Tying up some loose ends

gm, a quick post to give an update on some stuff that has been discussed in the past, which may have been deprioritised or not been the focus recently.

Merchandise from giveaways

There are a couple of giveaways for which we are still working through sourcing the right supplier and shipping logistics. The delay to this was primarily caused by our original merchandise provider adjusting their minimum order quantity (MOQ) because of increasing costs in their supply chain. This meant we had to source a new one, order samples, and so on. We anticipate all shipments to have taken place by the end of October - just in time for Winter (for those in the Northern Hemisphere).

Metaverse galleries

Something we were working on aggressively at the start of the year was the metaverse gallery. The idea behind this was to provide members with a place to display their artwork that could be accessed through any device by visiting a URL (e.g. it was shareable on social media).

We progressed well (on tech that was outside of our area of expertise), but then we started talking to OnCyber and 6529 with regard to the Open Metaverse (OM) and realised that it was taking an interesting new direction that could compliment what we wanted to achieve, with a captive audience and community. We were accepted into their beta program. We're continuing to work alongside them, but at a low priority given the other focuses on our roadmap.

In the meantime we created /user pages on GEN.ART - meaning that you can share a URL (example) showcasing what GA pieces you have. You can also customise your profile, and there are some badges that have been integrated. This will continue to evolve and improve.

The community have also worked hard with Deca, creating a GEN.ART /sq for all of our members to join and share galleries and pieces from within their collections.

PFP

This was one of the first real community driven projects within GA, and it highlighted how 'management by consensus' is a slow process. There were plenty of differing views on what should make up a profile picture: the base character, the traits, style, inclusion, etc. We sourced a great pixel artist to help us bring this goal to fruition. Progress continues, and if this is a meaningful part of the community to you, we'd recommend checking out #pfp within the Discord, and simply start participating and providing feedback.

TEZ.ART

We wanted to make sure we had the brand, should we want to go the direction of expanding the platform to Tezos. Obviously there is a lot to consider, strategically, and the space moves at a rapid pace. This aspect is on hold at the moment, as we think carefully about what blockchain we want to expand our self-serve component to (amongst other considerations). Over the next few months there'll be plenty of healthy debate within the community as to the best direction.

3D Printing

Something that has always been an innovation that we wanted to pioneer was that of 3D printing. Giving algorithmically generated art a texture that gives it a bit of depth and provides a talking point when hosting guests in your home, if the artwork was hanging. This can get incredibly interesting for AI generated art that has an oil painting feel to it, like that of Ash White's Rorschach Meadow. We've done a couple of test prints with a lab, and continue to explore the commercial viability of this.

Enabling non-GA artwork to be printed via the Print Shop

The Print Shop has done incredibly well, and we are proud that were the first in the space to provide this functionality to our members, by partnering with one of the world's leading print studios. We're able to ship museum quality prints worldwide to members with a varying number of print methods and paper available. One thing that is on our roadmap is to expand the ability to print a piece of artwork beyond that of the GEN.ART collections. We wanted to do this to drive interest in our memberships as well as non-members to purchase pieces from the collections that are released. In order to use the Print Shop for a non-GA piece of artwork, you'd need to own either a membership of a GA piece of artwork. This is still on our dev roadmap, and when we have the spare time, it'll be implemented.

GIP #0003

We've talked about this at length in our Discord, but in essence we want to make sure that what we launch and deliver is within the boundaries of where we should be operating. We don't want to widen our regulatory duties or add additional burden. We are talking with advisors, on what has been proposed and voted on by the community, is actually able to be achieved within these constraints. We should hopefully have clarity on this in the next couple of weeks. And we're already beginning to strategise on an alternative which is similar, that is used by other projects in the space.

Closing words

Hopefully this provides a bit of clarity on some items that may have got lost or not been a primary focus.

Note: Any forward-looking product roadmap does not represent a commitment, guarantee, obligation, or promise to deliver any product or feature or to deliver any product or feature by any particular date.