It all started with an unconventional proposal to say the least: “We sell the Colosseum”. The idea comes from a collective of politicians, artists, philosophers and curators (or “researchers” as they prefer to define themselves) which includes Alessandro Fusacchia, Alex Braga, Federico Clapis, Andrea Colamedici and Serena Tabacchi. Let’s sell it, they tell us in an open letter published last July, because today it would be possible to do so “without touching a single stone, and clearly leaving the property to the Italian State.”
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It is not a joke, nor a play by Totò: we can sell the Flavian amphitheater, the collective suggests, because to end up on the market and in some collector’s computer it would be only his NFT, acronym stands for Non Fungible Token (non-fungible token ), and which defines a digital file created using the computer code of the blockchain. A digital item that is purchased using cryptocurrencies such as Ether or Wax and that exists as a single file that cannot be duplicated.
To create and sell the NFT of the famous monument, many different technologies and skills would be needed: for example, those needed to create a 3D digital copy of a huge object. Any collection could then be used, for example, for the conservation and enhancement of the immense patrimony of Italian cultural heritage, which in turn can be digitized according to the same criteria and can be sold with the same noble purpose.
It would be just the beginning: behind the “provocation” that touched one of the greatest icons of Italian cultural and artistic heritage, there is in fact a strategic vision according to which “after covid-19, culture cannot restart only with protection of existing assets, because now we have the opportunity to exploit digital and new technologies to enhance what already exists, but also and above all to produce new culture “, explains Alessandro Fusacchia, parliamentarian and member of the VII Commission (Culture, Science, Instruction).
Tutorial
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Possibility that the group of researchers is determined to grasp: «The idea is to build a center of gravity – continues Fusacchia – to bring together a group of people who represent different and complementary worlds. And who have decided to think at a systemic level on which legislative, civil society, entrepreneurial and artistic initiatives can be set up to raise awareness of the centrality of new technologies throughout the country. And then their adoption to create a new cultural and economic ecosystem capable of generating wealth and projecting Italy into the future ».
A few months ago, the Uffizi Galleries sold the NFT of Michelangelo’s Tondo Doni, a very high resolution copy made with technology developed by the Cinello startup, bringing about 70 thousand euros to the museum’s coffers. It is perhaps an isolated case, but sufficient to arouse the interest of Minister Dario Franceschini, who has already promised guidelines for museums.
And it is always from the world of art – in this case contemporary and digital – that examples of what happens when culture, technology and business meet. Not so much and not only for the case of the experienced artist Beeple (40 years old), who through the Christie’s auction house sold a work entitled Everydays: The First 5000 Days, composed from five thousand images taken in as many days and then brought together in a single picture.
But also and above all for what artists of the so-called generation Z are doing: we are talking about digital natives like the 15-year-old Jaiden Stipp, who already last March had auctioned his first collection of digital artwork earning 20ETH, at the exchange rate of 30 thousand dollars. And who has since sold four other works, then using the money he earned to help his parents pay the mortgage, but also to finance other artists of his age.
Or like Benyamin Ahmed, who at the age of 12 creates and sells collections of pixelated art, or objects and characters made according to the style of the Minecraft video game, and who had already grossed the equivalent of 350 thousand dollars in Ethereum at the end of August.
A new generation that is already fully ready to be the protagonist of that change hoped for by the group of researchers, which is partly already underway and which now requires the participation of all stakeholders to be fully realized also in Italy: “They must be brought aboard this operation intellectuals, artists, operators, startuppers, entrepreneurs, and then of course the institutions – concludes Alessandro Fusacchia – And we need to understand that if we combine technology and culture, we strengthen both by giving a future to the country ».
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