Atomic Form’s Proof of Exhibition in Action at Adam Disbrow’s From Pigment to Pixels exhibit at the Colonna Contemporary Gallery.

Adam Disbrow’s career started in the physical, traditional art world. In 2021, he began his artistic evolution from the traditional art realm to the digital and NFT space, and officially rebranded to AD_AD (Adam Disbrow_Analog to Digital). His recent works continue to bridge this divide, being produced and available in canvas and NFT formats.

In tandem, Michele Colonna, the visionary force behind Colonna Contemporary Gallery in Philadelphia, mirrors this convergence of traditional and digital art. Like Adam, he has conviction in his role as a bridge between these two worlds, resulting in many traditional collectors purchasing their first digital pieces of art because of him.

It’s only fitting that these two are at the forefront of this new bridge with Atomic Sign’s Proof of Exhibition  as part of their arsenal. The platform empowers artists, collectors, and galleries to connect this offchain history to these onchain digital assets. Here is one result:

And if you inspect the exhibition record, you’ll find something that looks innocuous, but it’s historically significant.

Minting Proof of Exhibition Acceptance for NFT

Contract Address:
0xb932a70a57673d89f4acffbe830e8ed7f75fb9e0
With TokenID:
45840

Metadata Type:
Proof of Exhibition Acceptance

Metadata Payload:
    - Start Date: 2023-11-17
    - End Date: 2023-12-13
    - Owner Wallet: 0x2b6f3817ba1a643bdcf9de0112cf5382cbc6f442
    - Exhibition Wallet: 0x6559b24c8c573771aa2a210add88bdd85790bb93
    - Countersign Status: Approved
    - Exhibition Name: Adam Disbrow || AD_AD: From Pigment to Pixel
    - Exhibition Location: Colonna Contemporary, Wayne PA
    - Exhibition Details: There is a relationship between technology and art. Throughout history, the work has inherently been defined by the technology accessible to the creator in their time – from the media they had access to, to the substrates they interacted with, to the tools they used to create. In my opinion, the best art created today explores the boundary of self-expression and attempts to push it further.  From Pigment to Pixel is about finding the boundary of human expression, stepping beyond it, and in doing so blurring the line between physical and digital art to the point that the delineation disappears and all that is left is Art.
    - External Link: https://www.colonnacontemporary.com/adam-disbrow-from-pigment-to-pixel
    

Along with the signature and counter signatures:

signature: `0x3b8c7951379da24d97de13d2374396d840409a651ba0c4a16078f453ad12109524168acd669c4f0d97641ec962add70e1d15cfc829f75a2f421b7045081ee9d61c`
counterSignature: `0x283af78404af3c7058c965716064087c82076555a2942c6c048fae0724c6aa4140e9191e1e663827e29ffe1af624e169b26611e9dca72bf75f92f410682e94f71c`

What are you looking at?

Let’s break it down.

• This is an attestation (e.g. a claim of something being true, factual). It includes things like the exhibition name, start date, end date, etc.

• It has been signed by two independent parties

  • AD_AD as the artist and current owner of this NFT.

  • Colonna Contemporary gallery as a place of exhibition.

• This message has been cryptographically signed by each party. More below!

• Cryptographic signatures are not forgeable, meaning we can be assured that unless either party was hacked, that only AD_AD and Colonna agreed to this assertion.

• This message has been stored in web3 storage (IPFS and Arweave), so it can remain forever accessible for years to come.

Each Proof of Exhibition takes minutes to create, but the milestone lasts forever (or at least as long as the IPFS and Arweave protocol stay in existence!).

Why is this important?

In the NFT space, you may have heard the term provenance. Its usage in the traditional art world is restricted to a complete ownership history of a piece, but we’ve expanded its meaning to include anything of historical significance about an NFT (sale price, bid history, exhibition history, Twitter conversations, etc).

In short, it’s the history behind and the stories beyond the NFT.

Up until today, it’s been difficult for multiple parties to assert that an in real life (IRL) event happened in a manner that can be retrieved and proven cryptographically. We believe Atomic Sign’s Proof of Exhibition is among the first at making this feature available to anyone.

Yes, there are other solutions on the market. The Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) is a protocol that provides the ability to define schemas and submit data, but it’s not opinionated and tailored to address specific use cases. Artists and Galleries looking to use the base protocol for proof of exhibition would have to create their solutions on top of EAS, which may be part of our future roadmap.

An important distinction is that, out of the box, Atomic Sign’s Proof of Exhibition requires multiple parties to sign an attestation (this is possible in EAS with a custom UI). In the age of forgeries, fakes, and spam, we can better trust the authenticity of a claim if multiple trusted parties agree to it. This doesn’t mean that an individual attestation is untrustworthy, but given the high stakes for high value assets, we want to make sure that people in the future will trust these assertions.

Where to Go From Here?

Turning these moments into milestones is just the beginning. What about all the dapps and marketplaces that need to verify this data? Imagine an NFTfi application attempting to appraise the value of an asset without knowing its provenance? Imagine these applications trying to do this without cryptographic assurances that the claims came from the relevant parties…

The possibilities are endless.

In the future, as Atomic Sign’s repository of attestations grow, APIs will be available to provide this data to app, dapp, or protocol that can benefit from this.

This moment with AD_AD and Colonna Contemporary is historic, because all future buyers of this piece will benefit from its history being connected to it.

• Collectors benefit from having this information available for appraisals and future sales.

• Galleries benefit from being able to attract NFT native artists.

• Artists benefit by being able to have their CV build and grow across all their collections.

At Atomic Form, we are beyond excited to have the opportunity to partner with these forward thinking individuals. Thank you, AD_AD and Colonna for the opportunity to participate in this with you.

Ready to Turn Your IRL Moments Into Milestones?

You can visit us at AtomicSign.io, or see one of AD_AD’s proof of exhibition pages in action.