The Slippery Slope of Researching NFT Art
picked-up pieces while learning about NFT Art and trying to put it in context
Someone I know, actually someone who went to Flatiron a while ago and is now a successful web dev, asked me what I thought of NFT Art. I didn’t know, googled it and as I learned more about it I pivoted and decided to write my blog about it. So buckle up and put on your rose colored glasses. Welcome to NFT Art bootcamp.
explain what an NFT is:
As always we will start with a definition from the dictionary.
Fungible — Able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable.
NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. An NFT is a cryptographic token, a digital unique, asset. Blockchain technology allows for an NFT to be generated, following certain standards, so that it can be verified as unique by blockchain technology at a later date and time. Blockchain technology will also verify the original creator essentially stamped in its code. Unlike fungible currency exchanges such as exchanging a quarter for a quarter or a bitcoin for a bitcoin, one NFT cannot be exchanged for another NFT. It’s their non-fungible, unique quality that lends them to art. Just like an NFT is unique so is a painting or a cryptokitty.
Most NFT art sales are done through Ethereum.
Because each digital artwork has an original NFT built in to it that cannot be duplicated and is identifiable, one could copy and paste an NFT artwork that is a digital image but that wouldn’t change who owns the token. Through blockchain the provenance is of an NFT artwork is public. The token is owned by one person at a time, they have the original NFT Artwork. In reference to an NFT artwork’s ‘provenance’ they call an NFT original ‘provably rare’ by pushing two words together as they are wont to do.
What is provenance and why does is matter?
Provenance is simply the place of origin or earliest history of something.
Provenance has to do with legitimacy which effects not only the immediate value of the work but the legacy of the work and whoever owns the work at that time. It actually plays a huge role in the art market in terms of both NFT art and traditional art. Specifically with regards to NFT provenance is important because an NFT can trigger a commissioned percentage to the artist for each secondary market sale of their art.
This great feature of blockchain and NFT Art is possible by adding a digital mechanism to the NFT, an intellectual property percentage, wherein upon each sale of the work in the secondary market(which is every sale after the first one) a specified percentage of the resale price (commission) goes back to the artist. But aside from that special feature, an unimpeachable provenance, even one without kickbacks, is one of the major selling points of NFT art. Because everything can be tracked there is less room for forgery or corruption therefore a its a more secure buying and selling marketplace.
Where does NFT art exist
On websites, in collectors homes, projected on their walls, and even coming up next month at Christies in NYC. This will be the first NFT Artwork auctioned at one of the major auction houses. Its a work by the artist Beeple.
What is art? To me its some kind of aesthetic expression or investigation via expression into what signifiers a culture shares, possible angst towards these signifiers or empowerment through others. Art is something that has an aesthetic or some kind of guiding principle. This aesthetic is usually informed by one’s context, one’s culture and one’s individual perspective. A work of art is a unique expression executed to communicate something aesthetically to an audience small or large.
NFT Art all seems a little bit gimmicky but also really exciting and confusing. I guess that’s like many new things in technology. But in my opinion it meets the criteria for art.
As the world changes so does art and culture and vice versa.
One thought I had while giving this some more thought is legacy. Legacy factors into the things both in terms of the artist and the collector and the value of the artwork. The artwork itself stays the same, more or less, even as the value changes. The artist will eventually die and if they’re lucky be written about and remembered. Sometimes the collector is remembered if they donate their collection to a museum, get a building named after them or a wing of a museum etc etc. What would an NFT Art museum look like? Would there even be one? Or would there be one, just not physically? Is that just a website? Either way if there were one in the future I bet it would be free.
The physical art market has shrunk the past year but the market for NFT Art has boomed over the same period of time. Digital artists who previously were not participating in the NFT Art market are entering into it more and more. The history of NFT Art is quite fascinating as well.
