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I think they made the right call. Without delving into the usual crypto flamewar, most NFT's are a method of tracking ownership of an item. They're closer to
by everforward 5y ago
I think they made the right call.
Without delving into the usual crypto flamewar, most NFT's are a method of tracking ownership of an item. They're closer to a Certificate of Authenticity than a piece of art in and of themselves.
Even if someone put the image itself on the blockchain, I still think the blockchain serves as a storage mechanism rather than an inseparable part of the artistic work. The image could be copied off the blockchain onto a flash drive without changing the artistic value of it.
To me, the portions of a thing that are "art" are attributes that change the artistic value of a thing. The artist is an inseparable part. The frame on a painting might be an inseparable part. The location of the thing is not art, because it has the same artistic value whether it's sitting in the Louvre or in someone's attic. The NFT is like the location; it doesn't change the artistic value of anything, it only changes the monetary value of it.
There could be art where the blockchain is an inseparable part of the work, but NFT's aren't it. E.g. in architecture, the location of the building is absolutely part of the "art", even though it isn't for something like a painting.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- CryptoPunk 5y agoThere are NFTs where the art is entirely contained within the NFT data structure, like Autoglyphs: https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs https://www.larvalabs.com/autoglyphs >>the first “on-chain” generative art
- blueboo 5y agoTruly the exception that proves the rule. There are, too, urinals that hang in museums as art. That repurposing of the mundane is the art; the mundane remains mundane.
- eternityforest 5y agoIf the artist is a very strong believer in crypto, and the art itself is mostly notable because it's an NFT, or directly references something only NFT people know, then it becomes somewhat relevant where it is. Like, if a painting is OF the Louvre, and also in the Louvre, and the whole thing was intentional, the self reference becomes relevant. A lot of NFTs seem to be part of a series specifically meant for blockchain. I'm sure there's at least a few blockchain specific cultural elements some include. But I don't actually pay any attention to NFTs so I don't know. I'm not at all a NFT fan... but I don't think it's completely impossible that the location isn't part of the piece, it's almost equivalent to the frame in some cases.
- solarkraft 5y agoI don't dispute that NFT-specific works can be art. I (and I think a lot of others) have an issue with counting a sale of the related token as a sale of the original work. I guess (for me) it depends on whether the creation and honoring of the token was a fundamental reason for creating the art work (as mentioned by you) and comes with typical properties of ownership. But since an NFT can be created for everything and anything (you just make a token and say it's about something), at best the NFT sale is at best something like the sale of an art copy. It all depends on social factors. The author has to commit that an NFT will be the only one for a work; ideally the NFT would be created before the work is finished. All typical ownership rights (copyright) would have to be transferred. Then I could see people accepting NFTs as proper certificates of ownership. But current NFTs seem to be pretty far from that (consider all the fraudulent ones).