Art in the Age of the Metaverse The Hartwig Art Foundation and the Rijksakademie announce the public launch of a multi - year collaboration entitled Art in the Age of the Metaverse with an international conference, to take place in Amsterdam on 11 & 12 March 2023. From being a space for new forms of participation and artistic production, to being the virtual interface of culture in the 21st century, the metaverse is already captivating the collective imagination and becoming the frontier of social in teraction, artistic production and cultural experience. As such, the impact of the metaverse on present and future culture cannot be underestimated. While tech industry - driven initiatives are spearheading the creation of this new space and shaping its rule s, with the risk of it becoming a branded monoculture, artists are imagining and creating new, virtual worlds that are more meaningful and inclusive. Deborah Mora for Memory Gems, 2022 The project Art in the Age of the Metaverse began in February 2022 with a six - month research period in the field conducted by Leonardo Dellanoce and Arthur Steiner, from Memory Gems, who are guiding both the project and the conference with Hartwig Art Foundation and the Rijksakademie. The joint aim of the Ha rtwig Art Foundation and the Rijksakademie is to examine the different aspects of contemporary arts in the metaverse in order to explore, prototype and create new support infrastructures for artists and creative practitioners working with and around metave rse technologies (AI, VR, AR, MR, game engines, blockchain and more). Art in the Age of the Metaverse works with artists, curators, creators, thinkers and technologists to explore and critically reflect on the metaverse and shape its future direction. What would new, distributed, physical and virtual spaces for contemporary art look like? How can we suppo rt new generations of artists whose needs and work methods are not accounted for by current art world models? How can we engage cultural audiences at the nexus of the virtual and the physical? The Rijksakademie and the Hartwig Art Foundation’s partnership will research how we can expand our ways of facilitating artists and new forms of art production. The international conference of Art in the Age of the Metaverse is taking place on 11 & 12 March 2023 at De Balie Amsterdam. It will present a wide range of voices from the field, discuss the project’s first findings and enable exchange and public input to kick - start the next steps for this multi - year research. For the latest updates please consult www.hartwiga rtfoundation.nl For press requests please contact: Rhiannon Pickles at Pickles PR rhiannon@picklespr.com | +31 (0)615 821202 Editors’ Notes The Hartwig Art Foundation is active in fostering and facilitating the production, presentation, communication and preservation of contemporary art for society at large in an effort to support the cultural ecosystem in the Netherlands and abroad. Art here includes all media of the visual arts, time - based arts and future art forms in the broadest sense that are related to the continued development of artistic expression and medi a. The production, presentation, mediation and preservation of art aims, in particular, at the sustainable promotion of a cultural environment for society as a whole, both in terms of infrastructures and people. The Hartwig Art Foundation is working toward s the establishment of a new museum for contemporary art in Amsterdam. The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam has been invested in artistic development and forward - thinking art for more than 150 years. Departing from the vision that artists p lay an essential role in an open and innovative society, the Rijksakademie creates the conditions for artists to thrive, and to keep reimagining the transformative power of art. Its residency programme houses an artist community that is highly internationa l, multi - disciplinary, experimental and critically engaged. Up to 50 artists are open to challenging themselves, and to working alongside positions that are vastly different from their own. Spending up to two years in residence, they enter into an open - end ed process where they can deepen their practices, and explore new territories, in and beyond the art field. Memory Gems (Leonardo Dellanoce and Arthur Steiner) explores art and culture at the nexus of the virtual and the physical through advice, strategy a nd curation. www.memorygems.art