Nouns IRL World Art Tour - NYC Mural

(Microsoft Surface Mural, Jasper Wong)

TL;DR

Let’s bring Nouns to the world through a global art tour starting with Nouns IRL in NYC! This activation will take place during NFT NYC (June 20 – 23) and will feature:

• Hand painted mural by Jasper Wong who is an artist and founder of Worldwide Walls (http://www.powwowworldwide.com/ 3), the mural will be viewable from June 20 – July 10 and will feature Nouns in all their glory.
• Simple website / landing page to commemorate the mural

The activation is estimated to generate ~1.7M impressions. The total amount being requested is 72.5 ETH.

Why Should You Care?

We can all agree that art is a pretty powerful communicator; it appeals to our emotions, forces us to think, and does a pretty good job of bringing us together on some level. We hope to use this power to accomplish the following:

• Increase awareness of Nouns at NFT NYC—online and IRL
• Increase brand awareness of the Nouns DAO as a leader in the industry;
• Invite NFT enthusiasts and the public at large to become involved with the Nouns DAO community. We want to let people know that we are here and we invite them to come build the future with us; and,
• Create a website (nounsirl.live) that tells the story behind the art (plan is to also include art from other cities on the tour)
  • High-res images and time lapse video of the mural, artist’s explanation etc.
  • Links to Nouns website, twitter, discord, etc.

Nouns IRL — Person, Place, Thing

Nouns: person, place, thing… We thought that it would be really cool to bring this concept to IRL via fun and engaging art activations around the world. Each stop on the tour will feature a specific artist (or group of artists), a city, and an interesting Nounified art piece. Imagine Nouns on Venice Beach, or Nouns on a rehabilitated basketball court in Chicago. Imagine the looks on people’s faces if a huge inflated Noun floated by them in Miami. These art activations will vary in flight time from several weeks to several months, with the goal being to create longer lasting pieces that become a part of the cultural backdrop in the city. There are a ton of things we can explore on this tour and we think NFT NYC would be a perfect place to start.

Person

Jasper Wong, founder of Worldwide Walls.

Jasper Wong is an artist, illustrator, curator and art director; his art style can be described as a unique clash of Asian-influenced pop culture on paper. Jasper has exhibited worldwide in places such as Japan, California, France, London, Mexico, New York, Hong Kong, Chicago, and Australia. Jasper is also extremely accomplished having been chosen as one of the HB100, a list of Hypebeast’s 100 most influential figures in the industry, which includes the likes of Kaws, Pharrell, Banksy, Jay Z and Kanye West.

Jasper is a big fan of Nouns, he has been following the project for some time and is very excited at the opportunity to get involved with the DAO. In addition to painting the mural, Jasper will be sending out Nouns-related messages on his social media platforms to engage his followers before and during the mural’s flight time. Jasper is also very well known within the art community and will attempt to leverage his network to invite some of his artist friends to hang out with him at the completed mural during NFT NYC. The goal will be to use both Jasper and his artist friends’ followers to generate additional traffic at the mural and further amplify social media impressions.

Jasper is very involved with the community through his non-profit organisation Pow! Wow! of which he is the creator and lead director. Pow! Wow! is a group of contemporary artists committed to community enrichment through the creation of art outreach programs, educational programs, and engaging the community in the creation and appreciation of art. Pow! Wow! has executed projects (murals, school renovations, basketball courts, etc.) in 13 cities around the globe, such as Honolulu, Taipei, Tokyo, Nepal, Guam, Seoul, Israel, and others.

(Jasper Wong)

Place

New York City during NFT NYC, the Super Bowl of NFT conferences.

NFT NYC is the perfect staging ground for the first Nouns IRL activation. One of the stated missions of the DAO is to attract builders/creatives who are ready to create products that proliferate the Nouns brand to a wider audience and shed positive light on the concept of DAOs. NFT/crypto enthusiasts attending NFT NYC are a perfect target for this mission as many are informed about the space and are also builders/creatives looking for a project to support. The general public present in New York at this time will be surrounded by a ton of NFT related themes which should generate interest and curiosity. Many of these people (who may also be builders/creatives) have not yet fully explored the crypto space, this will be an opportunity to capture their attention and encourage them to become involved with Nouns DAO.

Thing

Sharable hand painted mural art piece promoting Nouns and a simple website.

We have encouraged Jasper to create a mural in his style that is a conversational piece. The mural will act as an introduction to the crypto space for many newcomers, we hope that it inspires a sense of curiosity and an urge to dig deeper. For the more experienced, the mural will act as an introduction to Nouns; we hope that it shows them the many possibilities of being involved with the DAO. The overall goal is to create a compelling piece which introduces Nouns to the viewer and inspires the viewer to get involved.

The mural will be located at 300 W Broadway (next to the entrance of the Soho Grand Hotel, facing the busy Holland Tunnel) and will measure 8’9” H x 16’ W in size.

As mentioned above, the ultimate goal is to launch a continued effort to promote Nouns worldwide through art. NYC is the first stop of the tour. The Nouns IRL website will act as an artefact for this and all future activations. The website will contain high-res images, time lapse video, artist bio, story behind the art, and links to the discord, the main Nouns website, discourse, etc.

Budget (all figures are in USD):

• Mural Wall: $36,000.00: We have been advised by the wall company that a soft hold will be placed on the mural location for us at least until the 10th of June.
• Artist: $40,000.00
• Team: $25,000.00
• Nouns IRL Landing page + capturing of video and photos for social: $11,000.00
• Travel / Accommodations: $6,000.00

Total: $118,000.00, total ETH ask: 72.5 ETH Based on ~$1,700.00 price of ETH as of June 3, 2022; we have added ~3 additional ETH to try and account for volatility and fees.

Team

This activation is being executed by the Nouns Collective (formerly the Collective DAO) which is a liquid super team made up of friends building playful, useful, and beautiful products and experiences with the crypto communities they love. We have previously contributed to the community via the Nouns iOS app (proposal 6) which was officially launched on May 16, 2022. The Nouns Collective is composed of experienced founders, brand builders, and developers with over 15 years of experience building successful products.

For this activation we have teamed up with @miss_singh who is a creative professional, cultural connector, community builder, experiential expert, and entrepreneur. @miss_singh has over two decades of experience that spans industries from tech, marketing, fashion and retail with her most recent gig being with Shopify. @miss_singh is extremely excited to jump into the Web3 world with us and looks to use her considerable experience and talents to deliver a memorable and lasting experience.

To be Nountinued…

We are super excited to merge Nouns with IRL. The Nouns community is strong and vibrant; we hope to show the world who we are and what we are about. The best way to onboard more individuals, especially builders, into the space is to meet them where they are. DAOs, NFTs, blockchains, this can all be difficult to grasp for newcomers. Using familiar / traditional mediums of delivery (pop-ups, art, events, etc.) to introduce these concepts are an effective way to drive engagement. We hope that this stop on the tour will be the first of many to come!

(Uniqlo Mural, Jasper Wong)