Children’s storybooks are another good example, in which, without fail, the animal kingdom is summoned to embody the human narrative bearing pantaloons and traipsing on two legs. This is nothing new though, this phenomenon has been a part of human culture since the dawn of time: As we created our gods in our own primitive image, and as we humanised and named the constellations in the night sky. The list goes on.

So, when we did 3D Body Scans of various rising French music artists for the Air Jordan Future launch, the past tingled within us as much as the future did. Avatars might be new, but the impulse to create them is as old as time. This need for humans to see ourselves existing outside of ourselves, could be seen as downright narcissistic, but as the eternal optimists we are, we’d say it’s got something to do with human curiosity. 

Not only were we paying homage to the ancient circuit boards of human culture with our avatars, we were also dipping our shoes into the pools of tomorrow. At the time of the campaign, the term metaverse wasn’t even a whisper yet. The avatars of

Sweezy, Lean Chihiro, Josman

and

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weren’t just beautiful to behold, they were also precursors of the future.  As the metaverse starts taking shape, we’ll see more and more dualistic displays of personalities, the more society begins to live double lives, IRL and online. And in both instances, we know exactly what shoes we’ll be wearing.

Air Jordan Future.