Blockchain

Heterosis: First-Ever Series Of Dynamic Artwork And Immersive Metaverse By Mat Collishaw & Danil Krivoruchko

heterosis

Mat Collishaw and Danil Krivoruchko, Heterosis, 2023 © Snark.art 

Snark. art and OG.Art announces Heterosis, a groundbreaking art collection, and immersive virtual experience brought to life by established conceptual artist Mat Collishaw and renowned digital artist Danil Krivoruchko.

Heterosis is a unique flower hybridization experience, in which participants can cultivate animated NFT flowers. This art project is composed of a collection of breedable, dynamic NFT flora that exist in the digital wallets of their respective owners, as well as collectively in an extraordinary metaverse ‘Greenhouse’ — a virtual rendition, post-apocalyptic space of London’s National Gallery. All the NFT flowers in the collection can be seen growing in their current forms among the abandoned, overgrown remnants of this historic building.

The idea of the project belongs to an outstanding artist Mat Collishaw, a key figure in the generation of British artists. He emerged from Goldsmiths’ College in the late 1980s and participated in the Freeze group show organized by Damien Hirst. And multidisciplinary digital artist Danil Krivoruchko was able to transform the idea of living flowers into digital. Based on innovative technology, the artwork invites collectors to participate in a venturous game and simultaneously question the fundamentals of the crypto space as a whole. Heterosis could not exist in any context other than blockchain, with its multiple participants bringing the artwork to fruition.

‘I wanted to create an artwork that could not exist in any context other than the metaverse. The digital network that forms the basis of Heterosis allows all the participants and components to come together, bringing the artwork to fruition. The fact that the work can evolve through time, depending on what the owner will or won’t do, was something very interesting for us.’ – Mat Collishaw

The mechanics of the drop are very similar to the one that was usually cultivated in previous OG.Art collections. Upon minting, each collector receives a Heterosis flower with unique DNA and a combination of traits. The NFTs primary look is the result of random luck. Each flower has a unique title generated by AI, using words from ‘The Library of Babel’ a short story by Jorge Luis Borges.

The owner of a Heterosis flower NFT can select any other flower in the collection as a second parent, and to hybridize, they must pay that second parent’s owner a fee. When the child flower is generated, the owner can decide to either keep it and replace their current flower with the new generation, or reject it, keeping the original flower. The second parent flower is not affected in any way by this hybridization. 

These mechanics, therefore, allow collectors to mutate their flowers and keep only the version they really like. Having NFTs from other collections in your wallet while hybridizing may also trigger mutation and unlock new materials, colors and patterns for your flower. 

‘This is the most complicated digital art collection I have ever worked on. Mat wanted Heterosis NFTs to be real flower species. A real-life reference, which is super complex on the one hand and so familiar to everyone on the other, meant that even the goal of achieving a photorealistic visual was technologically very complex.’ – Danil Krivoruchko

To Top

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This