Glass Crane Soars Into The Hopeful Future of Digital Art and Virtual Reality with ARIES

Glass Crane is the digital persona of Steven McCorry, an Orland-based artist, designer, and VJ.

His work has evolved over the past several years from 2-dimensional photomanipulation works into complex 3D psychedeliscapes.

Always eager to learn and grow, Glass Crane has been mentored by some of the finest and most forward-thinking digital artists in the world, including Android Jones, Totemical, Elohprojects, and Ben Ridgway. 

By combining visionary abstractions with photorealistic textures and lighting, every entry into the Glass Crane canon offers another glimpse into a shared universe of the artist’s design. This design is an attempt to mirror the unseen inner space of the observer:

“I like to invoke certain gestures, archetypes, and patterns that tend to trigger subconscious memories, or a sense of deja vu in myself and in others. There’s an obvious connection to the psychedelic experience but I think what I’m chasing goes deeper than that. I want my art to give people a chance to peek at this hidden shared reality and ponder the implications of it in the same way I do when I’m making it.”

Discontent with the flatness of social media squares and compression algorithms, Glass Crane sought new and more immersive ways to present his work. By working with Illumine VR, he launched his first Virtual Reality gallery in May of 2020. It was a live event with DJs, VJs, and fans all interacting inside a bespoke digital playground. The gallery still exists in VR space today, and serves as a persistent and continually evolving living gallery of 2D and 3D works that fans can visit at any time.

WebGL VR Gallery: https://play.illuminedomes.com/glasscrane 

VRChat Gallery: https://vrchat.com/home/launch?worldId=wrld_cd3a60dd-7e32-4c76-a7c1-4f89a8554477 

As all this was building, Glass Crane was introduced to SuperRare by friend and fellow Superrare artist Tenstriip, and started to dip his toe into the world of crypto art and tokenization. 

“I was immediately blindsided and overwhelmed by the support and genuine love for digital art upon entering this space. To feel so appreciated, and be surrounded by a seemingly endless sea of talent serves as one of the most powerful motivators I’ve yet to encounter in the art world. These people eat, sleep, bleed, and breathe art.”

He soon caught the attention of two of SuperRare’s most ardent collectors, TenesseeJed and Roses. 

“The kindness, mentorship, and love they’ve shown me is invaluable, and I’ve even gotten to meet and hang out with Jed in person, Roses soon to come, I’m sure. Only on Superrare.” 

To date, Glass Crane has minted 40 pieces on the blockchain with SuperRare, and has sold most of them, affording him more time to spend refining his techniques and exploring his own artistic vision and less time grinding out commission work.

As he continued to drop new releases and interact with the community, the SuperRare team took notice of the Glass Crane VR gallery and tapped him to help create their own. 

By collaborating with Derrick Planz and his team at Illumine VR, plus fellow SuperRare artists Matt Buelt and Marc-O-Matic, two new virtual galleries were created to showcase cutting-edge 3D artwork from some of SuperRare’s top creators:

AETHER: https://www.illuminedomes.com/superrare-aether

ATLANTIS: https://www.illuminedomes.com/superrare

For the first time ever, crypto art collectors could peruse a curated gallery of tokenized artworks while fully immersed in true 360 degree virtual reality. In these worlds, collectors were not just bidding on 2D scenes or even 3D animations, but they could purchase actual tokenized 3D models instead–another first for SuperRare. Glass Crane’s piece “Got ‘Em” was among the first tokenized 3D models ever minted on SuperRare. 

Glass Crane’s latest release on SuperRare was inspired by his excitement for VR, crypto, and the future of digital art.

“ARIES.The symbol of the ram–She leads with blind optimism, signified by a single eye, peering through her VR headset and into the future. This piece was sculpted in Zbrush using zmodeler and a variety of arrays, one of which adorns her head with playful dancers, radiating positivity. This piece serves as the culmination of everything I have learned so far, and a benchmark from which to move forward.”

ARIES is available for bidding on SuperRare right now. 

“My goal is to keep learning and pushing and to become a more accurate cartographer of the inner and extra-dimensional spaces beyond our human sight. Android Jones once told me “Look at your hands, and ask yourself how much these hands have served others.” I want to serve the friends, family, and community of artists and collectors that continue to love and support me. I’m nothing without them. I want my art to be a blessing to them.”