- Date
- 10 NOVEMBER 2022
- Author
- ZARINA IZY
- Image by
- ZARINA IZY / VANDALO RUINS
- Categories
- Aesthetics
Are NFTs dead? Let’s find out with Vandalo Ruins
Naples hosted "NFTs Are Dead" - a cultural Web 3.0 event, bringing together people from all around Europe to discuss the future of crypto-related art and its implications on society and industries. The event included two spaces: Punto Zero Valeria Apicella, where panels and workshops were held and another that housed an exhibition was the historical Galleria Borbonica, where art pieces were projected on the walls of the archaeological museum, creating a hyper-immersive experience. The creator of "NFT funerals" Luca Martinelli, a founder of Vandalo Ruins and creative director of Sewer Nation, brought up a lately popular thought that NFTs are dead into the whole concept for the event.
Before getting to the exhibit itself, which was a highlight of the conference, let's first take a look at some of the panels featuring celebrities from the digital and crypto worlds who shared their knowledge with visitors.
It's no secret that the digital world is growing and establishing itself at a rapid pace. At the panel "From the Community to Nation," speakers gathered at one stage to share their insights on how they've managed not only to survive but thrive in an ever-changing industry.
The panelists included Francesco Vinceti - a business developer at Somnium Space, Riccardo Perillo - CEO of the crypto gallery, Alessandro Raboni - head of growth at Transak and co-founder of Web3 Milano, Barbara Tosti - a member of Power Dada and SuperRare artist, Robness - legendary crypto expressionist and RarePepe OG since 2016 and others. The name of the panel speaks for itself, each speaker shared insights they've had working at companies related to DeFi, metaverse, DAO and art curation. All professional communities could pass their knowledge and know-how to the wider audience, creating a "nation" of aware and knowledgeable members who set for themselves high standards of new Web 3.0. ethics, which keeps humanity and culture at the forefront.
"Calling a creator as an NFT artist is the same as calling a singer an MP3 musician" - says Alberto Finadri, co-founder of Spacefarm.
The second day of the conference featured a panel discussion on "Fashion and Design in the digital era". This was an enlightening look at how fashion has been affected by technology and new media, as well as what is arguably its most innovative period.
The talk was opened by IZY studio - a phygital brand and winner of several awards in digital fashion. A founder of a company has shared data and analysis of the market—predictions that companies such as Accenture and McKinsey have made about the future state of the metaverse by 2030. From her speech, it was clear that in the future digital retail would be more lucrative than physical product sales and how IZY Studio, a formerly physical brand, is pushing the boundaries of possibilities, as pioneers of the field and how brands can establish a strong presence in this era.
Maison DAO, represented by Simon Mikolajczyk and Elena Nazaroff, demonstrated how digitalization can help a company in logistics and brand awareness by participating at the event in a fully virtual presence from the metaverse! They not only showcased beautiful works of their members by walking through a virtual gallery but also donned themselves digital-native designers—such as Yimeng Yu.
Svetlana Yakunina, a founder of the female-led fashion house HONEY, added to statistics by highlighting how much time people already spend in virtual worlds—characteristic of that audience and potential growth of demand for non-physical products.
Following her, Claudia Runcino, adds to the conversation by looking at how artificial intelligence can impact fashion and shares research on this topic. It is another big industry in its own right, with many companies from different fields creating custom codes—using machine learning algorithms specifically designed for their business—in order to scale up and improve efficiency.
A digital-native brand KRWN studio spoke about the importance of marketing and brand awareness, which are playing a crucial role in their conversation with customers and how digitalisation opens possibilities for young brands to enter the professional field. Despite this, it can help a polluting industry like fashion to become sustainable which is one of the concerns of Gen Z and this influences their decisions on supporting one company or another.
Now, as promised, let's dive into the historical NFT exhibition, which projected the most contemporary direction of the art on the walls of the archaeological museum - Galleria Borbonica, where D. A. N. T. E. (Decentralized Autonomous Null-address Traveling Entity) was guiding guests through masterpieces from Robness, Andrea Chiampo, Waro, CryptoPunks, RarePepe, Bizzarro, Andrea Crepsi and others.