The term metaverse was coined in the science-fiction novel Snow Crash, published in 1992. The author, Neal Stephenson, was looking for a word to describe the cyberspace of the future. With the metaverse, he predicted the virtual experience, but he also showed us a dystopian future, where governments had lost their power over big corporations and global economic powerhouses.

A metaverse is an interconnected network of tridimensional and immersive visual environments, something possible thanks to a convergence of technologies which allows interactions with digital objects and avatars. However, the concept of metaverse goes beyond that, as it is a post-reality universe which expands physical reality and blends it with digital reality.

Today there are metaverses such as The Sandbox or Decentraland, which get close to the concept developed by Stephenson in his novel: big international markets of digital and phygital products, the latter being digital versions of physical objects. Besides, on October 2021 Facebook announced Meta Platforms, a new colonizing name for their applications of social experiences online, in search of new territories. It is taken for granted that metaverses will be the new Internet and, as the first internauts surfed the hyperlinks, the metanauts will explore this new world in an immersive way.

We need a new understanding of the digital media landscape we are entering. An understanding and a practice to approach critically the new challenges it poses, and to act out its political implications. To understand the relationships between the immersive virtual space and the physical space. It is undeniable that both conform a single “reality”, without any break in continuity. Metaverses are machines of affective production, and they will affect subjectivities. New sceneries which consumption wants to colonize with an instant promise of happiness.

In the exhibition, five metaverses and an installation compose a walkthrough which starts with The Subject Changes, a work of generative art focused on a character constantly changing. Then we are invited to explore a virtual village in H.O.R.I.Z.O.N., to walk around a virtual landscape full of digital works of art in Planet L.E.V. Matadero, to listen to several sound artists in AFTERLIFE, and to enjoy club culture in projects such as Tivoli Cloud VR and Club Matryoshka.

Metaverses are a reality, but a multiple, complex one, and not the ultimate reality. It is up to us to design the digital future we want, and to provide the resources in order to have creative, accessible, sustainable and diverse metaverses.

The exhibition includes a series of actions and onsite activations: PatchXR Workshop, a workshop for artists and musicians of all technical levels to learn the basics of PatchWorld, an unprecedented tool developed by international studio PatchXR; and the NeuroXcape Hybrid E-Rave, where the virtual and the physical intertwine, organized by the NeuroDungeon collective with the participation of other local and international artists and DJs. In addition, guided tours are offered on Thursdays and Sundays, with prior reservation.

If you want to learn more about metaverse you can watch the 30-minutes video presentation of Jesus Jara Lopez, Researcher in Technology and Music, Professor, Expert in XR and part of the LEV Festival team, provides us with some insightful results on the ongoing research that LEV Festival is running about existing Metaverses, in the frame of Realities in Transition.

Financed by the European Union-NextGenerationEU, through the Public Aid subsidy for the promotion of the video game sector and other forms of digital creation within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Ministry of Culture.