Konjungate

About

KONJUNGATE is based on the cyber novel MACHFELD written 1999 by Michael Mastrototaro. Strangely, the main character of the book is called Nakamoto and thus resembles the pseudonym of the BITCOIN inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. What a coincidence, right? Anyway.

In his cyber novel, he describes 9 years before Bitcoin appears on the cryptocurrency horizon the mining of KONJUNGATE.

Now 20 years after publishing the novel online, KONJUNGATE appears as a Media Art project to decentralize the funding of international contemporary Artists and Institutions and to give a strong artistic statement in times of budget cuts.

How dose it work? During the creation of the KONJUNGATE Blockchain, 1,25% of the total digital assets was premined. This amount of Tokens will be used as an initial fund for distributing the Token to a wide range of international Art-Institutions, to support contemporary Artists and as registered capital for the charitable MACHFELD-Foundation (in establishing) which will ensure further distribution of tokens in the future and its task is to ensure value security by means of art purchases.

Project

The GENESIS BLOCK is usually the very first block of a blockchain. However, the MACHFELD GENESIS BLOCK consists of a material and an intangible part that can only be seen as one unit.

The material part:

In the starting phase, 4 objects are designed. These are in the form of 4 parts of a block and are modularly expandable in a row. The material part is a reference to the intangible that settles in the institution or its system.

The immaterial part:

The immaterial part is a MASTERNODE of the KONJUNGATE network. It is a computer program that is implemented in a system to generate the crypto currency KONJUNGATE through the MASTERNODE in an energy-saving way.

Thus, the artwork itself is an art promotion program that is understood as an alternative or in addition to common promotion practices. The installation enshrined as GENESIS BLOCK thus does exactly what institutions themselves (should) do, namely to promote contemporary art. In this sense, the installation shows «we are on the side of art producers». In addition, the institutions also show that they participate in an international network that enables alternative art production.

This is clearly symbolized by the material block the institutions should exhibit in a prominent place. Through a QR code attached to the object Visitors will be able to install a «Wallet» on their smartphone and immediately become part of the decentralized funding system.

Functionality

Through our project, institutions are part of a networked value chain process using Blockchain’s new technology. This process is also accessible to individuals, artists and promoters – for anyone who is interested. The plan is to create a nonprofit foundation that will be able to directly promote out-of-the-box artists to a greater extent, and to ensure price stability for KONJUNGATE by building a collection of contemporary art. The goal is to create alternative funding opportunities through an artistic process.

Thus the novel MACHFELD is materialized again 20 years after its existence, in another language – the language of the cryptography.