The new decentralized economy and Internet needs a way for users to immerse themselves in NFTs and spatial art. [0] is on a journey to provide just that.

Imagine flying in your own spaceship through the metaverse while enjoying film festivals, art installations, educational talks and events together with your friends. That’s what internationally acclaimed artist and philosopher Krista Kim is building with her recently launched company, 0.xyz, also known as [0].

Breaking free of the constraints of the web2 Internet where social media companies manipulate users, monetize their data and make people generally feel bad was the impetus behind [0], according to an essay Kim wrote earlier this year for the New York Times.

“People are products in web2, and as an artist, I was motivated to find ways to establish meaningful human connections, for myself and for others,” she wrote in the essay.

[0] is helping to ensure the new decentralized economy and Internet by providing access to thousands of original 360-degree virtual reality (VR) artworks, films and much more all in one place. The library will only be accessible within Orbs, futuristic-looking spacecraft in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that provide streaming immersive content to be viewed from all angles.

Orbs

“There is such an incredible library of 360 content that's out in the world yet sits in a hard drive,” Kim said. “Unfortunately, we don't have the distribution models in place for virtual reality. Everything is on a 2-D flat screen. So, you see a lot of film festivals launching these gorgeous projects and then they're put away after the film festivals end.”

[0] was co-founded with Emmy Award-winning VR director Peter Martin, and the team includes Tony Parisi and extended reality strategist Amy Peck. They’re in discussion with several high-profile festival organizers, artists, film makers and distributors to license works for the platform. The Orb will initially be a single user experience at launch and by next year the company plans to enable ten people to access it as interoperable avatars. While starting with English speaking content, [0] plans to expand into other languages.

When conceiving of the Orb as an interoperable vehicle, Kim explained that she and Martin wanted to create a vehicle that gave people freedom to travel to an open metaverse realm and have shared experiences with their friends and family.

“Having the ability to be mobile and have interoperability of your assets between the open metaverse is freedom of the future,” she said. “We don't believe that there should be one exclusive place where the orb exists.”

The term ‘open metaverse’ is used to describe virtual environments that can be accessed by anybody at any time and can be continuously built upon and expanded, giving users the ability to move with their digital assets between different environments. It requires the entire ecosystem of metaverse platform builders to collaborate and cooperate. 

Kim believes the metaverse builder ecosystem is moving in this direction. “A lot of platforms are starting to wake up and realize that if they're not open and interoperable, that within five to 10 years they will be obsolete,” she said.

As an artist, Kim will also be collaborating on mental health and wellness projects and plans to launch her own 360-degree experiences within Orb. 

“I know the power of art in changing us and being a revelation, for bringing us together [and] healing, in being good for our mental health and transforming technology,” she said. “Creating compelling beautiful art and storytelling, education, health and wellness is the way,” Kim said. “Why not bring those principles into the metaverse?”