Education was a core value of my upbringing and something I will continue to champion well into adulthood. In fact, the first thing I ever co-founded was a non-profit focused on life skills through the arts. We brought professionals from New York City to townships and communities in South Africa for intensive hands-on workshops, diving deep into valuable concepts and frameworks that could be applied across numerous industries and occupations. One student (who I taught to write a screenplay on a napkin during a lunch break), is now a Script Coordinator at Netflix.
While the internet democratizes access to information, it also fuels isolation. As our use of technology increases, I believe IRL collaboration and experimentation will be more important than ever. There is a nuance to humanity and bespoke learning environments and experiences are some of the most powerful ways to unlock this collective energy.
There is much to look forward to in 2024, but I thought it made sense to start with the end of Q1 and talk about Metaversité, which will take place in Stockholm this spring.
The first edition of Metaversité took place in Mexico City (and online) in 2022. It was a first of its kind creative hackathon, pairing creative and technical minds together. In the next edition it will have a sharp focus, specifically around AI and the creative industries.
There are many reasons why we chose Stockholm for the next edition. It is a city that upholds many of our ideals when it come to education and society, egalitarian and filled with diversity of people and thought.
Sweden is ranked #2 in the 2023 Global Innovation Index
Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm will have the world's first major in content engineering , starting in 2024.
Sweden is a global powerhouse when it comes to music, not to mention producer/songwriter Max Martin who has had 25 #1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100.
Sweden even has its own GPT-SW3, a large-scale generative language model for the Swedish language.
It is clear there are many camps in the The Great AI Debate, many with valid points and fears. Fear of AGI, fear of plagarism, fear of human devaluation. But approaching problems from a place of curiousity can turn them into mere challenges. As a creative, this feels like the most natural way. The artist journey is filled with learning new skills, refining old skills, and building things that don't yet exist. And Stockholm is a place that is both forever curious and forever creative.
At the start of 2024, I can truly say that AI is fuelling me to not only put out work in the world in new ways, but also help others unpack what might be possible when leveraging this technology. Generative AI allows me to use my art and cinema knowledge and creative ideas in a new way that enhances the stories I'm trying to tell.
Now that we've covered a bit of why Sweden, let's talk about...
During Metaveristé, we want to dive deeper than speeches and panels, and offer a space for creatives to ask questions, experiment, and get a bit messy. We want to tackle storytelling, show how to build custom assistants, and dive into coding for creatives.
We also want to explore what co-creation between artists and audiences look like in a live stream format. Now that we have a good grasp of developing custom generation tools, the next question is how could these create a dynamic experience for people that can not be present physically?
Metaversité is part of Season 3 at Artizen Fund - a new match fund powering innovation. Two of the tools we will utiliize as a part of this are Console and Mona.
As we think of what an "online version" of Metaversité looks like, we also have to ask the question, what would someone want to discover on the internet when it comes to AI and the creative industries. How can we offer a fresh perspective to such a robust narrative?
Resources are always valuable and we will use Console to provide this. As far as the possibilities within a virtual space we are exploring real-world concepts, specifically in the realm of art and music.
Our ultimate goal is to provide a public good (in the spirit of Funding the Commons) that pushes boundaries by gathering bright and curious minds together to examine and explore the new frontier of artificial intelligence. We will pair this with a unique experiential offering.
We've come up with three versions of Metaversité: Stockholm - S (small), M (medium) and L (large). In small size it will be a series of hands-on workshops paired with an intimate live music experience featuring local talent +audience co-creation. In size L, we will showcase what's possible at the intersection of human innovation and artificial intelligence with a host of local partners.
Our goal is for 200 artifacts to be collected before the Artizen Season closes. This will increase our portion of the match fund and ensure we deliver free, dynamic, and innovative programming this Spring. They are .01 ETH and available here. You can also purchase with card for 75 (USD) or more here (please mention Metaversité on the payment page. Feel free also to reach out about the project if you want to learn more or get involved. And check out the other amazing projects this season.
How are you starting of this year? What are your thoughts on AI in the Creative Industries? Would love to hear your thoughts.
See you next week with an update of our co-lead 2023 State of Creative AI & Video Report.
Happy New Year ️
Sean Bradford - Founder, ORIGIN STØRIES
