Tendril Launches Elevated Experience of Art in the Metaverse
Tendril collaborated with AOI, Shoyu and CYPHER to create a high-fidelity immersive gallery and museum experience for digital art collectors. Built in Unreal Engine, rendered in real-time on the cloud, and streamed to the web browser on any device, the gallery offers collectors, the public, and artists the ability to experience and showcase digital art, in a natively digital way. See the case study here.
Insights & Process
At Tendril, we are design driven creators. Detail, craft, vision and experimentation lead the way, and we are always looking for ways to innovate. Tendril use technology to push creative boundaries. In recent years, we have been experimenting extensively with GPU rendering, real-time 3D and Unreal Engine.
Through its research, Tendril took notice of how much beautiful, exceptionally crafted NFT/digital artwork there is out there and practically no fitting ways to experience it. Tendril took on the creative challenge to design and build something for the art and artists that we love. Its mandate was to explore how far it could push the quality of an immersive, online museum for digital art — a love-letter to the likes of Naoshima Island or Storm King.
The project began with a prototype that we built in-house as an early proof of concept. The tea, created a minimal, brutalist architectural space leading to a series of portals that transport the user to different spaces. Tendril shared the prototype with a few colleagues and started putting out feelers. That led Tendril by chance to meet AOI, a truly passionate collector and amazing human being. Several months later, and after much iteration and testing, the immersive gallery went live with an impressive exhibition of NFTs from AOI’s collection, including several 3D sculptural works and an installation of Pong Red Arcade by Nolan Bushnell and Zai Ortiz.
The full list of artists featured are: Krista Kim, Grif, Eric Lefaure, Andrés Resinger, Lirona, Gavin Shapiro, Aphex Twin, Jake Fried, Laya Mathikshara, Jason Seife, XCOPY, Franksfriend, Fvckrender X Baeige, Andre Saraiva, Kid eight, Chewy Stoll, David OReilly, Raf Grasetti, Nolan Bushnell & Zai Ortiz, Tendril x Cypher.
Conceptually, the gallery was designed to be as serene and immersive as possible: blending past and future, nature and architecture, interior and exterior. It’s a space that you can and want to spend time in, exploring and discovering little surprises around each corner (there are a few Easter eggs to be discovered). As digital artists and creators ourselves, we are so excited to be able to provide a space for people to enjoy some of the most amazing digital art out there in a setting worthy of its craft and significance.
The Generative Sound & Music
The generative, ambient music system was designed to produce ever evolving sonic experience within the hub and gallery spaces. The inspiration came in part from the Kankyō Ongaku ambient movement of the early 1980s in Japan, and is directly inspired by the style and aesthetics of the architecture designed by the team at Tendril.
A Pentatonic scale was utilised, and source recordings were made in studio using analogue and digital hardware and software, creating the source elements for the procedural soundtrack. Four or more layers of ‘loops’ play in a random order based on sets of defined rules, generating a unique composition on each visit to the gallery
The daytime experience is in a major key, while the night mode is minor, shifting the mood slightly. In addition to musical phrases and textures, the sounds of wind, crickets, and drops of water become a part of the soundscape surrounding the gallery. The mood is intended to enhance the meditative quality that often occurs when experiencing art and architecture within a gallery setting.
