On Livonia Avenue, Brooklyn, the L train rumbles past above; below, a colorful food truck is parked, and inside of it stands Akeelah A. and her partner Mikell S.. The pair are the owners of Kinky Taco, and they say their business is the only food truck in the area that sells cheap fresh food. The couple says they don’t earn much from their truck, but they won’t move locations because they want the business to serve the people in their community who are usually not able to afford fresh food.  

“Nobody wants to do it,” Akeelah said. “But we were willing to come to the poorer parts too. Hopefully, it’ll encourage more businesses.” 

Akeelah was born in California. After her parents divorced during her senior year of high school, she went to New York with her mother and soon started college. She worked two jobs to support herself through school before graduating in 2001 with $100,000 in student loan debt.

She spent the next 17 years working at a clinical research firm before she was finally able to pay off the last of her student loans and save enough money to start a business in 2020. Akeelah says that the COVID-19 pandemic provided her with a good opportunity to research and seriously think about what it would mean for them to open their business. Finally, the couple began the five-month-long affair of transforming a USPS truck into the food truck it is today. Then came the process of getting the truck inspected.

Due to the long and difficult inspection process, Akeelah and Mikeell weren’t able to open their food truck until Nov. 2021, a low season in the food truck industry. At that time, it actually cost them $150 to open the truck every day, only $50 of which they were making back. Things got better after March, as clients began booking their truck for catering jobs. 

Today, the business is stable, but Akeelah still has two jobs. She stayed part-time at the clinical research firm, working on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays while Mikell and two other employees operate the food truck. She is hoping the work she does will allow her to support her 16-year-old son through college next year. She wants him to be able to enjoy the experience and graduate debt-free, instead of having to work two jobs and pay back student loans like she did.

Akeelah and her partner recently decided to move to Queens, in an effort to divide their work and personal lives, but they want to continue feeding the community in Brooklyn. They have bought a larger food truck to meet their business’ catering needs and they have their employees open the current food truck on the street for daily business. 

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“DeAardiens” by DeAardiens is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

NFT – a three letter acronym that you’ve probably heard on the news or read about online and wondered “what does that even mean?”

The abbreviation stands for Non-Fungible Token – which in the realm of art translates to a digitally created piece of art that is registered on blockchain – a digital ledger of transactions that is distributed across an entire network of computer systems and is difficult to change, hack or cheat.

“We’ve got those people who are really, really into it [NFTs] that have gone so far down the rabbit hole, and it’s like a way for them to connect,” said Ryan Firth, a Financial Advisor and Planner based in Texas. 

There are several different kinds of NFT ‘forms’ that can be registered on blockchain like avatars, generative art (created by artificial intelligence), collectibles (sports trading cards and NBA top shot moments), photography and music.

“Like you’ve got the NBA top shot stuff where you can buy a moment in an NFT. I think it’s a great way for people who are into shoes and collectible items like that,” Firth said. “This is kind of the next level of digital collection of things for them that is unique and can’t be copied.” 

Unlike other kinds of cryptocurrencies on blockchain, NFTs cannot be traded or exchanged. Once someone purchases an NFT, it’s registered as his or hers on blockchain, and it can’t be replicated.

Whether people love the idea or hate it, NFTs have made their mark on two polar opposite communities – art and finance.  

Technology has managed to change aspects of our society and culture on a broad scale, so it’s no surprise that it has impacted the way art is created and consumed. Traditional mediums of art are still widely used, but “new media art” has been steadily rising in popularity for years.

Snow Yunxue Fu, a New Media Artist and Assistant Arts Professor at New York University, says that the term ‘new media art’ has existed for a while. 

“It came around in the 60s and 70s on an international scale. There were many people who were utilizing whatever was the emerging medium of the time,” Fu said. “Even paint brushes and canvases and cameras were all once new emerging technologies. So, this history that artists have with whatever is the technology of their time has actually been present all along.” 

According to VFX artist Bilali Mack, the uniqueness of the NFT registration process allows artists to control their success in a way that they weren’t able to before. 

“NFTs are such a great way of leveling the playing field for people of color, for women, for any community that you can imagine that has been disenfranchised or been left out in some way,” Mack said. 

Mack isn’t the only one to notice how the rise of NFTs has helped open the door for many artists or individuals interested in art.

“I think it just made artwork more accessible to people – you know, for people who might not have access to the tools they may need to create it,” said Zead Elmehdawi, a Sales Associate and Art Consultant at West Chelsea Contemporary. “You can create these pieces of art with your laptop or phone, so the whole [NFT] process just made it easier to access art.” 

While the concept of NFTs is relatively new, as Fu said, new media art and digital art are not new concepts. Even though these art styles are not new, they are just now starting to become accepted by the community.

“For a really long time, digital artists’ artwork was not being recognized in the way that it should have been, especially in comparison to paintings and sculptures,” Fu said. “Even though it’s still a controversial topic, blockchain technology answers the question of, you know, how do we track back to the artists who are making these pieces of digital work? And how do we value the work for what it is?” 

Since blockchain technology is essentially the buying, trading and selling of NFTs online, artists have become increasingly concerned about how this will impact the art galleries that line the streets of Chelsea, Manhattan. Fu said that on a local and national level, it will depend on the type of gallery and preferences they have.

“There are some that are open and of course, there are some that say ‘this doesn’t make sense to me.’ So, in general, I would say there is a tendency for more acceptance [in art galleries] relating to NFTs,” Fu said. “I would say a lot of even the traditional galleries are accepting of it too.” 

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), one of the most famous traditional art galleries in the world, has just announced that the William S. Paley Foundation will auction off at least $70 million in art masterpieces this fall. The proceeds will all go towards expanding the digital footprint of MoMa in New York and maybe even acquiring the museum’s very first NFT.

While traditional art galleries embrace digital art in Manhattan, several NFT galleries have sprouted throughout the city – creating a new way for people to consume the new media art.

However, with the rise of any new technology medium, the question of ethics arises. The debate of whether the positives will outweigh the negatives is an ongoing discussion when it comes to NFTs.

“I’d say it’s mixed,“ Elmehdawi said. “There are some aspects of it that are really good for the art world, but I think there are other aspects that are just more for monetary purposes.” 

“I think a lot of people got into NFTs because of money at first because it was basically a gold rush,” Fu said. “Back then, it was kind of anything goes in a way, but now I think digital artists now take the time to reflect like ‘what does this mean to me?’” 

While the artistic drive may outweigh the financial drive for some, there remains a risk that digital artwork can be stolen by hackers. There also exists the potential environmental impacts of the overuse of blockchain technology. With so many benefits up in the air, how does the art community fend off the negative aspects?

“It [NFTs] needs a lot of law, it needs a lot of regulation,” Fu said “It’s very exciting that it’s opened up a lot of possibilities, but you know just like any technologies and tools, there needs to be some kind of regulation made to ensure basic human rights are protected.”

While Fu says that even though the NFT market is approaching a downswing right now, she’s still eager to see all the new media artists that emerge from this new pendulum shift in art.

“There’s this interesting energy being built around it, it kind of gives me more hope,” Fu said. “I think only by more and more people understanding what this technology is and what kind of transition we’re in will we end up in a more positive environment.” 

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“Luckily, I didn’t have a chemical or biological dependency. So in that sense, I didn’t have an addiction,” Glascoigne said. “But I did feel like I had a lot of peer pressure and more of a psychological dependency on my identity as a party girl or like the cool girl thing that I wanted to be.”

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. Elizabeth Glascoigne with a guest at Friendsgiving sober pop-up event.

Now, she’s hosting a sober pop-up event at Kobrick Coffee Co. in West Village with a crowd of 75-150 people in their mid twenties and upper thirties. Next to the row of canned and bottled CBD-infused non-alcoholic drinks, a short line waits in front of the coffee bar with drink menus in hand: lychee martini, pumpkin spice martini, hot toddy — all remakes of their alcohol infused counterparts. A range of hippies, wellness influencers and ordinary New Yorkers alternate between playing cards, taking pictures against a backdrop of the event logo and mingling with each other. They all purchased tickets for this event for the same reason — to connect with others without the presence of alcohol. 

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. guests playing games and drinking mocktails at Friendsgiving pop-up event.

The term ‘sober curious’ refers to individuals that classify as just that — people who are interested in reevaluating their relationship with alcohol. The term carries a broad range of interpretations because each person has their own journey in the space. While most people who experiment with this trend take a break from alcohol for a fixed amount of time, some merely try cutting down on their drinking habits and others remove it entirely. The movement began to rise in popularity about three years ago and has since expanded to various markets, like social media platforms, retailers and bars. Now these alcohol-free businesses are at a tipping point and this new form of nightlife may be signifying a larger shift in American drinking culture.

November 19, 2023 – Kobrick Coffee Co., New York. Elizabeth Glasoigne holding mocktail menu at Friendsgiving event.

Glascoigne established her new pop-up bar business, Absence of Proof, earlier this year. It’s one of several new curated community events for the sober and sober curious community. Other similar venues include Kava Social, an elixir bar in Williamsburg or Listen Bar, another alcohol-free pop-up bar. These locations have opened within the last few years in response to the sober curious movement. 

Glascoigne created Absence of Proof as a way to give people like herself options for nightlife that don’t center around drinking. Before she stopped drinking earlier this year, Glascoigne found that alcohol was embedded in every social situation and she felt a disconnect with that kind of routine. 

“I feel like the majority of my weekends were wasted by either being hungover or being out with people that maybe I didn’t really care about being out with.” Glascoigne said. “It was less like a single night and more so just like a series of weekends being like, ‘what am I doing with my life?’”

Glascoigne decided to cut out alcohol as a way to find more meaning in her life. It’s not her first time taking a break from alcohol — Glascoigne recalls going through a “wild child” moment in her teens, which she characterizes as a period of heavy drinking and partying. Following that phase, she decided to give up alcohol for the next three years before returning back to drinking after college. Her first experience with cutting out alcohol draws a stark contrast from what it is now. 

“In college a lot of your social life revolves around partying and drinking,” Glascoigne said. “So I did feel pretty isolated from my peer group and felt like a lot of people didn’t understand what I was doing and maybe didn’t wanna be my friend anymore. So that was super hard and I was isolated.” 

In the past, Glascoigne felt like she had to give up social activities, which is why she ended up reintroducing alcohol in moderation when she moved to New York City. Given that so many social outings and events revolve around alcohol, she found herself returning to her former lifestyle. Now that she has joined the sober curious community, she feels like she has finally  been accepted for her decision to abstain from alcohol. 

Shea Gomez, a 30-year-old living in New York, who has gained over 35,000 followers by documenting her sober curious journey and hosts a podcast called, NoBoozeBabes, had a similar experience. She originally cut out alcohol because she felt unhappy with the decisions she was making when she was drunk. Gomez says that while she wouldn’t try to black out, she would often get carried away during the night and it would inevitably happen because every bar and social activity involved a drink. 

“When I would drink too much and black out, like I would just do things that made absolutely no sense. I would be super emotional.” Gomez said. “My hangovers got so bad in my late twenties and I just felt horrible about myself.”

When she first stopped drinking, she stayed away from nightlife to reduce temptation. Today, she still goes out partying and dancing with her friends, just without alcohol.

“I’m still out there honey, sipping my club soda with cran or non-alcoholic beer,” Gomez said. “And I’m able to get home, even if it’s four in the morning.”

Gomez feels relieved to get a good night of sleep without worrying about a hangover in the morning. She also noticed other positive changes, like feeling less bloated, losing cellulite and gaining more control of her life. 

October 18, 2022 – Shea Gomez posing with a non-alcoholic aperitif at Dante West Village. Image credit: @noboozebabes Instagram.

These discoveries aren’t news to most people. Medical studies proved the negative long-term effects of excessive drinking patterns decades ago, but binge-drinking and partying has remained a social norm among Americans, especially in college. As of 2019, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that 33% of full-time college students ages 18-22 reported binge drinking in the last month. These kinds of patterns have led to addiction, but also tragic events and misbehaviors. Each year, 1,519 college students ages 18-24 die from alcohol-related injuries, including car accidents. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcohlism (NIAAA) 696,000 students ages 18-24 are assaulted by someone under the influence and 97,000 students ages 18-24 report alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. 

People are finally starting to vocalize these issues on social platforms and encourage others to reconsider their drinking patterns. Companies in the Silicon Valley have reshaped their business events and working lifestyle. Pop-up bars and non-alcoholic social spaces have started to enter the nightlife scene in major cities. Influencers, like Glascoigne and Gomez, have gone viral based on documenting their wellness-driven lives without alcohol. 

Glascoigne says that she thinks the sober curious trend took off because the pandemic led people to focus on wellness and reassess their drinking patterns. While the pandemic may have halted many social functions and led to an increase in focus on health and self-care, this concept of intermittently cutting out alcohol as a form of self-exploration and improvement actually goes back to before the pandemic began. 

Tom Santangelo, the Chief Marketing Officer at Spiritless, a non-alcoholic liquor brand that started in 2019, credits the rise of sober curiosity to a few factors. First, he says that many people in the movement are in the post-college period and have reached a life stage where excessive partying and drinking is no longer as exciting or sustainable. Spiritless targets an audience in their upper twenties and early thirties. 

Additionally, the rise of social media has shifted the way people interact with each other and share personal experiences. This has allowed people to voice their opinions in authentic and relatable ways that weren’t necessarily tolerated before and couldn’t be shared on a wide scale. 

“Millennials and sort of lower millennials if you will, are just more open and transparent online, whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, et cetera, about how they’re living their lives and what they’re doing,” Santangelo said. “I think people are picking up trends and themes from other people.”

Santangelo says that this shift is even visible in the world of pop-culture. Twenty years ago, celebrities rarely discussed sobriety unless they ended up in treatment because of misuse. Now, mainstream personalities like Blake Lively and Katy Perry have their own non-alcoholic drinking brands and talk about abstaining from alcohol because they don’t like it or never wanted to try it. 

Cutting down on alcohol or cutting it out isn’t solely glamorized through celebrities though. In fact, the way ordinary people normalize this trend is what has given it its widespread appeal. Garrett Thomas, a 31-year-old investment banker living in New York City, gave up alcohol three years ago because he could no longer ignore the mental and physical impacts of drinking. He began to post about his experience on TikTok, which essentially led him to create his own non-alcohol seltzer called DrinkGoldies.

“Now with TikTok, with this interest based graph, you search ‘sobriety New York City’,” Thomas said. “And it’s like, hey, wait a second, there’s this regular person that’s just living life and nothing’s changed and they’re not like a recluse. It’s kind of like this really organic discovery.”

@garrettfromgoldies

For those hoping to use Dry Jan as a catalyst for more substantial change. I did in 2019 and havent looked back. Sometimes it doesnt happen in a month, there is power in momentum!! #dryjanuary

♬ where is my mind (piano version) – your movie soundtrack

People don’t just have to search up terms like sobriety though, the algorithm is built so that Thomas’s videos can end up on any user’s “for you” feed, sharing this alternative side of living and socializing that wasn’t formerly displayed in mainstream media and film. In the past, Thomas notes that centralized distribution of advertisements through print, radio and television allowed the alcohol industry to create any narrative that made their product sell. Drinking was consistently branded as necessary for people to have fun and relax. That kind of programming encouraged people to associate partying and having a good time with alcohol. 

“That’s how advertising used to work up until TikTok. It’s stealing the narrative away from alcohol and big alcohol advertising,” Thomas said. “With the rise of interest based social media, now I pop on your screen, nobody and a million people can watch a video of me saying, ‘hey, dude, I stopped drinking and everything in my life got better’.”

Thomas says advertisement distribution has shifted from largely funded corporate projects to average individuals competing for a story that will bring new and interesting perspectives to viewers.

“People buy from people,” Thomas said. 

In addition to the digital age colliding with the new emphasis on health and wellness, Santangelo believes that the legalization of other substances has altered consumption habits. In the last decade, vaping, CBD, Marijuana and mushrooms have become more widely legalized across the U.S., which has introduced a new set of options for people looking for mind altering substances.

“It’s just changed the ability for you at a younger age to interact, and incorporate some of these things in your life,” Santangelo said. “If there are more avenues available to you in a legal forum, there’s a likelihood that, you know, something that was sort of the only outlet for social recreation will just shrink in terms of its percent of consumption.” 

Even though these substances are gaining popularity, they might not become completely mainstream for a while.  Still, they’re entering the market and providing different alternatives to alcohol. Santangelo doesn’t think alcohol will go away, but he does think the consumption rates and perception of alcohol might change.

“I don’t exactly see it being an avalanche,” he said. “It seems more like chipping away, kind of like erosion of stuff starting to grow.”

Although many in the sober curious movement view alcohol negatively, they don’t necessarily feel that way about all substances. Absence of Proof serves CBD infused drinks and Kava Social offers elixirs, which are drinks that contain medicinal properties. Glascoigne says that she receives frequent messages from people on social media asking if she partakes in microdosing.

The rise in conversation around psychedelics in the wellness space reflect the findings of several new studies that have emerged over the last few years which indicate that psilocybin, the active agent in mushrooms, can be used to treat OCD, substance abuse, and anxiety, among other mental and physical disorders. These findings began to become even more widely publicized when How to Change Your Mind, a Netflix documentary on hallucinogens came out this past summer.

This mindset draws a stark contrast to traditional alcohol recovery programs. Participants in AA groups are vehemently deterred from trying any kind of mood-altering substance out of concern that it could trigger old habits or kickstart a new dependency. Meanwhile, people in the sober curious space have loosely defined goals and don’t necessarily cut out the use of other substances. 

Dazee Mae, a 25-year-old recovering alcoholic from Missouri, thinks that this movement is still beneficial, even if people in the community don’t permanently give up alcohol and all other substances. She feels this way because people in the sober curious community don’t have a chemical and physiological dependency on the substance and she doesn’t think they need to approach sobriety from the same extreme perspective. 

Mae has been completely sober for over a year after years of alcoholism that led her to flipping her car three times while drunk driving. Unlike people who experiment with sober curiosity, Mae had to take medication to subdue the effects of withdrawal during her month and a half detox period. She also had to remove all triggers from her household, including mouthwash and vanilla extract, among other unexpected items.

Mae’s experience differs drastically from sober curious people who mostly deal with disruptions to their social life and lifestyle, but she believes the sober curious movement represents a major leap for American society.

“I think going online and seeing someone be adamant or even advocate for sober curiosity and just living a less alcohol related life is amazing,” Mae said. “Ultimately, if it stays this way, it could be incredibly beneficial.”

At the peak of her alcoholism, Mae consumed a baseline of seven to eight shots of 99 proof alcohol each day — and nobody in her life knew. Since her friends viewed it as normal to drink in every social setting, whether it be at dinner or during a night out, they never realized that she developed a problem with it. 

“I’m so confused why my friends weren’t like, ‘Dazee, why are you showing up drunk to the pregame? Like why are you so sloppy when we’ve only had three beers at this club?’” Mae said. “I didn’t have anyone in my life who made me double think or evaluate my relationship with alcohol.”

Mae believes that this movement is causing people to rethink their drinking habits because in the past, people have often dismissed or failed to notice unhealthy patterns. Addiction remains a stigmatized disease and people feel reluctant to put themselves in a category that might attract speculation and judgment. Glascoigne felt this firsthand when she first stopped drinking a few years ago and Reynolds still experiences it with older clients who may not know about the new movement. 

When Reynolds cut out drinking a few months ago, she also recalls feeling awkward on first dates when she had to let them know she wasn’t drinking. By normalizing not drinking, people are becoming more comfortable with taking a step back in a socially acceptable way. 

“Before there was such a stigma around, you know, either drinking or not drinking. Like, ‘are you sober or are you not?’’ Reynolds said. “It kind of removes that because sober curiosity is like a movement of empowerment and it’s all about taking a step back and analyzing your relationship with something that isn’t good for you.”

Despite initial discomfort, Reynolds ended up feeling empowered by resisting the urge to drink in these settings and even found that it made the men she was dating get more creative with their outing ideas. 

Even smaller efforts within this movement, like Sober October or Dry January represent socially acceptable and approachable experiments for people to try out sobriety. These months bring in a large number of participants and since it’s publicized so much and viewed casually, people feel less intimidated about trying it out. 

According to a study from food and drink research firm, CGA, 35% of US adults skipped alcohol in January 2022, compared to 21% in 2019. With Dry January around the corner and sober-curiosity rising in traction with young Americans, more people are considering trying out an alcohol-free lifestyle to start off the new year. 

This newfound acceptance and normalization essentially led people like Shea Gomez to start her sober journey in the first place. Initially, Gomez decided to cut out alcohol for three months. This felt like an attainable goal that would allow her to reevaluate the way she was drinking and why she was often leaning on it in social settings.

“I had an end date,” Gomez said. “I was like, great, and then I’ll go back to drinking. But I felt so good and I noticed so many positive changes that I kept extending it…And I, you know, kept extending, kept extending. And I really was able to realize clearly that this is the best path for me.”

Now that the demand for spiritless liquors and non-alcoholic beverages are growing, companies are starting to create more of these products. By having sober pop-up bars and alcohol-free beverages available, people have more opportunity to explore sober curiosity and feel included while doing so, whether that’s through a sober event or at a regular bar that offers non-alcoholic options. Now that this movement has steadily increased for over three years, Santangelo says that 2023 will be a telling year for the sober space.

“Non-alcoholic spirits and the non-alcoholic space in general, is sort of at a tipping point right now,” Santangelo said. “The tipping point for this category will be when mass retailers start to lean into it, and we’re just getting to that point now.”

Spiritless started out slow in the pandemic, but kicked off in 2021 when they signed deals with Total Wine and Spirits, Amazon and a few other wine and liquor retailers. As Spiritless and other non-alcoholic liquor brands, like Seed Lip, continue to grow and influencers create brands around this movement, major retailers, businesses, restaurants and workplaces will need to accommodate this new community.

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The event featured a line of booths representing projects and companies that collaborated with Microsoft Garage to push forward innovative ideas and advanced tech developments. Among the approximately 300-guests were New York City Mayor, Eric Adams and Vice Chair and President of Microsoft Corporation, Brad Smith.

Aside from the catered delicacies, and lofty business conversations between CEOs and tech gurus from the Silicon Valley and New York City, the wide room filled with visual displays served as a preview for the kind of innovation and creativity that will take place in the new space. While some people may merely see robots and abstract scientific theories, the opening of a new Garage site will offer technology development for a higher purpose.

“There is nothing more impactful than a purpose-driven life,” Adams said. “We can create all the tech we want but if it’s going to be administered to broken people with broken systems, we’re broken too.”

When Adams addressed the guests, he shared a personal anecdote about watching an 11-year-old child arrested for robbery when he was a teenager. He says this moment inspired him to fix New York City by fostering an environment that helps people go beyond their circumstances and share their vision with the world. The new Microsoft implementation works to do just that. 

Smith reiterates this message in his opening remarks by reminding guests of Microsoft Gargage’s impact around the world, but in particular, New York City.

“It’s for everybody. Especially when we think of the needs everyone has in terms of digital equity and what it means for everyone,” Smith said. “What happens in this garage might be a real game changer for what happens in the future.”

The Garage already has Microsoft volunteers teaching classes at 43 different schools in the city. By hosting hackathons and other collaborative events, as well as teaming up with nonprofits and funding new projects, The Garage paves a path for people to unleash their creativity in ways that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. 

Urban Arts, a program that caters to marginalized schools in New York City and helps students create their own video games, has been able to do just that. Their organization partners students with game production managers, mentors in the field and NYU students to teach game design and computer development software skills. By providing all of the computers and research technology, Urban Arts had the ability to win first place in the Game For Change (G4C) Student Challenge three years in a row. G4C Student Challenge is a national competition that invites students to create digital games that reflect issues in their communities, for the chance to win up to $10,000 in scholarship money.

Daquan Griffiths, an alumni of the program, still remembers the day that Urban Arts visited his high school for the first time. Griffiths says that his school had a large minority population and was in an underprivileged area in the community. By giving kids in these environments the tools and opportunity to succeed, students were able to channel their creativity and reach higher success than the companies creating games as a profession. 

“Voices can only be heard as much as you speak to them,” Griffiths said.

Microsoft has also fostered creativity and innovation in students through Alchemist Club Studios, a metaverse portal and learning space for alchemist apprentices who are ready to learn in the digital universe. The founder and CEO of the first reality lab to exist, Wednaud Ronelus, says that Microsoft fully sponsored and supported his lab from the time it was just an idea. 

Ronelus invented the lab out of a passion for teaching science to elementary students. He says that many kids who wait until middle or high school already have preconceived notions about the difficulty of science and feel less motivated to devote themselves to the subject.

“In order to educate we have to thin the system,” Ronelus said. “Alchemist Club Studios offers a learning space in a real classroom setting. Any child in the school can come to science class to experience what’s going on in space and nature.”  

By ingraining science in students’ regular school life at an early age, Ronelus intends to break down barriers that discourage students with less confidence to believe they can succeed at a challenging subject. By unveiling the theories at a younger age, he hopes that all students will feel more inclined to pursue the field of STEM.

Not all of Microsoft’s projects have a specific goal in mind though. The Garage facilitates an environment where all technological exploration is encouraged. This supports the company mindset that any new advancement will continue to allow for scientific breakthroughs that improve the world and increase accessibility for everyone. 

At the AC-State booth, two-feet-wide and three-feet-tall robots attracted a sizable audience as they moved along the table in repetitive movements. Rajan Chari, an employee at the company, says that the project is partially funded by the Garage, which provides labs and space for experiments, and is going towards creating controllable latent states with multi-inverse models. This helps them create algorithms, plan graphs, show models, and then formulate sophisticated skills. 

While the robots don’t have a specific purpose at this time, they are providing knowledge about new terrains in the world and can reach spaces that humans can’t. 

“These findings will end up in textbooks,” Chari said. They will help scientists create new theories, algorithms, and research that advances science. 

None of these projects would exist without Microsoft and The Garage. Now, people all over New York City will have a designated place to pitch their ideas, team up with like minded experts in their field of interest and create innovations that have the power to change lives. 

“It’s why we do what we do,” Brad Smith said. “It’s the opportunity for new forms of creativity.”

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 As I was standing under the famous arch, it felt like I was in the actual park; I could hear birds beeping in nearby trees and cars honking in the streets behind me, and the sounds really came from these directions.

 In front of me, in the middle of the park’s fountain, stood a giant billboard announcing, “Senior Thesis 3D Exhibition Opening.” Professor Fu, a new media artist, created the WSPark metaverse to display her photography students’ final projects to the broader audience available online. Typically, to showcase their student work, Tisch invites people from the art industry to an in-person exhibition, but access to NYU galleries is still restricted due to Covid-19. 

 “The goal was to create space where we can safely gather,” Fu said. Washington Square Park’s location was an obvious choice for her, as an NYU landmark and as a pandemic symbol. In the yellow fever epidemic during the early 19th century, many who died were buried in the park.

 Imagine the metaverse as a digital overlay of the physical world, kind of like the next level of virtual reality with advanced spatial audio and video that allows people—avatars–to interact with others and the surroundings.

Snow Yunxue Fu’s avatar in the Washington Square Park metaverse. Photo courtesy VR WSPark Facebook

The term metaverse dates back 30 years, first used in the science fiction dystopian novel “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson, where people use digital avatars to spend most of their time in the online world. Now, Mark Zuckerberg brings this vision to the masses, and has heavily invested in developing and promoting the metaverse, he even re-named his company from Facebook to Meta. 

 When Zuckerberg presented his vision, while being in the metaverse himself, he said, among other things, that the metaverse would bring enormous opportunity to individual creators and artists. Fu has the same approach. Apart from teaching, she’s also a new media artist curious about trying out new tools for creating and exhibiting her pieces. Previously, when she made some artwork digitally using virtual reality, 3D imaging, or post-photo editing techniques and wanted to bring it into physical space, she used projectors or 3D printers to show the artwork in its 3D proportions. 

 Making this jump gets easier with metaverse. Fu views it as “another fruitful and interesting” exhibition method because digitally created artwork doesn’t have to be transformed into a physical environment for people to enjoy it. 

 With the thesis exhibition, though, she did the opposite – she transformed physical pieces shown in NYU galleries into the online world and placed them on brick mazes that she built all around the Washington Square Park metaverse. And to start my metaverse tour, I needed to get from the arch to a map near the fountain to see locations of all the mazes.

At first, I was worried about how I would be able to move around the metaverse when the office I was in, with the headset on, was so tiny. Fu ensured me I didn’t have to move at all and instructed me on how to use a button on a controller in my right hand to teleport myself – hold the button, point at a place I want to be, and release the button. It seemed easy; however, getting used to the new way of the movement took me a while.  

VR headset and laptop conected to the Washington Square Park metaverse in professor Fu’s office. April 28, 2022. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

Otherwise, the experience was actually similar to when I visited the same exhibition in the in-person gallery in the lobby of the Tisch building, just three blocks away from the real Washington Square Park. In both cases, I could look at photographs from all angles and distances I wanted. In the metaverse, though, I was probably a bit more focused on “looking,” as my peripheral vision was a bit limited with the headset and therefore, I had to turn my head more frequently and consciously.

 The same thing also noticed Dawson Batchelder, one of the 46 NYU Tisch seniors showcasing final projects. “In the digital show, you have to think about moving around (as an avatar). Whereas in the gallery, you can just walk by and not really notice,” he said, contrasting the in-person gallery experience with the metaverse, when we discussed his images a few days before I tried the metaverse myself.  

 He talked about how the in-person experience can be more seamless too. And that I must confirm. Finding his photograph in the gallery was pretty easy compared to teleporting myself through the WSPark metaverse. But after a while, I finally found the right maze and stood in front of a black-and-white photograph of a sculpture surrounded by shrubbery somewhere in Central Park. Batchelder captured it on his grandpa’s old analog Rolleiflex camera and then digitally incorporated the sculpture into the image after developing the original in the university’s darkroom. 

Since high school, Batchelder has been interested in editing images. He used to play around with reality, for example, by making people fly in his photographs. And last semester at NYU, he took a 3D modeling class, and that’s when he got the idea of using digital sculpture to disrupt the analog photograph of shrubbery. “It’s adding a different layer to the image,” he said. And because he is fascinated by creating 3D digital art and wants to continue doing that after graduating from Tisch, he said that the possibilities of metaverse opened up “literally whole another dimension” for him.  

 For Fu, more options for curating artwork in the digital space is a big plus. “We could do things that would be impossible or very hard otherwise,” she said. For instance, security and changing weather would be an issue in the real-world Washington Square Park. As would setting up mazes and accommodating around 50 projects. In the metaverse, she built the brick mazes to hang the artwork according to the needs of this specific exhibition and can re-use it for potential future ones. 

 On the contrary, a physical gallery limits artists; they must consider restraints such as different sizes or materials of walls. Adam Ryder, an adjunct who assisted students with curating the in-person exhibition, linked the process to a Rubik’s cube: “A huge amount of work goes into figuring out which bodies of work are going where to maximize the wall space available best.”

The metaverse makes the logistics more manageable, too. There is no need to worry about visiting hours and it can accommodate more people than in a physical gallery. In addition, having exhibitions online has the ability to democratize art. As long as people have access to the internet, they don’t have to travel to see the collection; they can be anywhere in the world. 

 On the flip side, the technology infrastructure is not developed enough yet, so if that many people were to participate at once, it would require vast amounts of data that are hard to transmit or store. 

 And, technology is still costly. Snow Yunxue Fu is aware of that, and even though she enjoys utilizing technology innovations in art, not everyone can afford a $300 Metaverse headset. That’s why she made sure that NYU Tisch streams events in the WSPark metaverse on Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram, too, so people can at least watch it. That was my case, too. Before I could come and try out the VR headset at Tisch, I attended the exhibition opening event on the live stream. That was basically me sitting on my couch, looking at the screen of my laptop how Fu’s avatar was moving through the park, without any control of what I see.    

 However, it may not take long, and I’ll have a headset in my living room, too, since big tech companies have invested in the metaverse; Meta bought Oculus, a headsets manufacturer, and cut its headset price by $100. 

 Based on the enthusiasm of the Tisch students, Fu predicts that just as paintbrushes innovated cave paintings, digital art will become mainstream art too. Even now, most of their work goes through computers at some point anyway.

 “Even if the original artwork doesn’t involve any digital altercations, like a painting, it’s probably being consumed through a digital medium,” said Austin Fenn, another Tisch senior showcasing in the WSP metaverse his senior project of a large-scale collage of 16 photographs of popular products such as Heinz ketchup and Coca-Cola with logos deleted in postproduction, a critique of consumerism. 

 He thinks about art as just art, no matter whether it is digital or analog. Even metaverse isn’t new for him, it’s just another online platform to show his work. “I’ll continue exhibiting my work online, whether it be Instagram or a virtual reality space,” he said. 

 While older generations are still trying to understand the digital world and art, said Fu, every year, more of her students consider digital artwork as authentic and valuable as a painting or a photography. “They’re becoming digital natives,” she said. 

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 Oliver Eduardo, a teacher who started the after-school club last year watched as two students, Eileen and Emily, harvested lettuce and red cabbage, putting the leaves into a plastic bag to take home.

Harvested mix of microgreens packed, ready for a student to take home. March 10, 2022. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

Emily, a 16-year-old junior, signed up for the club to grow flowers, not lettuce. “This is much better. I can actually eat what I produce. It’s so yummy in a salad,” she said.

 Blake (who uses they/them) and their friend Alexia Leclercq cofounded the nonprofit Start: Empowerment that funds the gardening club with the goal of educating students about climate and food justice. 

 The non-profit contributes to the $5,000 budget for the program mainly used to cover the extra hours that two teachers, Eduardo, and his colleague Xiomara De Los Santos, must stay at work to supervise 20 students two times per week.

 Los Santos teaches Spanish; however, her hobby is growing her plants at home hydroponically because it’s more convenient and it saves water. That’s why Eduardo asked for her help when a student approached him last year with a wish to organize a club where she could learn how to use the hydroponic system.

Tent for hydroponic method of growing microgreens at the Spanish classroom on second floor of The Cecilia Cruz Bronx High School of Music. March 10, 2022. Photo by Nikol Mudrová

“We use coco coir, which is a more nutritious type of soil. Containers are in a puddle, so there’s no need to pump in more water. It grows so quickly with this method!” Los Santos said as she was observing two other students as they were putting the coco coir in the pots so they can place it in the tent later. Then, microgreens grow under the lights in the tent for about ten days before they can be harvested and then distributed to students and some staff members.  

 Blake has stopped in this late March afternoon to discuss expanding the club with the school’s administrator Vern Ram. While the kids were wrapping up, cleaning, and sweeping the classroom, Ram and Blake chatted about producing more greens as one way to tackle the food insecurity of the Bronx’s community. Described as a “food desert,” the borough has one of the highest food insecurity rates in the country, according to the Hunger Free America report.

 He hopes to help realize Start:Empowerment’s goal to provide regular packages with vegetables for students from low-income families and even produce enough microgreens for the school’s cafeteria. “It would be healthier, and I think that folks eating it would appreciate the hard work of their classmates,” said Ram, who sees the school rooftop as one of the potential places to expand the gardening project. 

 Funding is needed for a bigger space and Blake told the students to collect and keep track of data about their program as that can be used for future proposals. “These are tedious stuff, and I don’t like it either, but that’s how we get funding,” Blake said and explained that if they can go to a foundation with data showing what they can grow with $5,000, they could request more financial support for potentially even doubling the program.

 So far, Start:Empowerment has consistently partnered with two New York City public schools and one private school with plans to expand to ten schools over the next two years. Its activities are divided between organizing climate-based after-school programming like the gardening club and incorporating climate curriculum into classes. Though the work is shared, Blake manages the fieldwork and cooperation with educators while the curriculum is created by Leclercq, a self-described “nerd, who enjoys sitting in a corner writing things.” 

(from the left) Kier Blake and Alexia Leclercq, Start:Empowerment’s cofounders. Photo courtesy of Start:Empowerment.

 The non-profit started almost three years ago when Leclercq and Blake were both NYU students. Leclercq complained to a school counselor friend that she wished she knew as much about climate justice in high school as she learned in college. The friend encouraged the pair to put together a project as a part of an environmental science class at her school (which happens to be in the same building as Celia Cruz).

 They applied and received funding from the NYU’s green grant to write an intro curriculum. Then through interactive activities, field trips, or school garden, they introduced students to the basics of environmental justice, local politics, and land use. Leclercq noticed that students already knew a lot about climate injustice, not necessarily the terminology, but its effects like asthma, that is a big issue in the area too. 

 After this first experience, they updated the curriculum to make applying Start:Empowerment’s lesson plans even easier. The new version offers a broad-based approach to climate justice with fewer details, so it’s less overwhelming. It allows educators to pick and choose elements they want – from activities to story maps and PowerPoint presentations no matter whether they are teaching social studies, English, math, or science.

 They also want to nudge students to be in charge more. That’s why they’re exploring the possibility of selecting few students from the Celia Cruz gardening club to take care of the microgreens during summer break. “Our purpose is not to have people relying on us, but to give them back their agency,” said Blake. 

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