Announcing Another VooGlue Site

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VooGlue has a New Site opened this week.

The Rosary exhibition space in Dalkeith, Perth now has a selection of VooGlue artworks on permanent display, where visitors can use VooGlue to view the artwork videos and purchase the right from their mobile device.

 

As VooGlue content is added it will show on the VooGlue map, so users can easily find nearby VooGlue content. For the art sector this is exhibition spaces, art galleries, artists studios, street art locations, and art in public spaces. Just go there, open the app, point your phone camera and ‘voila’ !

VooGlue Big Picture

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They said “We love the VooGlue big picture,  just go for it”.

 

So we did.

 

Announcing the bringing forward of VooGlues heralded diversification. Brought forward on the advice of several heavy-weight crypto tycoons, this diversification was always VooGlue’s ultimate destination. It was mentioned in our original white paper, but only the arts use-case was detailed. Now we have brought the big picture front and centre, because…..

 

VooGlue Sticks Video To Anything

 

It’s true, and we always have done this, but now we have brought this big picture to the fore. The VooGlue software was always designed for anything, its application to the art space was simply one ‘use case’ we chose to develop. See our updated white paper for detail on our re-messaging, an excerpt of which is below.

 

“VooGlue connects video and products with images of objects and scenes in the real world.

 

It is a patented, free, slim, light mobile application and a platform with blockchain enabled features.

 

Just make a scan (for example, a photo) of any real-world scene, attach a video, and this video will automatically play when someone scans the same scene. VooGlue captures the scene, and then permanently “glues” your video to this real scene. VooGlue glues products in the same way.

 

Many sectors are ready for this disruption. Think no more faded description plaques at tourist attractions; just point your phone at the scene and the video description will play for you. Think no more waiting for the shop attendant to arrive; just scan the product, perhaps an antique, and get the full video description with an option to tap the button to buy. The attendant will get an alert and arrive. Think fun videos of your squad in the local cafe permanently attached to a photo of some part of the cafe. Every time you visit, you can scan the location and watch the memory. The applications are endless, and we have a lucrative business case.”

 

Now it is easy.

 

To the future. The VooGlue Team.

Lessons From the World’s Largest Multi-Year Collaborative Blockchain Research Programme

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Let’s face it, distributed ledger technology or “blockchain” is still in the very early stages. Just as in the early days of the Internet, it’s still unclear what kinds of projects will succeed.

 

R3 is an enterprise software firm working with over 100 banks, financial institutions, regulators, trade associations, professional services firms and technology companies to develop Corda, a distributed ledger platform designed specifically for financial services.

 

Over the last two years, R3 has worked with hundreds of senior technologists from dozens of leading financial institutions. No other enterprise blockchain platform has enjoyed remotely the same level of expert input.

 

Chief Technical Officer at R3 Richard Brown, wrote a fascinating article in which he revealed, based on the last two years of research at R3, several key characteristics that are needed for an enterprise blockchain platform to succeed.

 

We at VooGlue were intrigued by this, and decided to take a look at each of the required characteristics to discover how VooGlue stacks up. So here they are, with our explanation after each point:

  1. Provide an integrated application, messaging, workflow and data management architecture.

The VooGlue enterprise blockchain functions (articulated in the whitepaper) include automatic payments to entities in the valuchain and the associated workflow required. The data management architecture for easily and securely updating an artwork’s records allows the providence of artworks to be permanently recorded in their own blockchain. With this in place, copyright ownership for payments of royalties, marketing affiliate and gallery records for payments of commissions, and the messaging functionality for these records to be easily and securely updated, is ensured. On top of this is an integrated token minting facility for easy tokenization of artworks, enabling artworks to function as investment items. Finally there are the access structures required for the blockchain to perform as a fully distributed database application where any correctly coded application can engage and interact with the VooGlue blockchain to access the data and perform transactions using an API.

  1. Build on an existing technology “mega-ecosystem” to maximise skills and code reuse.

VooGlue, as a distributed application, allows any stakeholder – for example an online gallery – to access via API all VooGlue facilities. This includes fingerprinting, accessing digital counterparts, and selling artworks without having to relist the artworks on a new platform time and time again. Stakeholders can be any stakeholder, from an artist to a major museum. VooGlue provides the shared distruputed database and access standards for all users.

  1. Eliminate unnecessary data “silos” to unlock new business opportunities by allowing real-world assets to move freely between all legitimate potential owners.

As artwork changes hands, moves to new galleries, and changes hands again, providence is lost. Each new seller must then relist the artwork and try and trace its history. The VooGlue blockchain brings this waste to an end. This in itself represents a huge achievement, but the VooGlue blockchain brings additional value by adding a digital fingerprint that may include digital media counterparts locked into the single artwork rather than spread all over the internet. For example if an artist has created a Youtube video of the artwork’s production, VooGlue enables that video to become permanently connected to the original artwork itself.

  1. Embed legal entity-level identification into the programming model to enable legally enforceable and secure transactions.

A VooGlue digital fingerprint once registered is singular and cannot be re-added, thus it offers the opportunity for legal enforcement of copyright. The blockchain built following that fingerprint provides a legal and irrevocable record of digital media counterparts and secure transactions related to posterity. It also enables the legal tracking of transactions related to digital media views, product counterpart sales, and artwork sales.

  1. Support inter-firm workflows for negotiating updates to the shared ledger to support real-world business scenarios.

The workflow of listing and marketing artworks, then the sales of artworks to new owners and the related financial transactions is the business scenario for which the VooGlue blockchain has been built. In addition, the VooGlue enterprise blockchain facilities this shared ledger to be accessed without rebuilding platforms or reinventing code.

  1. Enable the inevitable move to the public cloud without requiring high-risk technology bets.

VooGlue enables businesses interested in accessing the VooGlue enterprise blockchain the opportunity to do so without having to create an expensive platform themselves. Here we use our shared technology to save countless stakeholders high risk technological bets.

 

VooGlue Focuses on Burgeoning OTC Art Market

In the art market there’s a growing gap, both economic and cultural, between the old world and the new.

 

In the old world, the traditional art market continues to set auction house records for art works produced at least decades and often hundreds of years ago. In the new world, we have the emergence – thanks to democratizing technologies that enable the production of high quality art at vastly reduced costs – of a new generation of artists who produce, market, and sell their art completely outside of the traditional channels.

 

From a buyer’s perspective, the barrier to entry in the traditional art market is extremely high, and growing. $50,000 can be considered a reasonable minimum to purchase artwork through the traditional channels such as auction houses and galleries.

 

A new generation of buyer’s however, has emerged to purchase the artwork of the new generation of artists. In this new world, which we can call the “over the counter” (OTC) art market, $5000 is considered plenty to make a purchase of high quality artwork by a well-known artist.

 

For Art Market historians, the last twenty years have seen more significant structural changes than throughout the entire 20th century. Artprice.com, a leader in the aggregation and documentation of artistic styles and mediums, has released some fascinating statistics in this regard:

 

In 1997 their databases showed 127 artistic movements since the birth of the art market. That number is now up to 325 (more than doubling in the last 20 years). Even more indicative of the rapid changes brought on by the digital revolution, regarding artistic techniques, Artprice’s art historians and experts in 1997 counted 212 artistic techniques since the origins of art. That number is now at over 850 and counting.

 

A few more statistics illustrate clearly the changes that have come to art world. Again according to Artprice’s databases, the number of artists who have – in the traditional channels – at least one public sale to their name from the 14th century to the present day totals just 657,000.  

 

The number of actual artists in the present day, however, is much higher; Artprice estimates 1.2 million living OTC artists. These are people defined as those whose primary source of income is the art they produce, yet to the traditional art world, they hardly exist.

 

Taking just one genre of art – “street art” – we can see, again according to Artprice’s data, that the traditional market has represented fewer than 3,285 Street artists – ever – yet more than 125,000 Street artists currently live off their work.

 

Adding to this 1.2 million OTC artists, we have an even larger pool of what may be termed “part-time artists.” Artprice has developed analytic tools with strict criteria to select OTC artists on Facebook whose pages are exclusively dedicated to their artistic production and distribution. The result: at least 1.8 million pages.

 

All of these artists crave access to global sales networks. If they get it, they will thrive, and by extension so will art itself.

 

While VooGlue has in its roadmap a plan to enable buyer access to highly priced “traditional artwork” through its tokenization and listing on our marketplace, it’s these OTC artists who form our primary initial market.

 

VooGlue’s gluing of a digital multimedia counterpart to a wall hung artwork – which itself can be considered a new artistic technique to be added to the 850 and counting documented by artprice.com – is another tool that artists can use to promote and monetize their art.

 

VooGlue is actively adding selected seeder artists to its platform to experiment with this new style and movement, and create collaborations between art, music and film.  

 

Additionally, VooGlue’s system of affiliate links in combination with the creation of a marketplace that enables low-cost transactions for the buying and selling of art, add to OTC artists’ ability to disseminate and profit from their work. By serving them, we aim to push forward the quality of art itself.

 

For more information on how to benefit from connecting digital media to your artwork through the VooGlue app, please contact pr@vooglue.io.

 

How the Decentralization Movement Will Change the Art World

The decentralization movement is currently experiencing massive growth thanks to distributed ledger technology (“blockchain”). This movement and the technology that supports it are set to have a huge positive impact on the art industry in the coming years. The impact includes the protection of artists’ rights, the improvement of investors’ access to art, the opening up of an overtly centralized art community, the enabling of galleries to finance more purchases, the crowdfunding of art projects, and even the addition of an extra dimension to art itself. All of this together has the potential to usher in a renaissance of art over the coming years.

Provenance

The changes on the horizon are many, but the lowest hanging fruit is the recording of an artwork’s provenance on a public blockchain. This is likely to be the first innovation to positively affect the art world and will form the foundation upon which all other benefits of the decentralization model are built.

At any point in a work of art’s history, its authenticity can come into question. Art is often accompanied by documentation (commonly known as provenance) that confirms this authenticity. Good provenance is meant to leave no doubt that a work of art is genuine. The current system of assigning provenance, however, is a fragmented patchwork of databases overseen by centuries old institutions. This system, like any that relies on a centralized trusted authority, is vulnerable to corruption and counterfeit. In the modern context, where records have been digitized and are held in centralized databases, the information additionally becomes susceptible to hacking.

Assigning provenance using a public blockchain solves the problems of corruption, counterfeit, and hacking once and for all. A fundamental tenement of a public blockchain, after all, is that it provides a permanent immutable record in a “trustless” environment that is essentially immune to hacking. When all participants can know that a record is correct without having to trust that it is correct, there will no longer be a need to rely on centuries-old institutions to verify the authenticity of the art. All other benefits of the decentralization model flow from this initial system of immutably recorded “trustless” verification.

Intellectual Property Rights

The assignment of intellectual property rights recorded and managed on a public blockchain is a layer of information that can be added once a system of recording provenance has been established. This would enable partial or complete ownership of a piece of art, particularly (at first) in a digital media like photography, to remain with the artist as the artwork is disseminated around the world. By using a public blockchain to immutably assign rights to a photograph, for example, photographers will be able to easily prove that they are the rightful owners of the copyright for that photograph. In the near future, as the information recorded in certain public blockchains becomes integrated into legal frameworks, courts will accept such information as legally valid. This will greatly reduce legal costs, cut down on unlawful duplication, and legally protect artists.

Resale Royalties in Real-Time

When information about art is immutably recorded on a public blockchain, an artist’s rights are never forgotten or discarded. Moving forward it should be possible, therefore, to enable applications such as a system in which the art can be rented out to a gallery with the payments generated being sent directly to the artist in real-time based on the number of people who view the art.

With more artists earning a fairer price for their work, the incentive to produce quality work increases, raising the overall quality of art with it.

Tokenizing Art

The next layer to be added to the publicly distributed “trustless” ledger of information about art is likely to be a system of “tokenization” of art. Tokenization is the process of assigning digital value to a physical object such that the value can be divided up into representative tokens which can then be freely bought and sold on an open market. The tokenization process will have a huge impact on the art industry by enabling wider investment, fairer prices, and crowdfunding models.

Art as an Investment

Fine art, as an asset class, can be an integral part of a serious diversified investment portfolio. Modern art and 19th century art have in fact out-performed both the S&P 500 and T-10 Bonds since 1998. The status quo market environment, however, makes it very difficult for small and medium investors to gain access to this asset for several reasons.

To begin, the safest and best performing investments into fine art are considered to be in well-known, high-priced art works. Investing in a Monet, for example, is a safer bet than investing in a lesser known artist. With Monet’s paintings being priced in the millions, however, small and medium investors are effectively priced out of the market.

Next, the art market is far from liquid. The options for buying and selling fine art are extremely limited. Auction houses are perceived as the safest, but charge fees between 12–25%. Art galleries and art dealers charge less, in the range of 6–10%, but they are considered less trustworthy. Additionally the price of art is dictated by auction houses and galleries with very limited market participants, so fair price discovery can be difficult.

A final additional factor that works against smaller investors is the high costs associated with the maintenance of fine art. These costs are so high that an estimated 90% of even high net-worth buyers would rather not have to personally manage the maintenance of the art they purchase.

The tokenization of art presents a huge opportunity to drastically change art markets for the better by alleviating the above inefficiencies.

Buyers

From the buyer’s perspective, it will now be possible to own a piece of an expensive work of art. This is something that is particularly valuable for small investors who, due to the barriers to entry described above, have so far been unable to meaningfully invest in fine art.

Imagine someone wanted to invest $100,000 in fine art to diversify their portfolio. Currently they would only have access to less expensive (poor “performing”) artworks. But by tokenizing a Monet, for example, anyone could in theory buy a piece of it, thus gaining access to the best performing art investments.

Next is liquidity. By enabling a more transparent market in which a much larger pool of participants have access to a much larger pool of provenance-verified artworks in a “trustless” environment that largely eliminates the need for intermediaries, a vastly more efficient and liquid market is created. In this environment, not only can overall fees be drastically reduced, but also fair market prices can emerge.

Finally there are maintenance costs. When purchasing a portion of an artwork that has been tokenized, the arrangement could be such that the artwork itself is maintained by an agreed upon professional custodian who already has the resources and experience required to maintain a collection under the highest standards. The cost of this maintenance is distributed across all token holders and because the art itself is maintained by professionals and doesn’t have to be moved, efficiencies are achieved.

The increased pool of art investors and improved efficiencies enabled by tokenizing art should equate to significantly more demand for fine art, leading to a gradual overall increasing of art prices and by extension, an explosion in the production of new art.

Sellers

From the seller’s perspective, the implications are no less profound. Imagine a serious art collector or a gallery that wants to expand their collection but lacks the funds to do so. Previously they would have the option of, for example, getting a 3-year art-secured loan at 13.5% annual interest. On a million dollar work of art, this would come to $400,000 interest paid over three years. But by tokenizing some of the art they already own and offering it for purchase to small investors as described above, they would be able to finance their purchases at a much lower interest rate. The Maecenas project, which raised $13 million in its September ICO, claims to be able to facilitate this process at between 2–6 %.

Funding Artists

Crowdfunding using blockchain technology has exploded in the last year, making it by far most successful application of blockchain technology thus far.

A version of blockchain-based crowdfunding can easily be applied to individual artists who would like to procure funding for an art project. They could make a proposal for funding, with buyers entering into the terms laid out in a smart contract. The conditions of this contract may, for example, outline a scenario in which anyone who contributes to the funding of the art project gets a proportional share of the tokenized value of that project. The artist could write the contract such that the artist maintains a share of the artwork produced, the tokens from which they would then be free to sell on the open market should they later need cash. This scenario enables the artist to get the funding they need to produce art, while still maintaining at least partial ownership of the art they produce. At the same time, it enables anyone to invest in an artist at the earliest stage, gaining ownership of the art that is eventually produced.

Easier access to funding for artists combined with the direct relationship between artist and consumer enabled by this decentralized model will positively contribute to the production of more and better art.

Adding an Extra Creative Dimension to Art

Projects currently working on all of the above features includeArtex,Maecenas, and of course VooGlue.

The VooGlue platform, in addition to the features described above, has already developed a prototype application that adds an extra dimension to art by giving the option to integrate a digital media counterpart into the physical art. The digital media counterpart could be something like a time-lapse video showing the process of the making of the art itself, it could be an augmented reality feature that adds to the experience of viewing the art, or it could be audio or video that is similarly designed to add to the art in some way.

From a user’s perspective, the digital media counterpart can be accessed simply by pointing their mobile device at the physical artwork. Adding an extra layer of information on the public blockchain, VooGlue permanently connects the artwork to its digital media counterpart so that the digital media becomes part of the artwork, adding to its value.

The decentralization movement currently being enabled by blockchain technology gives us the opportunity to create a bigger, fairer, more transparent, and more liquid market for art. This technology also brings features that protect artists’ intellectual property rights, give them a way to raise funds for art projects, and enhance their ability to fairly earn from the work they produce. Further layers of innovation can be added to artwork, such as VooGlue’s “gluing” of multimedia counterparts to wall hung artwork. All of this combined should open up and rejuvenate the world of art for a new generation.

VooGlue Team Shares Thoughts on Project

VooGlue brings together a global team of art lovers, community managers, and blockchain developers. Each team member adds to VooGlue’s vision of enabling a fair and transparent art market, enhancing the ability of artists to connect directly with their audience, and using technology to add an extra dimension to art itself.

For the benefit of the VooGlue community who may wish to understand the motives behind individual VooGlue team members, here is some information about the VooGlue team and what excites them about the project:

 

Brian Carew-Hopkins

CEO

“It sometimes takes people a while to really ‘twig’ to what VooGlue is all about. It took me a long time, even after I had the idea of connecting an artwork to its speed painting via a mobile device. It was not until I experimented with the technique I realised artists could add hidden meaning inside the artwork, and then a longer time before I realised the VooGlue facility actually ‘unlocks’ wall hung art. It dawned on me that that artists no longer had to be confined to the surface layer of paint. I realised the opportunities for collaboration between artists, musicians and film studios using VooGlue in new and inventive ways, and the further opportunities with augmented reality and whole gallery spaces. It really is mind blowing. After people get it they can’t stop talking about it. That’s really exciting.

 

The blockchain allows VooGlue to so neatly act as an enabler in the art ecosystem, with the connecting of digital counterparts beyond digital media, into e-commerce and related products with mobile transactions at minimal costs, and when connected with tokenization of art it beautifully transports historical art into the 21st century preserving providence whilst engaging a brand new audience.”

 

As CEO my role is to lead the development of the VooGlue enterprise, with our shared objective of bringing VooGlue to all art lovers, artists, galleries, museums and users globally so it is self sustainable. The VGC token is at the heart of this as it is the means of exchange which allows the art ecosystem to function more effectively and for a wider audience. It brings new creative experiences, and new opportunities for prosperity to people all over the world.

 

Kristine Buenvista

Head Community Manager

“As the Community Manager of the Vooglue Team, I work closely with determined and talented social media specialists to be sure that we are present every time someone needs answers about this new and unique ecosystem.

I am thrilled by the enormous possibilities this social innovation brings to the world. As an artist myself, I am rooting for an art world that is decentralized, inclusive, and fair. I am so looking forward to discovering artists and navigating around new worlds through beauty, concepts, and insights that evoke and challenge my personal truths or deepen my intuitive wisdom about life, others, and myself.”

 

Tania Pickering

Head of Public Relations

Imagine if we had the ‘VooGlue’ concept back when Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci created their famous paintings. To know what they were thinking or what really inspired them to paint their art pieces. PRICELESS!

My job is to help artists showcase their work on an international scale. I’m so excited to be able to give artists a great opportunity to articulate the meaning or journey behind the piece created in their own unique voice and style.

 

Ratko Stambolija
Chief Marketing Officer

Art has evolved together with humankind for thousands of years. And now, I think the time has come to help art come to life; to see what the artist saw, to hear his words and to feel at least a glimpse of what he felt while creating the piece – to catch the true meaning and see the invisible weaving behind the beauty of a completed masterpiece. VooGlue aims to make that possible. That’s why I love it.

Besides that, I am a big supporter of decentralization, as it allows the market to become free and fair. And nothing makes me happier than seeing artists being able to follow their dreams. That is another reason why I am so eager to see the change this project of ours will bring.

 

Graham Stone

Content Manager

We are in the very early stages of a technological revolution; perhaps the dawn of what may someday be called the “decentralized era.” Just as in the early days of the Internet there was a lot of confusion about what the new technology meant, presently a majority of people lack a basic understanding of the direction we are moving. My role is to explain to newcomers the implications of, for the first time, being able to create digital scarcity. As it applies to art, this new technology is very much needed so I’m excited to be able to facilitate the positive disruption by helping people to understand what’s coming and so enabling them to make the informed decision to join early-on. Personally, I can’t wait to see how this technology changes art for the better.

 

Daniel Spyralatos

ICO Advisor and Growth Hacking

Having advised several ICOs, Daniel ensures VooGlue follows best practices in the space while additionally advising on organic network growth techniques.

I love the VooGlue concept. Most decentralized projects now offer just another coin for transaction purposes, but not many are so innovative as to include and use the blockchain technology on something like art/museums etc. When looking at a piece of art and being kind of “bored” because there is no explanation of what you’re seeing, VooGlue perfectly fills that gap, providing visual video content for a more interactive experience.

 

Lilian Lim

Customer Care

This project excites me because interlinking art and technology embarks a new era of art evolution. The “gluing” technology brought by VooGlue provides artists more opportunities to flourish. Building a distributed marketplace on the public blockchain promotes the preserving of art while advancing its future. I’m excited to assist customers in their issues and inquiries as this project evolves.

 

Manmohan Rawat

Graphic Design

As a graphic designer I understand the challenge of bringing life and meaning to images. I’m excited to, in the early stages, help make VooGlue’s concept easily understood. In so doing I hope to contribute to the development of a new form of art.

 

Neerja Sharma

Social Media Marketer and Assistant Community Manager

VooGlue is all about art & that’s what makes it an interesting project to work on. I’m quite an art lover which is why I found myself apt for this project.