New Canvas, a next-gen, XR media company that produces and publishes immersive content for digital-first audiences with an unapologetic focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, in collaboration with Polygon Studios, the team onboarding brands, developers, and creators to Web3 through investment, marketing, and community support, today announced the upcoming release of its Lustration-themed NFTs at Venice Immersive. Lustration is the XR studio’s award-winning, virtual reality series that was selected for La Biennale de Venizia 2022, one of the top A-list film festivals, as part of the Venice Immersive experience from September 1st-10th, 2022.
Lustration VR was written and directed by leading First Nations creative, Ryan Griffen, and based on Griffen’s graphic novel series of the same name, is one of the 44 projects from 19 countries selected for the Venice Immersive section of Venezia 79. New Canvas will screen all four episodes of the first season, in the ‘Best Of’ category at the prestigious festival. And now, for the first time, fans of the series will be able to purchase NFTs as collectible art for true fans of the series.
“As the creative language of immersive art and storytelling rapidly evolves, the business models around these new mediums is nascent and XR creators have limited routes to finance and for revenue generation. A whole new ecosystem around decentralised systems will offer a creators powerful new ways to build new relationships and financing opportunities with audiences and investors and the makers of Lustration are paving the way for other XR creators to explore new routes to sustainability,” said Liz Rosenthal, Programmer, Venice Immersive, Venice International Film Festival. “We’re excited to include this exceptional example of immersive storytelling in our ‘Best of Out of Competition’ section of Venice Immersive and looking forward to learning how Web3 systems can open the way for new business models.“
New Canvas is an XR media company established in December 2020 after being spun out of Start Beyond (previously Start VR) and helmed by new media veteran Nathan Anderson. Lustration is the first, award-winning project from New Canvas’ original content slate that’s been selected for festivals around the world this year, beginning with its world premiere at SXSW in March.
“We are very excited to be exploring the narrative metaverse and potential of Web 3. This token approach enables us to value creators and artists in ways they haven’t been before. It rewards them for their creative input and allows them to be truly valued for their craft and contributions, while providing an opportunity for creators to have commercial engagement throughout the entire lifespan of a project and beyond, which is something that normally doesn’t happen in the business of entertainment,” said Nathan Anderson, CEO of New Canvas and Executive Producer. “We are so grateful to Venice Immersive for Lustration’s selection and this festival is perfect backdrop to launch our new NFTs. We are even more inspired about this immersive space and look forward to continuing to push the boundaries of storytelling, audience engagement and creator equity, while helping to innovate with new technologies like blockchain that can integrate into entertainment experiences.”
The first phase of the token strategy for Lustration involves release of a limited set of one-to-one artworks from season one of the series. Each unique art piece features a character within a scene across all four episodes. Aside from their collectible element, each NFT will unlock access to digital comics of the series and exclusive community channels on New Canvas Discord. Future NFT phases will include entirely new characters that will be featured in ‘The Between’ in future incarnations. New Canvas is also minting a social token that is currently available for pre-sale and will be made available to the public in 2023. All NFT purchasers will be awarded Lustration tokens when they are released.
Polygon Studios helps onboard brands, developers, and creators to Web3 through investment, marketing, and community support. The team already works with numerous high-profile brands, including Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, and Adidas, as well as Meta, Macy’s, DraftKings and Clinique.
“Our main goal is to increase scalability and build energy-efficient projects in the metaverse that can offer users infinitely more ways to communicate and interact with experiences that they value in the virtual world and each other. Unique digital assets such as NFTs can bestow users with verifiable digital ownership over their digital items in the metaverse, while ensuring long-term engagement and satisfaction for all,” said Brian Trunzo, Metaverse Lead at Polygon Studios. “Lustration is a fresh approach to immersive entertainment that includes a focus on sophisticated storytelling, something we have not seen as much yet in the Web3 space. We look forward to working together with New Canvas as they roll out their token strategy.”
Lustration is an award-winning, multi-platform property VR series that allows audiences to step into this animated world and be an active part of the experience. The fantasy, noir style story is set in the afterlife that is ultimately about the power of knowledge and how damaging misinformation can be to not only ourselves but also the communities that we live in. Each episode is told from a different character’s perspective and can be experienced from different vantage points, allowing the audience to build their own picture of the characters, the world and ultimately the story.
About Polygon Studios
Polygon Studios aims to be the home of the most popular blockchain projects in the world. The Polygon Studios team is focused on supporting developers building decentralized apps on Polygon by providing Web2 and Web3 teams with a suite of services such as developer support, partnership, strategy, go-to-market, and technical integrations. Polygon Studios supports projects from OpenSea to Prada, from Adidas to Draft Kings and Decentral Games to Ubisoft.
ABOUT NEW CANVAS
New Canvas is a next-gen, media company established in December 2020 with a slate of new projects in development. The company produces and publishes story-driven entertainment for breakthrough platforms (i.e. the metaverse, Web3 & beyond) with blockchain-empowered communities that engage fans and generate value for creators and the content that we co-create. New Canvas is focused on developing content and formats to drive mainstream adoption of immersive media and is a founding member of the Byron Bay XR Collective. We honour Australia’s First Nations Peoples, acknowledging the Arakwal, the traditional custodians of the Bundjalung Country, on which New Canvas was founded.
Photo by canmandawe on Unsplash
Read other stories: Fireblocks Web3 Engine Expands with Solana DeFi and dApps Support
