Telecommunications firm Swisscom TV has launched a blockchain based art gallery. Using a digital TV box, viewers can use the NOOW app to buy art through the Swisscom TV network and display it on screen as a digital animation.
NOOW was developed by tech firm dloop and uses Ethereum’s ERC 721 tokens, which differ from ERC 20 tokens in that they are non-fungible or unique.
This is essential to maintain copy protection. Art that is shown on screen, such as screensavers on computers or as background images in restaurants, can easily be pirated from the internet.
This not only means that artists miss out, but ‘digitized art’ can produce high-quality copies, thereby lowering the value of an original. NOOW’s use of tokens enables unique certificates of authenticity to be traded and lets customers see how many copies of a particular piece exist.
Basel artist Jonas Baumann approves: “NOOW helps me to bring art to the screen. It also offers new creative opportunities to experiment with animated images and offer them to a wider audience.”
The app will include 100 carefully selected pieces by 30 international artists. Curator Stefanie Marlene Wenger outlined the project’s aims: “This is about more than creating a virtual gallery; the next step will be to include curated exhibitions on the platform and a close collaboration with galleries.”
Tom Rieder, dloop CEO, is pleased at the prospect of working with Swisscom: “Swisscom TV is one of the first providers in the world to offer art on the TV screen. We are delighted to have Swisscom on board for this courageous project. NOOW is making digital art into a collector’s object and creating a value for it.”
Dloop is a spinout from a program that empowers Swisscom employees to launch startups. It has plans for NOOW to include art auctions in the future. While its focus is on digital art, recently the Christie’s auction house used the Artory blockchain registry to help with proving provenance.
Swisscom has big blockchain plans in the financial sector with plans to launch a digital asset exchange with Deutsche Börse and IT provider Sygnum.
