Building the Metaverse: Ana-Kata

Prize-Winning Virtual World / Interdimensional Hub

"The Renaissance of the Metaverse" was a large-scale competition launched by the company Mona in early 2022 to promote the creation of virtual worlds on their Metaverse platform. According to the company's website:

Mona is seeding the open metaverse through the creation and use of beautiful, unique 3D Spaces. We believe art is about the experience, and the experiences that will store the most value over time will be 3d, one-of-one, and dynamic which is why Mona Spaces are so unique.

Their platform employs a Unity template to allow 3d worlds to be built in any modeling software and imported. I submitted "Ana-Kata" and was selected as a recipient of a $3k Design Prize by a team of judges from Dezeen, the Museum of Crypto Art, and Async Art, among other institutions.

The space is built primarily in Rhinoceros 3d, using Nurbs modeling. Animation of the floating megaliths, subway, and gliders was performed both in Blender and Unity. Custom ambient audio was created in Ableton Live and Audacity. The design itself began with inspiration from a semi-abandoned highway stack exchange near where I grew up, and was abstracted into a "crossroads of the metaverse." It features several portals, pictured above, which can connect to other spaces, and can host virtual gatherings and NFT art as sculptures or images-- the submitted version included 7 of my Artifakts series of 3d models.

Although the 1/1 NFT that was created from the build files was purchased by Protocol Labs, the space can be explored for free from your browser. Follow the link below to experience Ana-Kata: