It has happened to almost every woman: Suddenly a “Dickpic” with a picture of a penis appears on her mobile phone. Unasked. “Such sexual harassment has increased with formats like Snapchat,” says Silvia Princigalli, 33. “Because the image disappears again in seconds and the Internet offers space for anonymity,” adds Jonas Kastenhuber, 32. Together they will be curating a digital art project at Haus der Kalllistik from 11 November. It’s about penis pictures.
Pop-like pixelated NFT art
The artist duo Dickbits is behind the project. “They are Web 3.0’s digital response to sexual harassment in the digital age,” says curator Kastenhuber. The idea behind this: Affected people – including men – post pictures of being harassed and these are turned into a virtual work of art. Tasteless genitals this is how pop style pixelated NFT works. The acronym NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token, an immutable digital unit stored in a tamper-proof manner on a blockchain. “The profit also benefits the victims,” Princigalli says. Depending on the artistic effort, you share 50 percent of the proceeds.
The artist project, which began in January 2021, the duo behind it, two 30-year-old men with art and architectural backgrounds, remain anonymous. This is not unusual in the art of NFT: “We don’t want to identify with our work. It gives us the freedom to act in very different areas,” the duo say.
Dickbits is considered one of the most successful NFT projects in Switzerland. So far, 106 works have been produced, with prices ranging from 400 to 1500 francs. Payment is made in cryptocurrency. It doesn’t bother me that most customers are probably men – quite the contrary. “There’s a certain irony in that,” the producers say. But not all men are perpetrators: “Many are aware of how wrong something is. We are changing the picture by treating this phenomenon as absurd with art and humor.”
Irony instead of moral club
But doesn’t that provide an additional platform for those who post penis pictures? “It’s about raising more awareness of the issue,” says Princigalli, who also works as a journalist and moderator for online publisher “Izzy Projects.” This is done with irony rather than moral club. “You can achieve so much more with this, the dick pieces reflect how ridiculous this behavior is. It’s not cool, it’s ridiculous.”
For the two curators of Haus der Kallistik, it is important to bring digital art with social impact to a wider audience with the exhibition: 3.0 technologies. » For the first time, NFTs can be seen not only digitally, but also on the wall, as in a classic gallery. “Mostly digitally via projectors and tablets, but we’ve also had posters printed as souvenirs for our visitors.”
Dickbits and Haus der Kalllistik, Ernst-Nobs-Platz 1, 8004 Zurich, Opening from 11 November 2022