For this project I was the project producer, digital curator, and virtual co-architect. I was also an exhibiting artist. This virtual catalog in New Art City showcased 24 digital artists from the US, Canada, and Europe during the 2024 Codame Art + Tech Festival. This annual digital art festival, now in its tenth year, is a celebration of state-of-the-art digital creativity. The festival features various in-person events and site-specific art installations in San Francisco, New York, and Milan.My task was to create a place where artist and attendees could share space regardless of their physical location. Also, a space where festival artists could showcase artefacts of larger works that were installed in other locations. During the month-long festival, the virtual world welcomed 370 unique visitors.

The design challenge of this project two-fold: to build a virtual gallery, and then to work with artists to install their artefacts.  I worked in a team with my co-architect and the festival organizers to design, test, and launch the catalog world. Although there are many features and animations that make this a playful scene, the main structure of the gallery is based on the idea of a panopticon. Gallery visitors then can navigate to the various artist platforms through an intuitive UI system of bounce nodes. The curation process involved reaching out to individual artists to communicate gallery specs and creating an intake pipeline for assets and information. It also meant working with artists to ensure their assets were optimized enough to be placed into the virtual world without causing lag or other issues.  On launch, the catalog contained over 100 objects, but was still within size limits for optimal performance on mobile.