Summary
Pilgrimage is a location-based Augmented Reality artwork comprising of a
series of 9 artworks (3D models), which were distributed across 9 locations
around the globe. These 9 models could be unlocked only by travelling to the
place and opening
https://nurecas.github.io/pilgrimage
. The first person to reach a location, unlock a model and share the video of
the model was rewarded with the NFT token of that artwork.
Pilgrimage - a story of the intelligence who created humanity
Millions of years ago a race existed called the "M" (pronounced 'mmm') on
Earth. They evolved over many years and transcended variance of time and
space. They reached a stage of evolution where all of time and space was
accessible instantly to them. This is when they invested in simulations and
creating a new type of intelligence. At first, these were systems to help the
M's work. But this intelligence evolved into what later became known as
humankind. It so happened that the intelligence progressed high enough to
replace the M's on Earth, while the M's transcended completely into another
dimension.
Remnants of the M's are still seen in humankind. For example, humans were
created in a form similar to that of the M's. Also, the sound that humans can
make with their mouths closed, is the M sound. The interesting thing is that
millions of years later, because of the fractal nature of the
universe, humanity is in the verge of creating "artificial intelligence" which
could potentially become sentient and replace them, just like how the M's were
replaced by humans.
Although in the alternate dimension, some of the M's still stay back at the
key energy centres of the earth. Across 9 locations around the globe, these
energy centres have, over the years, evolved into prime cultural centres on
Earth.
And now it is up to us to travel to these centres to meet them and understand
and learn from the secrets of the past.
The Map
The Artwork
The Pilgrimage was a journey to each of the 9 locations above to find
the corresponding M and to collect the artwork (figurines) representing
the M. These artworks were
3D models
which could be accessed only by going to the locations (details below)
Collecting
The artwork consisted of
9 NFTs of the 3D models
and
one Async.Art artwork.
NFTs of the 3D models:
Anyone who reached one of the above locations, and opened
https://nurecas.github.io/pilgrimage
from a phone was able to see the corresponding 3D model of the M of that
location.
Alternately there is an "AR button" on the bottom right of the page, which
helped view the 3d model in AR.
The 9 models were
Free
to collect on a first come first serve basis. That is, the first person to
reach a location would get the NFT of the model of that location. All they
had to do was :
1) Get within 2km of the location
3) Either :
a)
Pose the model in AR and take a video such that the monument of the location
and the 3d model is shown in the video;
or :
b)
If no AR, take a video from another device such that the monument and the
phone displaying the 3d model are recorded
4) Share the video with me (Contact me on Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/@fabinrasheed)
Async.Art artwork:
Async.Art is a platform where digital artwork could be separated into visual
layers and could be collected. Apart from the 9 NFT's, the main artwork was
hosted on the Async.Art platform. The Master of which had the reference to the
source code, all 9 3D models and other assets in the artwork. There was also a
layer which was representative of the models. When each model is unlocked, the
layer was switched to show which model was unlocked. Thus, in Async, there
was one Master and one Layer.
Main NFT of Pilgrimage on Async.Art :
https://async.art/art/master/0xb6dae651468e9593e4581705a09c10a76ac1e0c8-608
Artist's note :
I made this artwork since I could not travel due to the pandemic situation. I
wanted my art to travel instead of me. I completely understand that not
everyone would be able to travel and collect the 9 NFTs, and only the people
closest to these locations could immediately get it. But beyond the 9 NFTs,
this artwork will live forever in these locations and some day, when
circumstances are better, if you get to travel to these locations, the art
will always be there for you to view and enjoy.
And what happened - The collection story
How people from the world over coordinated and collected
Within the first 2 weeks of the release of the artwork, 8 models out of 9 were
collected. People not only were enthusiastic to collect but coordinated with
others continents apart for collecting. It was such an overwhelming
experience. Some images below:
All of the M's have been collected from the Museum of Modern Art (New York),
the Louvre (Paris), Hagia Sofia (Istanbul), Monumento a la Revolucion (Mexico
City), Sydney Tower Eye (Sydney), Jantar Mantar (India), National Arts Theatre
(Lagos), Christ the Redeemer Statue (Rio de Janeiro) and
from Todai-ji Temple (Nara).
The Pilgrimage journey concluded with the collection from Nara, Japan.
Collection Videos
Following are the collection videos in Augmented Reality
The Art Creation
Sketches, process, prototyping, collaterals
It all started when I thought of leaving some notes for my fiancé to
read along the route of her daily morning walk. I wanted to see if
there was any tool that could do the same. I found the geolocation ai
which can find the location of a person in web and also the
model-viewer which can view a 3D model in AR or on screen. I drafted a
quick code and shared it with her to check it out. It worked and she
had a great time reading all the notes along her route.
I then decided to create a globally distributed artwork out of it. I
had no idea how it will turn out. I started by making sketches of model
I had in mind. I wanted to keep the model humanoid, unisex (as
far as possible), and out of the world. I quickly converged on the
following designs:
I then brought the sketch into Blender and sculpted the model out of
it, made a rig and made 9 poses out of it. I also made the material
variations and colours. Each pose and colour set had a personal meaning
to me.
The fun part was coding. The code was surprisingly one of the smallest
codes that I have written, thanks to the libraries. But testing them
involved me taking my motorbike and travelling several kilometres and
coming back. I did this a few times before finalising the code. The
locations around the world were chosen based on cultural history. I
knew there were many other beautiful sites around the world, but this
was more of a personal choice based on my readings.
Finally made some renders of the models in Adobe Dimension for
marketing and deployed it in GitHub.
The Auction
The artwork was auctioned on 23rd October 2020 in the Async.art
platform
Some Technical Guidelines on Collection
1. Although AR mode is not mandatory, try testing the AR
mode with the logo model which loads by default. Make sure you
are comfortable with it before going to the location.
2. To place an AR model, make sure you point and move your
camera at non-reflective surfaces.
3. This works best and has only been tested with the Chrome
browser on iPhones, iPads and Android phones.
4. AR supported iOS phones can be found
here
and Android phones here.
5. Please make sure your browser has access to location services
in your phone. For iOS check
this link
and for Android
this link
. Also make sure the location is correctly locked - one way to
check is to open Google Maps / Apple Maps. If none of these
works to lock location, restarting the phone might help.
6. It is easy to spoof a location on a device. And that is why I
had to make sure there is a video verification also done.
7. Upon first-unlocking and sharing the video, I will do a
wallet transfer of the NFT to the address provided by the
person.