[DAO:5d2a4d7] Community-Led Support for 3D Artists - MESH + MVAW23

by 0x1e105bb213754519903788022b962fe2b9c4b263 (BayBackner)

Should the following $2,025 grant in the Social Media Content category be approved?

Abstract

32 leading 3D artists will be onboarded to DCL for MESH, the art fair for MESH, the art fair for 3D, metaverse and VR creators. Additional artists will require support as they onboard for Metaverse Art Week 2023.
We propose that a community-led team provides these artists with direct technical support via Discord. This support will fill the gaps in current creator documentation by running support ‘FAFO’ sessions, Q&As and creating video tutorials in direct response to artist questions.

All content will be published to Youtube to make the onboarding and creation process far easier for all artists. The goal is to accelerate adoption of DCL in the wider 3D art community.

Grant size

2,025 USD in DAI

Project duration

1 month

Beneficiary address

0xE1eEdbd1e08478707C794e7e8B1EE623f5fa6D64

Email address

bay@vueltta.com

Description

A grant to fund three active DCL members to provide tech & content support for international 3D artists. These artists will create new works in Decentraland for MESH, the art fair for 3D, metaverse and VR creators and for Metaverse Art Week 2023. Both will be held 19-23 July 2023.

MESH and MVAW23 are being produced this year by Vueltta, the arts collective behind DCL installations like The Labyrinth Effect (MVAW22) and Dear Vivienne (MVFW23).

Our goals for both MESH and MVAW23 are:

  • To fully onboard 30+ new high-level creators to DCL.
  • To showcase the creative opportunities available to artists in DCL.
  • To provide exceptional, new art experiences to the DCL community.
  • To position DCL as an innovator within the contemporary art world.

72 artists entered the MESH Open Call for applications and 100 drafted submissions. Now 32 will be selected for MESH and will be onboarded to DCL for the MESH art fair in July.

When we trialled the MESH concept with six 3D artists this May, it was clear that creators needed guidance in addition to the MESH Artist Guide and DCL Documentation. Without support, MESH artists may fail to overcome technical difficulties while creating for DCL - and therefore disengage with the platform.

In our own requests for support as creators, we have been enormously impressed by the Community Building Decentraland (CBD) Discord, especially the live FAFO sessions, rapid answers to our questions, and Youtube ‘How To’ videos on topics such as Worlds. We therefore feel that this community can best provide guidance and content for MESH and MVAW artists this year.

We hope to gain DAO backing so that we can fund three active community members for 10 hours per week (each) in a Mentor role. All guidance content created will be opened to the community and to future onboarding artists.

Guidance content created will include:

  • Twice weekly FAFO sessions (live technical support)
  • Youtube videos on recurring artist questions such as ‘How can I add URL links to my installation?’ ‘How can I stream video?’

In addition, the three MESH Mentors will commit the 10 hours each week to answer artists’ questions and address their concerns. They will answer these questions and compile both questions and answers into a public FAQ for creators.

The MESH channel and educational content will be hosted by the CBD Discord to aid everyone in the community in building DCL. However CBD will not be receiving any monetary compensation from the grant. The funding will go to the three individual community members for their month-long support and content creation roles.

We see this as a great test case, in this ‘The Year of The Creator’, to see how artists can use DCL to create engaging new works. DCL’s current documentation does not fully support this creativity - artists need additional help and guidance.

We also believe that the opportunity to engage with DCL community members via CDB will help artists appreciate how DCL differs from other virtual worlds. Our goal is that each MESH artist will have positive associations with DCL and become advocates for the platform in the 3D community, as we (Vueltta) have become.

Roadmap and milestones

13th June

  • 32 creators are selected for MESH. All begin to create their new DCL installations based on their proposals

14th June

  • CBD opens a dedicated Discord support channel for these creators, and all further artists onboarding for MVAW23

From 14th June

  • Eight x Weekly FAFO sessions run within the CDB Discord. The exact time of day and days of the week may vary depending on the time zones where the artists reside.
  • Four x Youtube videos on key artist questions
  • Daily Q&As via the Discord channel, responding to artists questions within hours as they develop their installations
    30 hours total per week on artist support and content

14th July

  • All installations are deployed for a preview at NFT Show Europe
  • The support program closes with a comprehensive FAQ of artist questions, which can potentially be used as a key for documentation improvements.

19th - 23rd July

  • MESH and MVAW23 are live

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

All-star team, absolutely yes!!

1 Like

Thank you so much for your support!

1 Like

Voting YES. Bay and the Vuelta team have proven to be successful, efficient organizers of their events. The impact, ROI and visibility they bring from their efforts outweigh the small cost.

This is also the most reasonable proposal I’ve seen in terms of budget, timeline & team! Thank you for your continued efforts and transparency.

I really appreciate your kind words and support Maryana. Thank you for everything you do in our community!

Of course you have my vote however, I have question and it is absolutely nothing personal, but I am wondering how the mentors were selected? Was there an open opportunity for all creators to have the opportunity to apply if they would have liked to participate. Myself, does not have the technical skills but I just think that it may have been a good thing to give opportunity to the community. Unless of course you did. I do see good reason as to the ones chosen, @Canessa and @Awedjob are constantly in the CBD and have the skills and they and @NikkiFuego are at least active in the DAO as well. Thank you.

1 Like

That’s a great question. I believe the CBD organizers took the idea of a support channel and team to an open community townhall, after I initially approached @AwedJob with the idea.

Awed had been working with Vueltta and I on our own technical support questions, so I asked him whether he’d be willing to consider a wider mentor role for MESH. This then became a discussion in CBD - both whether active members would be happy to support further (and which members would be interested in the role).

1 Like

Amazing crew! Bay has done amazing work organizing so many incredible events in Decentraland. A gem in this space a def an all star team and total YES from me:)

Community-Led Support for 3D Artists - MESH + MVAW23

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 92% 9,499,432 VP (81 votes)
  • No 7% 822,678 VP (2 votes)
  • Abstain 1% 1 VP (3 votes)

Community-Led Support for 3D Artists - MESH + MVAW23

This proposal has been ENACTED by a DAO Committee Member (0x88013d7ed946dd8292268a6ff69165a97a89a639)

Vesting Contract Address: 0x70a4d6506cdd008bfd6febf0f9795abbea5b5eac

This project was successfully completed. Sixty-six artists were involved in MESH / MVAW23, and thirty-three produced new installations for the MESH art fair. These artists were actively supported by the MESH Mentors, AwedJob, Nikki and Canessa, through a popular Discord channel in the CBD server, direct messages and via the FAFO sessions below.

Importantly, all three mentors have chosen to return the majority of this grant to the DAO. They kept just over $400 in payment for the project, reflecting the hours they spent actively working with artists, and have returned the remaining $1,625 to the DAO. :fire: :fire: :fire:

FAFO sessions recorded:

https://kick.com/video/3f52d710-646b-48f6-acfa-dcf854d7d58a
https://kick.com/video/7e826a69-d912-4175-a0c6-ec58986b7cb4
https://kick.com/video/e6645028-ac6b-45aa-accb-ac8b16692ee2
https://kick.com/video/5e0c0ff6-93a9-487d-8eee-23f452af96a4
https://kick.com/video/aee9fd57-b017-4b07-92ec-c6fbbc6ee683

These are now being released via the DAO Youtube channel. You can see the first here:

1 Like

In addition, we delivered five live Twitter Spaces with simultaneous in-world tours, including a special Space and Tour for the DAO community:

The total listenership for the four event twitter spaces was 535, with an average of more than 130+ attendees in each Space.

1 Like

You can read our Learnings and Recommendations report for this project here:

2 Likes