Conservation Case Study on ConcretionX144X160#3, #25, #39 (2024)

This project was conducted as the annual case study by conservator Claudia Röck at HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel.

In 2024, HEK acquired three generative NFTs from the series ConcretionX144X160 by Hervé Graumann, Martin Ashton-Lomax, and Boris Rabusseau. The animated works portray the digital artist character Raoul Pictor—first created in the early 1990s—now reimagined as a media artist in a browser-based environment. The NFTs were minted on the FXhash platform and are so-called off-chain NFTs, meaning the artworks themselves are not stored on the blockchain but linked to it via metadata.

This case study explores the specific challenges of preserving generative, off-chain NFTs. It analyses the technologies and metadata structures used, includes artist interviews, and tests methods for data backup and local presentation.