BRAND

Meet the visionaries
who are leveling up
the metaverse

Go behind the scenes with the creators and founders building the future of Web3 and NFT art.

Sometimes it’s good to put a face to a crypto wallet. After a long hiatus spent hanging out only as avatars, the Web3 community gathered IRL for Samsung 837/NEXT during NFT.NYC week to discuss the blockchain, see beautiful art and dust off their social skills. We brought speakers and technology innovators from every corner of the metaverse to Samsung 837, our flagship space in the heart of New York’s Meatpacking District. Meeting for the first time ever, this diverse group of NFT artists, CEOs and visionaries showed us how they’re shaping the future with the metaverse. Here’s what we learned.

From metaverse to multiverse

To kick off the conversation, we took a dive into 837X in Decentraland1, Samsung’s original metaverse adventure. It made waves in the Web3 community with mythical dragons, winged wearables and digital dance parties. The minds behind the project discussed how they used the Polygon blockchain to bring the Samsung 837 experience to the wider world, and what comes next. “No matter where you are, you can experience the wonder of this brand,” said Michelle Crossan-Matos, Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung Electronics America. “Together, we are embarking on the next frontier of innovation.”

Samsung is expanding our metaverse into a multiverse that builds community across platforms—from live performances and virtual Galaxy Z Flip4 phones in Roblox’s Samsung Superstar Galaxy featuring Charli XCX to launching our own Discord server. For 837/NEXT, we raised the bar with a collaborative art experience in partnership with Nouns, an open-source generative art project. Visitors to 837X, Discord and 837 IRL could customize their own Noun avatar, then add it to a massive mixed-reality piece by rising Korean artist So Youn Lee. In the end, over 40,000 Nouns combined to create a beautiful NFT multiverse mosaic representing our community.

But adventures like this are just the beginning. Samsung brought together the next generation of creators and founders to give us a glimpse into a more connected and customizable future.

Expressing your digital self with The Fabricant

The Fabricant (@thefabricant) is a digital fashion house that’s been making the metaverse more stylish. Besides designing for haute couture brands, they provide a co-creation platform where anyone can make their own NFT clothing, and even trade it in the marketplace. Their creations aren't currently wearable in 837X, but that shouldn't stop you from designing your own fashions.

Founders Adriana Hoppenbrouwer and Amber Jae Slooten see their business in virtual clothing becoming more relevant as people seek to stand out in the metaverse. “It's important that when you connect in this virtual space that you feel like yourself,” Hoppenbrouwer said backstage after her 837/NEXT panel. “When I go into a metaverse and I don't find the NFT wearables that fit me, I don't feel like myself. And that's a big issue.”

Feeling like yourself could mean wearing giant flaming wings or boots made of dragon scales. If you can dream it, you can wear it with the help of the Fabricant. Their creative tools are making self-expression second nature in the metaverse. “Now you're able to create anything that you would want to be,” Slooten said when asked how NFTs allow people to present themselves in ways they can't in real life. “In these virtual spaces, you can develop your identity, change, experiment and then feel more confident going into physical reality again. And that is really healing as a human being.”

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Customizing virtual identity with Ready Player Me

Life in the metaverse isn't all fun and NFT games. Unless, of course, you’re Kaspar Tiri and Timmu Tõke, founders of Ready Player Me, a cross-game avatar platform.2 No more default avatar settings when you start a new game, or tediously tweaking sliders to get that nose just right. Ready Player Me lets players upload a selfie or create their character one time, then start inhabiting the virtual world with the same continuous identity.

“There are endless opportunities for people to be exactly what they want to be. There are no limits.”

—Kaspar Tiri, co-founder of Ready Player Me

Customizing one's digital identity is essential as more and more people interact in the metaverse. “To have major brands like Samsung getting into this space shows the maturity of the industry,” Tiri said. “It shows we've all been building to push the
future forward.”

Ready Player Me’s technology pushes the future forward by letting users be their true virtual selves—plus a bit more. “There are endless opportunities for people to be exactly what they want to be,” Tiri said. “There are no limits.”

Embracing inclusivity with Women Rise

Women Rise is an NFT collection with a mission to make the metaverse a more inclusive place. Created by visual artist Maliha Abidi, these 10,000 generative art NFTs showcase the incredible diversity and power of women through striking portraiture, while contributing to real-world causes like girls’ education. Each portrait was randomly generated from a set of hand-drawn features to create an entirely unique artwork, using Web3 blockchain technology to breathe new life into traditional media.

When first getting into the NFT scene and attending NFT events, Abidi felt a distinct lack of representation. “I never felt this was the space for me," she said. "It was just one category of people that I could see.” Still, she believed there was beauty and potential in the medium. So, inspired by her experiences and empowered by new tech, she launched the collection to much acclaim.

At 837/NEXT, audiences got to experience Women Rise not just on their phone or computer screen, but in a new way. These incredible images came to life on a three-story screen and in the NFT art gallery featuring Samsung’s latest TV made for displaying digital art: The Frame TV.3 Bold, beautiful and powered by the blockchain, Abidi’s work shows us what inclusivity looks like in the metaverse.

Empowering artists with Krista Kim and Spatial

The blockchain is creating a new creative economy, one that eliminates the need for intermediaries while empowering creators. With this development, artists that have traditionally been left out of the conversation are finding their voices and forming genuine communities around their work. Krista Kim, founder of the Techism movement and creator of the first digital house sold as an NFT, has seen this evolution firsthand. According to Kim, “You don't have to be a millionaire. All you need is ingenuity, drive and a plan.”

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“You don't have to be a millionaire. All you need is ingenuity, drive and a plan.”

—Krista Kim, Digital Artist

As a metaverse pioneer, Kim forged new ways to blend technology and art, using platforms like Spatial.io to create her famous Mars House. At 837/NEXT, Spatial and Kim reconnected to present new world-building tools that make Web3 creation and NFTs accessible to anyone with an interest. Now, freed from the constraints of the traditional art world, artists are empowered to be their authentic selves. “The power of art, whether you’re experiencing or creating it, is always about radical authenticity,” Kim said. “Social media and Web2 have been about passively consuming content, but now in Web3 we are actively co-creating. It truly is an empowering experience."

  • 1Not available on Mobile, and can only be accessed via Browser on a PC/Desktop.
  • 2Availability of partner apps and games may differ by region. See full list of partner apps and games at https://readyplayer.me/apps
  • 3Viewing NFTs on Frame TV requires download of the Nifty Gateway app, and the NFT must be uploaded into Nifty Gateway to access on Frame.

Ready to enter the metaverse?

Level up your Web3 experience with these innovations from Samsung — just add your imagination.

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