Janus, Multi Persona

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, much like having different identities in this ear; one for reality, another for cyberspace, called metaverse.
 

Upcoming Web3 world, we’re entering the creators’ era, passing from the consumers’ era in Web2. During this transitional beginning, social media became a big presence to share who you are in the world. And what we show in our profile on a social media account, is often the first thing that represents who I am, simply our metaverse identity. The character became you, regardless of what you do, or where you live in reality.
 

Normal people started to have two different personas, both in the real world and in thecyberworld online. And those two different identities don’t need to be related together, you can be completely a different character you created on metaverse. Many also often own multiple identities on metaverse. It became a norm or a trend to have one personal and a public account separately, or multiple identities accounts, depending on topics, even for normal people,
because of the popularity of influencers and self-brandings in the Web3 creators’ era.  Some started to create an online 2D or 3D character for themselves, which has a completely non-related identity on metaverse.
 

Last year, since NFT got noticed in the mainstream art market, there is a new genre of NFTs called NFT PFP collectibles, simply which stands for “profile picture” is one of the most popular types of NFTs. Besides, the profile pictures in NFT worlds show more than just identity, but more of social status, like what you own can often be a symbol or a ticket to the society you belong to.
 

In this Janus exhibit, we will explore some of the PFP focused NFT projects, and also an individual profile or a face looking character art that can show his/her personality, an ideal person, or an imagined character who has a specific concept and a story created behind, and the character can be sometimes his/her persona himself.
 

By June Kim
NFT Art Curator
Founder | NFT Asian Women
Web3 Creator | Physical & VR Art