With »The Story That Has Just Begun«, the ZKM | Karlsruhe is presenting a selection of NFTs from its collection at the EnBW headquarters.
NFT stands for non-fungible token – a uniquely identifiable digital certificate of authenticity recorded on a blockchain, a tamper-resistant public distributed ledger on the Internet. For artists, NFTs are a way to certify digital works – which can otherwise be copied infinitely – as unique items.
Although the first NFTs were created as early as 2014, the broader public did not take note until 2021, when several digitally certified artworks were sold at auction for millions of dollars. In late 2017, the ZKM acquired a number of NFTs, becoming one of the first institutions worldwide to include CryptoArt in its collection.
The exhibition presents art ranging from early iconic NFT works such as the CryptoPunks (2017) by Larva Labs all the way to recent works experimenting with time lock protocols – a mechanism enabling time-based access control for NFTs. Most of the works shown are so-called on-chain NFTs, meaning that the artwork itself (typically generated algorithmically) is encoded on the same blockchain as the certificate of ownership. Early computer artworks from the 1960s provide a historical and conceptual counterpoint. »The Story That Has Just Begun« invites viewers to engage with a rapidly evolving art form that represents the vision of a decentralized Internet.
The exhibition at EnBW is presented as part of the ongoing exhibition »The Story That Never Ends. The ZKM Collection«.