Die NFT-Plattform Opensea.io hat 2021 ihren Quartalsumsatz von 95 Mio. Dollar (1. Quartal) auf 2,75 Mrd. Dollar (3. Quartal) erhöht. Beeple ist im Februar 2021 durch eine NFT-Versteigerung bei Christie’s zum drittteuersten lebenden Künstler geworden. Der NFT-Hype mag eine Blase erzeugen, aber durch NFTs erhalten digitale Arbeiten erstmals einen digitalen Wert.
The Cologne artist and curator Thomas Zitzwitz collects and experiments with NFTs. My connection to him came about through the most recent project undertaken by Roland Schappert at the David Behning Gallery. However, his involvement with NFTs was first brought to my attention by chance via twitter. And, as I am – how would people put it nowadays – quite bullish at the moment as far as NFTs are concerned, my curiosity was aroused and I wanted to know more. Thankfully, Thomas found the time to answer a few of my questions.
fk: I saw via twitter that you are involved with NFTs, both as a collector and as a producer. Is that right and why does the subject of NFTs interest you in general?
tz: I am sure that the hype around NFTs has a lot to do with the coronavirus pandemic. At present, the possibilities to see original art are extremely limited. All we are left with are online viewing rooms of galleries, fairs, museums, Instagram, etc. and an almost endless number of PDFs that flatter into our email boxes every day. Even as die-hard art enthusiasts, be it as collectors or artists, we soon become tired of it all.
As an artist, I have always been interested in new trends in contemporary art. I started in 1992 in the foundation semester with a course of studies in Media Arts at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe. Early on, I became interested in new forms in art, as an artist in particular in video and sound installations, as well as a new form that I have called Situation with Smell.
When I look at artworks shown on platforms hicetnunc.xyz, foundation.app, makersplace.com or superrare.co (to name just some of these ‘exhibition sites’), they are stored per certificate in a blockchain as NFTs. That means that I look at the original artwork on my computer screen, even if I am sitting on my own sofa because of a lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic and I am not able to go to museums, galleries and art clubs. That has its own particular appeal for me, as I am not looking at the copy, the photo or documentation of a painting, sculpture, installation or film but at the original.
At the same time, I don’t deny that only a few NFT artworks really engage or inspire me. But there certainly are some, and the discovery of just one such work sometimes makes clicking at breakneck speed through hundreds, even thousands of works worthwhile. But I also believe that, when we have overcome the pandemic, and we can once again visit exhibitions, biennales and fairs, the fascination for NFT artworks will diminish. Although it will definitely not disappear.
Continue reading…
digital culture and the creative production that goes with it is constantly changing. the digital3mpire was always a place to examine this change, to reflect on it and to present the results of it. and so it is only logical that we face the new developments here and deal affirmatively with the phenomenon of NFTs. only in this way can we recognize and understand the possibilities and potentials and, in the best possible case, use them for ourselves.
we have minted a first collection on opense and will publish further works together with other artists in the coming period.
Current productions and further information about the label can be found here.
KS – the collection is a collaborative work between the artists Florian Kuhlmann and Roland Schappert to explore the pitfalls, the chances and the opening new possibilities of professional aesthetic products offered as NFT.
„We move in a dynamic field of tension of free artistic production. On the one hand there is the democratic notion of communal exchange and on the other hand the notion of artificial scarcity and uniqueization, which is absurd from a communicative point of view. Original copies stir up a desire through subsequent monopoly and increase the attention of capitalist business models.“
Florian Kuhlmann & Roland Schappert, 2021
First steps into a new world
We take our first steps on different platforms because we want to know how it works and how it feels. With this release we have chosen the platforms opensea.io and hicetnunc.xyz. Each platform feels a little different, each pursues different strategists. We deal with it affirmatively.
On hicetnunc.xyz we have minted two motifs each in an edition of 100. Minting on the Tezos blockchain is comparatively energy-saving and resource-saving because of the proof-of-stake process on which it is based, which seemed to us to be a sensible platform for high print runs.
Please klick here to see the original pieces.
‚thewrong.org is the worlds most net art biennale of the world. it consists of a planet scale digital swarm of webpages, shows and various exhibition formats contextualizing digital issues in a serious and playful way.‘
the wrong routers where part of the netart biennale 2019.
In 2019, with the kind support of Alain Bieber, a WRONG ROUTER made it into the NRW Forum and was installed there in the entrance area. The sound work “You are listening to the digital data packet of an analog photograph of the first analog cassette recorder from 1963 in the form of a digital sound recording while the sending of the image in an email on 4 May by a Wi-Fi router in under one second.”(47.12 min)“ by Achim Mohné was presented on the router.
The project was curated and organized in cooperation with Darktaxa collective, in this case largely driven by Michael Reisch and Florian Kuhlmann. I will not write any further about the presented work itself, because Michael Reisch had already done a detailed interview with Achim Mohné in advance of the exhibition. You can read the transcript of this conversation here on the darktaxa website.
Local-non-sculpture is a a location based netart-exhibition and a site specific installation. The project is about the realization of a media plastic, a network-based permanent installation in public space. A media plastic is a sculpture made out of pure information, its dimensions in space are defined by bits, bytes, longitude and latitude and the possibility of getting access to it. Accept the medium we call reality there is no specific physical layer involved.
Selected artists with high affinity to the net and the new media where invited to create a web-based work. The individual contributions where presented on separate webpages with content of their choice which where accessible via a single URL.
Due to a simple location check however the website is only available on a specific position. When requesting the website from different locations, the works will not be visible and the visitor gets an access deinied message. Therefor the webpage will be primarily accessed by smartphones and other mobile devices by users which are on site.
To date, three local nons have been installed that still work at the respective locations.
A show titled The Wrong Club (03/11/2017 — 06/01/2018) was a collaboration between Digital Empire | Düsseldorf and cologne based Galerie Falko Alexander — curated by Falko Bürschinger & Florian Kuhlmann.
An exhibition in context of The Wrong — Biennale for Digital Art. THE WRONG BIENNALE 2017 was the third edition of The Wrong, happening fromNovember 1st, 2017 to January 31st, 2018.
+++ ONLINE +++
THE WRONG Internet Pavillon – super-information-high-market.com
Art as an open source superproduct
open 24/7 on the internet, start from now ongoingregulary updates list of participating artiststs hereThe pavillon is still Beta version 0.96 and an open call is running.Interested artists please get in touch or just make a pull request on our repo at github.
— OFFLINE —
THE WRONG Embassy Cologne – THE WRONG CLUB
Friday 03.11.2017 18:00 Galerie Falkso Alexander, Cologne
Curated by Florian Kuhlmann & Falko Bürschinger
Featured artists:
Banz und Bowinkel | Arno Beck | Tim Berresheim | Raphael Brunk | Matthias Danberg | Damian Dziwis | Dominik Halmer | Philipp Höning | Kilian Kretschmer | Stephan Machac | Igor Štromajer | Sebastian Schmieg | Timothy Shearer | Sebastian Thewes | UBERMORGEN
‘METAMODERNE NOW AND NEVER — what we definitely do not know about metamoderne.‘
a netart-show on a hacked wifi router at digital3mpire, Düsseldorf on 10th of March 2017. Produced as a collaboration with router.gallery, Berlin.
digital3mpire is very happy to present the berlin based router.gallery together with the last show ‚METAMODERNE NOW AND NEVER — what we definitely do not know about metamoderne.‚ at our space in düsseldorf. METAMODERNE NOW AND NEVER has been on wifi display from 21 January 2017 to 13 February 2017 in Berlin and will be accessable in Düsseldorf on friday the 10th of march 2017.
Contributing artists:
Æther-Design, David Quiles Guillo, Dominik Rinnhofer, ENKI Live, Faith Holland, Götz Gramlich, Igor Stromajer, Julia Vanishtor, Johannes Thies, Jonathan Monaghan, Keren Cytter, Lorna Mills, Marieke Verkoelen, Oliver Haidutschek, Timothy Shearer, Phillip Meier
OPENING TIMES: 10th of March 2017 20.00 – 23.59
+++ More Pics ?! +++
Much more pictures of the show at perisphere blog
Friday 6th may 2016 – ‚The Internet Is Present (Part 2).‘ @digital3mpire
Is the internet still present? Does it transform you? Is there any impact on our societies – and is it valuable? Should i quantify myself, and how much? Can one global reality exist and most importantly: do we, as a species, evolve?
After ‚The Internet Is Present – Part#1‘ which took place in the HUSSLEHOF Gallery in Frankfurt, now Part#2 will be in Düsseldorf.
>>> SEE MUCH MORE PICS, PICS, PICS AT PERISPHERE.DE
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Paul Barsch & Tilman Hornig (Gotha)
Ad Minoliti (Buenos Aires)
Shawné Michaelain Holloway (Paris)
Art Belikov (Lithuania)
Felix Breidenbach (Düsseldorf)
Judith Gerke (Berlin)
Nina Kettiger (Berlin)
Tomasz Skibicki (Nürnberg)
Yung Hurn (Wien)
Igor Botur (Berlin)
Katharina Zimmerhackl (Leipzig)
Benedikt Weisshaupt & Sandra Weber (Amsterdam & Berlin)
Benedikt Fischer (Frankfurt)
VVC (Berlin, Mainz,Hamburg,..)
TEXT:
Juliane Duft (Frankfurt)
Reese Riley (Usa)
CURATION:
Sebastian Zimmerhackl (Berlin)
Manuel Rossner (Shanghai)
Benedikt Fischer (Frankfurt)
Friday, 30th. Octobre 2015, we celecbrated the opening of ‚The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale‚ with the perfomance/installation ‚Exploit & Disappear (we just stole it from the internet)‘ by Tanja Ritterbex, Isreal Aten and Isabella Fürnkäs.
Exploit & Disappear (we just stole it from the internet) is part of „The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale“ which starts officially at 1st November 2015. We celebrate this global digital art event with this performance. The Wrong is happening online but also offline. Divided into more than 50 online pavilions, virtual spaces in which selected works are exhibited, including an unlimited pavilion open to public participation, and a network of more than 40 IRL embassies around the world.
a location based digital and immaterial netart-exhibition as part of the ATHENS DIGITAL ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 in athens, greek. The exhibition was part of the International Festival of Digital Arts in Greece, Athens Digital Arts Festival (ADAF). The festival returns for its annual edition in the historic centre of Athens and invited to a four-day gathering which took place on May 21 – 24 in Diplareios School.
this local-non-sculpture is a site specific netart installation. it is the third in a series of local-non projects, this installation incorporates a webpage that presents artwork from selected netartists only accessible via location-check at the ATHENS DIGITAL ARTS FESTIVAL.
the theme for this local-non project is sculpture. it refers to the long tradition of sculpture in greece and also reflects the fact, that the #LocalNon-project is about the realization of a media plastic, a network-based permanent installation in public space. A local-non as a media plastic is a sculpture made out of pure information, its dimensions in space are defined by bits, bytes, longitude and latitude and the possibility of getting access to it.
participating artists: Banz & Bowinkel, Claudia Mate, Dominik Podsiadly, Eva Papamargariti, Florian Meisenberg, Galleryfist, Isabella Fürnkäs, Lorna Mills, Manuel Rossner, Ole Fach, Olia Lialina, Paul Soulellis, Ronny Szillo, Thomas Artur Spallek, Tobias Rothe, Zsolt Mesterhazy
Local-non-sculpture is a a location based netart-exhibition and a site specific installation. The project is about the realization of a media plastic, a network-based permanent installation in public space. A media plastic is a sculpture made out of pure information, its dimensions in space are defined by bits, bytes, longitude and latitude and the possibility of getting access to it. Accept the medium we call reality there is no specific physical layer involved.
A show with artworks by Giulia Bowinkel, Friedemann Banz, Olia Lialina und Timothy Shearer featuring Nikolas Müller.
More pictures from the opening at 6th march 2015 are available at peripshere.de. Frederica Miller wrote a post about the show at artblogcologne.com.
“Autopoises is Greek for self creation” with Thomas Spallek, Alexander Romey, Sebastian Schmieg und Silvio Lorusso.
First Aethertalk with Kai Erdmann, gallery owner (Galerie Kai Erdmann) from Hamburg and Johannes Thies, writer (Rösrathproject) from Rösrath meet each other for beer via video skypchat in digital3mpires galleryspace , THE HUB.
2 laptops, 2 men, 2 beers, 1 videoskype, 1 galleryspace and the internet.
Like always, we tried to question what #NON or metamodernism could be, but still have no clue.
“Autopoises is Greek for self creation” with Thomas Spallek, Alexander Romey, Sebastian Schmieg und Silvio Lorusso. 12th decembre 2014 #digital3mpire, Düsseldorf.
Thanx to the artists, the guests and all the helping hands!
see more Freitag 12.12.2014 20 Uhr at THE HUB
HOWTO denken ++++ Dekonstruktion und Rekonstruktion anhand von Algorithmen. +++ Material als Container menschlicher Vorstellungen und Projektionen +++ Auch immer gut ist die Versicherung der Identität durch Feindbilder. +++ Außerdem: Realität entsteht in unserer Vorstellung. Klar. +++ Aber wir stellen sie selber her und beeinflussen mit dieser Fiktion wieder die Realitäten anderer. +++ Dazu merken: Die Feedbackmagie des Surrealen existiert generell nur im Denken des Anderen. +++ Unausgeschöpfte Möglichkeiten sind eben auch Zusammenhänge die noch nicht hergestellt worden sind. +++ Jetzt ist alles im Interimszustand zum Nächsten, und(!) wartet auf seine Optimierung. +++ Imaginierte Zukunft. Was soll das sein in einer permanenten globalen Jetztzeit? +++ Systeme (wie Photoshop/3d/Internet), die die Grundlage neuer Medien sind, werden präzise untersucht und offenbaren dann wie sich unsere Welt und ihre Betrachtung durch die zunehmende Prozessierung von Informationen und Bildern verändert. Ja? +++ Alles ist konstruiert. Indem man aber bereits existierende Dinge verändert, wird das zugrundeliegende Konstrukt sichtbar. Manchmal. +++ Hinauf zur Hyperrealität. Los geht’s! +++ Entmenschlichung ist immer ein Thema. Leider. +++ Denn Eingriffe durch Algorithmen sind in der Metamoderne die Basis der Mystifizierung des vermeintlich Realen. +++ Selbstkreation vs. Spekulation +++ Die rhythmische Neuerschaffung des Es. +++ Ephemer entsteht … , wirklich ist dann wohl das, was nicht veränderbar ist. +++ So lange bis alles nur noch Platzhalter und Container für alles sein kann. +++ x +++ Es folgt die totale Verunsicherung im changierenden Realen.
12.12.2014 ab 20 uhr
@thehub/#digital3mpire
Kirchfeldstraße 112
40215 Düsseldorf
With artwork from: Matthias Danberg, Daniel Dwyer, Lance Kiu, Max Kuwertz, Jens Mittelsdorf, Matthias Neuenhofer, Mark Pepper, Sebastian Blank, Florian Winkler, Martin Wisniowski, Dmitry Zakharov
Continue reading…
On friday, 26.09.2014 we will do a BYOB (BRING YOUR OWN BEAMER) to celebrate the opening of the #digital3mpire – a new space for digital aesthetics and network issues in Düsseldorf. The artists participating in this event bring their own projectors and show their video works. The BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer) concept has been developed by Rafaël Rozendaal 2010. The first edition of BYOB was initiated by Anne de Vries & Rafael Rozendaal in Berlin, and has since then been organized in many different cities around the world.
This show will start around 8pm (20.00 cet). Participants should come a bit earlier for doing the setup.
Please send us a short message if you would like to be part of the show. This makes organizing and planing easier for us.
Guests are of course welcome all evening … :-) !
Rich Kids Beer will be serverd.
Date:
26th septembre 2014 – 08 pm
Location:
Kirchfeldstrasse 112
40215 Düsseldorf
Contact:
per e-mail to: hello (edd) floriankuhlmann (dodo) com
or via twitter @fkuhlmann
a collaboration goldundbeton.de, bruchunddallas.de and www.boutique-koeln.de.
local-non-off-line is permanent location based netart-installation, that was launched at 4th april 2014. the webbpage and the presented artwork will due to location-check only beaccessable at the ebertplatz in cologne, germany.
ebertplatz cologne is currently one of germanys most exciting underground gallery hotspots. 4 off-space gallerys are located there and make the space a vibrant place for new and fresh impulses into the artscene of the rhineland.
3 of the gallery will promote and support the local-non-off-line project, theses galleries are goldundbeton.de, bruchunddallas.de and www.boutique-koeln.de.
The local-non-offline was launched one week before the art cologne artfair in april, at 4th april 2014.
participating artists:
Sebastian Blank, Laura Brothers, Browser Based Foundation, Jennifer Chan, Florian Egermann, Dorotea Etzler, Manuel Fernandez, Thomas Hawarnke, Katrin Herzner, Yvonne Klasen, Christoph Knoth, Jan Robert Leegte, Peter Luining, Jonas Lund, Lorna Mills, Diane Mueller, Niko Princen, Oliver Salkic, Nicolas Sassoon, Julia Scher, Sebastian Schmieg, Vera Tan Hoveling, Johannes Thies, Sebastian Thewes, Damian Weber, Joonas Westerlund, Joubin Zargarbashi
the theme for this is off-line. a word which refers to the gallery spaces at ebertplatz, the off-spaces and also to the fact, that we all need the possibility to get off-line if we want to stay free. off-line means in this case means the idea of beeing disconnected and also of beeing released from a line.
Continue reading…opening 20 September 2013 7 pm
Kremmener Str. 8a, 10435 Berlin
https://localnonaccess.de/
participating artists
kim asendorf, alexander dekker, constant dullaart, karen eliot, eteam, fabian hesse, karl heinz jeron, jan robert leegte, silvio lorusso, jonas lund, johannes p. osterhoff, niko princen, stefan riebel, sebastian schmieg, daniel schwarz, timothy shearer, rick silva, thomas artur spallek, ubermorgen.com
Books and Blankets 1 – Sebastian Schmieg | Search by Image
BOOKS AND BLANKETS is a selection based on Internet-Art. Books help us introduce and distribute work containing images and words. Blankets help us to transform the value of art.
