PRESS RELEASE

On 19 March the exhibition  entitled “DIGITAL CONTAMINATION – hybrid art as creative expression,” which will be held from 7 PM (CET) at HOLY CLUB DIGITAL ART GALLERY, has as its main purpose to highlight how in the current era the thinning of the boundaries separating artistic disciplines can produce very interesting new expressive solutions.

The Cathedral Pavilion (an installation created by artist Adriano Lombardo) will feature five art projects by artists STEFANO BOMBARDIERI, PAULO RENFTLE, CRYPTOMADONNE Holy Club, MENDACIA and YOU; who have been able to feed on the juxtapositions between physical and digital by expressing new creative possibilities by hybridizing seemingly very different art forms.

The exhibition proposes a new angle to what is the current art world, starting from the principle that in human history there has always been a debate on the subject of art. What is art, what is not?

Every revolution provokes skepticism and misunderstanding because it leads human beings toward what they do not know, to look into the face of the unknown.

In contemporary times, the technological revolution has brought new fractures in the human heart, unknown fears that threaten to challenge even the very meaning of the term “human being.”

The ripping apart of old religious, social and artistic dogmas has led to the development of new forms of creative expression that also embrace digital solutions never before adopted.

The irruption of artificial intelligence, holographic projections, 3-D modeling and many other digital techniques has inevitably contaminated the vision and experience of traditional art.

At the same time, digital artists increasingly match their works with a physical counterpart that can give material substance to their ideas. Physical and metaphysical, material and digital meet and collide, giving rise to a new form of creative expression called Phygital Art.

Artists featured in the exhibition “DIGITAL CONTAMINATION”

STEFANO BOMBARDIERI who has been proposing his XXL installations for years in squares all over the world (and already boasts two participations in the Venice Biennale) has recently decided to combine the physical work “the weight of suspended time” with an immaterial work visible through a hologram. During the exhibition on 19 March, the artist will exhibit sculptural works, on plastic material and holographic works certified through the Blockchain.

PAULO RENFTLE, a photographer characterized by a luminous, compositional and geometric signature, which recurs throughout his work developed over a 20-year career; presents exclusively the AFTERLIFE series, images created with laser light, captured with Hasselblad both digitally and on film. During the exhibition, “AFTERLIFE – I” an NFT work depicting female beauty transported to another plane of reality, recently released on SuperRare and purchased by collector Poseidon NFT Fund, will also be on display; during the event, one of the works will be viewable through VR.

CRYPTOMADONNE Holy Club is an NFT project created by artist Beatrice Vigoni composed of pixelated madonnas processed from a painting by Masaccio (St. Anna Metterza – 1424, Masaccio and Masolino). It is a reinterpretation of the symbol of the Virgin in a pop, playful and irreverent key. The art project, which is digital native, has integrated a phygital part by involving artists who deal mainly with physical art. Three canvases in collaboration with Waro, Pitmarels and Viperhaze, respectively, will be exhibited for the occasion.

MENDACIA‘s muse is adolescence and the communicative, iconic context related to it. From a young age the artist has been close to the world of technology and photography; at a more mature stage of her life she decides to turn her gaze back and represent intimate and nostalgic moments of an adolescence perhaps stolen or simply made more glossy by technology itself. One of the distinctive features of her works is the presence of musical parts that complement the meaning of the works.

YOU is a performance artist who through his art expresses his deepest imaginations and creates a realm that does not yet exist. Art and technology are an inescapable combination for him now.. The key word is “contact.” Indeed, The Contact project is the perfect representation of the artistic artifact that becomes itself a creative act. The artist uses tools to create his work by cutting the screen, and it is at that exact moment that the digital comes to life. During the event, You will perform a live performance in which he will demonstrate the creative process outlined above.

The Cyberpunk industrial pavilion will display works by artists who have chosen to adopt digital methods to express the conflicting feelings that arise from the ever-present intermingling of human and machine.
Protagonists of this exhibition section will be artists of depth from the Italian digital scene such as: Simone Vezzani, Gebelia, Bizzarro, Dark, Them, Loopo and Honey.

The exhibition event was born from the collaboration between Italian artists and realities of the web3 sector: Holy Club, Modularlabs, MetaBrera, Sewer Nation and Cryptoniteitalia; five projects united by the purpose of developing sensitivity and support for the artistic and cultural sector in communion with new technologies.

Holy Club – Via Galileo Galilei 30, Carnate (MB)

Press & pitch 7 PM (CET).

Public from 9 PM to Midnight (CET)

IG: @h.c.digitalartgallery

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SuperRare, the NFT marketplace dedicated to Crypto Art, announces its third Digital Identity exhibition at the gallery in Soho, New York. The exhibition will feature 18 leading artists exploring themes of digital and physical identity. 

SuperRare and its third exhibition at the Soho Gallery: Digital Identity

SuperRare, the well-known NFT marketplace dedicated to Crypto Art, announced that from 20 June to 9 July at the Soho Gallery, there will be its third exhibition, called “Digital Identity”. 

“Digital Identity” meets real life in the next #SuperRareGallery exhibition

SuperRare Gallery
June 20 – July 9
417 W Broadway, NYC

Make sure to visit during @NFT_NYC
June 20-23

Check out previous exhibitions https://t.co/vtEGN7vIQr pic.twitter.com/pcrQcvjlhE

— SuperRare (@SuperRare) June 14, 2022

“Digital Identity” meets real life in the next #SuperRareGallery exhibition. SuperRare Gallery: June 20 – July 9, 417 W Broadway, NYC.

Make sure to visit during @NFT_NYC June 20-23. Check out previous exhibitions https://hubs.ly/Q018YL0s0“.

Specifically, the exhibition will feature 18 leading artists exploring themes of digital and physical identity through their art and NFTs. 

Digital Identity will debut as a showcase of the platform’s best artists, which will also coincide with the NFT in New York from 20 to 23 June. 

SuperRare and Digital Identity: the blockchain that protects the identity of artworks 

SuperRare curators An Rong and Mika Bar-On Nesher organized the event. In this regard, An Rong stated:

“The concept of the double, a parallel version of ourselves that exists out in the physical or digital universe, can be both uncanny and liberating.These artworks capture digital identity brought to life on the blockchain. The artists create self-contained metaverses, each possessing a unique set of philosophical and visual languages that continue to challenge how art, artists, and collectors express and define themselves in decentralized spaces and communities”.

Merging technology and physical and digital identity without distinction, the works in SuperRare’s exhibition aim to enhance the use of blockchain as an ownership protection for digital assets, allowing artworks to now also function as protected online identity documents. 

In general, the works included in the exhibition show the Web3 landscapes of avatars and digital alter egos that continue the traditional function of art regarding the concept of self and other. 

The partnership with Async Art

Earlier this month, SuperRare entered into a partnership with Async Art to strengthen Crypto Art by offering integrated products. 

It is a combination of the NFT marketplace discovering quality artwork with one of the most famous art movements built on blockchain.

For the occasion, a collection of Blueprints was released together with Crypto Art pioneer Osinachi. 

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It has now been several weeks since Italian artist Cesare Catania officially presented his first NFT entitled “L’Uomo che Non Vede ” (B Version) (“The Man Who Doesn’t See”). In reality, the author can see very well and in the meantime, he has produced five more collections of digital art that are all true masterpieces. 

Cesare Catania and history with digital art

Starting from his original inspirations and his traditional art, painter and sculptor Cesare Catania has personally created and developed 6 digital art collections. 

These can range from metaphysics to cubism, from surreal settings in the absence of space to futuristic landscapes. All this without ever abandoning his artistic roots and his traditional art.

Cesare Catania began his academic career as a civil engineer and over the years developed an innate ability in artistic, pictorial and sculptural techniques.

He is a mature artist who, just under a year ago, entered the world of NFT with his usual personality, that of someone who takes things seriously.

After officially presenting his first NFT in Venice and simultaneously in Rome on 2 April 2022, Cesare Catania recently announced his next solo exhibition in Spatial’s Metaverse. The exhibition will contain more than 40 masterpieces between digitized artworks and real NFTs. 

This is because when Cesare Catania creates his NFTs, he does not just mechanically and passively digitize his traditional artworks. Instead, he tries to fully manifest his emotions, elaborating new forms of art instead of replicating those already experienced in the past.

As he recently stated during an interview: 

“NFTs and digital art should be experienced as an opportunity by artists, especially those coming from a traditional background, to develop both their inspirations”.

The artist continues the interview by stating: 

“The suggestion for a traditional artist who would like to embark on the digital art business is to start thinking without filters, so try to open your mind and work with your imagination not 100% but 1000%. The Metaverse, understood as a parallel reality, gives us the possibility to express ourselves freely and completely”. 

The earthly universe certainly seems to be a narrow place for the Italian artist, who encourages everyone to approach the Metaverse from a new artistic perspective compared to the traditional one.

The Italian artist’s next plans

Following the exhibition in the metaverse, the artist will be the guest of a Milanese gallery for a new solo exhibition, this time in the real world at the turn of May and June. 

The artist has been very discreet on this subject. He has reserved the opportunity to tell us in a few weeks the official date of the event and the location, which has so far been top secret.

Cesare Catania will also exhibit one of his digital works at the LAC in Lugano on 13 June 2022 on the occasion of the Metaforum. 

Everyone expects that he will exhibit “Harlequin in the Land of Giants ” B Version, a short film of a couple of minutes that describes Harlequin (representing mankind) intent on untangling himself from the Giants (the Corporations and Multinationals).

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The role of blockchain in digital rights management is increasing thanks to the growing popularity of NFTs and DeFi.

NFTs and blockchain: how they will improve the digital rights world

NFTs are now an increasingly important component in the world of art and sports because of their blockchain-based nature as a clear, secure and transparent revenue system for digital rights and copyright for artists and athletes. This is a real revolution that is likely to change the overall complex system of rights management.

According to a research report published by Transparency Market Research, the global digital rights management market is estimated to be worth $9 billion by 2026, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.3% since 2018. It is estimated that revenue lost to online piracy will almost double between 2016 and 2022 to reach at least $51.6 billion, according to the 2017 Online TV Piracy Forecast Report.

NFTs are basically unique digital certificates that grant the owner the sole right to a work, all enshrined in a smart contract. In this way, the buyer is guaranteed to have sole ownership of the digital work and the smart contract certifies that the work is authentic and original.

The recording on the blockchain 

The blockchain, due to its disintermediation, security and privacy guarantee features, is an increasingly fundamental tool for the management and protection of digital rights and copyright. The guarantee of the authenticity of the work is certified directly by the author himself who, thanks to the blockchain, digitally signs a smart contract that undoubtedly determines the genesis and originality of the digital work he has created.

The fact that blockchain contracts are certain and unchangeable gives a further guarantee of the validity of the object of the contract. NFTs in particular are likely to solve the problem faced by all artists working in the digital field, namely the provenance, ownership, distribution and control of digital artworks themselves.

Before NFTs, establishing authenticity and originality of a digital work was certainly a much more complicated operation. This fact contributed to a veritable explosion of the digital art market, culminating in the sale of a Beeple work for 69 million dollars at a Christie’s auction. A digital article by the New York Times also sold for $500,000, as did the first tweet in history by its founder Jack Dorsey for $2 million.

It is not only art that is taking advantage of this tool to exploit digital image rights. Sports have also seen record sales of videos and images of American basketball or international football champions. Many cryptocurrency and blockchain companies have recently become sponsors of major sporting events. Most recently Crypto.com became the official sponsor of the World Cup in Qatar.

This is perhaps the main component that blockchain is bringing to the business of digital rights: increasing their value exponentially, while guaranteeing their provenance and authenticity. 

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DeepWell Digital Therapeutics is the new video game company for mental health. Launched on 16 March 2022, after a long period of preparation and development, the startup deals with new in-house games with therapeutic value. 

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics develops therapeutic video games

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics (or DeepWell DTx) is reportedly the new company that wants to unlock the potential of video games to provide widespread access to powerful mental health treatments on a global scale. 

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics is the brainchild of Devolver Digital founder Mike Wilson in collaboration with medical device expert Ryan Douglas. 

Officially launched on 16 March 2022, after months of development, research and recruitment, DeepWell DTx, which now has a team of more than 40 industry-leading creators, game designers, scientists and medical professionals, is ready to launch its new therapeutic video games. 

Speaking about this, Mike Wilson, who has produced more than 100 games over two decades, commented:

“Our medium is often harshly judged for its perceived negative impacts on the mind and body. But the scientists who study video games, as well as the developers that build them at the highest levels, already know that the opposite is true. DeepWell is bringing entertainment and medical science together to build upon the proven fact that video games can be good for you, and, thanks to global digital distribution, they’re an important tool to make treatment affordable and accessible. Moreover, with games that are legitimately fun, patients and players will seek out their positive benefits again and again. Soon, some of the best video games in the world will be recognized for what they are – powerful medicine – and game designers will be shaping a new discipline with the potential to reach the biggest audience on the planet”.

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics: video games as a powerful medicine

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics’ new video games were conceived in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and represent a new tool to tackle the widespread crisis. 

Just two days ago, DeepWell DTx shared on Twitter its “challenge” to the community that will be presented at the First Annual Mental Health Game Jam.

DeepWell DTx’s First Annual Mental Health Game Jam is committed to challenging our community to use their skills to create games that demonstrate how video game themes and mechanics can be utilized as treatment.

For more details, see our press release: https://t.co/RphYHp8Bqc

— DeepWell DTx (@deepwelldtx) March 23, 2022

“DeepWell DTx’s First Annual Mental Health Game Jam is committed to challenging our community to use their skills to create games that demonstrate how video game themes and mechanics can be utilized as treatment”.

Specifically, this is a unique event that acts as a “call for games for mental wellbeing” and will take place from 1-22 May 2022. 

The challenge to the community aims to create new games that: 

• Demonstrate how video game themes and mechanics can be used as treatment mechanisms;
• Help dispel misconceptions and social stigma about openly discussing and addressing mental health issues;
• Build a community that works to connect and support those suffering from stress, anxiety and depression. 

Nintendo, NFTs and the metaverse: what joy can we provide to users?

Digital DTx’s mission to develop new video games for mental health has its own original vision, combining entertainment with health expertise. 

At the beginning of last month, video game giant Nintendo also seems to have taken a more “philosophical” approach to following the trend. 

Indeed, Nintendo revealed that it was thinking about how to introduce blockchain technology, questioning how it could “provide joy to users through metaverse and NFT”. 

A very different approach compared to other famous brands in the same sector that have preferred experimentation over philosophy. This is the case of SEGA, which as early as April 2021 reportedly revealed that it was collaborating with game developer Double Jump Tokyo to launch NFT content. 

Different ways of doing things, which did not meet with great enthusiasm on the part of the fans, for SEGA it was the abandonment of its projects based on Play-to-Earn. 

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The granddaughter and great-grandson of famed Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso, launch 1,010 NFTs of digital artwork of his ceramic works that have never been seen publicly. 

Picasso’s NFTs: the famous artist’s work enters Crypto Art.

According to reports, Picasso’s granddaughter Marina Picasso and her son Florian Picasso seem to want to ride the wave of Crypto Art, which exploded in 2021 thanks to the emerging market of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). 

And so the artist’s descendants showed just a sliver of the lower part of the NFT artwork: a piece of ceramic the size of a large salad bowl. The exposed parts show shapes like a thick yellow line, a dripping green stain and a number “58” at the base.

About this, Marina Picasso says that the beloved ceramic piece dates back to October 1958, when she was a child, and states:

“It’s a work that represents a face, and it’s very expressive,” she said. “It’s joyful, happy. It represents life … It’s one of those objects that have been part of our life, our intimate lives — my life with my children”.

The formal launch of the first round of online sales of 1,010 Picasso NFTs on the Nifty Gateway and Origin Protocol platforms will begin this week, while auction house Sotheby’s is expected to host an auction in March that includes a unique NFT of the real ceramic bowl. 

Picasso from Traditional Art to Crypto Art

In the interview, the heirs reportedly compared the entry of a Picasso into Crypto Art as the entry of a Grand Master into the game. A sort of almost epochal symbolism, like when the Beatles collection was finally put on iTunes.

On that note, Florian Picasso, the artist’s great-grandson commented:

“We’re trying to build a bridge between the NFT world and the fine art world. Everything is evolving. I think it fits within Picasso’s legacies because we are paying tribute to him and his way of working, which was always being creative”.

The heirs go on to let it be known that a portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity to both help overcome the nursing shortage, and to help reduce carbon in the atmosphere. 

The Picasso NFT will also feature music put together by Florian Picasso, who is a DJ and music producer, along with singer-songwriter John Legend and rapper Nas.

The NFT of Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss”: the launch for Valentine’s Day

In addition to the Picasso NFTs that bring the world of Crypto Art closer to fans of traditional works of art, there is also the new idea of the Belvedere Museum in Vienna together with artèQ that a few days ago announced the launch of the NFT of the famous work “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt. 

It is a high-resolution digital copy of the painting divided into a 100 x 100 grid, resulting in 10,000 individual pieces offered in the NFT format. The auction starts with a whitelist where interested parties can register and purchase a piece from the NFT collection on thekiss.art platform. 

Starting on Valentine’s Day, 14 February, all 10,000 NFTs of the work will be awarded to new owners.

 

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