anna-NFTreading

NFTs: good? NFTs: bad? NFTs: not inherently bad but still crappy overall in my opinion. Like, were they created to be environmentally awful? Nah. But they are, and that’s something that needs to be addressed by bigger players in the NFT game, which isn’t happening because of course they stand to lose something should they admit that what they’re doing isn’t sustainable. Pipkin mentions in their article that the Ethereum currency has yet to fully transfer over to Proof of Stake despite stating their intent to since the currency’s conception–this, to me, seems to be proof of their lack of stake in addressing the many issues with cryptocurrency at hand.

There’s a lot about NFTs and their impact that I’m not at the mental capacity to understand at this moment, but like, my general take-away is that the bulk of NFTs seem to be the embodiments of capitalist greed in a digital age. With that said, sure, NFTs present artists with an opportunity to market their work on their own terms, but can one claim to have dedication or passion in a field such as art without knowing everything they can about it, both good and bad? In my opinion, if one engages in unethical practices to support their livelihood without caring for it, it represents that one only possesses the knowledge of said livelihood within the context of whatever good it serves for that person alone, which is, like, not totally great. TL;DR, if you’re doing something that’s inadvertently bad at a very large scale so that you can do something you enjoy, you only have knowledge of that activity re: how it benefits you, which is a pretty douchebag move, if you ask me. Like, the artists who are making chump change off NFTs, I’ll cut them some slack. But if you’re making TechBro-level money off your art regularly, then like, you’re kind of a part of the problem?

Monday – NFT Reading

This movement towards NFT’s by new media artists starts to feel more and more like a byproduct of a broken art market, and it’s more than understandable why some artists sell NFT’s, despite the environmental costs. I was honestly shocked by the statistics listed in the Flash Art article about the demographics of today’s most successful artists in the auction market. Chances are, if you’re not a white male from an extremely wealthy and privileged background, your chances of success in the traditional art market is incomparable. Thus, I can’t help but be sympathetic and supportive of these artists.

However, it is impossible to ignore how unstainable the market is, and to what degree it can harm the environment. This problem is at the fault of how the value of proof of work cryptocurrency is determined to begin with, and its energy consumption is increasing with no end in sight. I can’t imagine a successful and sustainable future with a cryptocurrency-based market for art, especially with a proof-of-work model.

Lastly, I’m skeptical of the current NFT market, especially in regards to art theft and frequent themes in the art being sold. As stated in a couple of the articles, transparency is a major issue in this virtual market. A lack of accountability in art theft and a rise in sales in NFT’s such as tokenized tweets raise questions about the future of this market. Additionally, the disconnect from the rest of the contemporary art world and these NFT’s, with a large number of NFT’s focusing on brightly-colored 3D animations of sci-fi environments strangely enough, also make it unclear how they are in relation to contemporary art now and in the future.

rathesungod- NFTReading

When we were first introduced to the topic of crypto art and NFT’s, I was amazed by how many artists were on the platform and variations of art are being produced every day. I was really interested how the system worked and the benefits as well as the disadvantages the world of crypto art had. After reading the following readings explaining the process of crypto art and how negative the ecological and environmental factors play into it.

The platform itself seems like a really great community for small artists as well as for people of color who have a smaller voice to put out their art to the public and make a name for themselves. It removes a lot of the negative factors that top tier art galleries have against smaller artists such as racism, sexism, etc. After viewing many of the NFT sites myself, it is almost overwhelming seeing the amount of art pieces within only one type of platform. Behind these websites, I would never expect how negative the impacts are in this kind of art processing, which really shows how many people are not informed on impact this has on several different issues.

Personally, I don’t know if I would necessarily take part in the NFT phenomenon. I feel that I don’t know enough yet to actually purchase or sell art on that platform as well as the guilt built up after reading the articles on how bad this art world affects the environment and community. But also, the NFT community seems like such an effective way for small artists like myself to really put their work out there in hopes of someone finding it and enjoying it. However, I definitely don’t know how others can do this so often without realizing the cynical and horrible effects of crypto art.

peatmoss-NFTReading

Position: I find NFTs ethically deplorable, but that doesn’t mean I’m not intrigued by them. I want there to be equitable and engaging marketplaces for all kinds of creators, but I just don’t think this is it. The issues with theft, traditional fine art snobbery, environmental destruction, homogeneity, etc. are already presenting themselves in the largest marketplaces. I can’t get behind it, not right now. I look forward to, and hope to see the efforts to reduce NFT carbon footprints actually succeed.

Pros: With proper regulation and a cultural shift towards more eco-friendly currencies, I could see this being a great thing for artists who want new markets to sell their work. In addition, I think this has interesting potential as new mediums are able to be introduced to these platforms–for instance, I could imagine this being a really fun way to sell limited time zines, especially with the edition function. Fully techy and digital art has some interesting potential as a medium as well, like how paper creases can become its own artwork, how something moves along a blockchain could as well.

Cons: This piece from the Flash Art article really stuck out to me, “If profit is going to be the primary motivation for growth and research, then one of our strategies must be to make it more profitable for businesses to act responsibly.” This has been the case with every rampant capitalist structure, business, and culture since the industrial age came into being. That unfortunately includes the fine art world. As things stand, there is an incentive to make as much money as possible, damn the consequences. However, there’s no use for that money if our planet dies! I’m not being hyperbolic. There’s potentially already huge issues with the gulfstream (it’s broke thanks to climate change), the Amazon Rainforest (which has reportedly reached its capacity for carbon intake and is now, in combination with the logging industry, releasing more carbon than it absorbs), and our whole worlds ecosystems. We have incredibly limited time, and I for one would rather we focus on getting a true respect into our culture for digital marketplaces and artists without having to resort to such an extreme cost. We all know here that digital art didn’t poof into existence with crypto, there are and have been artists making a living (to varying degrees), online for decades. There is already a cost to making art online, lets not raise that bar to include our whole world. (this does not get into all of my critiques of crypto-art, I just wanted to focus on this for the purpose of what I engaged with in the reading.)

rathesungod- NFT Immersion

“Black on White Möbius IFS IV”

Made by Johan Karlsson, his page

“Falling Upwards into the Giants”

Made by Black Sneakers, their page

“Cells 1.0”

Made by Noah, his page

“Haze aesthetics #63”

Made by NEURAL HAZE, Neural vaporwave NFTz aesthetics.

After browsing many of the NFTs on several different sites, I’ve come to see so many variations of digital and physical art made within the community. Out of the hundreds I viewed, these four caught my eye with their movement, color, tone, etc. Two of the NFTS were found on Hic et Nunc, and the other two were found on SuperRare and Foundation.

Within many of the amazing artists within the NFT community, I’ve come to see how several artists present their work to the public and how their style carries throughout their work. But also I’ve realized how impersonal some of the work is on these websites. Since they are mostly based on aesthetics and graphics, I’ve found really beautiful visuals but with little to no meaning? However, on #BlackNFTMonth, I did find a lot of purposeful art that represented very powerful symbolism and imagery.

Out of the websites that I viewed, I felt that Hic et Nunc had the most art variation and style complex. It also had a lot more of abstract art that I could read more into than just solely aesthetic art. But I did enjoy both SuperRare and Foundation. It was super fun to browse around and see the extent of how art can be distributed and seen to millions across the world. As for every artist, I never really seemed to remember certain names, but it does seem like the farther you go down and scroll, the more variation you see within the pieces. I’ve also noticed how different and similar a lot of the art pieces can be compared to each other. Styles such as geometric shapes, animation and cartoon with people, and just unique visual stances, a lot of the pieces were jumbled on top of each other, making it harder to focus on one. Overall, I had a really fun time scrolling on these websites and finding some really cool art.

anna-NFTimmersion

NFT 1 Textile Techniques 01 by zachdarren
NFT 2 A moment of light. by spongenuity
NFT 3 Here honey let me straighten your tie by this person
NFT 4 CryptoSnail by @im3dartist

So, words brain is bad right now but I guess we’re gonna do this anyway:

Looking at the endless scroll of NFTs on my screen reminds me of the good ol’ days when tumblr.com was a prime platform for sharing artistic content: two squares of Amazing Content, ten squares of Decent Content, and three squares of content that makes you question why humans possess the ability to create. NFTs seem to take this to an elitist extent in some cases, though, with people selling art that worships the ethereum currency for thousands of dollars and the low, low, price of ecological destruction. In other cases, like hic et nunc, it isn’t so bad, where there’s a digital platform to distribute one’s art but it also is founded upon the use of a digital currency that isn’t ethically, eh, bad. That being said, I doubt hic et nunc has the overall traction or presence that other sites such as foundation have, and therefore the method by which you peruse its art is a bit unrefined, in my opinion.

Who makes this art? Artists. Or, in the case of the fourth work listed above, devout worshippers of online currency that–I’m trying to keep an open mind here–are probably okay-ish people, but like… why do art that is that openly based off the snail from an ill-remembered DreamWorks movie and cites a particular mode of currency that is (despite whatever positive impacts it may have) not environmentally good as a source of hope? I don’t know. The idea of holding any sort of currency in that regard just seems so disgusting to me.

Who goes for this art? I think it depends on which platform one observes. I’ve been told that hic et nunc is supported in part by artists supporting each other’s work, but if we talk a walk over to foundation you’ll see things going for the equivalent of tens of thousands of US dollars, which, I don’t think your average person has to spend on art in a single purchase. Therefore, I’m looking at sites in the tier of foundation as supported by uber-capitalist tech bros who care little about the environmental impact of NFTs, rather than a well-meaning community.

shrugbread- NFTReading

The NFT phenomenon is as fast moving as it is possibly destructive. We can’t talk about NFT’s without realizing it’s stem from the old fine art world. An art world filled with statements like “oh I could do that” with the only thing stopping people being the fact that they could never get a gallery to sponsor their work. NFTs eliminate the monolithic ideal that art world presence makes art valuable. If a random person’s work was placed in a museum with a completely unfounded artist statement hangs by the piece will be seen and critiqued and sold, subsequently giving the artist success. NFTs eliminate the middle man and is where my middle class concern comes in. Yes, there will be droves of people who will begin to make money for whom this will be the first taste of them making any sort of money from their art. Many artists stand to gain from this. However in the depths of the internet millions will be buried. Not every NFT will be bought, and many artists will use their last 100,200,300 dollars on gas fees. Small artists will blow up and be used as a tool for people with millions to spare to have protected assets. We are also seeing the apathy expressed in the NFT community regarding the environmental concerns surrounding more unsustainable currencies like Etherium and Bitcoin. For pretty much everyone, money now is better than money later. Not enough people are waiting for Proof of Stake to become fully viable and just as the purpose of crypto began, get in while NFTs are still “small”. This all doesn’t even approach the possibility of the NFT bubble bursting.

fr0g.fartz-NFTImmersion

(no name), title: beegoonkee, I love these spiders!!! I can tell that so much went into perfecting the behavior of the spiders.

Mark Malta, Ringlight, this guy is super cool.

Gustavo Torres, Shelter iii, love the concept of loneliness being explored in digital art.

Paola Castillo, The Promise, I like the flatness of the scenery in this piece.

I’m noticing that hic et nunc has the best art. It seems very intricate and that people are being innovative for the sake of expanding the possibilities in art. A lot of it is even interactive or has music! Which to me shows greater care for the work like this or this. Although not all of it is like this, and a lot of it is just meh, it still feels like even the meh art is made by people who care about art and are having fun( Example). I also noticed that a lot of them weren’t for sale, which in a way is nice to see because it shows that people are primarily interested in sharing their work, though I think it would fine if they sold it too.

A lot of the foundation work seems to be “show-off” vibes without containing actually cool art. Here are some examples of what I mean. However, maybe I feel this way because I believe that this site is unethical and so I am more critical of their work. However, I really like this artist and piece (before seeing the description of who they are, which is Russian art activists who were put in jail for anti-Putin riots). I like that they are making money towards something and it made me enjoy their art a lot more after the fact as well. I think that this site has a lot of really cool stuff, it just irks me since a lot of these people are wealthy, they have the capacity to make more advanced art than possibly somebody without their amount of wealth. It also makes the art inaccessible to non-wealthy people, since a lot of it is sold for a lot of money. Meaning, the rich are getting richer and the poor are not exposed to this work. Even if you are not planning on buying anything, it could still make people who can’t afford to buy the art feel excluded.

This website feels like a lot of the work is just kind of pointless. A lot of it is not exciting or impactful in any way. (Example) And then there’s just bad visual stuff that just looks half-assed like this. However, there are some really good pieces interspersed with the bad like this.

I’m really happy someone wrote this to expose more black artists, who are very much under-represented in the art world. I wish they selected more artists so that I could look at more of these artists. However, I’m noticing that these works are not similar to the other really elaborate pieces on the foundation website, which use cgi and other software. On this page, most of the artists are using software that looks not as current or as advanced as other works on this website and are not interactive or mobile( https://rarible.com/paola ). This may be intensional, as the artists may just like painterly art, but also might be due to the fact that black artists don’t have the same financial benefits as white artists due to systemic racism, leading them to have less accessibility to expensive software which fucking sucks.

minniebzrg-NFTImmersion

Immersion

https://foundation.app/studioknife/crypto-artist-s-routine-6111

This piece called “Crypto Artist’s Routine” is by Studioknife and owned by Mondo. The piece was sold for 3.608 ETH. Instantly, I felt that this was a genius piece of art. It pokes fun at the stereotypical trope of the hyper-obsessed gamer child-man working in the basement of their parents house getting sunlight once every two days. The ominous green and the intricacy of all the flashing technology captured my attention at first glance. What really pulled it all together was the title which just made me literally laugh out loud. The more I looked around I was able to see the smaller details that the artist considered. Around the overwhelming scene of wires and monitors, there are small remnants of the crypto-artist daily routine including copious amounts of red bull, soda, cigarettes, and pizza. Initially, I found this piece to be humorous and then I began feeling pity for this generated figure. The man is easily triggered by the decline of the ETH price. This points to my personal feelings toward the destruction and dissatisfaction of the love of money. For me, I don’t think the practice of selling cryptoart is necessarily a black and white situation. However, it can easily be distorted by one’s perspective and devotion to the practice. A haunting symbol of this piece is the headgear, covering the person’s eye, with a multitude of wires connecting to an unknown source. Without interpreting too much, I just assumed that it could represent a sort of obsession or puppeteering from an overarching theme.

https://foundation.app/katherine/sparklepuregreen-nrg-leaves-7175

I despise this piece because it makes a profit out of someone just eating fruit. It is so strange to capitalize on something I do not consider art. It just seems too easy to get thousands of dollars out of a fruit-eating video. Interestingly enough, I looked into her website and found out she is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. To be fair, many youtubers also make a huge profit from making “mukbang’s” which are basically videos of them eating. This comes in many forms such as ASMR, food challenges, or tempting and deliciously arrayed banquets. I am guilty of participating in the mukbang culture, especially when I am dieting and need some motivation. These youtubers and streamers make thousands to millions of dollars by just eating, a popular pastime of people worldwide. However, there are many critics of the mukbang world, often calling it “glorified binge-eating” nudging into the consciousness of a community of those suffering or recovering from eating disorders. As I get back to the main point of this artist’s video, I would also like to point to OnlyFans or other fancam based networks. At the root of these websites and applications is the feticization of human figures or actions. I find this pretty atrocious and do not support it morally. This is the reason why I was repulsed by the simple video of this artist eating. It may seem like an extreme opinion but to me, I see some underlying hints that I just cannot stomach.

https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/fiat-vs-bitcoin:-nbatopshotthis.-20819

This is an artwork by Jon Noorlander showing a figure representing bitcoin as this basketball player stomping multiple other players representing fiat. Fiat money refers to physical money- both paper and coinage. The contrast using the red and the lighter gold and green in this piece is phenomenal. Just like the first piece I found, I think this is a light and playful piece. Obviously, it is talking about a more complex issue about the rising influence of bitcoin over fiat currency. One thing I noticed that I would have changed, personally, are the paper money figures that leave a visible shape after being crashed into. I think it doesn’t give the satisfaction of defeat when there is some residue of a figure left rather than the idea of disintegration.

https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/objkt/5946

This is an interactive artwork made by tz1Q4…3rX8G who I found a lot of interest in. This particular piece is relevant to our class because of the project we did with generative and interactive coding. I enjoy it because it doesn’t just exist as a still image that the buyer owns but it provides some interaction with anyone who views it. When you aren’t motoring the project, it orbits on its own. I think this type of design would attract certain types of people.

These pieces almost read to me as artistic research. Two of these pieces are more entertaining and the other two appeal to niche audiences.

peatmoss-NFTImmersion

Works I feel strongly about.

Hand Touching Stones, by Eva Papamargariti: https://foundation.app/evapapamargariti/hand-touching-stones-3249

This is the kind of gif that should only exist on Tumblr while you’re scrolling through your dashboard. It has a charming stupidity and absurdity to it which I admire, but of course it just has to be sold using ether. It baffles me as to how it exists, and I want to know more about it and why it was created.

Captivates me: Pain: https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/objkt/9589

This piece is the kind of thing I’d see literally made by children when they first start out on MSPaint, posted to their first Deviantart page. It’s either a true piece of angst or is a wildly authentic feeling recreation of one. I lean towards the latter given the title, description and tag are all “Pain”. Even so, it brings me back to an earlier time, and given its on hit et nunc I’m a little less irritated by its existence. If the artist can really sell it for 5 tez per edition then more power to them.

I detest: Yosemite Falls by Coldie: https://superrare.co/artwork/yosemite-falls-1201

It makes my blood boil to see this person wax poetic about a time before fires ravaged the west coast, how the clouds of this piece symbolize a better future, etc etc etc while engaging actively in using one of the more environmentally dangerous cryptocurrencies. This dogshit piece is selling for 15 ether @ list price. Visually, it’s perfectly serviceable. In fact the clouds and burnt edges of the piece could mean a lot if it wasn’t destroyed by its own oxymoronic, ridiculous ignorance.

Dog “Dark Companion” by Konogatari: https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/objkt/9475

This one is charming!

Overall, the landscape of NFTs seems to be dominated by easily consumable artworks. In my experience, I didn’t come across a piece of art that not only made me think (there were a few of those), but invited me to think. (Both about it and the world around us.) There were a lot of tech demo looking pieces, many of which were rough enough that it was almost uncomfortable to look at. Under this umbrella were also generative artworks, but many just looked lazy and uninspired.

I found a lot of photography as I was scrolling, but much of it had those ‘sketchy’ filters overtop to make it look artsy. This feels like instagram except it kills even more of the environment. These marketplaces with perhaps the exception of hic et nunc make me sad because there could be some incredible opportunities for artist friendly marketplaces online, but we get this instead. Anyways, back to the photography: it’s all wallpaper shit. A high contrast photo of a contact lens. A picturesque view of the Tetons. It feels, again, bland. There were some photo collage works that looked more thoughtful and less like screengrabs from google images. I actually felt something looking at those.

I think right now, the vast majority of NFT artworks are cashgrabs. I don’t have any high opinion of what art should be, I don’t need to be chastised for thinking art should be x, y or z. These marketplaces, primarily Superrare and Foundation, really seem to be catering for the easiest dollar. The lowest apple hanging on the tree that looks ripe. It’s frustrating, and I want to see more illustrative works but at the same time..I think that would be even more frustrating. I can feel a bit of separation between myself and works shown there because we do different styles of art, if the work I do was represented more obviously there, I think it’d just be more heartbreaking.