A few weeks ago the city of Cannes announced the sale in the form of NFT of its heritage. A priori, we could have said that the city was trying to surf on this new wave of web3. Looking a little closer, we find a thoughtful and matured project within a city that does not rely solely on summer tourism, its film festival and the plethora of professional conventions. Meeting with Régine Resbeut, Major Project Advisor to the Mayor of Cannes (David Lisnard) and Charles-Henri Puaux, President of Pertimm, the NFT publishing company.
— I am Régine Resbeut, Major Project Advisor to the Mayor of Cannes.
— I am Charles-Henri Puaux, CEO of Pertimm.
RR: Charles-Henri Puaux made a spontaneous proposal to digitize the emblematic sites of Cannes. This idea seduced us immediately and we started working together to define which sites we wanted to select.
CHP: So from my point of view, I have been an adopted Cannes resident for a year and a half now. And it seemed quite natural and logical to include the city in which I lived around this turning point. And that’s what I explained in previous speeches. For me, the metaverse and all the elements, whether it’s crypto or NFTs, are for me what e-commerce and Internet 1.0 and 2.0 have brought in the context of communication, in within the framework of purchase and within the framework of art, the interaction between humans.
What is the interest for the city of Cannes to transform certain monuments into digital objects?
RR: The interest is to promote the cultural, natural and spiritual heritage of Cannes and therefore to simply increase the attractiveness of the destination. Cannes is a city that lives off tourism. Tourism is 25% of the GDP, it’s 40 to 50% of jobs, it’s 3 million visitors a year. It is important for us, faced with competing destinations, to always make the destination more attractive.
And through this digitization of the sites, we found an additional way to enhance our heritage, and it was also a way to strengthen something that is very dear to us, the Cannes community. The Cannes community is not only the inhabitants, it is also all the visitors who come to Cannes and all the people who love Cannes. And they are many.
CHP: From my point of view, one of the elements which was also very important within the framework of the collaboration and of having selected Cannes. Cannes is the first destination known internationally. I wouldn’t say after Paris or before Paris, but who challenge. So there was a real point of impact.
The second point is that the history of Cannes is really linked to a topical event, which is tomorrow, Le film festival and consequently, all the transpositions of monuments within the framework of the organization of events such as festivals. A festival which could be linked to the cinema or thus one or a festival which could be linked to a whole host of other elements as the city of Cannes knows how to do it soon on hydrogen, as it did on the IA recently, and putting these events in, in a very hybrid form which, thanks or because of the pandemic, is developing a lot and the metaverses and the fact that Cannes could fit into that, for me, was something important.
This week, alongside the launch of the Cannes Film Festival, there will be the Cannes NFT Festival. Will you get there one way or another?
RR: It is an initiative of the Cannes Film Festival and its partners which takes place in parallel. It is perfectly relevant, and complementary to that carried out by the Town Hall of Cannes.
CHP: One of the points that is also important is, for example, the initiative that there was on Fortnite and on which it is a first exploitation of the NFT collection of Cannes, that is to say the real point in which we are able to show that the way in which the buildings are embedded in the framework of Fortnite in video game . Tomorrow, the holder of the Festival Palaceor the Croisette or other could be inspired by this first experience and this first attempt that we carried out in this context. As part of the use of the Cannes NFT collection.
Regarding the technical plan, because we always need to know if there is under the hood, which blockchain are you using to develop this project?
CHP: Ethereum.
CHP: Why ? Because there was Polygon which is actually less expensive, and on which today we have done a lot of studies. We looked at what was possible. That is to say that we have both the title of ownership that is the NFT and above all, we have the 3D model which allows its implementation within the framework of the metaverses. From that moment, the only blockchain that for us allowed us to include and pair them was Ethereum. We tried with other blockchains. Basically, we had problems with that.
One of Ethereum’s points of attack is Proof-of-Work (before the merge), and its ecological aspect. Aren’t you afraid it’s bad publicity?
RR: At the global level, perhaps to resituate, Pertimm is the creator of these NFTs. The position of the Cannes town hall is that we own the brand walking sticksin complete transparency, we have a license agreement, which allows Pertimm to use the brand, the logo, the image of Cannes.
In the case of this license agreement, indeed the question of ecology we discussed it quite a bit. We have two measures which make it possible to compensate for this carbon footprint. The first is that Pertimm has undertaken to offset the project’s carbon footprint twice by planting trees, obviously certified.
And moreover, 10% of the proceeds of the auction will be donated to the endowment fund of the city of Cannes, which is an endowment fund that supports and finances environmental projects. This is indeed an important point that we discussed upstream since we had this concern for the carbon footprint, which may be rightly or wrongly, but which is nevertheless real.
Are we going to ask companies like Air France to compose their carbon?
Charles-Henri Puaux
CHP: That would mean that she is from an energetic point of view, she is positive energy, which is normally impossible. Within the framework of the 10%, indeed, there is the ecological principle. We are on something very local.
Choosing another blockchain could raise this question if necessary. And we can see it today, the more a blockchain grows, the more energy it can consume. Indeed, this point means that from the moment we are in a turn on Ethereum, I think that in any case we will be on an ecological turn. (note with the merge), on mining, so from this point of view, I think that our initiative is not a fortuitous initiative or even an episodic initiative. The real question is “are we going to ask companies like Air France to compose their carbon?”
Personally, I don’t think we’re there yet and yet we gave them 4 billion. There is really that side which is important and it is something on which ecology is important. And it is all the more important when it is local. And the choice we made was to do ultra local, that is to say to do Cannes.
I’m very transparent about that. I think maybe during the second or third meeting we had with the town hall, that was one of the points that was discussed. Why ? Because we are lucky, and I mean lucky to evolve in a territory in which the setting is exceptional.
I do not make myself an ambassador any more than I am for the territory of Cannes! We are really on something on which you will walk in the Lerins Islands, there is a real point on which the ecology is palpable. Which unfortunately as a former Parisian or Londoner, you don’t have.
Don’t you think there is a gap between what you develop and what 99% of people today are able to understand?
RR: There is enormous enthusiasm for metaverses, it’s the future of the Internet. We think that doing this project leads people to ask questions, we also do pedagogy, education, because we simply talk about it. Many people wonder, question us. In the end, it creates curiosity among our constituents. Moreover, precisely, to bounce back on education, we organized from April 14 to 16 the first edition of the World AI Cannes Festival, a show dedicated to professionals and the general public on artificial intelligence of international scope.
That’s to say ? We had a day dedicated to the general public with a presentation of the NFT project which generated a lot of enthusiasm. It is really something very important for us to educate citizens, about digital inclusion in the broad sense and educate people about new technologies. It is fundamental and it is one of the many battle horses of our Mayor.
What are the next steps in your roadmap?
CHP: The next step is to give an NFT to a public figure during the Cannes Film Festival.
RR: From the world of cinema!
CHP: So this is going to be the number one NFT since it’s the first to be given. From then on, we will have roughly one month until the time of the sale and therefore we will enter a phase which is fairly well known for auction houses and which is fairly unknown from my point of view. This is the mediatization phase of the project and consequently we will try to spread the project as much as possible beyond the borders, in particular at the level of the American and Asian borders, so that we continue to see the Cannes brand as being a brand of innovation and a brand of new technologies. As we can see in France, I have never heard so many topics on the metaverse since it was announced.
It proves that it had its first effect. Secondly, it will really allow, if necessary, people to identify Cannes as being a point in digital creation, as being an element of global rallying, which was what my choice was.
And the auction is scheduled for what date?
RR: There is an auction on June 21 at 6 p.m. at the Harbor Master’s Office of Port Canto, and the ten NFTs will be sold during this auction.
CHP: It will be, but also online. It will be possible to bid online. So I invite you to go to the site by Artcurial the collection of the sale is called I Met My NFT in Cannes from the beginning we took this name because it was the principle of the origin and the meeting, which is exactly Cannes, and what exactly is today the metaverse and therefore the sale I Met My NFT In Cannes will of course be for sale online as today all auctions are done.
Interview carried out on May 16, 2022 at the Town Hall of the city of Cannes.