The Augmented Age
A multi-disciplinary art and technology project.
Abstract
At its core, The Augmented Age is a multi-disciplinary art and technology project. The reason for this project is because humanity is on the cusp of the next great era: The Augmented Age.
An era where humans and machines collaborate to achieve more.
Over time, great minds have built by standing on the shoulders of giants. With AI, it’s like humans are standing on the shoulders of machine giants—who are getting exponentially taller.
Throughout history, art has been the best medium for communicating various expressions. NFTs are a peculiar case of having the world of art and technology intertwined, which led us to exploring avenues different than what we know of traditional art.
This multidisciplinary project explores and forces you to redesign and re-imagine the current social, economic, and political dynamics in our world.
Through this project’s interactive experience, we wish no more than to show you that there will come a time where we will have no choice than to live with this technology.
For a compelling vision to become reality, it requires grit, passion, and more importantly hard work, especially in a field as nascent as NFTs.
We’re giving it our all and want you to be part of this journey.
This document lays out the initial philosophical underpinnings and economic mechanisms of The Augmented Age.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
1.1 Rationale
1.2 History - Architecture
2.1 The Founder Collection
2.2 The Augmentation Collection
2.3 The Companion Collection
2.4 The Hub - The Augmented Age and Future Plans
3.1 Physical World
3.2 Summary
1. Introduction
1.1 Rationale
The fast adoption of blockchain technology has seen new innovations happening at a rapid pace.
One of which happened to be an extremely transformative one: NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
1.2 History
Ethereum was launched in August 2015 with the intention of becoming the "global computer", thanks to a novelty: the "smarts contracts". They are described as being a self-executing contract with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code. These programs allow you to create just about any application you want on the Ethereum blockchain in a decentralized way.
This gave birth to the first project that could be associated with the notion of NFT on Ethereum: Etheria (2015). The project proposed a virtual world where you could buy pieces of land and build what you want on it by paying with ether. These unique pieces of land were precursors to projects like Cryptovoxels and Decentraland.
Before we go any further, you must know that NFT stands for “Non-Fungible” tokens.
Non fungible means that it’s unique and cannot be interchanged for another asset of its kind.
NFTs are a unit of data stored on the blockchain. The token serves as a representation of real assets such as paintings, music files, or digital art. As a matter of fact, NFTs provide a certificate of authenticity or ownership of a specific asset.
After Etheria, it took a while after that to see real NFT projects on Ethereum. For a while, from 2016 to 2017, the platform was mainly considered to be playground for ICOs. We saw the huge influx of new projects being built on the Ethereum ecosystem in hopes of bringing mass adoption. However, as time went by, very few delivered on their roadmap promises and hype died down very fast as we entered what we call “crypto winter” at the start of 2018 up until early 2020. While most left the blockchain ecosystem disappointed, serious investors and blockchain enthusiasts were still looking for the next big thing.
The Cryptopunks project, in the summer of 2017, marked a first turning point in NFT history by offering 10,000 all unique characters. These pixelated punks are now considered one of the first real NFTs on Ethereum.
It’s an understatement to say that they started a big wave of NFT projects.
What people saw with Cryptopunks was the creation of a new creator’s economy. An economy where creators own every aspect of their creation (revenue, royalty, art, copyrights, etc).
Ethereum: from the ERC20 token to the ERC721
The first years of Ethereum were mainly dedicated to the creation of fungible tokens for ICOs and decentralized applications, grouped under a standard: the ERC20.
But the emergence of projects requiring a non-fungible token/asset also prompted thinking about creating a new standard for this type of object.
In September 2017, Dieter Shirley proposed a new ERC standard for a type of token he called "non-fungible tokens" or "NFTs."
This new standard started being used from December 2017 by its creator for the game he co-created: CryptoKitties. A project which also saw huge success.
Fast forward to 2018, many projects using NFTs have developed on Ethereum, on various domains, ranging from video games to art and virtual worlds.
All these NFTs can be exchanged, but it remains complex if one must connect to a marketplace specific to the NFT itself. This is where the Opensea marketplace (Dec 2017), the first of its kind and leader in the sector, comes in and allows anyone to list their NFTs and buy them.
Opensea offered a simplicity that has enabled democratization by giving greater liquidity and visibility to these unique digital objects.
The application of NFTs are huge and other areas of interests are cinema, music, advertising etc.
Where does The Augmented Age fit into all of this?
As mentioned earlier, we are rapidly transitioning into a society that will have technology integrated into every aspect of our daily lives. It started with the internet and we’re now at the stage where blockchains and artificial intelligence are the latest technological innovations. Many people outside and inside the space are not fully understanding the implications that these advancements are having on our society.
We’ve decided that the best way to make them understand would be to have them directly interact with that technology and participate in the ecosystem.
We’ve entered an era where NFTs have evolved beyond 10K pfps and generative projects. We’re at a point where people are looking for utility and a deeper connection with their NFTs.
We’re here to build an entire interactive ecosystem based on storytelling by leveraging the power of NFTs.
We think that the next stage of NFTs involve owning a fully customizable NFT character that is a digital representation of yourself. A character that can interact with storylines and can be integrated with other NFT ecosystems and projects.
To lead such a revolution, we will need everyone's help. But the first step, arguably the most difficult, will be to convince people that what we’re offering is worth more than anything other experience they’ve had in this space.
2. Project Architecture
2.1 The Founder Collection
Trailer
The “Founder” collection, also called the genesis collection is the first step in this project.
The genesis collection is made of 1,250 “Founder” NFTs who will contribute to the project’s fruition into a true interactive ecosystem.
Unlike other collections, the genesis collection initially doesn’t have any traits or rarity attributes. We believe that rarities and attributes should be in the image of its owners, and we understand that owning something you like is essential to your success as a collector and contributes heavily to the longevity of a project.
There are 1250 images, each consisting of a “sculpture” and a gradient background. These have both been created in 3D with a generative approach. There are 25 different “generative” shaders for the “sculpture” used to create 50 different versions each. The 1250 gradient backgrounds are all different and due to how they were created, specific colors and combinations are either more common or rare.
As mentioned above, before the release of the “Augmentation” collection, there won’t be any traditional traits and rarities because we want to encourage people to trade the “Founder” collection based on what they like and find visually appealing not mainly based on rarities.
The goal of this first release is for people to find their meaning and value within their “Founder” piece.
2.2 The Augmentation Collection
The second release of this project is called the “Augmentation” collection.
The “Augmentation” collection consists of accessories to the genesis “Founder” collection, and this is where you get to customize and equip your “Founder” NFT.
These accessories ranges from earpieces and masks to hats and much more.
As stated earlier, the NFT should be in the image of its owner, thus we should enable you to equip and customize your NFTs the way you want.
In a way, you are building your own rarities and traits.
As the project grows into a bigger and more ambitious project, we’d like to give people the option to integrate their own art into their “Founder” NFT. Many have built their digital identity by using other NFTs such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cryptopunks, Clone X or Cool Cats. It will be important that our holders while owning the “Founder” NFT, keep the attributes and traits of the original NFT that allowed them to be who they are.
This will be the foundation for creating an all-inclusive NFT community and a playground for many artists.
2.3 The Companion Collection
What good is an interactive experience without a wise-cracking buddy by your side?
The “Companion” Collection The third release will be called “Companion” and will be the first step in expanding The Augmented Age universe and community and giving more people access.
As a “Founder” holder, you will be able to mint multiple pieces from this collection for free, offering you additional long-term utility.
The “Companion” will be your guide in future interactive experiences and will introduce you to new stories and environments - like the “Founder” pieces, it will unlock access to exclusive parts of The Augmented Age.
More information will be disclosed regarding this part of the project after the launch of the augmented collection.
2.4 The Hub
The final part of this project will be The Hub. The Hub will act as the final stage for The Augmented Age and tie all previous releases together.
It will act as a place for people to meet, interact and experience the short films, interactive stories, learn about The Augmented Age as a project and about web3 and NFT technology and culture.
Contents experienced by the NFT holders can range from static 3D scenes to interactive systems such as games and animated stories. The hub adds an immersive component as well as adjacency to other content, enabling physical and virtual clusters of communities.
This type of futuristic concept, called “Meta-universe” comes straight out of a science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson. Looking at society today, it seems that reality has caught up with fiction. The Hub promises to push the boundaries of the physical world until the real and virtual universes eventually merge.
This virtual interactive world must make it possible to achieve a lot of experiences that the average person is unable to experience in the real world. There is an idea of ubiquity behind this. Many video games offer online universes. They are, however, very limited. You just drive cars, cast spells on monsters, or shoot anything that moves.
In times like now, where getting together physically is more difficult, it is extremely important to have these virtual experiences.
Both “Founder” and “Companion” holders will have access to it and benefit from different perks.
Even though this will be the final stage of the project, it will be an ever-changing and evolving environment.
It will grow and adapt as the technology and culture of this space develops and advances.
3. The Augmented Age and Future Plans
3.1 Physical World
Beyond offering a virtual experience and having digital collectibles and assets, the real world is also something that is extremely important. Successful brands didn’t just build online. While NFTs are mostly being used for unique digital assets a lot of digital brands have also expanded into building an equally important culture outside of their digital world by organizing live events (such as NFT NYC), offering physical versions of their NFTs and selling or gifting merchandise to their holders. These are just some of the multiple ways brand perception can be enhanced.
There’s a lot that is already planned for the next steps of the project, but they will be announced in due time.
3.2 Summary
The overall goal is to offer value to collectors and build exciting products for the community. The future releases and parts of the project mentioned above will still change as the technology of this space progresses, as the goal is to always offer the possible experience and be at the cutting edge of technology and culture. Therefore, the plans mentioned above are mostly to give you an idea of this project's direction, but the results could differ. Specific dates for these releases will be announced as we go along.
Join the project
Get your “Founder” NFT here : Mint here
Twitter: The Augmented Age Project
Opensea: The Founder Collection
