a live experience happening in real-time and intersecting in both the real and virtual worlds. With the advent of blockchain technology, all items in games have become digital assets. The opportunity to earn in the blockchain gaming world has become the most attractive. According to the software platform Influencing Marketing Hub, the gaming environment in the Metaverse is growing by more than 400 million users per month, largely due to teenagers8.
Every parent should know that if their child plays games like Decentraland, Sandbox, Axie Infinity, Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc., they are already familiar with the digital world of the Metaverse. This means that for the younger generation, the most comfortable and familiar environment is the virtual one. And this generation will soon become the core audience of universities, libraries, museums, archives, cinemas, gyms, and other services and forms of entertainment.
Therefore, if government institutions do not take these circumstances into account when planning even a decade ahead, young digital tycoons of the virtual world, who have raised their money on the play-to-earn principle, will proudly showcase their digital Adidas sneakers and Céline brand digital glasses at events in the Metaverse and read books about the intricacies of blockchain in the virtual Alexandria Library.
In this imaginative scenario, there is nothing inherently wrong. Perhaps it will even contribute to the "enrichment of the mind," according to the recommendations of the Pontifical Council. But what are the chances for the real world here?
Another example is when innovations unexpectedly affected the educational process. The surge in interest in ChatGPT coincided with philosophy students at the Institut Catholique in Paris writing their theses. Professors had to work hard to accurately assess high-level work from not-so-successful students. For the next course, a solution was not found, and the diploma thesis was replaced with an oral exam in the curriculum.
It is important to remember that ChatGPT is one of the promising tools of the Metaverse. And it has already made its mark.
The Path of Integration
No matter how distant the real and virtual worlds may seem, we increasingly witness the integration of the latter into the practices of the real world. Many automotive brands announce projects in the Metaverse, network brands, the telecommunications sector, the agricultural sector, etc., exploring the possibilities of blockchain ecosystem implementation. Businesses are gearing up to invest billions in the new Metaverse industry, emphasizing the fusion of their physical and digital experiences - phygital.
Today, at the stage of exploring the first experiences in the virtual world, planned investments could be considered in the interests of government institutions. Moreover, government institutions could play a significant semantic role in these processes. It is crucial to understand that the Metaverse and NFTs are not just a technical story but, on the contrary, a narrative about new communications and the ideas society is embracing.
Another example: In late 2022, for the first time in the history of museums, one NFT [out of 10,000] from the CryptoPunks pioneering project was gifted to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami. This unconventional action for the physical world was widely covered in the media. But what does it look like procedurally? Any object must be transferred to the museum according to a contract, transfer acts, regulations for storage in the collections, inventory procedures, and so on. Is there a ready-made procedure for transferring a digital file on the blockchain to an institution that does not use this technology? This question also applies to the Pompidou Center, which received 18 NFTs from leading digital artists in early 2023. How did this happen? Does the Center Pompidou have a mechanism for storing a digital file on the blockchain? There are no answers to these questions today.
At the same time, projects are emerging to bring the cultural sector closer to the blockchain ecosystem. For three consecutive years, the German-French educational project We Are Museums (a strong team of professionals) has been teaching representatives of museums, libraries, and cultural foundations worldwide the basics of blockchain, NFTs, and the Metaverse. As a result, in the fall of 2023, the Musée d’Orsay launched an NFT souvenir project in anticipation of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Impressionism. Whether the museum has found a successful solution will be evident later. Still, today we can say that the curators of the We Are Museums project structured the program in a way that the museum did not have a conscious choice of which blockchain to release NFTs on, as only the Tezos blockchain in this program provided grants for projects9.
The French project Aika positions itself as a guide to culture in the digital world, emphasizing a direct connection between the influence of technology and changes in our perceptions of the world. Another important aspect of this project is a confident convergence with the institutional world and a focus on contemporary art. The case of this project promises significant collaborations in 2024. Whether Aika will maintain its declared high standard will be revealed in the near future. Today, it is impossible to name a state whose development program does not incorporate the overarching theme of the innovation vector. Significant sums are allocated for the development of this direction. While artificial intelligence is already legitimized and holds a ‘must know’ and ‘must have’ status in the culture and state institutions, the blockchain technology ecosystem remains unclear and inaccessible.
Although the sector is confidently advancing, despite the ‘bear’ market for NFTs and the still open questions regarding regulations.
Returning to the Aesopian metaphor, the immense traditional system of the real world, in relation to innovations and cultural singularity, still resembles a fox yearning for grapes. Conventional, old approaches, as it is evident, are no longer relevant. Will the traditional world acquire new skills regarding innovations?
There are mathematical, astronomical, cosmological, philosophical, and technological singularities. In this article, the concept of "culture" is used in a broad sense, as a system of traditional values.
When referring to the Church, this article refers to the various Christian denominations
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_20020228_church-internet_en.html
https://www.goarch.org/social- ethos?p_p_id=56_INSTANCE_km0Xa4sy69OV&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column- 1&p_p_col_count=1&_56_INSTANCE_km0Xa4sy69OV_languageId=ru_RU
https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-06-10/can-a-chatbot-preach-a-good-sermon-hundreds-attend-church-service-generated-by-chatgpt- to-find-out.html
This is a NEAR blockchain project positioning itself as user-friendly.
DAOs are member-owned communities without centralized leadership.
https://influencermarketinghub.com/metaverse- stats/#:~:text=✔%EF%B8%8F%20The%20metaverse%20has%20more%20than%20400%20million%20active,to%2013%2Dyear%2Dolds.
It is likely that this issue will not be as important in the future when blockchain bridges emerge