AT THE DENVER PAVILIONS, YOU’LL FIND A DISRUPTIVE, IMMERSIVE ART INSTALLATION LIKE NONE OTHER.
The Mile High City’s latest immersive art experience, Verse is presented by Non Plus Ultra—the same outfit that brought The Art of Banksy to Denver last spring—in association with VR company Fever. PHOTO COURTESY OF VERSE
LOOK INSIDE THE DOORS of Verse: The Art of the Future (versenftcryptoart.com/denver), and you’ll see people wearing visored headsets, hands outstretched as if to touch some shimmering, undulating mirage that you can’t see. But they can. Verse is a new augmented reality NFT gallery where the art can only be viewed in a metaversal landscape via Microsoft HoloLens 2 headsets powered by Enklu, an augmented reality platform. The gallery’s blank walls come to life in the form of holograms as you move around the space unlocking different rooms. Works from NFT creators like Bored Ape Yacht Club, Android Jones and Chris Dyer miraculously appear in the view.
PHOTO BY ANYA OLSSON
Some of the art is displayed in virtual frames, but other pieces float in the air: a giant green dragon, a smack of jellyfish, a ballerina on pointe. It’s a decidedly new way to engage with art, and we can confirm—it’s enchanting and mesmerizing. As you travel through the gallery, you may also find dragon eggs and a baby dragon chittering in your ear. Repeat what he tells you to say (“I am unstoppable!” for one), and suddenly you can write in neon chalk in the air or manipulate a golden ball in your palm like magic.
With each curation, Verse will partner with collectives it calls “good for humanity.” With the Denver exhibit, it’s collaborating with AvaTree, an NFT collection that sequesters carbon IRL (in real life, that is).
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