AI Telling the Truth /2020

This synthetic video is playing with our notion of truth. We consider truth the solid foundation of our knowledge and beliefs. When you don’t tell the truth, you can lose friends and even your life. Nevertheless, there are reasons to doubt that truth really exists in the way we imagine it. The German Wikipedia entry for truth starts with the warning “the title of this article is ambiguous” and goes on “the notion of truth is used in different contexts and is framed differently”. The video AI telling the truth plays with this uncertainty about the meaning of truth by conveying contradicting messages through an AI generated deepfake host.

If Henry Ford had Asked The People What they Wanted… /2020

“If Henry Ford had Asked the People what they Wanted…” is a citizen science experiment that sheds new light on a famous quotation by Henry Ford. He is known for having said: If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have answered “faster horses”. As we all know, Henry Ford did not build faster horses, but cars. With this invention he and other entrepreneurs became incredibly rich. This quote is still very popular today, especially among young entrepreneurs. It is often abused to justify the aggressive marketing of products that nobody had asked for before. Especially in times of climate crisis it could be valuable to critically reflect on such a technocratic mindset.

Where did Mr. Ford get the right to push the production of millions and millions of these one to two ton vehicles? His machines have made walking in the city a danger of life and they have moved a large part of our fossil fuels from the ground into the air we breathe. How different would our world be today, how much better could our climate be, how many lives could have been saved if Henry Ford had simply listened to the people? What if Henry Ford had actually tried to breed faster horses?

Modern scientific findings, e.g. from bioengineering and synthetic biology, now give us a glimpse into what we could have achieved if we had used the millions of talented engineers and the billions of public subsidies to bioengineer horses for a whole century. Perhaps everyone could have their own sustainable mobility concept in the garden today. A super-fast horse that, depending on its breed, has huge pouch pockets for transporting food, or wings for crossing oceans, or simply a spacious and warm interior for the relaxed enjoyment of cherry brandy.

In a citizen science process we developed the first prototypes of such literally alternative mobility concepts at Kunstverein Ebersberg. Together with Ebersberg’s exhibition visitors and local residents, we collected ideas and built prototypes only from waste paper – cheap, but fun, and insightful.

Cryptomustaches /2021

Forget Cryptokitties, -punks, -kongz, -dongs, -whatever – here come the cryptomustaches! They come in a limited edition of 7×6+1 because not everyone can wear a mustache :-{)

Cryptomustache collection on opensea.io

Kitsch /2021

Fine art is fine but kitsch warms your soul. Kitsch is collection of NFTs to make you feel home in the metaverse. We all know these motifs. We have seen them a thousand times in the living room of our auntie and in the living room of all other aunties. I went to my auntie, photographed and minted them, so they can also decorate your auntie’s living room in the metaverse. There are approximately 1 Billion aunties on this planet. So I minted one copy dedicated to each selling one at a time.

The Kitsch collection is a comment on the predominant futuristic style of NFT artworks, which are meant to be the decoration of the upcoming Metaverse. The Metaverse shall be a place for everyone, but not everyone feels comfortable with the futuristic art recently offered on NFT market places. The Kitsch collection worships the non-elitest art that potentially billions of people could own and identify with.

At the same time it is a statement on NFTs promise to create ownership and scarcity in the digital space. This attempt seems to fire back to erode the idea of copyrights in the physical world. The distinction between copyright infringement and artistic expression is becoming less clear and more arbitrary. As of today, it is forbidden to sell a scan of someone else’s painting. Yet, it would be allowed to sell a photo of a living room, where that painting is visible somewhere in the background. The Kitsch collection tries to capture the exact border case, the photo of the artwork in a physical frame, where the original artwork is neither directly copied nor trivialized as a background element. As of today, nobody knows how to handle this case. Hopefully humanity will decide in favor of altruism. The wisest thing humanity ever invented was not to possess but to share.

Kitsch collection on opensea.io

π Constitution /2021

π Constitution is a collection of NTFs that manifest the tension of investing. They pair the hope for unimaginable profits with the fear of losing everything.

I listed two copies of the constitution of Užupis for auction as NFT art on opensea.io for the price of 3,141,592,653,589.7932 Ethereum Coins (that’s 𝝅 trillion ETH and equals around 5 quadrillion USD). This sum of money does not exist. Currently, there are only about 120 million ETH and only 1.2 quadrillion USD in circulation.

In order to enable the purchase of these NFTs I listed them as reverse auctions. The price is rapidly declining from 𝝅 trillion ETH until someone buys the NFT. If nobody buys them, the price will decline for 𝝅 years. On 20 April 2024 the most expensive thing in the world will have lost all its value.

NFT certificates on opensea.io

NFT Certificates /2021

NFT Certificates are NFTs that function as financial products. In contrast to all other financial products, our NFT Certificates can protect you from earning money. At the same time, they make it possible for investors to gain profits which are out of reach for any other financial product. Normal leverage certificates traded on the stock market usually promise a profit factor between two and a maximum of ten, we guarantee profit factors up to 1,000. How is this possible?

In cooperation with crypto pioneer Gleb Divov and his colleagues from the Užupis CryptoArt Hub “Digital / Kalnas” we developed NFT-based mechanisms that effectively protect investors against profits — aligned with the spirit of the Republic of Užupis. We have created new NFTs for this purpose, which, similar to warrants known from stock trading, allow a bet on the amount of the auction revenue.

For example, we have issued a “LONG Certificate” that you can buy for 0,314 ETH. With this certificate you will be betting that the black copy of the constitution will receive a minimum bid of 314 ETH (approx. USD 5 million) until the end of the auction in more than three years. If the constitution does not achieve this price, you earn nothing. But if the constitution achieves that price, you will receive a perverse premium of 314 ETH. That would be thousandfold of your 500-USD-invest within 𝝅 years (yes, a thousandfold).

This is easily possible because we own both, the certificate as well as the artworks you bet on. The premium of the certificate would be paid directly from the auction revenues of our artwork. and protect ourselves from absurd profits. If we managed to auction off the black copy of the constitution for the enormous sum of 314 ETH, we would instantly transfer the 314 ETH to the holder of the LONG certificate.

NFT Certificates collection on opeansea.io

Charitree /2021

Charitree is a charity NFT project with the potential to turn the environmentally destructive NFT technology into the savior of the planet. It is based on the true story of the Tree that Owns Itself and is also a statement on plant rights.

Only the tree that owns itself owns all rights to its images. Only trees should benefit from their sales. Therefore, any profits from the sales and aftersales will be donated to www.onetreeplanted.org for planting trees.

One tree costs around 0.0005 ETH to be planted and it can absorb around 1,000 Kg of carbon in its lifetime. By purchasing one photo for 0.02 ETH you will help to remove 40 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

At the moment, there is an estimated amount of 2.966.000.000.000 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. If we manage to sell all the 74.150.000.000 copies of this picture, all the CO2 will be absorbed.

Charitree collection on opensea.io

I.O.T. – Incalculable Oracle of Technology /2019

I.O.T. uses state of the art IOT technology to turn a plant into a touch-sensitive Oracle. You can ask your questions about the future of society and will receive an answer upon touching it. Some answers make no sense, some answers will perplex the visitors, and sometimes there will be no proper answer but the command to have a drink or the IOT can even turn the lighting on and off. In the end I.O.T stands for “Incalculable Oracle of Technology” and it is an entertaining comment on our hyperconnected future.

Peoples’ reactions vary from amusement to surprised disbelieve when confronted with its miraculous forecasts in contrast to its improvised appearance. Some people even refused to ask the plant anything for spiritual reasons. However, I can assure that IOT would never ever give any critical or harmful answers.

I.O.T. has been exhibited at international festivals like Ars Electronica and served as the model for the “Bio-Piano” shown in the Netflix series Biohackers.

Crypto Art

$HUX 4 ALL /2024

TeleNFT /2022

7bit movements /2022

Single Pixels /2021

GIFstudies /2021

π Constitution /2021

Charitree /2021

NFT Certificates /2021

NFT is a wonderful medium to discuss and play with our notions of art, value, and ownership. I create conceptual NFTs about the medium NFT to reveal the historic and hysteric social consequences of this new technology.

Media Coverage

ORF ZIB2 Magazin: “Ausstellung Teletext ist Kunst” (10.09.2022)

XPLR:Media: “NFT-Künstler Max Haarich über Kryptokunst: Euphorie trifft Skepsis” (27.05.2022)

BR Kulturjournal: “Überfälle: auf die Band “Element of Crime, auf Rudolf Steiner und auf den Kunstmarkt” (22.05.2022)

1E9 Magazin: “NFT-Ausstellung in München” (10.05.2022)

BR KulturBühne: “NFTs im Kunstbetrieb” (14.04.2022)

1E9 Magazin: “TeleNFT: Als Pixelkunst erobern NFT den Teletext.” (19.01.2022)

EURO Magazin: “Noch im Schatten von Kryptowährungen: Digitaler Hype NFTs” (18.11.2021)

CHIP Foto Video: “MEGA HYPE NFT Wie Non-Fungible Tokens die Foto- & Kunstszene aufmischen” (AUG 2021)

Chaosradio: “Die Blockchain: Geld, Kunst und die Lösung all unserer Probleme” (07.06.2021)

Südwestpresse: “Profit mit Pixeln: Wie digitale Werke den Kunstmarkt erobern” (06.06.2021)

Ada Magazin: “Unsere Erde ist non-fungible” (27.05.2021)

HR2 Podcast: “Voll verpixelt – der Kunstmarkt in der Krise” (22.04.2021)

BR Puls: “NFT: Was steckt hinter der Kunst und wie kann ich damit Geld verdienen?” (21.04.2021)

hr iNFO: “Aufregung in der Kunstwelt – der NFT Hype” (16.04.2021)

F.A.Z. Podcast für Deutschland: “69 Millionen für ein paar Pixel: der Hype um NFT” (25.03.2021)

nft-kunst.ch: “Das Schlauste, was wir Menschen erfunden haben, ist nicht das Besitzen, sondern das Teilen!” (22.03.2021)

Single Pixels /2021

Single Pixels NFTs is a schizophrenic artistic research project about pixels and non-fungible token (NFT) art. What started as a satirical comment about the mad NFT hype ended up in a poetic investigation on pixels.

The Madness

Single Pixels NFTs is a collection of digital image files offered for sale on the NFT platform opensea.io. The artworks’ files are just 3 kilobytes in size, and the pixels they contain are many times smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence. They were offered for sale for 1 Etherum (~ 1,500 $) to comment on the current divergence between financial and fundamental valuations. The practical immateriality of the pixels is in absolute contrast to the insane ecological footprint of 125 Kg CO2 caused by minting. Additionally, These sweet little no-things take NFT’s promise of digital authorship ad absurdum: how can one claim ownership of something that has hardly any perceptible properties?

The Poetry

While loading the single pixels into their sales packaging, a digital photo frame key chain, I suddenly remembered my childhood. When I was a kid, I liked to walk so close to the tv until I could only see pixels. I found it totally fascinating how these inherently meaningless pixels could tell the most adventurous stories once they joined for a dance on a screen. Single Pixel NFTs reveals the adaptability and beauty of the omnipresent but rarely noticed building blocks of digitization. A single pixel is barely perceptible. But if you put it on the right screen and get close enough, you can see the world’s smallest sunrise.This sweet little no-thing is able to show everything.

Pixels also serve as a yardstick for the progression of digitization. A pixel has no extension independent of the display that shows it. As our screens evolve, the single pixel is becoming smaller and smaller, until at some point we can no longer perceive it at all – in a metaverse of invisible pixels.

“Single Red and Blue Pixel Edgeways” displayed in Firefox browser.

Preview of “Single Red and Blue Pixel Edgeways” on opensea.io.

Single Pixel Collection on opensea.io

Currently applying for three Guinness World Records for “Smallest Artwork” (Ref.: 210226133634sa), “Smallest Digital Artwork” (Ref.: 210226124532sda) and “Smallest Non-Fungible-Token Artwork” (Ref.: 210226140416sna).