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Online Masterclass

NFTs and Photography with Marco De Mutiis and Jon Uriarte

Online

30 April 2021

A Special Self Publish, Be Happy Masterclass in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery and Fotomuseum Winterthur

Friday, 30 April 2021
Zurich 6pm / London 5pm / NYC 12 noon / Los Angeles 9am
2-hour masterclass
Live on Zoom
Free

Amid heated discussion about their role  in the future of economics and governance, NFTs and blockchain technologies  have begun to impact upon art and photography. 

NFT stands for non-fungible token, a unit of data or token stored on a digital ledger or blockchain that certifies a digital asset is unique and therefore non-interchangeable. It acts as a certificate of ownership for virtual assets, such as digital art, and allows a digital art work to be attributed to an owner. 

On one side, supporters of such systems promise that they are radically improving the art market, guaranteeing authenticity, offering more support to creators and even enabling spaces for new forms of art. On the other, critics have pointed  to global environmental issues, financial speculation and problematic systems of value that contradict the fundamental promises of the internet as a space for the free circulation and exchange of culture. 

In this online masterclass, Marco De Mutiis (Digital Curator at Fotomuseum Winterthur) and Jon Uriarte (Curator for the Digital Programme at the Photographers’ Gallery, London) will attempt to map the current development of NFTs and blockchain technologies from a curatorial perspective. They will focus particularly on both the perils and opportunities that these systems pose for artists, photographers, curators, collectors and institutions working with photography and visual culture.

Marco De Mutiis is Digital Curator at Fotomuseum Winterthur, and a researcher with the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University. At Fotomuseum, he led and co-curated the experimental exhibition format and research lab SITUATIONS, exploring the changing role of photography in contemporary digital and networked cultures. He co-created and curates Screen Walks, a series of live streams with artists who use the screen as their medium.

Jon Uriarte is curator of digital programmes at the Photographers’ Gallery and curator of Getxophoto Image Festival. He previously curated DONE, a programme on the impact of digital technologies and the internet on the contemporary image landscape launched by Foto Colectania. In collaboration with Marco de Mutiis, he created and co-curates Screen Walks, a series of live streams guided by artists who use the screen as their medium.

 

The Photographers’ Gallery (TPG) was founded in London’s Covent Garden in 1971 as the first publicly funded gallery in the UK dedicated to the photographic medium.  From the outset it has been instrumental in promoting photography’s value to the wider world, exploring its ongoing development and ensuring its position as one of our most significant artforms. 

Fotomuseum Winterthur is at the forefront of presenting and discussing photography and visual culture. A broad range of artistic, applied and cultural forms of photography are explored, with a primary focus on dialogue and the exchange of ideas. In addition, the museum examines photographic phenomena in the context of new technologies and digital media, exposing them to critical scrutiny.

Image: Still from Going. Full time. 1 by Adam Broomberg with Isaac Schaal and Gersande Spelsberg. Mp.4NFT, 1024 x 1024 px, 0:44 min, Edition 1

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