Body Architecture: Alex Box, Norman Tan, Gary McQueen, and more | MVFW 2022 Panel Series

Body architect Alex Box, Vogue Singapore Editor in Chief Norman Tan, digital artist Gary McQueen, and XR artist Marjan Moghaddam join host David Cash on the Boson Protocol stage to talk about the body, identity, and representation in virtual space. Recorded at Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland, March 2022, the panel moves from posthuman figuration and digital fashion shows to avatars, cultural appropriation, and digital dignity.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome to Body Architecture
2. 02:31 Alex Box on the body as narrative
3. 04:16 Norman Tan on Vogue Singapore, AR, and NFT issues
4. 07:21 Marjan Moghaddam on the body in flux and the Glitch Goddess
5. 11:53 Gary McQueen on textiles, ZBrush, and his digital show
6. 17:14 Identity when we can be anything
7. 19:15 Alex Box on giving people space to explore identity
8. 23:50 Norman Tan on representation and every body
9. 29:04 Gary McQueen on avatars, personality, and ability
10. 31:41 Marjan Moghaddam on net art and transformational hacks
11. 37:43 The early internet and the dialogue between the arts
12. 40:50 Closing thoughts on digital dignity and Web3

Speakers

• Alex Box, beauty editor, body architect, and artist
• Norman Tan, Editor in Chief, Vogue Singapore
• Marjan Moghaddam, XR artist and professor of digital art
• Gary McQueen, digital artist and fashion designer
• David Cash, curator of MVFW (host)
• From the conversation
• "to hack is merely transgressive, but to do it with a critical discourse is transformational." (Marjan Moghaddam)
• "what is the point of creativity without meaningful impact?" (Norman Tan)

Key topics

• The body as a narrative and emotional surface
• Posthuman figuration and bodies that change form
• Vogue Singapore's AR and metaverse issues
• Representation, disability, and casting for every body
• Avatars, identity, and the question of cultural appropriation
• Building a digital fashion show in Unreal Engine
• Lessons from the early internet for Web3
• Digital dignity and curated spaces in the metaverse

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). Body Architecture: Alex Box, Norman Tan, Gary McQueen, and more | MVFW 2022 Panel Series [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/7Fnho0OGFu8

Chicago: Cash, David. "Body Architecture: Alex Box, Norman Tan, Gary McQueen, and more | MVFW 2022 Panel Series." Recorded March 2022. YouTube video, 52:50. https://youtu.be/7Fnho0OGFu8.

Recording details

Recorded: March 2022

Format: Panel and talk series recorded in Decentraland for Metaverse Fashion Week 2022

Length: 52:50 · Language: English

Curated and hosted by David Cash, produced by Cash Labs

About the series

The MVFW 2022 Panel Series is a set of ten conversations recorded during the first Metaverse Fashion Week in Decentraland in March 2022. The series was hosted and curated by David Cash and produced by Cash Labs, bringing designers, editors, artists, and technologists together to talk about where fashion goes when it moves into virtual worlds. Several of the artists and brands in the series also showed work in the Cash Labs Gallery in Decentraland during the week.

About this record

Presented with framing, speaker name tags, and captions added in 2026. Captions were machine-transcribed and reviewed by hand, with names checked against speaker introductions. Speaker roles are as of the recording date and may have changed since.

Shared for educational, research, and archival purposes. For corrections, name spellings, or removal requests: david@cashlabs.io

Transcript

Machine-transcribed and reviewed. Timestamps link to the moment in the video.

[0:09] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to day two of Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week. We hope you enjoyed your first day. I'm really excited about the programming here. We are, of course, here on the Boson Protocol stage. Very happy to be joined by our friends at Boson Protocol, as well as our very special guests today. We have an amazing panel of experts across the field. And today we have a topic that's very near and dear to my heart and very near and dear to the hearts of many around the world, as this is a theme of the month. We'll get into a little bit of what that means in a few moments. But today's theme of today's talk is body architecture. And we have a range of experts on this topic for different reasons, and you'll see why. But I'd love to introduce you to our panel of experts, of thought leaders, of specialists, and break down what we're going to be talking about today in this panel.

[0:56] So just going through, as I see these lovely folks in front of me on my screen, we have designer, artist, digital, nomad, Gary McQueen, who's doing incredible work and is activating here at Fashion Week. We have the editor-in-chief of Vogue Singapore, Norman Tan, who is working very closely with the idea of the body in this month's issue of Vogue Singapore. We'll talk about that in a little bit more detail. We, of course, have Marjan Moghaddam, artist, inspiring voice within the AR, VR, mixed reality space, and one of my personal favorite artists who we're featuring in the Cache Labs Gallery. And then, of course, the one and only Alex Box, body architect, self-proclaimed body architect, and beauty editor and legend in the space as an artist within the makeup world, in the fashion world, and beyond.

[1:45] So really happy to have all of you here. Alex is also exhibiting my space and doing a collaboration with Estee Lauder during Fashion Week. So you can see work from nearly all of these incredible people live this week during Fashion Week. So really happy to have all of them here. And of course, Norman is an incredibly busy gentleman. So really appreciate him taking the time out of his day to join us all the way from Singapore. This is an international recorded session. So we make it work. But with all of that being said, nobody can introduce themselves better than themselves. So I would love to pass the mic around to our various panelists just to give you a little bit of a better idea of who they are, what they're doing, and what they're personally excited about this week for Fashion Week. So if it's all right with you, I'd love to pass. Let's go backwards, because we can keep going back and forth

[2:28] in terms of how I see people in front of me. So Alex, Alex Box, how are you doing today? Tell us a little bit about yourself for anybody who might not be aware of you and your work, and let the folks know what you're activating this week during Fashion Week. Hi, thank you for having me. It's great to be here with everybody that's exploring the body and the narrative. I'm a digital artist, so I mix the physical and the digital. I've worked and explored the body as a narrative and my tool for the last 25 years. And it's kind of traversed fashion, gaming, art, nature, magical, spiritual. And I really, for me, it's all about being able to retell stories and explore the narrative of the body through emotional, sorry, it's an emotional surface.

[3:20] So I've seen myself very much as the textual self. I mean, I'm excited about all new emerging tech because it's a new way of challenging how we can explore the self and how we can work through identity in multiplicity ways and just different body stories. So I'm excited to see how people take that because a lot of the time, with each different world has its own aesthetical challenges. And actually, within those constraints, you can actually kind of explore and push back. So it's really interesting. In decentralized ones, especially having such low polygons, what we can do and how exciting that really those challenges emerge. So I'd be really interested to see how people interpret that, especially in fashion week.

[4:09] Awesome, myself as well. I'm very happy to explore some of those ideas in a little bit more detail in this conversation. Thanks so much, Alex. We'd love to pass the mic over to Mr. Norman Tan. Norman has a bit of a different approach when it comes to the body that has been exploring the topic with, I would say, grace, poise, elegance. I've seen you explore this matter in a whole bunch of different ways, through photo, through filters, through mixed reality. And I think that's been really exciting to see coming from a Vogue entity. So really impressed with all the work that you've been doing, Norman. We'd love to get some more context on you for anybody who might not be familiar on your work at Vogue and all of the amazing things that you've all done, pushing the NFT space forwards. And yeah, also let the folks know a little bit about what Vogue is activating this month and how this is relevant to today's topic.

[4:56] For sure. Hi, everyone. Thanks David for having me. Well, Vogue Singapore launched in September 2020, so in the middle of the pandemic. And we had all these plans about doing a huge gala event, inviting Anna Winter down and all those kinds of things, but we couldn't do it because it was a pandemic. And very early on, we love that intersection of fashion and technology coming together. So with the launch, we did a huge kind of digital website. And from issue one, we've always incorporated augmented reality. So in every issue of the book, there's QR codes and for September last year, we were the first vote to introduce an NFT issue. So an whole issue dedicated to the metaverse. And the cover was actually a huge QR code. So we didn't even have a print cover, but it was a portal to two digital only covers.

[5:48] And we worked with people in the digital space to create those covers like Chad Knight, like the Fabricant and Singapore Avatar creators. And that did really well. And I was actually really afraid, David, because I was thinking Anna and Edward and everyone's gonna hate this because it's so different from what Vogue is usually known for. But we try to make sure that there's always a Vogue sense of elevation and joy and obviously fashion. And to cut a long story short, the Vogue global community always has a theme for key marquee issues of the print book. So for March coming up, I mean, so for March now, the theme is everybody as two separate words. So it's not everybody as one word as a pedestrian, but every type of body.

[6:38] And a very exciting theme, but also a very daunting theme to kind of represent on a cover and in a book, because even if we had a hundred, 500 covers, you were never gonna capture literally everybody on the cover. So we did this whole brainstorm with the team and the way we approached it was with the past, present and future of Singapore fashion models. And yeah, we'll have to share more about that later on. Beautiful, beautiful. Thanks so much, Norman. And really happy to have you here and explore those ideas into intersection with some of these ideas of entering the metaverse. I think that's gonna be really fascinating. Thank you again. Up next, we have another one of my favorites, Ms. Marjan Mobidan, who has some amazing thoughts on the idea of the corporal body in space.

[7:29] Marjan, you create incredible works that take the human form out of context and bring it into a realm of fantasy and tech at the same time, because I don't think any of your concepts would be possible without the realm of technology and some of the technological eccentricities that we'd love to explore. So Marjan, let the folks listening right now know a little bit more about you and your practice and also a little bit about what you're doing this week during Fashion Week. Very exciting time. Well, hi, I'm Marjan. I have to apologize about my background because I'm on a construction site right now. So there's like boxes everywhere and I have a little corner for my workstation. It's kind of this fashion. Yeah, it's, you know, shabby-jee. So I'm actually a 3D CG artist. I'm a digital artist in an animator and I'm widely exhibited in galleries and museums.

[8:19] I've also received major funding for my digital art. And I also do public art. I just finished two big public art projects in the UK and also Vancouver. And so what I'm mostly in also Vancouver. And so what I'm mostly known for is my original and unique style of posthumanist figuration in 3D CG. And the way I work, if you've seen my figures, is that I'm constantly dealing with a body in flux. So the humanoid form in my practice is not static sculptural form. It is a sculptural form and volume that is constantly changing. It's going from slender to heavy.

[9:07] It forms fashion volumes. Sometimes it forms nude volumes. And I very much look at this as kind of like the inherent aesthetic of the digital and digital plasticity in particular. I think almost every era in humanity and art history has a style of figuration that sort of captures what the moment is about. And what I'm doing is really about that. I'm not really dealing with, okay, these are the existing styles. And I'm just gonna copy them or replicate them in the digital. I'm actually looking to the digital to see what are the forms? What are the sculptural volumes? What are the deformations? What are the shapes? What are the aesthetics that I've never been seen before and are totally inherent to what is happening to us and how we're changing.

[10:00] And in that regards, I think I'm kind of like situated in the fine arts in the avant-garde but with 3D CG. What I'm showing is actually in the exhibition is one of my best known figures, which is the Glitch Goddess, and which I've been doing since 2018. And she's gone viral on the internet numerous times and I've done many different versions of her. And the whole idea of the Glitch Goddess is that she glitches the existing art historic convention of depicting the female form as a single type. You see, the true intervention of the digital is that we're changing not just art but ourselves and our understanding of what we are. Everything about us is changing.

[10:48] And she's like that. She refuses to be slender or heavy or pregnant or young or old. She's all of them at the same time. And I sometimes think that that's how we are with our identities. We're in a constant state of flux. And that to me is how I'm trying to capture that. So I'm showing some of my art hacks with her and some sculptures, animated sculptures and some animations that are just video combination and mixed reality of VR. A lot of people comment this from an academic context like myself. So every time I hear you speak, I'm always incredibly happy. I'm always making little notes and making connections. And it's always a pleasure to have you on a panel. Yeah, I guess I should add that I'm also a tenured full professor of digital art at LIU Brooklyn in Europe.

[11:36] No, I'm quite surprised. But just the way you speak about your work is so poised. And you have such an amazing practice that you've developed over this time. And yeah, such a big fan. Please make sure to check out both Marjan and Alex's work in the Cash Labs Gallery. Very excited to have both of you as a part of that. And now last but absolutely not least, another digital pioneer who's bringing identities and avatars into the metaverse and embellishing them in beautiful ways. Mr. Gary McQueen, we'd love to get some thoughts from you on the state of the art right now in terms of entering the metaverse, our bodies, and yeah, how you've tackled these ideas in your work that you're presenting this year at Metaverse Fashion Week. Yeah, I'll try to mobilize what I'll do.

[12:24] I'll find it very hard really as an artist to kind of structure sentences. But basically I started as a graphic designer really when I started there on my path. I really wanted to be a fine artist, but I was put off that idea by the tutors because there wasn't any money in fine art. So I studied graphic design and it wasn't until I reached the age of 25 for that fair winter fashion actually when I was given an opportunity by my uncle. I've always been immersed in digital software. So that would have been a Photoshop in the early days as I was studying graphic design. And I've kind of evolved with the process as it's ventured further into the 3D aspects of design. I started teaching myself ZBrush 10 years ago just with the prospect of using that, like the rendered images from those 3D sculpted files as print work really for textiles.

[13:30] But yeah, I fell into the fashion industry at the age of 25, I'm 42 now. And I worked 14 seasons as I'm a queen, men's race aware as a textile designer. And I really had to kind of find my way in that space quite quickly. And I've always been really good at adapting situations and kind of finding the best ways to translate my art. And fashion seemed to be a really great way to do that, using the 3D canvas to kind of work with and find new and interesting ways to present your artwork in that way really appealed to me. And more specifically, the way that my uncle works with his immersive shows and the way of creating his immersive stories and exciting worlds, it's all kind of led me on this path as well, that's a very big part of what I do is creating stories really that really sort of speak to people's souls.

[14:26] So alongside those skillsets, I've also worked as a freelance photographer, a fitting photographer for Stefano Pilati, a zenya in Italy, and Berlin, and Jona is the sister brand of that, which I'm self-taught in most of the stuff that I do. So I had to YouTube, I had to use studio photography and kind of blag it a little bit, wing it a bit, but I stayed there for two years doing that. And all these skillsets really sort of come together into the 3D space eventually, because you've got to really understand all these kinds of principle skills, these traditional skills that exist in the physical world. And then you have to know how you can use that and utilize it within the 3D space. So at the start of lockdown, I've got the opportunity to create a 3D digital show, which is Guiding Light.

[15:26] And it was just the perfect opportunity. It's something that I've been thinking about doing for a long time before that. But we got put in touch with the guys at Epic Games and Unreal Engine and managed to secure a mega grant to be able to put that together. So I outsourced appropriate vendors because there's a certain amount of work that I can do personally. And that was still wearing five different hats, to be honest with you. It was creating the collection itself, so designing all the clothes, designing the world that that show took place in, all the choreography, the textile designs, just pretty much everything, the avatars. A lot of the aspects were sculpted by myself in ZBrush and then brought into Clo, which is where we created a lot of the animations for that show.

[16:18] And then ultimately that was put into Unreal Engine where we could direct the cameras and stuff like that. So for Digital Fashion Week, I'll be presenting that show, the looks from that show in my showroom, alongside digital artworks that I've created as well. A lot of my art, I really try to find exciting new ways to present art. Lenticular is one aspect of that. So I create lenticular artwork, which is usually a combination of 3D software that I've used and also photography as well. And then it's built into like something quite immersive with the use of the lenticular process. And also a lot of 3D sculptural work that I've created as well, which exists as 3D assets will be displayed there as well.

[17:12] Awesome. Yeah, if you want to check out Gary's exhibition, head on down to the Rarible Shopping area and you can check out the storefront. Really excited to have you here, Gary. And thanks for sharing a little bit more about your practice. I think that there's a lot to be discussed in terms of as we enter these virtual spaces, how we identify and how we're going to signify how we feel about ourselves. And these are some of the thoughts that I want to inject in the conversation as I move this forward. Obviously, everybody here in this panel has a perspective on this issue, either from our work, from our lives, from our experiences. But I think anytime we're talking about identity, this is something really innately human, right? Some of my studies were around the idea of gender identity and gender politics and how these types of ideas are reflected through art and culture.

[18:02] And it's really integral, especially as we're entering a metaverse where we can do anything. One of the topics that I was pushing a lot with the decentralized team that we spoke about a lot is that what elements do we want to take from the past and what elements do we want to create in this metaverse fashion? Because we have total control because in the metaverse, we can create whatever we'd like and that's really empowering, but at the same time it makes us kind of look inwards and decide, okay, what would I like? Because now that I'm actually faced with the option to have whatever I could imagine, that leaves me with a much wider range of possibilities than what I'm presented with in my everyday life. So I think it's really interesting allowing people to have these types of thought processes because in the past, this never happened. So as we start thinking about the idea of our identity, collective identity, societal identity,

[18:46] how can each of you rationalize at least your perspectives with the human form and how do each of you think that this will influence the space as we progress forwards? How will the NFT, Web3, metaverse space evolve as we continue to experiment with the idea of our identity and have endless means to explore those ideas? So we'd love to pass that over to Alex to start and then we'll keep bringing it across the stage, really excited about this talk. Alex, take it away. Wow, so much to say. I think it's really interesting, all of the angles here as well and how we're all kind of chipping away at the same block. And when you said about the body in flux, I think that's a really beautiful way to kind of open this is that I feel that we're moving very, very fast.

[19:39] We all are moving very fast, but the stillness is needed because really, I think a lot of the, as we're racing towards making and identifying and giving this panoply of possibilities, we're still very basic in our approach of how we even hypothesize or how we even internalize and externalize the thought process of what it is to be human or identity. And we've all had time as artists to really look at that for years and really explore that. And that's a long time to kind of push it at what possible aesthetics are and then find tools to express that and then find motion to express that. And we've kind of transversed all these different eras of material that's thrown up and given us tools to express that.

[20:28] Now we're kind of coming to places where there's maker spaces where people say, come on, now you've got this limitless tool set, let's make identities. And the thing with that is that you have to kind of work backwards and actually give people the space to even push out what identity is. And I think whilst it's very exciting and the metaverse is being thrust upon people and personally the metaverse doesn't exist yet, but it's unfolding. There's this idea that people should have this fully formed and structured ideas of what they can be when actually we've not given anybody a system thinking yet or like the space to actually explore what that is. So I'm quite interested in the education or the system of just space where people can even just go inwards and even be given the tools to even verbalize or express what those elements that they want to bring out are.

[21:26] That's why I think your work is so beautiful that it's in flux because I think that that really is a very kind of metaphorical, brilliant way of kind of seeing how at the moment, I mean, we are so terminus and so in flux and so kind of everything. But that's quite frightening for a lot of people to actually externalize because they've not been able to have the sort of time and experience to be able to physically do that. So I think what I'm saying is that whilst the artist is kind of already using all those tools and kind of au fait with how you take the inside and take it out and externalize, the consumer or the person coming into those spaces usually gets split into either making an avatar that either looks exactly like them or is a kind of fantasy version of them through the funnel of all the things that they've been told is fantasy, identity, fashion, and art.

[22:18] So I think what we need to start doing is sort of making those a bit more morphic and a bit more plasticized and a bit more open about maybe in a limitless environment, you could be a sound or a talisman or a shape or a voice or a form that constantly is in flux. So I think we need to create space and systems and handhold and make that very much not this kind of end goal that everybody should be creative and have this identity that's fully formed and multiplicity sort of ideas of themselves, but sort of say, well, to get to that point, to build the car, you need a wheel, then a skateboard, then a scooter, then a motorbike, then a car. So it's just kind of gentle journey for people, but I think it starts in systems of education and integration of what even is ourself in a limitless environment.

[23:08] Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think the idea of identity in real time is expiring, especially now that we have the options to change our identity in the way that we're perceived. We can change our gender, we can change our species. I have somebody gifted me a doge head wearable, so I could be a dog if I wanted to in the central end. So I think that we can be whatever we'd like. And I agree with you completely that it's not overwhelming, but it is some power that most of us have no idea what to do with, because we weren't faced with this issue ever before. We've been able to consider how we feel within our physical bodies, but never the idea. If we weren't attached to this physical body, how we'd like to manifest ourselves. I think that's a really powerful thought. Would love to move the conversation over to Norman. Norman, as we consider our physical bodies and then bring those physical bodies

[23:58] into this digital space, where's your mind at in terms of how this is possible and how the public, a population that you interact with and deal with on a regular basis, how the public might perceive this shift and facilitate this. Not to interrupt it, but I don't want to say it's a move into the metaverse. I feel like every time we're talking about the metaverse, we should consider what it's going to add to people's lives instead of necessarily take away. So let's consider maybe what you think this could do for people instead of removing people from their physical lives. So I would love to hear some thoughts from you, Norman. Yeah, for sure, David. Just to echo what Alex said, I think you guys as the first movers in the space, you guys are the culture shapers in the space, kind of to quote, or loosely quote, Krista Kim, one of our metaverse editors for a previous issue of ours.

[24:51] We've introduced metaverse editors as part of our book now. It's really you guys that are setting the tone of what the metaverse, what epic form it takes, what it should keep. And I think that's such a powerful responsibility. And I know when she mentioned that, I thought about what is the role of magazines such as Vogue that, I mean, Vogue turns 130 years next year. And what does Vogue stand for? I mean, if it was one word for me, it would be joy. And because we've always been about empowering women. And my role as a journalist and as a storyteller is to tell your stories. So what you guys are doing in the creative space, whether it's in a margin or Alex or Gary, what are you guys creating that adds to the culture and adds to the contribution and obviously things that uplift and bring joy.

[25:40] For me at Vogue Singapore, we know that representation matters. Everyone knows this. And when we, as a Vogue that's only been alive for a year and a half, every time we have a cover star, a beauty shoot, anything that represents the people on the ground more accurately, that is so powerful. And I've actually got a few questions for you guys that are really spearheading this whole metaverse conversation. We can create avatars that obviously look like a humanoid form or a totally different species, but what is the responsibility there if you are an Asian male and then you want to take on an avatar that is a black trans woman? Surely there's a lot of issues there as opposed to being a pony with wings.

[26:31] And I think that's such an interesting thing to unpack and I mean, but slightly digressing, but kind of moving back to what I think really is important for us in terms of publications is to make sure that as we kind of explore the metaverse from a fashion point of view, obviously fashion and body goes hand in hand, it's important to look at all types of bodies. So it's not just different ethnicities, it's not just different age groups and sizes, but it's also different abilities. So one thing that we did for March was looking at different people and that were either disabled or differently abled. And we did a casting call with our five modeling agencies in Singapore in December and January that just passed, trying to find these new faces for our covers because we ended up having 27 cover stars across four covers and we did this kind of digital cover that combines all of them together.

[27:25] And what has been so rewarding about this project is just the overwhelming response we've had locally, regionally, internationally about thank you for, I can see myself on the cover of Vogue and I can see myself, I wish there were people that were brown or in wheelchairs when I was growing up in Luxury Magazine. So as Decentraland, as Metaverse Fashion Week continues to unravel and talk about these topics, I just, it's so good that we are considering how this impacts people on a very, very innate human guttural level. So it's really, it's been such a privilege to work on this issue and I just wanna call out Leanne and Caddy from the Institute of Digital Fashion.

[28:14] We worked with them on this augmented reality experience. So, I mean, if anyone's picked up a copy of Vogue, Singapore ever, they love a QR code. And one of them is, this is the opener for the well. And this is all 27 cover stars in this kind of rock formation world. And if you scan the QR code, you're taken to this world where you can explore and tap on different cover stars and hear them speak about what does body mean for them? But importantly, we wanna make sure that the reader was involved in that. So if you flip the camera around, you can actually take a selfie and you are part of every body. But yeah, I mean, wanted to ask you guys, what is that responsibility in terms of accurate representation that is not cultural appropriation? No, I was just sort of like, I've never really thought about this topic in depth really when it comes to the digital space.

[29:11] But I think it really sort of, I think within that metaverse, I think it really breaks down those walls of what us as humans really consider our identity. And if you're standing alongside, a pony with the wings all of a sudden, I don't know if those issues are really still like apparent, if you know what I mean. I think it's much more sort of spirit-driven or the personality-driven of the person that's behind that avatar. And anything that we relate in our physical sense to our aesthetics is really sort of just broken down instantaneously and the personality shows through, through the person behind that, you know? So, you know, I think it's a really interesting topic, you know, this whole self-identity and the powers that you got in that metaverse.

[30:13] And I think the kids of today really associate more with that through the use of skins and gaming and stuff like that. You know, you can really, and disability as well, you know, if somebody was unable to walk or something like that, just having that ability to roam freely within the metaverse is, you know, it's life-changing for that person. So there's a lot of different aspects where the confinements of our physical being isn't really translatable into that space directly, you know? It's all right, right? No, absolutely. I mean, I think that it's really interesting when we consider the difference between how we're perceived physically and in this virtual space.

[31:00] And when we are in this virtual space, I always like to bring in like the mentality or the ethos of the web3 space, which is, you know, I was all trying to create a more equitable, more, you know, futuristic and, you know, future conscious society collectively. And, you know, we have the option right now to choose to do things slightly differently. So I love that you're bringing this up, Norman, because I think that having these types of conversations and at least bringing up these thoughts right now as this space is evolving is important in order to ensure that, you know, the next steps of identity in the metaverse are done equitably in a way that's non-offensive and in a way that's, you know, embracing and empowering of all bodies, people, you know, representations, et cetera. So thank you for being that up. And I'd also love to hear from Marjan and how you, you know, tackle this issue.

[31:45] I mean, obviously, you know, you presented bodies in every way, shape, and form, and you do so in a little bit more of an abstract sense, but I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on Norman's question and this idea of, yeah, how we can, you know, move for a more equitable future in the metaverse as we define our identities. Not an easy question, but I think you can take it. I think there's a whole bunch of questions out there, so I'm gonna try to answer them. I mean, you know, when I, just very quickly, you know, I also started my art hacks as a conceptual net art project in 2016 by hacking my bodies into found and shot exhibition footage. And actually, you know, in 2016, Gagosian did a major, major hundred year survey of the nude in art with like all the rock stars of art.

[32:37] And I hacked that with a non-binary body. And I did that for two reasons, because suddenly I saw that here's like the most important survey of the nude, including contemporary nudes, there's no digital and there's no non-binary. To me, that's the power of the digital. It's what can we do that we couldn't before that is transformational? Like I always say to hack is merely transgressive, but to do it with a critical discourse is transformational. So we can have impact that is ephemeral, like most of the internet, it'll be forgotten in a month, or we can have impact that's transformational. But I also have to kind of point out that, you know, back in 1996, I was the featured artist for Prodigy Inc. on the early internet in 1996, doing three animations converted to GIF.

[33:31] So I go back to the internet won't we know era? And, you know, people, long before the term catfish existed, people were pretending to be, you know, different genders, different sexes, different nationalities, different races, different body types. Was that true? It wasn't. So, you know, that whole idea of freedom on the internet and what people do with it was built into the internet won't we know? It changed with web 2.0 because of the corporatization. And to a large extent, the proponents of web 3.0, of which I'm a member, want to bring back some of the idealism and the freedom of the internet won't we know era? I actually believe in that. So I wanted to put it out while I totally hear what Norman says, the way I look at it is what Norman just did is perfect.

[34:26] What we can do about cultural appropriation is to have conversations. That to me is the transformational part. I'm not a fan of taboos. I'm not a fan of sin. I'm not a fan of rules because I'm an artist. You know, I'm an explorer. I want to discover. And so I'm like, let me discover. The glitch, the first time I did the Glitch Goddess, the body that went from slender to heavy, it was just an accident. It was a glitch. And I was like, this is cool. And then I developed it. And then when I did the Glitch Goddess of Art as a Miami 2018, and it went viral with millions of views and like literally there was like over 100,000 shares and comments by women. And as I read these comments, it completely changed my practice. And I was like, I gotta keep doing this.

[35:14] And the more I did it and the more I read the comments, the more it changed what I was doing. So to me, the best art I do is not agenda-driven. It isn't me sitting down and saying, I want to change the world. You know, it's me sitting down and discovering something that blows me away. And then I take it out to the world and they go, wow. And then something happens. And I'm kind of more in that type of a person as opposed to engineering, you know, the world. I'm not into, you know, I would suck at engineering the world. You do not want me or any other artist engineering the world because we're gonna, we're experimenters. You know, we're like astronauts, we're explorers. And that's my job. And my job is to find the heart, you know, and to share that.

[36:04] And what happens to it and what doesn't is not up to me. But what I love is all the conversations we're having. Like Norman's making me think about, you know, how would I tackle culture? You see, that's what it's about. It's the way we encourage each other to see each other, to hear each other and to share the experience. And I think that that's the power of the metaverse. And as for, you know, avatars being whatever they are, you know, I think about fashion and how much fashion has changed because of 3D animation. I mean, you know, you look at the influence of like all of us doing 3D CG on Instagram on fashion. And, you know, in the last few years, I see a lot of fashion that's kinetic. And it's almost like they're trying to do 3D animation on the runway.

[36:55] And so a lot, I mean, there is this sort of like synergy. I mean, we go back and forth. Artists look at fashion, looks at artists, and it's this great sort of dialogue we're all having. And I think that moving into the metaverse for me, there is the issues of representation have to do with identity on one level. But I also think that this is where the fine arts comes in. We are more than just identity. Identity is just one aspect, what we are beings. And it's that being that's a much greater, more profound experience. And so the other thing that I'm interested in is to find ways of conveying the profound, true internet-based art and metaverse-based art. Two things I would love to touch on that you just said, just for the people watching.

[37:47] One of them, which I think is really important and I think a perfect response, at least from my perspective to Norman's question, you know, is this idea of putting the internet in context and considering, you know, in the early stages of the internet or in the unpoliced or unregulated internet, anything can happen, right? The good, the bad, the ugly, all of the above. And there's something beautiful to that, right? Because you can get complete unbridled creativity as we saw the early days of the internet. And you can also get trolls and hackers and people who want to destroy things. You know, we have inherent aspects of different humans. But then at the same time, you know, now we're moving into web 3.0 and, you know, re-removing this kind of like police state of the internet, these kinds of things come back. And for some of us, that's, you know, concerning because, you know, we've developed this much more PC,

[38:34] much more, you know, polite, I think, culture, culture that's much more respectful to people in their, you know, identities, representations, perspectives, beliefs. But at the same time, not everybody reflects those, you know, those, these modern liberal sentiments. So I think it's interesting once you kind of open up the vacuum and see everybody in one place, you kind of, this web 3.0 and this blockchain enabled internet allows everybody to come and play, which there's a good and a bad about. You know, so that's also one thing I think that's very worth mentioning. So we're kind of back in that original internet mindset. And then the other thing that you mentioned, which I think is really important is this dialogue between the arts because I think something we're noticing now, even in this conversation is bringing people together from different backgrounds and with different practices is incredibly important now more than ever.

[39:18] Because I think over the past 20, 30 years, you know, we've seen a lot of digital artists trying to emulate the highest end work in the physical world, from paintings to sculptures to grass to, you know, trees, et cetera. But now we're seeing things go the other way around. And we're actually seeing painters and sculptors and physical tangible artists trying to emulate the work of digital art. And I think that shows how far that we've come within the digital space. So really, really great points there. Thank you so much, Marjan. I just wanted to touch on those in a little bit more detail for folks listening. Yeah, I just wanted to mention one artist who's acknowledged what you just said is David Henry, nobody junior. And because, you know, him and I show it together a lot and we're always on different talks together. And he always says that, you know, he was a performance artist and he was watching what all of us 3D CG artists

[40:07] were doing on Instagram. So he came up with all of these like prosthetics and different ways of like changing his face and throwing things on it and transforming. Because he was trying, he said he was trying to emulate what we were doing. And I was just blown away when I heard that. But isn't it interesting how it's all sort of like influencing different areas and different fields. And as we can continue to move forward in terms of technology, that will continue to happen. Because I love the fact that we're at a place right now where we're able to create things that have never existed. Finally, we're at a place where we can create whatever's in our imagination. And I really think that dictates, you know, the future of how we will identify. So anyway, as you can tell, this is a great, I'm very much enjoying this conversation. I really enjoy this topic. But unfortunately, we are nearing the end of today's talk.

[40:52] So I would love to give each of our panelists just another chance to just go through, make any closing remarks, plug anything that you would like to mention that's happening over the next week. And of course, you know, implement any final thoughts that may be, you know, sitting at the tip of your tongue, as we've had such an engaging conversation over the past 40 minutes. So it's all right. Alex, are you willing to kick us off with this final round of thoughts? But yeah, you know, I think everything that everybody's touched on here is something that is really, really important, which is how we move forward with digital dignity as well. And the kind of understanding of all the different voices that intersect into this space. Because, you know, what Norman was saying is something that I've been exploring hugely and looking at, you know, post-human identity with, you know, H plus and the digital dignity

[41:40] and what, and as we move forward, you know, how we collect all those voices together. But also, you know, just not moving in to this space with existing understanding of what we've already done in the real world, because in a way, we don't want to mess it up again. You know, it's like we've got this opportunity to sort of not make overly, you know, consumptive and consume the spaces, but also emotionally how we expand and integrate voices and listen and do better and actually collect those voices and give them a dignity and give them space to actually collate together. Because I do think that it, when you're touching on gender and physicality and energy, you know, we all have this innate connectivity. We're all connected, we're all vibration, we're all together.

[42:33] And really, we've been, in the real world, we've separated that out so physically, but actually, you know, integrally, we are connected. So that's, I can see this, you know, Web3 opportunity to actually integrate those voices and have them all heard together, but actually move as entities and actually find that strength in each other to be able to support and actually make new physicalities with those combined voices. And I think that's, you know, that's the job of the artist to actualize that, but also the, I'd say the collective work of actually having forums where, you know, you bring all those voices together and have them all heard at the same time. And maybe, you know, this is what I'm interested in with, I work with Metahim as an Epic Games, is having this kind of faces and worlds and voices that kind of all can exist together, but all have this kind of same weight, this emotional texture together

[43:31] that they, before, we've pulled them all apart and now we can actually integrate them. Because what you're gonna get from that is a much more kind of diverse and rounded, I keep saying digital dignity, but this is rounded humanity is what I'm looking for, I think, in word three. So I'm trying to explore that with working with lots of, you know, just huge age rages and voices and beliefs and emotional journeys and kind of working those into my work. So that's what I'm trying to bring to the metaverse. Beautiful, thanks so much for joining us, Alex. So I'm in love with your perspective and that everybody please check out our work, both online and in the Cash Labs Gallery here at the Central Land Fashion Week.

[44:19] Would love to pass the mic over to Norman. You know, we're now discussing ideas beyond the human self, talking about, you know, identity as a concept and how it stretches beyond. What are your thoughts on any final sentiments from this conversation? It's been such a pleasure having you. I mean, I could listen to you guys talk forever, I love how Gary spoke about energy, Marjole's talking about finding your hard ones, profound and sharing it. And then obviously, Alex, digital dignity, I'm just writing this down. You guys are also credible. Please keep in touch. I'd love to kind of mine you guys and share stories in what you guys are doing. But I mean, Gary, I think, you know, you're working so closely with the fashion community as well. I think there's such a responsibility with just making sure that whatever we do is uplifting. And I mean, I know that web three is meant to be decentralized, you know,

[45:08] but I think naturally being huge, the way human society works, we're so hierarchical, we're so community-based. There's gonna be different organizations, different platforms, be it Decentraland or otherwise, that have that first-mover advantage, that have a lot of influence, not necessarily control, but maybe influence on how web 3.0 looks like. And my only kind of closing thought is, I just hope that collectively we have that common goal of, I mean, what is the point of creativity without meaningful impact? What is the point of arts? If it doesn't leave an impact on someone else, but for me, it's always been, how can we do that? Whether it's a word, whether it's a shoot, whether it's, you know, 3D CGI work, that helps add positive value.

[45:56] And I know, as I say that, it kind of, there's a lot of benefit of having artwork that shocks and artwork that really makes you rethink things totally. And it's kind of at odds with having a centralized or key players that dictate culture, but I think it's naturally going to unravel. And I'm just really excited to see how technology as, you know, there's all these rumors about AR glasses being dropped by Apple or whatever, maybe, because currently everything is a 2D rectangular screen, right, whether it's an iPhone or some kind of tablet or SureWeb VR, but not everyone has an Oculus or Quest or whatever it may be. How do these companies, as they establish this hardware and as you guys as artists and storytellers, create the content and the narratives, how do they come together in the way that is to use Alex's word, so we don't stuff it up again, right?

[46:53] So I think it's going to be such an interesting journey and we'd love to kind of keep connected with all of you to share your own respective ways of figuring it out together. That's important to mention when we're having this conversation that, you know, our identities are, you know, in some way, dictated by the technologies that we're faced with, you know, moving from this Zoom, you know, space to being able to maybe meet in the metaverse and then taking that metaverse and be able to bring it into our reality in a huge way dictates how we will be present in those spaces. So I think that's an excellent way to wrap up this conversation and really, really appreciate you making the time. Thank you so much for all of your contributions. Marjan, I'm sure you have some thoughts after that. Would love to hear some final thoughts from you and just once again, appreciate you being here. Just final thoughts is like, I think that, you know,

[47:41] the Web3 model is sort of organically evolving because like, even if you look at Decentraland, model holders are stakeholders. So it's on some strange levels. It's like, it's almost like if you have a financial investment, you have a say, is ending up delivering more democracy, if that makes any sense. I mean, who would ever think something like that would happen, but the fundamental difference between super rare and rare tokens, Decentraland and Mona. And now I guess as of yesterday, board apes and the ape coin. The whole idea is that when you have a stake in Web3.0, you have a say. And so this is moving power away from upper level management in the corporations down to the actual stakeholders of Web3.0.

[48:35] Like we were stakeholders with social media, with Instagram, with Facebook, with Twitter, but we had no rights. So while we were earning money and delivering our data to the corporations, we had no say. Your account could be, you know, you could be suspended and you would have no recourse. I think what's happening with Web3.0 is interesting. I like a lot of what Alex said about digital dignity, but you know, when you look at our world, when you look at the physical world, we have different types of spaces with different types of activities and content. So people can kind of choose places and activities that don't expose them to experiences they don't want. So we already have this sort of curation built in to traditional legacy media.

[49:27] We have it built into different spaces. I mean, there's certain types of clubs I wouldn't go to, but then there's other clubs I would go to. So when you think about it, there are curated experiences built into the physical. We had centuries to develop those. What is now happening is we have to sort of bring that about in the metaverse. Great way to wrap up some of those thoughts. Yeah, I think that, you know, when we're taking things out of the, or, you know, when we're experiencing things in the digital space or the physical space, one thing I always like to mention is tangibility. And, you know, we can talk about experiencing the digital space and experiences in the physical space, but ultimately it's, what do we feel? What do we interact with?

[50:13] What do we want to experience? And that's what matters at the end of the day. And that's based on our identities and how we perceive ourselves. So I think that that was a perfect way to wrap up this conversation, so thank you so much for that. Last, but certainly not least, we'd love to pass the mic over with some closing thoughts from Mr. Gary McQueen before we end today's conversation. Gary, anything buzzing around in your head now after some of these thoughts? I think mine's been into it. Not really, but I've learned a lot today, you know? Like you say, there is a lot of responsibility you don't really consider as an artist when you are in this space. And the main thing for me, the important thing for me is when I am creating my art is to step away from those responsibilities in a sense, you know, where, you know, you can drive into a world where the things that usually affect us on our daily lives don't affect us.

[51:06] But I understand that it is very important, you know, especially when we're going into this kind of unchartered territory in the net of us. There's a lot to consider, you know? But all I can say is that we're very finger art create. It's always very spirit driven. I believe we're all connected in that way. You know, Alex was totally right with what she said there. And hopefully, you know, that will shine through eventually in that space and hopefully in the physical world as well, you know, there's a lot of different opinions and things like that floating around out there. But I think inherently we're all connected on this kind of deeper vibrating level, you know, where we're all human. So yeah, excited to be part of this though. And I can't wait to see who display my works for everybody in the net of us.

[51:58] Awesome, awesome. We're excited too. Please everybody listening to make sure to check out Gary's work in the Rarible Gallery space. And of course, Marjan and Alex's work in the Cache Labs Gallery. And if you haven't checked out the latest issue of Vogue Singapore, I highly recommend you do so. Because as you've seen this very innovative you can see a lot of the topics that we discussed today. So I highly recommend finding one of those either online or on the news days. So I just want to say it's been such a pleasure speaking with all of you today. I really appreciate you all taking the time. I hope everybody's enjoyed today's conversation. This was again, Body Architecture presented by Boson Protocol. Thank you again to Boson for the stage. And thank you again to our incredible panelists for taking time out of their very busy schedules to join us today. We're gonna end this talk, but we hope you'll join us for the next one

[52:42] tomorrow back on the main stage. Thank you all for listening and have a great rest of your fashion week. Take care everybody.