Artist Nancy Baker Cahill Selects the Algorand Blockchain to Mint NFT for "Mushroom Cloud NYC / RISE," Presented as Part of the 2022 Tribeca Festival

The monumental art piece will be viewable in augmented reality over NYC's Hudson River throughout Tribeca Festival, and marks the first NFT ever created from an XR festival experience.

NEW YORK, June 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- This June, Nancy Baker Cahill's multifaceted augmented reality (AR) public art project, Mushroom Cloud NYC / RISE, reimagined for the Hudson River, makes its debut at the 2022 Tribeca Festival's Immersive Program at Pier 25. Mushroom Cloud NYC / RISE, which will feature an accompanying video NFT minted on the Algorand blockchain, speaks to the environmental concerns specific to New York, expanding the work's scope and opportunities for public engagement. 

"Mushroom Cloud NYC / RISE is a project focused on accountability; one that values sharing and conserving resources, and strengthening networked systems through participation, communication, and advocacy. Leveraging Algorand, the greenest and most sustainable blockchain, allows artists to push creative boundaries while harnessing the equitable nature of the technology's unique pure Proof-of-Stake model." - Nancy Baker Cahill

Mushroom Cloud NYC / RISE acknowledges the imminence of the climate crisis while offering hope that through cooperative and constructive action, a vibrant and vital future is still possible. The work engages its viewers to consider the "organic" mushroom cloud, the mycelial network, and how it relates to web3 and an interoperable, interdependent, sustainable future.

For Mushroom Cloud NYC / RISE's NYC debut, Nancy Baker Cahill will create an NFT video specific to New York City. This new video, from the artist's abstract Slipstream series, titled RISE, nods to rising waters, to viewers raising their gaze to witness the sky-covering mycelial network in the Mushroom Cloud AR experience and to collectively rising to the opportunity to combat the climate crisis through distributed support, mutual accountability and environmental stewardship. Mushroom Cloud NYC / RISE will be the first NFT ever created from an XR festival experience.

The project, according to the artist, is focused on accountability; one that values sharing and conserving resources, and strengthening networked systems through participation, communication, and advocacy. With these concepts in mind, Baker Cahill's new NFT for this project, RISE, will be minted on Algorand, one of the world's most advanced and sustainable blockchains. Algorand, an original proof-of-stake blockchain, is at the forefront of the global blockchain revolution, built with an energy-efficient design that allows it to operate in a cleaner and more environmentally friendly way. By minting the work on Algorand, Baker Cahill underscores that innovation does not require a compromise on sustainability, but in fact, thrives when we act with mutual accountability and collective environmental stewardship.

Viewers can experience the original AR work via Baker Cahill's free 4th Wall App, when standing at the end of Pier 25 in New York City. The project will be on view throughout the Tribeca Festival, June 10-19. Collectors interested in acquiring the NFT may reach out via the artist's website, nancybakercahill.com.

Artist: Nancy Baker Cahill
Art attorney and Mushroom Cloud AR project collaborator: Sarah Conley Odenkirk
Mushroom Cloud NY/ RISE
AR soundscape: Anna Luisa Petrisko
4th Wall Production: Shaking Earth Digital

Nancy Baker Cahill is a new media artist who examines power, selfhood, and embodied consciousness through drawing and shared immersive space. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of 4th Wall, a free Augmented Reality (AR) art platform exploring resistance and inclusive creative expression.

Her geolocated AR installations have been exhibited globally and have earned her profiles in the New York Times, Frieze Magazine, LA Times, and The Art Newspaper, among other publications, and she was included in ARTnews' list of 2021 'Deciders'. Her work has been internationally exhibited at museums and galleries, including Francisco Carolinum Linz, The Hermitage, The Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (SEMA), Honor Fraser Gallery, and König Gallerie. In February of 2022, she was one of two featured artists in the Luma Foundation's Elevation 1049 Biennial in Switzerland.

Baker Cahill was an artist scholar in the Berggruen Institute's inaugural Transformations of the Human Fellowship, and a 2021 resident at Oxy Arts' 'Encoding Futures,'  focused on AR monuments. She is a TEDx speaker and a member of the Guild of Future Architects. In 2021, she was awarded the Williams College Bicentennial Medal of Honor and received a 2022 C.O.L.A. Master Artist Fellowship.

Algorand is transforming economic models and economies of all kinds. Founded by Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali, Algorand's high–performing Layer-1 blockchain is unparalleled for bringing fast, frictionless, and inclusive technologies to everyone. Algorand is reshaping every industry–from TradFi and DeFi to new creator economies and beyond. With an extraordinary commitment to interoperability and consistent delivery, our sustainable technology powers more participation, transparency, and efficiency for all. As the technology of choice for 2000+ global organizations, the Algorand ecosystem is transforming the next generation of financial products, protocols and exchange of value. For more information, visit www.algorand.com.

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