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Piece of Magic

December 2022 ––
The passion, power, and incredible talent of the best teams competing in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ were captured forever by Coca-Cola and Crypto.com in a series of NFT artworks inspired by unique generative ‘heatmaps’ created by each team’s on-field attacks, tackles, and winning goals.

Artist GMUNK added: “At its core, Coca-Cola ‘Piece of Magic’ used football data as our paintbrush, defining densities, behaviors and applications of color to shape and create an immersive piece of art that embraces the spirit of football and depicts a visual story unique to each match.”

Developed and hosted on the Crypto.com NFT platform, visionary digital artist GMUNK teamed up with Coca-Cola to create a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs generated by tracking the in-game movements of the worlds best players on the biggest stage.



The Case Study

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The Process

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At its core, these pieces of art functioned as data visualizations that were intended to be easily understood and tell the story of each match in its entirety. The team used the football data as a paintbrush, defining densities, behaviors and applications of color, shape and form. The data was analyzed and directed into Unity as the platform of choice, which generated unique statements on the progression and character of each match.

A graphical interface, designed by Toros Kose, was overlaid on top of each data visualization to track the elements of time during the match to visually pair the generative events to the exact moment they happened in the match.  
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The Key Data Points explored were goals, saves, passes, and ball control. Each was expressed in a different way and signature to each teams color palette. The artwork was rendered on a three-dimensional canvas of refractive spheres, each an echo of depth and optical intrigue that is a signature technique in the Munkowitz repertoire.

Utilizing the element of time, the events of the match placed on a timeline, the data visualizations populating over time as the events occur in the match. This clearly told the visual story of the match, but also kept the designs clean and saved from too much overlap and layering of too many events and detail.
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The Reactions

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Nazli Berberoglu, FIFA World Cup General Manager at The Coca-Cola Company: “The FIFA World Cup™ in Qatar is about bringing magical moments to life on and off the pitch for millions of fans from the region and beyond. This incredible collaboration with GMUNK will see 10,000 stunning and unique ‘Pieces of Magic’ in the form of NFTs available for fans to own forever.

“A superb talent who has consistently pushed the boundaries of art’s newest and most exciting field, GMUNK’s ‘heatmap’ inspired NFTs will capture the passion and determination shown by players during the World Cup – as they battle it out on the pitch, their athleticism and performance will inspire incredible works of digital art.”

“This year’s FIFA World Cup will be the first to leverage Web3 technology” said Steven Kalifowitz, Chief Marketing Officer at Crypto.com. “It’s a privilege to partner with Coca-Cola and GMUNK to memorialize these historical matches that will forever be captured on the blockchain. Together we are creating a completely new form of memorabilia.”
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Digital Artist, Creative Director

at YMU Arts
for Gray (AKQA) Istanbul
Credit List

Digital Artist: GMUNK
Production Company: YMU Arts
Executive Producer: Jori Teplitsky
Executive Producer: Maya Klabin
Producer: Etienne Smith
Unity Development: nocomputer
Executive Producer: Hannah Patronoudis
Creative Director: Wim Vanhenden
Technical Director: Wim Wauters
Unity Developer: Wim Wauters
Graphic Artist: Toros Kose
Concept Artist: Jeffrey Bryant