In this Q & A we get to know Juli Cho Bailer, CEO and co-founder of SmartStamp and the technology behind the Swiss tech newcomer. They set an impressive new standard in authentication and brand protection for the art world, safeguarding the art and collectibles markets that have a growing problem with counterfeit works. With technology that is as easy as taking a picture with a mobile, it delivers contactless authentication and ID for artworks — providing security for all stakeholders in the art and collectibles market. It is available as an App and API for both retail and enterprise users.

Who are you and what do you do? 

I’m the CEO and co-founder of SmartStamp. Together with my business partner, a prominent art  collector and entrepreneur here in Switzerland, I founded SmartStamp to bring Ai and  blockchain — technologies that his tech team had developed for supply chain security — to the  art market where we saw an opportunity with respect to object authentication and identification,  the most important factors for market and historical value.  

Who can use SmartStamp? 

It’s been designed specifically for art sector use cases. Artists and other creatives, including  photographers, printmakers, and designers, can use either our industrial camera or a smartphone  (both Android and iOS) to authenticate their artwork or prototypes. These fingerprints can then be stored in their collection management system, be shared with authorized persons, and be included as part of the paper or e-certificate of authenticity. Secondary market galleries, auction houses, and museum or private collections can also ‘SmartStamp’ incoming and outgoing objects to prove their identity.  

You can even fingerprint crates and security seals to ensure a box wasn’t opened, swapped with a  counterfeit, and resealed. Art logistics companies and other art ecosystem stakeholders, such as  conservators, can use SmartStamp to create IDs of all objects they handle. Using the App, they  can also take blockchain timestamped photos and videos as irrefutable proof of their art handling.  

Even purely digital data can be made immutable using SmartStamp’s blockchain. Digital  archives, such as the master file of a photograph or video, can be blockchain timestamped to  authenticate the artwork or its digital certificate, to ensure the ‘original’ metadata is intact and unaltered. This would be important for future researchers trying to identify which version of a  video is the artist’s true version. This also holds true for writers and musicians who want to  protect their IP before sharing it with third parties. 

What’s your background? 

Before SmartStamp, I was a museum Curator of contemporary art, and before that, Permanent  Collections Manager at the Jewish Museum New York — a collection that spans ancient Judaica  to contemporary art. My museum career started, however, at The Whitney Museum in New York as a cataloguer and researcher in the permanent collection. This was my first hands-on  opportunity to learn about collection care. The Whitney didn’t have a conservation department at  the time, so much of the collection care was the responsibility of collections management, while  historical research belonged to curators. I was lucky to learn both at such an amazing institution  — honing my research skills while learning the multi-faceted responsibilities of collection stewardship.  

What is SmartStamp? 

SmartStamp is the most flexible and tamperproof security and traceability system available to  authenticate and identify objects of art. We have enterprise APIs, use cloud technology scaled for Industry 4.0, and our product range includes three different solutions, from industrial cameras to a mobile App for ease of use. We even have our own robot that is programmed to scan with a smartphone. 

How does it work? 

SmartStamp combines patented Ai computer vision, which we call Multi-Dimensional Dynamic Identity, and sustainable blockchain timestamping to create immutable, non-invasive, digital fingerprints of objects — of a variety of media, including multiples, photographs, and printed collectibles, such as stamps. We developed the user interface to be as simple as taking a picture, whether you are using our purpose-built Bluetooth camera or our mobile App. SmartStamp analyzes the microstructure of a tiny 0.5cm surface area of an object, so no special lighting is required, which makes it simple and flexible. The captured image analysis is then converted into a mathematical formula, in other words ‘code,’ which is the unique ID, or ‘fingerprint’ of that specific object. You can create as many fingerprints of an object as you want. Keep the fingerprints private or share the ones you want with other parties, such as your gallery or art  shipper.  

That’s the physical-to-digital magic that SmartStamp does — creating unique fingerprints for even identical objects. Additionally, to combat digital fakes or hacking, every single fingerprint is  automatically blockchain timestamped for immutable data. In order to keep things eco-friendly,  we use blockchain timestamping and the Merkle tree to package millions of timestamps into one seed and upload it once to the blockchain, thereby greatly reducing energy consumption and  costs.  

Enterprise clients can overlay our API to their databases or integrate it into their collections  management systems to roll out to their customers. We’ve designed it to be optimally flexible for  a wide spectrum of art use cases.  

Why should they use it? 

Our technology is supported and proven by leading Industry 4.0 companies and universities in  Switzerland, Germany, and Japan, some with annual revenue of over EUR 2 billion. Our tech can  be deployed on a range of newer smartphone devices or with our Bluetooth connection industrial camera. Either way, it’s as easy as taking a picture, if not easier because you don’t even have to set up lighting. We are also the only security tagging company in either industry or the arts that can dynamically update ever-evolving surfaces. Our Ai detects subtle changes and updates the old fingerprint with a new one, while keeping a history of all versions. We have global patents on that so it’s not possible for another system to copy us. Additionally, our tags are 100% digital. We don’t attach anything to an object, such as an RFID tag, which can be removed, go offline, or expire; and QR codes are easily transferred or copied. Like a human fingerprint, our scans are of the object itself even as it changes. And, we create blockchain backup of all of our fingerprints, to make the entire system tamperproof.  

What’s the inspiration behind SmartStamp? 

The inspiration behind SmartStamp is to be a 21st century smart ‘stamp’ for artists. In addition to  the historical artist estate stamp or foundry stamp, or print studio’s chopmark, we now have a  tamper proof digital stamp for new creations, but that can also help ensure the identity of cultural  heritage objects of our past. We live in an age of fake everything — goods, news, money, videos.  Smart tech can help disrupt the counterfeit trade!  

How much does it cost? 

The B2C product range will be offered in a tiered subscription for as little as USD 25 per license,  per month, for basic features. Artists may only need one license and limited features, while larger  companies or galleries may need dozens of licenses and unlimited digital scans. Our B2B  products, of course, are specifically tailored for our enterprise partners and their needs.  

Where are you located? 

We are incorporated in Thurgau, Switzerland, where our HQ is, about 45 minutes from Zurich.  Switzerland is famous for its excellent enterprise landscape and attracts some of the best talent  in the world. We are an international team, but our developers, including back, front, and  fullstack are all in Switzerland and Germany.  

When did you establish SmartStamp? 

I met my business partner, Friedrich Kisters, and his tech team in 2018 and we began market  research and analysis of front end developments specifically for art objects. When I first met the  team, I was very impressed by the scalability and the sustainability of the tech, as they had been  originally developed to track and trace billions of industrial and consumer goods — using AWS  cloud technology, industrial cameras, and mobile Apps. All of these were adapted to create what  we believe is the perfect product for the niche arts and collectibles sector. 

My partner, Friedrich, has an incredible art collection, particularly masterpiece Old Masters, and  is extremely knowledgeable about conservation and scientific analysis. That’s actually what led  him down the path of developing surface area digital fingerprints ten years ago, but he focused  first on anti-counterfeiting security of industrial objects. Supply chain protection, everything  from our food to pharmaceuticals to luxury goods, is undergoing huge digital transformation in  this age of fakes, of both tangible goods and e-certificates.  

We recognized immediately that we could expand the base technologies to the protection of the  art market ‘supply chain’ — it's not how we describe it in the art world, but it’s fundamentally  similar. SmartStamp shares the same tech team as our sister companies, but combined with art  professionals, such as myself.  

Describe a real-life situation that inspired you? 

Having worked with such historically important art and artefacts, there were many experiences  that shaped how I envisioned SmartStamp. And dialogue with our tech team always inspired new  ideas! But just referencing art situations, I’ve been a museum courier of high valued objects  dozens of times, hand-carrying precious objects, accompanying crates filled with tens of millions  of dollars worth of art cargo across Europe, overseeing installation of large scale works in my own  curated exhibitions or as a courier on other shows. I even had the rare chance to visit the White  House to supervise a loaned Hanukkah lamp during Christmas/Hanukkah and was given a  private tour. That’s one of the perks of museum work.  

But, I’m grateful that I've had the chance to work with and meet living artists, many of whom are  the heroes I studied in school: Kiki Smith, Fred Wilson, Maya Lin, among others. The museum  experience of provenance research, condition reporting, inventory, and overseeing crating and  transport around the world for most of my career was the foundation for discerning the biggest  art market problems.  

Prestigious institutions have mostly unquestionable documentation, but there is always ongoing  research of objects, and I think it's exciting that new technologies are here to add to qualitative as  well as other scientific approaches.  

I won’t name the artist, but I was the museum courier for a valuable painting that belonged to a  New York museum. After we had transported, unpacked, and installed the work in the borrowing  museum, the artist, who was then in her 80s, came to inspect her exhibition and declared the  painting to be a fake and to take it down and burn it. Museum lending policies often don’t allow  a borrowing party to deinstall a loaned artwork without the presence of the lending museum’s  authorized representative, so of course they didn’t burn it! The exhibition had not yet opened, so  everyone scrambled around to solve the mystery. The painting was new, fresh from the artist’s  gallery. Could there have been a mixup? Thankfully, a few hours later, the artist came to her  senses and recognized and reclaimed the work. But, it always made me wonder what would happen if an artist denounces an artwork — even a legitimate, certified artwork because of  memory loss or even spite?  

What was it that made you become an entrepreneur? 

When I saw how transformative the technologies could be, I jumped in without too much thinking. I saw how this scalable tech could create a safer marketplace, provide solid authentication evidence to dispel future disputes, and protect digital documentation for eternity through blockchain. I stepped into my former shoes as a collection specialist, but it was the months of brainstorming and analysis with our tech team that created our solutions for the art sector’s biggest pain points.  

Where is your favorite or most inspirational place? 

I am happiest in nature or in a museum, so archeological sites are the perfect blend of both. I love ruins and ancient temples and could roam around these dusty places for days. The story of  humanity is often best told through our art and artefacts, which is why I so strongly believe in  bringing the smartest technologies to aid us in record keeping for posterity. One of the most  impressive places I’ve been is Ephesus. I was backpacking through Turkey with my friend in the  90s and we were on a student budget, so we traveled in February, when most places were  deserted, including ancient Ephesus. We were literally the only two people there, just wandering  around. I was doing an MFA in photography at the time, so I took a lot of photos. More recently,  my husband and I took our kids to The Great Wall of China a few years ago, and Pompeii two years ago, and last year we did a tour of Athens, the Temple of Poseidon, and Milos, that also has  some well preserved ruins — it’s also where they discovered the Venus de Milo, which is housed  in the Louvre, another place I just love to visit whenever I’m in Paris. Some people travel to shop and eat. I travel to see art and eat. 

What’s happening right now?

We are fully functional on an industrial scale. Our sister company on the industrial side, has  finished training their robot to use the mobile App to create fingerprints of each postage stamp  on a sheet — this is an exciting partnership with Post Lichtenstein for their Stamp 4.0, the  world’s first uniquely identifiable postage stamp.  

Our purpose-built industrial Bluetooth connection cameras are also fully functional and we are  currently Beta testing the SmartStamp App for B2B partners with a planned B2C retail launch in  Q4 2021. This is a conservative Covid timeline. We postponed our original retail launch from Q2 2021 because it’s difficult to conduct larger tech workshops or hold events with the current  restrictions.  

We’re also analyzing for future SmartStamp modules using technology we’ve been developing for  condition reporting and securing VIP cargo transport. We have a lot of tech ingredients and are  cooking up a lot of cool things in the test kitchen!  @Smartstamp_com https://www.smartstamp.com/

Image : smartstamp.com

Read more about SmartStamp in our pressroom.