“NFT Must Go” is a curated exhibition bridging the tech and art worlds. It highlights the expansive and expressive medium of the NFT. The NFT (Non-fungible token) essentially links a digital file to a smart contract on the blockchain, creating uniqueness, with functions like certification, authentication, data transparency, dynamic artworks, or an xcircle membership.

The title of the exhibition „NFT Must Go!” is a shrill quote from an art collector and presents xcircle with a welcome opportunity to break down the multiple fears and biases attached to NFTs. We seek to illuminate the creative possibilities behind these three magical letters!

Declaring “NFT must go!” is akin to calling for the banishment of the brush or the camera or the kiln. Like the brush or the camera, the NFT is simply a tool for artists working in the digital media space.

The exhibition features augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (XR) sculptures by Florian Adolph and Ugo Dossi, AI photographs by Max Haarich, satirical videos by Kenny Schachter, works by Tobias Rehberger, generative art by Holger Lippmann, paintings, soft toys, and historical NFTs from meme culture icon PEPE the Frog, analog-induced CHAOS in digital loops by artist Christof Babinsky, glitch GIFs by search engine artist Gretchen Andrew, PlastoCorals by Tamiko Thiel, animated cut-outs by street art creator Daniel Man, cyberspace animations by Virtual Human Ava Verce, flower power moss by artist collective Tinoss, erotic still lifes by Tondo Smiling, lenticular paintings by Tatjana Lee, and light prisms by Betty Mü.

LOCATION xcircle @LOVAAS Projects | Fürstenstraße 6, Munich | Opening: 28.11.2023, 6-10pm | 29.11.-22.12.2023

Tech Days drive digital innovation by connecting and stimulating exchange between industry experts, founders, researchers, scientists and artists. Adrian Ludwig and H.E. Max haarich were invited to by XCIRCLE Gallery to showcase our mind-reading AI horse “Smart Hans“.

“Ode to Joy” by H.E. Max Haarich.

The Scherenschnitt 3.0 exhibition shows digital art. The basis for the works created in 2023 are silhouettes from a bygone era. In the Museum im Hüsy in Blankenburg (Switzerland), collector Hans-Jürgen Glatz is showing more than 400 historical silhouettes/cut-outs (Scherenschnitte) from Switzerland and various European countries. Already two centuries before the “invention” of the Bernese Oberland silhouette, artists and amateurs began to work with cut-outs. Convent women made filigree images of saints. In Geneva, members of the upper classes created landscapes with scissors; in many families, people had their portraits painted in the form of silhouettes. Digital artists take the silhouettes as inspiration or reinterpret specfic works from the collection of the Hüsy Gallery.

The created GIFs were presented in the Espace Vide Gallery in Thun in July 2023 together with original cut-outs.

The 1E9 “Festival of the Future” brings togethert thought leaders, founders of great start-ups, leading investors, scientists, artists and newcomers. it is about understand the latest developments in AI, LifeSciences, Quantum Computing, New Space, Web3, Metaverse, Energy, Mobility and ClimateTech.

Adrian Ludwig and H.E. Max Haarich were invited to exhibit the mind-reading AI horse “Smart Hans” which was challenged by another smart Hans, the love prpagandist Rainer Langhans.

“Sunrise Over the Rocks of Kollnburg” is a 4×3 m outdoor mosaic created by the Hungarian painter Muzsa and H.E. Max Haarich. The work was commissioned by the village Kollnburg in the Bavarian Forrest. It shows a stylized sunrise on the facade of a historic building at the marketplace of Kollnburg. The glass mosaic incorporates the historic bricks and stones, which actually belong to the rock on top of which Kollnburg was erected.

The mosaic consists of more than 2,000 glass tiles, which were each cut and colored by hand.

Mosaic art is actually a predecessor of modern pixel art and it was a lot of fun to practice “pixeling” motifs by hand with the prepared glass tiles.

“Kollnburg Views” is a multimodal installation combining present sights with historic stories of Kollnburg. The installation consists of eight framed lenticular prints, hung in the forest of Kollnburg, waiting to be animated by the visitors. The prints show typical Kollnburg motifs in 3D and are connected with their digital counterpart via NFC chips. Visitors can see the digital animations on their smartphones and listen to audio recordings of Biebl Hermann, a true Bavarian Original, who is sharing invaluable stories and insights about his beautiful city.

The digital Kollnburg Views are stored permanently on the Tezos blockchain.

Wikipedia offers a List of Countries by External Debt. The strange thing is that every country is in debt. How is this possible? Where is all the money?

We, the Republic of Užupis, admit that we have all the money of the world and we will pay your debts. In order to free the world from financial chains, we started printing emergency money from our national currency UžEUR and started distributing it in Munich. The bank notes are left blank so that everyone can enter the amount they need in order to pay their share of their nations debts (between 0 and 846K EUR). This emergency money is a valid currency and 1 Už EUR (~ 4 EUR) will buy you one beer in Užupis.

The problem is that such a sudden and massive increase of liquidity would lead to a fatal inflation. We have seen this during and after the pandemic, when governments started printing money like there is no tomorrow. So in order to prevent the inflation, we restrict the validity of the money to 1 hour with no chance to reach Užupis within that time. Instead, we offered to invest the whole amount back into Užupis Treasury Bills with a value of Π thousand UžEUR each.

The treasury bills were handed out as digital certificates, which can be redeemed by the central bank, if you manage to find it.

This installation has been performed at Munich’s Galerie der KünstlerInnen and at Haus der Kunst. Within one hour, we created real valid money equivalent to several million EUR, and extracted it all from the market before it could hurt anyone.

Installation view of “Good Buy, Reality I” at Munich’s Kunstinsel (Photo: Jens Hartmann)

The virtualisation and commercialisation of our lives is increasingly advancing. Virtual reality technology enables more and more realistic immersion in digital worlds. At the same time, non-fungible token (NFT) technology suddenly allows everything to be turned into a digital item – from digital art to fragments of real skyscrapers. Virtual reality and NFT technology come together in the idea of the metaverses, which has been pushed forward with billions in budgets. Metaverses are customisable digital realities in which digital goods can be presented, traded and consumed in the form of NFTs.

“Good Buy, Reality!” marks the beginning of Munich’s digital sell-out into metaverses. Two 25m² fragments of our common everyday life were each photographically isolated, stored as NFTs on a public blockchain, and turned into trade goods for metaverses. The billboards on the art island show two NFT sales offers, which can be accessed via the QR link shown. The NFT offers each include the exact reality cutout that would be seen behind the billboard if it were not covered by the offer. However, the perspective of the digital sections of reality is distorted, so that they only match the analogue reality for a very short time from a certain point.

Against the background of increasing virtualisation and commercialisation of our lives, the cross-media installation “Good Buy, Reality!” invites us to appreciate shared reality. Two such small moments of reality are artificially created in order to threaten their sale at the same time. As long as this sale is not completed, however, the supposedly all-commercialising NFT platform functions as a community-promoting community archive. In this way, the art installation emphasises our often underestimated personal responsibility and power vis-à-vis new technologies.

The installation will be on view at Munich’s Kunstinsel at Lenbachplatz from 17 JAN to 15 MAR 2023.

www.publicartmuenchen.de

H.E. Max Haarich had the honor to be invited by the legendary love propagandists Rainer Langhans and Christa Ritter for an evening at Munich’s Import/Export. In an open discussion with the whole audience, they raised the question of how we are feeling and how our view on life itself is changing in these times of growing conflicts, where hatred and violence is presented as the only rational “solution”.

A recording of the discussion will be published soon.

Ambassador H.E. Haarich had the honor to present the story of the Republic of Užupis at TEDxROMA on 21 JAN 2023. In his talk, he demonstrated how the spirit of Užupis might contribute to more ethical AI and more kisses on planet earth. 1,100 guests attended the event at Parco della Musica as well as 2,000 online viewers.

The talk will be published by the end of February on www.tedxroma.com.