Netz, du hast das Bild gestohlen, gib es wieder her! [Net, You Stole the Picture, Give It Back!]

What constitutes a purely digital work? Where and when does it exist? What is its real value? Elias Wessel’s NFT work, Quick Response (2021) is now living on Gallery König’s NFT platform Misa.art. The tripartite composition is Wessel’s inevitable, yet reluctant response to the maelstrom of NFT art in 2021, and the artist’s lament for 2-D pictures.

Image of Quick Response: Schwarzes dataistisches Quadrat [Black Dataistic Square], 2021; Non-fungible Token (NFT); Minted on Misa.art; Color Photograph, Unique; 9,390 pixels x 9,390 pixels (88,172,100 bytes); Size equals 79,5 x 79,5 cm; Token Standard: ERC-721; Blockchain: Ethereum; Metadata: Frozen and decentralized (all images © 2022 Elias Wessel / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany; Text © 2022 Alina Girshovich)

The three slightly blurry QR codes, are each linked to an orchestrated Google search. The QR medium is an echo of the original intent of QR – ›quick response‹ – technology, developed in Japan in the 1990’s to answer the desire of an expanding consumer society for automated, shorthand access to more information. Wessel, in his Quick Response, uses the technology to choreograph a clever inquiry that will continue to yield perpetually changing answers to the search. Scanning each QR code takes you to a page of Google search results; the output is based on the algorithm’s mined data about you, and Wessel’s programmed command.

Image of Quick Response: Rotes Quadrat [Red Square], 2021; Non-fungible Token (NFT); Minted on Misa.art; Color Photograph, Unique; 6,260 pixels x 6,260 pixels (39,187,600 bytes); Size equals 53 x 53 cm; Token Standard: ERC-721; Blockchain: Ethereum; Metadata: Frozen and decentralized

Schwarzes dataistisches Quadrat [Black Dataistic Square] searches for the words, »Netz, du hast das Bild gestohlen, gib es wieder her!« [Net, you stole the picture, give it back!]. Rotes Quadrat [Red Square] leads the viewer to the results for »Dass dich färbt die rote Tinte und dann bist du tot.« [So, you’re tinged with red and then you’re dead]. Schwarzes Quadrat [Black Square] links to the results for the phrase, »Nimm, du brauchst nicht alles haben, mit der Maus vorlieb.« [You do not have to have everything, be content with the mouse]. Together, the three works form Wessel’s adapted verses of »Fuchs, Du hast die Gans gestohlen« [Fox, You Stole the Goose], a popular 19th century German nursery rhyme that teaches children about the repercussions of stealing from the human race.

Image of Quick Response: Schwarzes Quadrat [Black Square], 2021; Non-fungible Token (NFT); Minted on Misa.art; Color Photograph, Unique; 12,520 pixels x 12,520 pixels (156,750,400 bytes); Size equals 106 x 106 cm; Token Standard: ERC-721; Blockchain: Ethereum; Metadata: Frozen and decentralized

Installation of Schwarzes dataistisches Quadrat [Black Dataistic Square] from the NFT series Quick Response (2021) at the exhibition Elias Wessel — It’s Complicated, Is Possibly Art at 1014 New York

The form and title (as well is the first installation of Quick Response at the exhibition Elias Wessel — It’s Complicated, Is Possibly Art in September 2022 at 1014 New York) are references to Kazimir Malevich and the Suprematist ideal of pure, non-objective art. Malevich’s Black Square presented in December, 1915 in the groundbreaking exhibition, Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10, reduced all objective form, color, and composition »to zero.« Wessel’s Quick Response continues the reduction, transforming the physical image into the zeros and ones of digital code. The work is an intervention in the oversaturated digital space that offers the viewer a chance to take a reflective pause from constant online consumption, reclaim contemplative time, and consider the effects of the changes taking place in our world. As you scan the works, take a moment and consider this: what might the Internet be stealing from you?

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