mat collishaw on breeding flowers in the metaverse and his dynamic NFT collection

heterosis: a series of immersive, gamified metaverse experiences

From rendering stunning kinetic sculptures, to capturing illusory photographs, to experimenting with the technologies of the day, British multimedia artist Mat Collishaw has long explored innovative, interdisciplinary creative expression. The artist’s latest venture sees him make his first mark on the Web3 sphere with Heterosis – a first-of-its-kind series of dynamic, digital metaverse experiences. Interactive and immersive, the project has been developed using new technology and game mechanics and built on a unique collaborative digital network to unlock new levels of participation and co-creation on the blockchain. Hosted on the OG.Art platform, Heterosis invites collectors to participate in a daring game to hybridize, grow and collect their own custom animated flowers. Each product shapes an ever-growing collection of dynamic NFTs which combines genetic algorithms with blockchain technology to enable the hybridization of mutable digital flowers.

The Heterosis experience is set in a hyper-realistic, post-apocalyptic emulation of London’s National Gallery called the Greenhouse. A centralized immersive, social and persistent digital environment, the Metaverse Garden invites collectors to adopt an avatar, roam the surreal environment and interact with other participants as they read all the Heterosis flowers in their current iteration and observe their renderings unfold in real time in Sky.

Ahead of the gathering on 8 March 2023, designboom spoke to Food Collishaw to uncover more about the process, his experiences working in the digital realm, and his insight into the state of the NFT boom.

all images © Snark.art | by Mat Collishaw and Danil Krivoruchko for Heterosis, 2023

interview with mat collishaw

designboom (DB): To begin with, how did the Heterosis project and the collaboration come about?

Mat Collishaw (MC): I had been developing an idea for a collection with a centralized, social, persistent, immersive environment for some time. Then I started working on an idea I had about floriculture.

The spike in NFT prices has often been compared to the speculative bubble that triggered Tulip Mania in the 17th century, and I read several books on the subject. The more I read, the more interesting and stimulating the parallels and differences with NFT collection became.

Several mechanics were introduced to our project during many long working sessions with Antoine from El Gabal. I was also in touch with Nadia Taiga from Snark.art who was about to release a dynamic collection with Michael Joo, an old friend. Michael co-built OG:Crystals Danil Krivoruchko who did a fantastic job building the collection. All these elements merged in the project we are about to launch at OG.Art.

DB: How did you further develop this concept of “breeding” hyper-realistic flowers that are NFTs in a virtual greenhouse, somewhat recreating a virtual flower market?

MC: I have been making artwork for years with flowers, they are a practical vehicle for ideas plus they are exquisite to look at and intriguing complex organisms. My grandfather hybridized flowers for a living, so I grew up vaguely aware that it was a rewarding profession. I am fascinated by the mystery involved in combining different flowers to produce a hybrid offspring. The resulting flowers are always a combination of informed choice and random occurrence.

It occurred to me that computer code could simulate genetic code, and participants could attempt to engineer their flowers with hidden traits or recessive genes as the element of chance. It’s really exciting to see these mutations emerge. I like the idea that the artwork is a multi-layered concept and within the framework, established collectors can become participants.

Creating the centralized greenhouse room was always part of the plan, as it provides an engaging and innovative overview of the entire flower collection, while also providing the opportunity to compare new digital media with older forms of art production (oil painting) that feature in our recreation of The National Gallery.

DB: An intriguing comparison has been drawn between the Tulip craze and today’s modern NFT marketplace. Can you elaborate more on this parallel and its implications in today’s context?

MC: The big innovation with NFTs seems to be the ability to guarantee ownership of a volatile asset which is something tulip breeders struggled with. Flowers are by their nature seasonal, but transactions in the 17th century occurred all year round, mostly when there were no flowers in sight. This meant that there was often a time interval between a transaction and a payment. Understandably, a significant number of collectors did not want to pay the high prices they had agreed upon when prices rose in 1637, and since they did not pay immediately, many reneged on the deal, leading to a breakdown in confidence. in this otherwise very reliable community. This was the real damage done after the market crash – it seems that all the collectors were reasonably wealthy, so no one was thrown out on the street, but the tight network between them was destroyed.

Fortunately, blockchain eliminates this danger. It is a perfect solution for the ownership and trading of volatile assets. Incidentally, collectors continued to buy and sell tulips for decades after the crash, the rise in prices eliminated some of the more capricious speculation and trade resumed as normal.

DB: Regarding the reproduction of the flowers and their hybridization process, what elements affect how each flower is grown? And how did you capture this digitally at each stage of growth?

MC: Essentially, a collector can choose to breed their flower with any other flower in the collection. They can then inherit the traits of the chosen flower to enhance their own flower’s beauty, rarity or value. The original flower then mutates into a new one, although it is easily possible to reverse this process. No new NFTs are generated, so the collection always stays the same size, unlike for example cryptocat, where the volume increases exponentially by breeding. After some breeding, collectors can also unlock new flower species, and their flower will then switch to this new rarer species. Again, this process can be reversed.

All collectors will set their own price for other collectors to breed with their flower, so if a collector has a particularly rare flower trait, they may demand a higher price than a collector with a flower with more common traits. Features include everything you’d find on a real flower: number of petals, length of petals, pointiness of petals, curvature, edge sharpness or frillness, color, patterns, etc. Then there are also special features taken from processes I’ve used in previous artworks: ghostly transparent petals , ultraviolet, animal skin etc.

DB: Can you tell us about the gamification element of this art project?

MC: The artwork is the entire project and we have implemented certain “game” mechanics in it on the OG.Art platform. As an artist, I am fascinated by how we attribute the idea of ​​beauty. In the market – and this is certainly something that happened with tulip collecting – a flower is considered beautiful until the market is saturated with that particular flower. So when a newer, rarer flower appears, this new flower is considered more beautiful. The rarer the asset, the more beautiful and valuable it appears to be. These are market forces that dictate what is considered beautiful, which is perverse, yet understandable. I’m very interested in finding out how this plays out in the collection we’ve built.

This is a nice quote from Joost van Ravelingen, a botanist and poet in 1618: “Here in this country people value most the flaming, winged, spotted, jagged, shredded, and most variegated counts for most, and those that are most valued are not the fairest or the finest, but those that are the rarest to find; or belonging to a master, who may hold them in high price or value.’

DB: Can you share more about the project’s co-creation and community building aspects and goals?

MC: Nadia Taiga first invited me to work with Snark.art on a collection. Vlad Rafeev was already a Snark.art collaborator and team member and has been great at making the whole project work, making it a chain, etc. Danil Krivoruchko has done an outstanding job not only creating convincing and beautiful flowers, but building them in a way that they can mutate and evolve on the fly, which is no easy task. Antoine Cardon has developed the centralized greenhouse area which was also a big challenge. Nik Taylor helped build the convincing recreation of the National Gallery. Vlad, Danil and Antoine were mainly responsible for the various mechanics we introduced. We have had weekly, bi-weekly and daily meetings to keep everyone updated and in sync. There are quite a few other invaluable players on the team, but I’m not sure how much more I should go into!

We would like the community to participate in not only the flower’s development, but in creating a fruitful arena where collectors can contribute feedback, criticism and ideas to potentially improve and refine the project. We’re planning some exquisite IRL collector rewards, plus talks and chats in the greenhouse with members of the Heterosis team.

The community is absolutely central since the collection needs commitment to develop, the flowers are not dynamic if fewer participants are involved. The interface for the project is on the OG.Art platform.

DB: You’ve worked with different mediums in the past – traditional art, zoetropes, photography and even integrating technology like VR. How did your practice evolve to cross the physical and digital realms?

MC: Digital media permeates every piece of art I create. Even if the final work is an oil painting, I will have generated or manipulated the original image using some kind of software. I like making works in the physical world, I like the fact that people have to navigate a concrete object and to do it in their own time with some agency. Being physically in front of a piece of art forces the viewer to traverse it in a way that hopefully stimulates thought of some kind.

When I created my VR installation ‘Thresholds’, I created a spatial scale that corresponds to everything you saw in the headset. The entire room used passive haptics. It was a strange and eerie thing to experience.

DB: You’ve mentioned before that you’re not that “techy”. Has this project and your experiences with Web3 changed your opinion at all?

MC: I’m struggling to understand a lot of what’s going on under the hood since I have no knowledge of coding. Fortunately, I have several acquaintances who are! That’s why I’m not too alarmed by it. I enjoy learning and being part of a team that pushes the boundaries of what is technically possible, while hoping to maintain conceptual integrity.