Museum Angewandte Kunst

While the Corona pandemic has shifted attention from exhibition rooms to digital screens, blockchain culture has generated an entirely new art market. Digital animations inspired by computer game aesthetics, animated colour gradients, geometric graphics, or renderings of virtual worlds are sold for up to eight-digit sums, and artists throughout the world are starting to discover new possibilities in a decentralised world. Three letters promise alleged investment security and the prospect of unlimited profits: NFTs, non-fungible tokens, so-called digital certificates of ownership with forgery-proof registration in the blockchain. A blockchain is a collective register or account book that is generally accessible on all its users’ hard drives where it is continuously updated.

The exhibition and series of events Unblock Gaudi. Digital Art via Blockchain explores the significance of blockchains and their practical applications. What is a blockchain? What are NFTs? How does crypto currency work? And how do artists’ products and objects gain digital distribution? These and other questions are examined not only in the exhibition but also in lectures and workshops. Blockchain technology has the potential to change our society fundamentally and is already revolutionising various markets as well as the structure of digital interactions. For non-specialists it is often hard to find access to this world. The aim of the project is thus to familiarise interested visitors with the technology and to discuss its effects on democratic processes and structures. The exhibition comprises artworks from different areas of digital art, such as generative art, motion design art, AI-generated art, GIFs, new recording technologies, and storytelling. For the duration of the show, the exhibits will be exchanged in accordance with the events. Unblock Gaudi. Digital Art via Blockchain is a cooperation with the Gaudi network and Unblock.Gallery.

Project management: Tuan Khanh Hoang Nguyen, Paulo Perez, and Jascha Tutt

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The works included in this exhibition, as with all of Kelly Richardson’s NFT related exhibitions, are minted exclusively to the Tezos blockchain. On Tezos, minting an NFT requires energy usage on par with a social media post such as a tweet. Richardson is an outspoken advocate for the reduction of harm related to the energy consumption and associated carbon emissions of PoW NFTs. Tezos operates on PoS technologies which require a tiny amount of energy by comparison.