Description

A grant to fund three active DCL members to provide tech & content support for international 3D artists. These artists will create new works in Decentraland for [MESH, the art fair for 3D, metaverse and VR creators](https://meshfair.com/) and for Metaverse Art Week 2023. Both will be held 19-23 July 2023. MESH and MVAW23 are being produced this year by [Vueltta](https://vueltta.com/), the arts collective behind DCL installations like The Labyrinth Effect (MVAW22) and Dear Vivienne (MVFW23). Our goals for both MESH and MVAW23 are: - To fully onboard 30+ new high-level creators to DCL. - To showcase the creative opportunities available to artists in DCL. - To provide exceptional, new art experiences to the DCL community. - To position DCL as an innovator within the contemporary art world. 72 artists entered the [MESH Open Call](https://www.zealous.co/meshartfair/opportunity/MESH-3D-Metaverse-VR-Art-Fair/) for applications and 100 drafted submissions. Now 32 will be selected for MESH and will be onboarded to DCL for the MESH art fair in July. When we trialled the MESH concept with six 3D artists this May, it was clear that creators needed guidance in addition to the [MESH Artist Guide](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kMxhE15lj4ja4gQm9opDFlW7cHJ6b5dT/view) and DCL Documentation. Without support, MESH artists may fail to overcome technical difficulties while creating for DCL - and therefore disengage with the platform. In our own requests for support as creators, we have been enormously impressed by the Community Building Decentraland (CBD) Discord, especially the live FAFO sessions, rapid answers to our questions, and Youtube ‘How To’ videos on topics such as Worlds. We therefore feel that this community can best provide guidance and content for MESH and MVAW artists this year. We hope to gain DAO backing so that we can fund three active community members for 10 hours per week (each) in a Mentor role. All guidance content created will be opened to the community and to future onboarding artists. Guidance content created will include: - Twice weekly FAFO sessions (live technical support) - Youtube videos on recurring artist questions such as ‘How can I add URL links to my installation?’ ‘How can I stream video?’ In addition, the three MESH Mentors will commit the 10 hours each week to answer artists’ questions and address their concerns. They will answer these questions and compile both questions and answers into a public FAQ for creators. The MESH channel and educational content will be hosted by the CBD Discord to aid everyone in the community in building DCL. However CBD will not be receiving any monetary compensation from the grant. The funding will go to the three individual community members for their month-long support and content creation roles. We see this as a great test case, in this ‘The Year of The Creator’, to see how artists can use DCL to create engaging new works. DCL’s current documentation does not fully support this creativity - artists need additional help and guidance. We also believe that the opportunity to engage with DCL community members via CDB will help artists appreciate how DCL differs from other virtual worlds. Our goal is that each MESH artist will have positive associations with DCL and become advocates for the platform in the 3D community, as we (Vueltta) have become.