OpenSea NFT project ‘Theirverse’ debuts in Taipei | News from Taiwan

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The NFT project “Theirverse” will debut at OneOff’s NFT International Art Fair in Taipei, which runs through Sunday (December 11).

OneOff’s NFT International Art Fair features famous NFT (non-fungible token) projects from RTFKT, BAYC and other Taiwanese digital artists. The three-day event takes place on the 16th and 17th floors of the W Hotel.

Yu En-li (庾恩利), the artistic director of “Theirverse,” aims to build a community for multi-gender artists on Metaverse. The project was ranked number one on the large NFT trading platform OpenSea in November after launching in July.

Yu is the son of Taiwanese singer Annie Yi (伊能靜) and her ex-husband Harlem Yu (庾澄慶). Based on Yu En-li’s social media account, the young artist cares about gender issues and rights for LGBTQ+ groups.

The New York University student is in Prague now, so her mother flew to Taipei and introduced the NFT project on Friday (December 9). As a member of the management team, Yi said she had doubts when her son presented this project to her.

Yi told Taiwan News that at first she did not trust Web3 technologies. But after discussions with Yu and his fellow artists, she realized that embossing NFTs is a way for Gen Z to express their ideas and their rebellious attitudes.

“Theirverse” contains 5,500 digital characters. (Screenshot, OpenSea website)

“Theirverse” includes 5,500 virtual objects from nine series, with names such as “Rainbow”, “Drag” and “Cyberpunk”. They were created by a team of “meta-artists”, artificial intelligence engineers and user interface designers, according to Yi.

In particular, the “Red Queen” from the series “Drag” was auctioned by Sotheby’s. It was sold to a museum at a price of NT$1.1 million (US$32,565), Yi said.

“Red Queen” (left) fetches over NT$1 million at auction. (Taiwan News, Lyla Liu photo)

Yi said the core idea behind blockchain, decentralization, challenges her way of looking at art. “Traditionally, if an artist or a singer, like myself, wants to become famous, we have to get recognition from missions or competitions. The whole journey is very centralized.”

The physical exhibition of “Theirverse” toured New York, London and Paris, and the last stop was Taipei. “My son grew up with media attention because of his celebrity parents. The success of ‘Theirverse’ is a way for him to prove himself with his own talent, as well as a way for young artists to express themselves,” according to Yi.

The 54-year-old mother said that she often argues with her son. She said their biggest struggle was when a company offered to buy “Theirverse,” but Yu strongly opposed the deal.

Yi said that the reason Yu gave her touched her deeply. “I want to show you that I can carry the project forward with my own ability,” said the young artist.

Yu added that NFTs should belong to the community, rather than letting creators hold them. Even if the artist is gone one day, the project will continue.

Yi revealed that in the future, she plans to promote Asian female artists’ NFT projects after “Theirverse.” She is discussing with Foresight Ventures about launching a series of programs focused on blockchain.

(Taiwan News, Lyla Liu reel)