Decentralised Embargo
2022.
EnBW (client of Gazprom Germania) electricity contract, rack case, open frame server including four Nvidia 3090 GPUs, custom water loop, Ethereum Blockchain.
Hashterms
a theoretical shift away from the traditional, absolute power of the nation-state, recognizing that authority is now shared, layered, and dispersed across multiple levels (supranational like the EU, sub-national, and global networks) due to globalization, complex problems (like climate change), and new forms of identity, suggesting a future of intertwined governance rather than a single sovereign authority. It involves a reimagining of democracy beyond the nation-state, accommodating regionalism, plurinationalism, and deeper cultural/moral legitimacy.
Relates to the regimes of sovereignty that are produced in their own image by large software stacks and platforms. Softvereignty both competes with and overlaps with traditional forms of state sovereignty.
‘Weltschmerz’ is a literary concept derived from the German words ‘Welt’ (world) and ‘Schmerz’ (pain). It describes the feeling experienced by someone who believes that reality cannot satisfy their mental expectations. 'Netzschmerz' relates to the unease experienced upon acknowledging the deliberate production of the collapse of modern political, social, and cultural models through infowarfare across information networks (Netz).
Refers to a new economic framework, proposed by Amin Toufani, that analyzes how exponential technologies (like AI, blockchain, quantum computing) disrupt traditional economic assumptions, business models, and societal structures, highlighting rapid change, innovation, and potential for both massive growth and increased inequality. It contrasts with standard economics (studying scarcity) by focusing on exponential tech's impact on production, value, and individual/organizational adaptation in a rapidly evolving digital world.
A mode of governance in which policy ceases to function as a fixed legal instrument and instead operates as a dynamic, generative, and adaptive system—continuously reshaped by real-time conditions, data-streams, feedback loops, and situated contexts. PostPolicy privileges responsiveness and evolution over stability, treating regulation as an ongoing process rather than a settled rule.
A high-end multi-GPU server installed in a Berlin gallery runs 24/7 on electricity supplied by EnBW, known as the Germany’s largest gas power operator and Russian gas importer. It mines cryptocurrency directly to the official Ukrainian donation address, literally converting Russian gas into financial aid for the victim of its aggression. The work exposes the absurd hypocrisy of the German economy in relation to its politics, as it simultaneously finances both sides of the armed conflict.
The gallery in Berlin, where the installation was initially exhibited in May 2022, was requested by the artist to sign an electricity supply contract with the energy provider EnBW. The company is known for being a client of Gazprom Germania, a daughter company of a major Russian state-owned multinational energy corporation ranked as the largest publicly listed natural gas company in the world. EnBW generates electricity for the German market by burning Russian fossil fuels. This electricity is then supplied to a powerful computing server set up by the artist as part of his exhibition in the Berlin-based gallery. Custom-assembled hardware components perform the energy-consuming algorithmic process of validating blocks on the Ethereum blockchain, a so-called cryptocurrency mining operation, throughout the entire duration of the exhibition.
This network participation is rewarded with Ethereum tokens, tradable at their market price. While the machine is mining, these tokens are being transferred to the official Ethereum wallet address for donations to the government of Ukraine, an invaded country at war. Via this chain of events, the installation suggests a strategic diversion at perhaps the largest issue within the European economies today - dependence on Russian fossil fuels as an infrastructural necessity despite the apparent misalliance with Russian outward politics, its agenda regarding Ukraine's political inclination towards Europe, and the resulting atrocious armed conflict.
Lies, Half-Truths & Propaganda [The Bad, the Worse, and the Worst], alexanderlevy Gallery, Berlin, DEU, 2022.
'Decentralised Embargo' exhibited in alexanderlevy Gallery, Berlin, DEU, 2022.
Tweet with the official cryptocurrency wallet of the Ukrainian State.
EnBW contract
Decentralised Embargo
2022.
EnBW (client of Gazprom Germania) electricity contract, rack case, open frame server including four Nvidia 3090 GPUs, custom water loop, Ethereum Blockchain.
Hashterms
a theoretical shift away from the traditional, absolute power of the nation-state, recognizing that authority is now shared, layered, and dispersed across multiple levels (supranational like the EU, sub-national, and global networks) due to globalization, complex problems (like climate change), and new forms of identity, suggesting a future of intertwined governance rather than a single sovereign authority. It involves a reimagining of democracy beyond the nation-state, accommodating regionalism, plurinationalism, and deeper cultural/moral legitimacy.
Relates to the regimes of sovereignty that are produced in their own image by large software stacks and platforms. Softvereignty both competes with and overlaps with traditional forms of state sovereignty.
‘Weltschmerz’ is a literary concept derived from the German words ‘Welt’ (world) and ‘Schmerz’ (pain). It describes the feeling experienced by someone who believes that reality cannot satisfy their mental expectations. 'Netzschmerz' relates to the unease experienced upon acknowledging the deliberate production of the collapse of modern political, social, and cultural models through infowarfare across information networks (Netz).
Refers to a new economic framework, proposed by Amin Toufani, that analyzes how exponential technologies (like AI, blockchain, quantum computing) disrupt traditional economic assumptions, business models, and societal structures, highlighting rapid change, innovation, and potential for both massive growth and increased inequality. It contrasts with standard economics (studying scarcity) by focusing on exponential tech's impact on production, value, and individual/organizational adaptation in a rapidly evolving digital world.
A mode of governance in which policy ceases to function as a fixed legal instrument and instead operates as a dynamic, generative, and adaptive system—continuously reshaped by real-time conditions, data-streams, feedback loops, and situated contexts. PostPolicy privileges responsiveness and evolution over stability, treating regulation as an ongoing process rather than a settled rule.
A high-end multi-GPU server installed in a Berlin gallery runs 24/7 on electricity supplied by EnBW, known as the Germany’s largest gas power operator and Russian gas importer. It mines cryptocurrency directly to the official Ukrainian donation address, literally converting Russian gas into financial aid for the victim of its aggression. The work exposes the absurd hypocrisy of the German economy in relation to its politics, as it simultaneously finances both sides of the armed conflict.
The gallery in Berlin, where the installation was initially exhibited in May 2022, was requested by the artist to sign an electricity supply contract with the energy provider EnBW. The company is known for being a client of Gazprom Germania, a daughter company of a major Russian state-owned multinational energy corporation ranked as the largest publicly listed natural gas company in the world. EnBW generates electricity for the German market by burning Russian fossil fuels. This electricity is then supplied to a powerful computing server set up by the artist as part of his exhibition in the Berlin-based gallery. Custom-assembled hardware components perform the energy-consuming algorithmic process of validating blocks on the Ethereum blockchain, a so-called cryptocurrency mining operation, throughout the entire duration of the exhibition.
This network participation is rewarded with Ethereum tokens, tradable at their market price. While the machine is mining, these tokens are being transferred to the official Ethereum wallet address for donations to the government of Ukraine, an invaded country at war. Via this chain of events, the installation suggests a strategic diversion at perhaps the largest issue within the European economies today - dependence on Russian fossil fuels as an infrastructural necessity despite the apparent misalliance with Russian outward politics, its agenda regarding Ukraine's political inclination towards Europe, and the resulting atrocious armed conflict.
Lies, Half-Truths & Propaganda [The Bad, the Worse, and the Worst], alexanderlevy Gallery, Berlin, DEU, 2022.
'Decentralised Embargo' exhibited in alexanderlevy Gallery, Berlin, DEU, 2022.
'Decentralised Embargo' exhibited in alexanderlevy Gallery, Berlin, DEU, 2022.
'Decentralised Embargo' exhibited in alexanderlevy Gallery, Berlin, DEU, 2022.
Tweet with the official cryptocurrency wallet of the Ukrainian State.
EnBW contract
Studio Addresses
Ikejiri, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Neubau, Vienna, Austria
Studio
E. G. Kraft – artist-researcher, founder
Anna Kraft – researcher, director
Contact:
mail[at]kraft.studio
Studio Addresses
Ikejiri, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Neubau, Vienna, Austria
Contact
mail[at]kraft.studio
Studio
E. G. Kraft – artist-researcher, founder
Anna Kraft – researcher, director
