1 Introduction
Artisanal products are known for their traditional aspects, mostly handmade, which represent a certain culture and result of technical skills employed to the production of creative objects. Artisanry has typologies and categories and constitutes a process imbued with meanings and senses, as can be observed in Indigenous cultures, for example [1].
Based on the historical observation that artisanal products are in the world since the beginning of time, as well as the current observation that the future of humanity is projected into the Metaverse, even though financial and technological access to this virtual universe is more limited for Brazilian artisans, the following question arises: how would the artisanal production adapt to the Metaverse in Brazil?
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Thus, the novelty creates a certain concern, both for those who develop products and invest in them and for potential users, since its medium- and long-term effects are uncertain. Therefore, this article reflects on the future of Brazilian artisanry in fashion in the face of the Metaverse scenario, based on the prediction made by international trend reports from 2020 to 2022.
This is a bibliographic, qualitative, and descriptive research. The technical bibliographic procedure allowed the development of the theoretical basis with national and international scientific papers, monographs, and master’s theses. After reading the abstracts of the studies found, the most pertinent were selected and analyzed employing the registration technique.
To this end, this article discusses the fundamentals of the Metaverse, as well as the elements surrounding it, among them: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Blockchain, Avatars, and Cyborgs; artisanry is presented in the Brazilian context relating it to fashion. Finally, the discussions are held based on the bibliography studied and on two case studies with different forms of object construction in virtual universes; although the latter did not address the Brazilian context, they showed the lack of studies of this nature in Brazil, corroborating the relevance of the reflection.
Note that this study addresses a new and rising issue that is already disseminated and affects several areas of human life, such as social, cultural, economic, and professional aspects. Therefore, this article may contribute with questions and reflections, indicating possibilities of future practical research to better understand the possible impacts of the Metaverse on fashion, especially relate to artisanry.
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2 Metaverse, Artisanry, and Fashion
2.1 Metaverse
When considering the expansion of the Metaverse in society, it can be said that a parallel world has been created in a virtual universe based on the physical reality, with avatars representing each individual who can walk around and interact, trade, attend to events and leisure spaces, socialize, and work [2]. In other words, everyday human life in a virtual version via augmented reality.
The idea and term “Metaverse” emerged in 1992 with science fiction author Neal Stephenson in his book “Snow Crash,” describing Metaverse as an urban life accessed by an optical internet network, also addressing issues of social inequality, centralized control, and incessant propaganda [3]. Metaverse is a word composed of “Meta”: a Greek prefix, meaning post, beyond, or after; and “Verse”: universe. Therefore, it is a universe of post-reality, an environment that combines physical and digital reality [4].
The Metaverse is seen as the future of the Internet, housing its own currencies and economic policy. This new universe can be accessed with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies, via computers, console games, and smartphones [2]. These access is possible because these technologies allow multisensory interactions with virtual environments, digital objects, and people. The extended reality (XR) system, with high active resolution and a wide field of view that can span 90° to 180° through stereoscopic displays, is able to convey the sense of depth, with separate and little different displays for each eye that replicate vision in physical environments [4].
Since the beginning of the 21st century, online games stand out as the main diffuser of virtual realities, with Second Life, discussed in this article, as sociocultural aspects of game culture have transformed from solitary and antisocial to a new social space, encouraging interactions, collaborations, and connections that go beyond the gaming environment [2].
That said, we must contextualize some important points that make the Metaverse an instigating parallel society and economy: NFTs; Blockchain; Avatars and Cyborgs.
2.1.1 Blockchain and NFTs
Blockchain great proposal is the decentralization of data and transactions, in which no intermediation between one person and another (such as banking institutions) is necessary, and there is no monopoly of giant institutions and governments. The term “Blockchain” was first coined by Nakamoto (2018), the creator of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. According to him, Blockchain works as a type of “general ledger,” in which everything that happens on the network is registered and can be accessed by everyone, but it is an encrypted system so that no one can change or flatter it, making it safer and more promising [5].
In the Blockchain network, a specific type of cryptocurrency has been highlighted: NFTs. They are considered an asset such as property, money, or a piece of art, for example. NFT is unique and cannot be changed between equals (non-fungible), that is, its main characteristic is to be exclusive and easily verified as being true. This means that by virtually acquiring a piece of art, photos, videos, and audios, among others, the individual becomes the owner of a digital asset, facilitating intellectual property issues in the digital environment [6]. Based on these and the following definitions of avatars and cyborgs, we will be able to think about the possibilities of artisanry in the Metaverse from the NFTs as an instrument of possession of artisanal products.
2.1.2 Avatars and Cyborgs
An avatar is the virtual representation of a real person within the Metaverse, in which users are represented as they wish and are in control of their Avatars. That is, you can create your digital persona in a way that looks like you or a cartoon, for example [4].
Thus, the cyborg appears. The concept was coined in 1985 in Donna Haraway’s (1944-) essay A Cyborg Manifesto, in which she suggests that the Cyborg is a fusion between machine and body that interweaves social reality with fiction. A place where there are no boundaries between body and machine, and physical and non-physical become fluid. Dimensions of life such as social, political, and others would be dismantled, making room for concepts that can be reconstructed, creating alternatives to rigid definitions of bodies and ways of life through the rise of technology in everyday life [7].
From Haraway’s concept of Cyborg (1985), Särmäkari and Vänskä propose the term “Cyborg Designer 4.0” to characterize the fluidity and complexity of the fashion designer. The “Cyborg Designer 4.0” would be the symbiosis of a physical and digital artisan, who transposes their tacit knowledge into algorithms and adapts it in an informatic way. That is, the Cyborg Designer 4.0 flows between the physical and the virtual, communicating through visual algorithmic representations [8]. These authors’ definition is a contemporary term for fashion designer 4.0, which is surrounded by new technologies and complex human networks, involving the hominization of computers and the computerization of humans [8]. As we have discussed the novelties and the technological, we now present the intrinsic relationship between artisanry and contemporary fashion.
2.2 Artisanry in Brazil and Contemporary Fashion
UNESCO defines an artisanal product as one that is entirely or mostly handmade, with or without the aid of tools or mechanical means, provided that the manual contribution is the most relevant component of the final work; artisanal products are based on their distinctive characteristics that can be utilitarian, aesthetic, artistic, creative, culturally bound, decorative, functional, traditional, symbolic, and religiously and socially significant [9].
Industrial processes have turned artisanal products into museum pieces, rare pieces, or even marketable objects, because useful items can be manufactured quickly and cheaply, going hand in hand with “progress.” Artisanry was then configured as one of the forms of cultural identity expression of a people, community, society, group, or individual. For the World Crafts Council, handicrafts are considered any activity that results in finished artifacts, made mainly manually or through traditional or rudimentary processes, with skill, dexterity, quality, and creativity [10].
The Programa do Artesanato Brasileiro (Brazilian Artisanry Program – PAB) classifies five categories of artisanal products: 1) Indigenous artisanal products (produced in Indigenous communities, with identity of use, social, and cultural relationship of the people); 2) recycling artisanry (pieces produced with reused raw material; 3) traditional artisanry (expressive artifacts of a group’s culture, being the artisanal product an integral and inseparable part of its uses and customs; it is important for the cultural valorization and preservation of the cultural memory of a community, passed on from generation to generation); 4) cultural reference artisanry (produced from original revisions, preserving the cultural traits, aiming to adapt it to market demands and buyer needs; it is identified as one of the most competitive Brazilian artisanal product); and 5) contemporary-conceptual artisanry (an artifact made as a statement of a lifestyle or cultural affinity, with innovation being the most distinguishable element of this type of artisanal product) [1].
In Brazil, artisanal production is scatter in almost all Brazilian municipalities. However, data from the last IBGE survey conducted in 2014 indicate1 that from 2006 to 2014 artisanal activities in the country decreased. But especially in fashion-related activities, such as artisanal embroidery production, there was an increase from 75.4% in 2006 to 76.2% in 2014 in municipalities participating in this niche. Weaving also grew from 9.5% in 2006 to 12.9% in 2014 [11]. According to SEBRAE2, Brazil has about 8.5 million artisans, mostly women living directly from artisanal production, representing 3% of Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) [12].
Historically, “handmade” method was the main tool used to produce clothing, thus configuring artisanry as a craft resource in a period without industrial machines [13]. These were the clothes of the 14th century, during the Renaissance, which creatively and aesthetically expressed the identities of the individuals of European court societies through manual techniques and natural materials. The relationship between artisanry and Western fashion was born. In contemporary times, haute couture has become the main connection between fashion and artisanry, prioritizing tailor-made and handmade by making unique and personalized pieces. It influenced the fashion of countries like Brazil, even with all the existing artisanal diversity. The industrial advances and therefore the technological advances of modernity have made fashion increasingly massive and marketable, from haute couture to ready-to-wear and fast fashion [13].
Contemporary fashion began to contemplate several sociocultural aspects when establishing interpersonal relationships beyond consumer goods, at different levels of communication. Thus, crafts and fashion intrinsically have symbolic, social, and aesthetic values, which express the cultural identity of a given community, group, society, or individual. This intersection can occur in two distinct ways: artisanry inserted in the productive process of a fashion product as a way to add value or an artisanal product as a fashion product [14]. Nowadays, exclusivity and personalization are important factors, in which cultural expression and identity are essential for the marketing of both. Artisanal practices in fashion can be seen in accessories such as handbags made with natural fibers and braids, ornaments such as necklaces, earrings, and bracelets made by hand, and embroidery of hand-applied precious stones on garments, among other examples.
In the digital context, artisanry can incorporate computational processes into its development process. In other words, the union of the tacit skills and knowledge of the artisan with a professional trained for coding the computational and digital processes of artisanry, called a “Symbiotic Craft” [15], as already suggested by Särmkariä and Vänskä (2021) with the concept of Cyborg Designer 4.0. Artisanry is strictly related to design in Brazil, using concepts and practices to add value and innovations in processes, materials, and technology. In this case, artisanal production would be restricted to projects in co-creation with other professionals, since the artisan loses their autonomy in the process of developing a certain artifact for not having skills related to computer codes, programming, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality, among others [15].
In the digital age, a new approach is considered for artisans, in which digital technology is a “new materiality” in artisanry. Technologies are not necessarily replacing the cultural and traditional heritage of artisanry, but adding and enriching cultural expression [16]. Although artisanry has a more sociocultural than marketing aspect, because it is inserted in society and has become a source of income and subsistence for artisans, it has come to adapt to the capitalist model to resist the volatility of the contemporary era.
When considering artisanry as one of the fashion biases, besides being a significant activity in Brazil in the maintenance of cultural heritage and a source of income for more than eight million people, it is necessary to ponder, discuss, and reflect on artisanry in the digital age, facing the advancement of AI, AR, and VR technologies.
3 Methods
Based on empirical observations in trend reports from 2020 to 2022, as those from Wunderman Thompson [17], Future Today Institute [18], WGSN [19], and TrendHunter [20] with trend prospection for the next two to four years (2022 to 2024), analyzed during September to October 2022 in the course Análise e Prospecção de Tendências do Mestrado Profissional em Design de Vestuário e Moda (“Trend Analysis and Trend Forecasting in the Professional Master in Apparel and Fashion Design”) (Santa Catarina State University/Brazil), the incidence of the metaverse advancing in various areas of society in all the reports cited was verified.
From this moment on, the possibilities of the virtual universe for the future of artisanry in Brazil were investigated. To this end, the metaverse and its relationships with NFTs, Blockchains, and Avatars and Cyborgs were first researched in Google Scholar with the keyword “metaverse”. Then, the focus was to search fashion in the metaverse, using the keyword “fashion metaverse,” also on the Google Scholar platform, to cover studies from various locations. Mostly, recent studies from the last two years (2020–2022) on the metaverse and fashion in the metaverse were found, searched from October to November 2022. After reading studies abstracts, the most pertinent were selected and analyzed employing the registration technique. The references and sources of the studies found were also analyzed to build this article.
In light of the theoretical references found, discussions and reflections were built qualitatively about the case of Contreras et al. (2022) and the Leitão’s Second Life (2012). The choice of these two studies as the main foundation for this article is justified by the presence of two distinct forms of object construction in virtual universes, found in searches via Google Scholar in the second half of 2022, as reported earlier.
4 The Case Contreras and Second Life
To reflect on the future of artisanry in the new digital molds, the case of monograph “Metartesanía: La artesanía del futuro” by Contreras et al. (2022), held in Colombia, was used. The authors propose the interdisciplinarity between artisanry and the metaverse, prioritizing the cultural and identity characteristics of artisanry and bringing it closer to the new growing digital age. This case was important to contextualize the problem addressed in this article and reflect on the Brazilian reality.
According to Contreras et al. [3], three main elements that make artisanry in the metaverse a good idea: the dematerialization of the artisanal product (by virtual and augmented reality), the reduction of material costs, and the ease of co-creation among artisans. In summary, the authors propose the creation of a coworking space within the metaverse—where artisans, designers, and users could create, market, and use certain digital artisanal products. In this project, the Qlone 3D scanning tool was used, which allows for bringing the crafts from physical to digital reality.
The proposal was validated by interviewing two artisans and one expert in NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and digital arts, and these were the issues raised: a) re-signifying artisanry as validation for entering the digital world; b) building knowledge together; c) ways to avoid piracy and protect intellectual property; d) the customer buys the artisanry for its signs and meanings; e) the artisanry that was taken or created in the metaverse [3]. Still, in their conclusion, the authors show that the artisans interviewed were willing to create and sell artisanal products in the virtual world, even those who were over 40 years old, and recognized the great potential for sales and buyers that the metaverse can offer; the metaverse can open doors for artisans and new perspectives so that artisanry and added value will not disappear in the contemporary era. According to experts in the economics of the metaverse, the values of a “metartisanal” product can be higher than real-world values, and it can guarantee intellectual property and anti-piracy. Notably, the study aimed to consider new ways of adaptation to provide more visibility to artisans, an opportunity to create, to have direct relationships with interested customers and knowledge of the process of making these products [3].
Second Life, considered one of the first “metaverse” experiences, is a 3D virtual environment opened to the public in 2003 by the U.S. company Linden Lab. In this environment, it is possible to build objects through prims (short for primitive), which are basic 3D forms aimed at creating a “second life” virtual reality. Therefore, to develop an object in Second Life, the raw material (the basic form) is chosen and modeling techniques are used to shape the object to the avatar’s desire. In the modeling of a prim, the three dimensional axes are used: width, depth, and height; other more advanced tools for more significant changes can also be used [21].
Second Life still exists, but it has lost ground due to negative events such as the deregulation of financial transactions, illicit operations, and crimes. The main difference between Second Life and the Metaverse is the fact that the first is a centralized platform, belonging to a company, with its own and more restricted protocols. The Metaverse, on the other hand, is notable for its decentralization, being an open source digital environment [22]. Regarding acceptance and mass use of the platform, the latest data released by Liden Lab in 2013 shows that in 10 years of Second Life, 36 million accounts were created and about 1 million users were active per month in 2013. There were 2.1 million virtual products created for sale and 1.2 million in daily transactions of virtual goods [23]. This shows the power that the platform had 10 years ago, although the numbers currently do not impress if considering the breadth of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the search for Second Life on Google doubled and the number of active users per month reached a million once again[24]. These data suggest that the isolation caused by the 2020 pandemic accelerated the social interest in an interactive life in virtual worlds.
Taking Second Life prims as an example, it is possible to imagine the creation of artisanal products within the current metaverse as even more interactive and realistic, fulfilling its aesthetic and utilitarian role, as well as its symbolic values. Thus, the costs of raw materials for the execution of an artisanal product would supposedly be lower than traditional ones [21]. Even though the numbers of active users and registered accounts are not impactful compared to other existing formats, Second Life has proven to be the precursor to the metaverse known to date. Furthermore, prims showed to be a way of constructing artifacts in virtual reality. In this case, the main contribution would be to think about the possible practice of making artisanal products in the digital environment, since no studies that addressed a similar tool for the development of artisanry within current Metaverses were found.
5 Conclusion
This article aimed to reflect on the future of artisanry in the Metaverse in Brazil, considering their relationship with fashion. Through current theoretical grounding and empirical data in the primary phase, sourced from trend reports and the Google Scholar database of pertinent literature, the following questions can be indicated: I) the metaverse is predicted to consolidate in the near future, potentializing the craftsmanship as a vector of traditional and manual aspects in its environment; II) there is a greater number of articles that approach the metaverse in foreign scenario than in Brazil, but even so concepts such as “Metartisanry,” “Cyborg Designer 4.0,” and “Symbiotic Craft” (Brazilian paper, but using foreign examples) have shown to be important to reflect about the future of artisanry in Brazil; III) even if the interaction between artisanry and the metaverse can work in a first moment, the 3D digital universe faces and most probably will face in the 21st century the same socio-cultural, political, and economical adversities of the real life of individuals.
As an answer to the research question, we can think about the artisans of the future as interdisciplinary professionals who need to develop new technical skills to progress in the technological and digital world, or even in a co-creation with programming professionals, information technology, and other areas in a given “metartisanal” project. This means considering that co-creation could lead to the total loss of the artisans’ autonomy in their processes of creation and development, therefore something that should be considered.
Even if the metaverse materializes in mass use by the Brazilian population, it is essential that artisans are able to develop their products for the digital medium, concretely. In Brazil, most artisans are small producers, creative communities, associations, and artisans with poor financial resources and weak support from government and private companies, often residents in distant places, with precarious access to the Internet and lack of the necessary equipment for the development of artisanal products in the virtual world. In this scenario, the Government and private companies should boost and foster as well as encourage the creative economy and artisans, as social and economic inequalities are the backbone of creative economies in Brazil.
Artisanal processes and their signs, whether traditional or not, are complex and should be better observed by contemporary fashion in the Metaverse, valuing Indigenous artisanal knowledge and making, for example. Still, we can consider that a “metartisanry” would assist the preservation of artisanal products as cultural heritage, since the artisanal product would be an NFT, uniquely owned, generating an even greater connection between artisan and consumer. In this respect, the economic importance that artisanry reflects in artisan communities is emphasized. In other words, the “metartisanry” can have a positive impact in this sense, since the commercialization within the metaverse is expressive, especially in fashion items. Finally, a future study could do field research and projects focused on the dialogue between virtual realities, artisanry, and fashion with artisans and creative communities in Brazil to validate the theories addressed in this article.
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