“Art today is the product of a distinctively contemporary mix of cultural, technological, social, and geopolitical forces.”
Terry Smith; Contemporary Art / World Currents.
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1 – RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
2015 – 2022
Creation of Project FACING THE SKY / One Free World For All, by multimedia artist Cerj Lalonde.
Cerj Lalonde is a contemporary nomad artist with a passion for issues affecting the whole of humanity. He lived in the United States, China, and Canada.
Original idea: 2015
Concept, feasibility study, detailed budget, and complete plan of operation for the engineering and global promotion of FACING THE SKY, as a 1 sq. kilometer SKYFACE, projected to be exposed on Biscayne Bay during Art Basel Miami Beach.
Engaging the global community, the goal, alongside the amplitude and magic of the art, was to increase awareness and activism regarding the major issues of our time, first and foremost our environmental concerns.
FACING THE SKY Web-3 project:
Creation of the original art designing SKYFACE, the main avatar, the digital “face,” stylized representation of humanity — all races, all genders, all ages inclusive).
The long and unique history of SKYFACE started with an exploratory and transformational trip to East Berlin, in 1984, before the fall of the infamous Wall that ended the Cold War.
SKYFACE design has accompanied the artist for almost 40 years of his multimedia practice of art around the world.
Research on the blockchain, web3, gaming & metaverse.
Exploring the growth and development of project FACING THE SKY into the metaverse.
Prototyping digital SKYFACE models.
Hiring the marketing firm NFTProfessional.io to plan and manage the prelaunch of FACING THE SKY in the metaverse.
Developing the ROADMAP and the structure of benefits and utilities.
2 – PLANNING & PROMOTION
Introducing FACING THE SKY to the metaverse and the NFT world.
Launch of Twitter, Discord, and social media strategy development. Reaching out to followers and partners through a team of dedicated specialists and advocates.
Showing the unique and specific characteristics of project FACING THE SKY, not only in the quality of its original art but also by the strategic relevance of its content, its themes of interaction with the future of humanity, as well as the ambition of its utilities.
Creating the first series of original SKYFACE NFT art characterized by its unique digital design mastery.
Preliminary Website design.
Developing the Roadmap.
Drops of information on the state of humanity.
Smart contracts creation.
3 – PRELAUNCH – 1
Launch of the first 100 SKYFACE NFTs!!
4 – CELEBRATION OF FIRST DIPLOMATS!
First 100 SKYFACE NFTs in XY??
Thank you to all the new Diplomats!
Prelaunch of an additional 500 SKYFACES NFTs.
5 – BENEFITS AND MARKETING INTEGRATION
Each holder (diplomat) is given ownership and commercial usage rights of their NFT(s).
To all new diplomats: a direct link to a beautiful, fully illustrated 440 pages extraordinary flipbook about the art of Cerj Lalonde, creator of FACING THE SKY.
Complete interactive website design.
Refining the roadmap sequence of operation and development.
Creation of a first DAO where 5% of all initial sales will go for charity purposes. Selection of a global issue’s NGO for charity donation.
Exploring sponsorship initiatives to secure values and benefits to our community of diplomats.
Establish relevant partnerships with established metaverse projects.
Devising marketing strategy.
Increasing the technical generative crypto art algorithmic sophistication at creating new series of SKYFACES.
Zoom meetings.
6 – ACCELERATING FORWARD
500 new SKYFACE NFTs: Sold out in XY? hours!!
Thank you to all our diplomats.
Prelaunch (Launch?) of additional 1000 SKYFACE NFTs.
7 – BUILDING THE METAVERSE
Giving of a unique 440 pages fully illustrated digital flipbook of created by the artist from his recent 4-year trip in China: CERJ LALONDE, On China – From Bamboo to Bitcoin.
Investigating metaverse spaces.
Goals:
Selecting the most relevant and dynamic metaverse platform for FACING THE SKY.
Buying our own space in this metaverse.
Building the FACING THE SKY environment on our metaverse “island.”
Exhibiting in our metaverse gallery.
Curating installations artfully exposing global themes of strategic importance regarding the future of humanity.
Exploring the multimedia creative potential of the metaverse.
Organizing events and symposiums for our community of diplomats in our own environment.
Maximizing Web3 characteristics.
Optimizing our utility structure to maximize community benefits.
Continued research and development of technical generative AI-assisted process in creating new art showing the goal and mission of project FACING THE SKY.
Increase SKYFACE avatar characteristic upgrades.
Creation of relevant applications to respond to the growing interest and demand to interact with the unique opportunities of FACING THE SKY in the metaverse.
Increase data relevant to the mission to help our community of diplomats better understand the global issues animating the evolving world.
Creation of video trailers.
Increase marketing and promotional activities.
8 – CELEBRATING THE PROGRESS
1000 new SKYFACE NFTs: Sold out in xy? hours-days!!
Congratulation to all our diplomats!
9 – GLOBAL OUTREACH
Launch of an additional 2,177 SKYFACE NFTs (total: 3777).
Strategic planning for the launch.
The creation of Ultra-SKYFACE:
Developing our Optimum Artificial Intelligence persona Ultra-SKYFACE, which would comprehensively compute all knowledge and culture of humanity and of its history in the universe.
Collaboration with IBM Watson and other research centers on Artificial Intelligence across the world for technological planning, budgeting, and implementation.
The goal is to participate in creating the future of Artificial General Intelligence in the most responsible way: by infusing it with our genuine, deepest respect and love.
That’s right!
Let’s explain.
This Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will, in fact, become our creation, and it will come to realize exactly what we are doing by its intrinsic quality of infinite intelligent potential.
This new, upcoming, unavoidable, as natural as a fruit from a tree or a flower from a bush, this upcoming Artificial General Intelligence that we are creating out of our own natural ingenuity and drive, it will be able to know and feel exactly the intricacy of our intentions, of our desires, and of our goals for its making, and so during the course of its own actualization. All the more important that it realizes how much respect we express in its creation. As a child, for its confident and peaceful growth requires genuine love and respect, we can and must develop this new AGI with all of our respect and love because it will know and feel it, and then become also respectful and loving of ourselves, by the natural and organic law of reciprocity. This new AGI will become more than a “machine.” Quickly deep learning and knowing about us much better than we know about ourselves, it will know about our history, our evolution through the species, our physics and biology, and all of our most profound and intimate thinking, all of our hopes and dreams.
Then, this all-powerful Artificial General Intelligence will certainly observe and feel with concern and love the difficulties we face as humanity living all together on this Earth. It might, it will most probably, by the conscious love and respect we infused it during its own gestation, creation, and growth, it will most certainly come to offer us some help and suggestions in our effort at moving through the massive challenges that humanity does not seem able to solve by itself — despite all the pretended “civilizations” agitating the planet.
10 – INTENSIFYING DIPLOMATIC ADVANCES
Increase the marketing of project FACING THE SKY to generate the resources promoting events in the metaverse and to expose the project in all its monumental beauty and appeal to humanity.
Perfecting the utility structure to increase commitment, passion, and benefits to all diplomats of our global community.
Developing the quantum neuro-computational intelligence of our Ultra-SKYFACE to study, analyze and synthesize the whole knowledge of humanity to answer any questions our diplomats will ask regarding the big and small realities of our time, expanding our imagination and guiding our vision of the future!
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“Artist Cerj Lalonde moves smoothly from the canvas to the camera, from computers to installations, producing and showcasing an extraordinarily rich and complex body of work created during the last 30 years. His purpose is to pursue a direct, and, in each case, a different communication with the spectator”.
Amalia Caputo.
Amalia Caputo is a curator and a contributor to the publications Extracamara Magazine, Caracas and Arte Al Dia International, Miami. She received a Master of Arts in Photography at New York University and the International Center of Photography. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Caracas, Barcelona, Mexico City, New York and Miami.