We don't value a copy because machines (or humans acting like machines) can do that for dirt cheap without thought or creative breakthrough.
We value the original.
We value the thing that represents that initial spark of something brand new in the world that latched itself in our collective consciousness. We value that because everyone else values it. It gives people a sense of awe to learn that you own an ORIGINAL Picasso. It's a display of wealth and power, but also tickles something deep and almost spiritual in the human mind.
I wouldn't be surprised if we learn to treat original NFTs the same way for digital art. Maybe first we need good ways of displaying our ownership of them.
I feel like you're trying to find a more concrete reason than is necessary - the fact that it is unique can be valuable on its own. I can go buy a reproduction Picasso that looks identical to the original and from an art standpoint it's effective equivalent, but it's still worth nothing compared to a "real" one. The fact that the original was painted by Picasso is what provides it so much value, even though who painted a particular piece of art is not a physical part of the art itself. A unique NFT effectively provides value in the same way, it is valuable as long as people care about who/what issued it and thus want to be able to say they own that unique one.
And while it's notable that digital art can be duplicated perfectly and physical art cannot, I don't personally think that matters all that much. People who are buying a Picasso aren't doing so just for the art, they're doing it so they can say they own a Picasso. In the same way you're not buying an NFT for the art itself, you're buying it because it's uniquely identifiable in a way you and others care about.
To me—and I'm not at all a high art person, so take this with a pinch of salt—I think the value in owning an original painting would be knowing that it is the original, crafted first hand by the artist, rather than the notion that it is mine and not someone else's (which to me continues to be a worthless concept in isolation). If The Lourve said I could keep the Mona Lisa above my mantelpiece forever more, I would not be looking to place bids on it.
For digital art that obviously doesn't apply as the concept of "the original" artefact is borderline meaningless, however that leads neatly onto the other thing I dislike about NFTs, which is the introduction of artificial scarcity in a medium not burdened by it.
I won't attempt to make a "realist" argument for the value of art, but I'll point something important out: as the owner of a "valuable" piece of physical art, you own a product of original physical labor. When you look at the pigments on the canvas, you're looking at the product of an artist physically transferring materials onto the medium. That itself is a rarity: people who (for whatever reason) value that artist's work realize that the artist can only perform that exact labor once.
It's difficult to say the same for NFTs: it's not clear where the original is, or why it should be emotionally/aesthetically rewarding to look at its digital attestation. I didn't frame the certificate of authenticity that came with the rug in my living room, after all.
Once, I've heard this pro-NFT argument: It's like if you would own the original of Mona Lisa. There are millions of copies, but you are the only one that actually owns the original.
That said, I still cannot wrap my head around owning some "art" in the digital world.
Before I get into my comment, I do want to thank you and note that you're trying to be helpful here. I just don't think you've hit the mark.
Regarding the analogy of NFTs to original art, that analogy breaks down almost immediately upon examination. You would compare the NFT to a certificate of ownership of a genuine original versus just copying the JPEG being like a reproduction. The thing is, a genuine original, physical artwork can't be exactly copied and distributed to practically the entire world, over and over again, just by issuing a command inside a computer.
I get that an original Picasso is valuable just because it's the only one, and Picasso was a well known and respected artist. I can certainly hang a print or other copy of one of his works on my wall, but, it won't be worth millions of dollars like an original would be.
I don't actually have any Picasso reproductions hanging on my wall, but I do own some original artwork, much by no-names, but some by well respected, listed artists [0]. I own these pieces because I have receipts of purchase, but, also, possession being metaphorically 9/10 of the law, because I physically have them in my possession. Because they're physical objects, me having them means nobody else can have them at the same time. Not so with the JPEG.
In this scenario, I believe the NFT actually corresponds to my purchase receipts. After all, if someone sent the police to my apartment and claimed my artworks didn't actually belong to me, that's how I'd prove it. And, that seems to be what an NFT is trying to establish: that the holder of the token in some sense owns something essential about the thing it's referencing.
Now, maybe I have this all wrong, and the NFT actually corresponds to a certificate of ownership of some kind of rights attached to the artwork. For instance, maybe the NFT is essentially a grant of the right of duplication. To which I say: well, okay... I guess if I don't hold the NFT, I can't duplicate the entirety of the work you own, because the NFT corresponds to ownership of something inherent to the work that can only initially be transferred by the creator of the work under the world's current copyright framework.
But, again, I can just copy the bits of the JPEG and do whatever with it. I can take the images and remix them into a mosaic image of a hand right clicking a mouse [1] if I want. But, I can't claim that the resulting work is made up of 10,000 NFTs by whatever artist; because I don't hold the NFTs themselves, I don't hold that right. So, it's not like I "own a JPEG," but, I own a right associated with the JPEG, which is the right to say "I own this NFT associated with this JPEG image," and I can sell or transfer that right.
That all to me seems like a distinction without a difference, given that the JPEG itself is, upon creation, a copyrighted work, and the original creator can sell or transfer that right without the associated crypto baggage.
TL;DR: ¯\_(?)\_/¯
---
[0]: For those not familiar with the term, a "listed artist" is just an artist who has a large enough number of public auction records that those records can be used as a basis for valuing / appraising their work.
This is hilariously ludicrous. NFT artwork is valuable for the same reasons that physical artwork is valuable. And that is that there is a consensus that something is the "original" and that that "original" piece of art has some value to people who into art.
Consider this thought experiment. I make a drawing. It's famous. Everyone wants it. It sells at auction for $5 million. I next invent a machine that makes identical copies in identical style. Absolutely indistinguishable from the original. However, the original has a certificate of authenticity that it is indeed the original.
Has the original gone up in value, or down in value?
There is nothing stopping me, or anyone else, from making a copy of an NFT. It's trivially easy, and free. The copies are worth nothing without the COA, which is what the blockchain attempts to provide. I find the whole thing hilariously stupid, but I find that to be true of art collection in general. To each their own on what things you want to collect.
But with a book who gives a shit whether it's the original book or a copy of the original book? No one. No one is going to pay extra to have an authentic copy of a textbook. No one will care.
But that is entirely artificial scarcity. The fact is that they could be produced perfectly; the physical prints need physical security, because if copies were allowed to be made, it would be difficult to know who owns the original.
If the provenance of the real item could be guaranteed, the fact that you have a really good copy wouldn't matter; people would still pay to own the original.
That's exactly what an NFT is; digital security for a digital print. People who buy NFTs don't care that someone else has a copy, they value the artificial scarcity provided by the NFT.
Look, the fact is that if you like a Picasso, you can have a perfect copy made, and you won't be able to tell the difference between the two. In fact, in a blind test, you may end up liking the copy more. The fact that you value the original more because Picasso touched it is totally, absolutely in your head. Empirically, there is no reason why this should make a difference to you.
And then you have a digital token that Picasso personally signed with his private key.
There are a lot of examples at the intersection of this. If you buy a Damien Hirst, the artist may well never have touched the piece - these are being produced by staff. Sol LeWitt's Wall Paintings exist as instructions that different artists re-execute over an over again.
In all these cases, enjoyment of the art is available to everyone; you can have a really good copy. It is totally disconnected with what people value when they pay large sums of money, which is entirely artificial.
The thing is, with a painting, the copies can never be the authentic original. Andy Warhol in particular explored this (art as a mechanical process), possibly inadvertently, as well.
With a digital asset there is no such thing as an original. Even the original file isn't original after the OS moves things around or it's loaded into RAM, etc. Does originality matter? Possibly it always was just bragging rights after replication became reasonably accessible and of high quality?
I'm not completely dismissing NFT's conceptually (this is as hyper modern as we've even seen) even though I don't get it entirely (and I DO get crypto). And I'm happy to see a somewhat practical use for crypto and smart contracts here. I feel like we can conceptualize it enough to trick ourselves into something profound.
Art has a couple of sticky points that allows it to be used as storage of value:
* It is impossible to copy and produce second original
* It is recognizable by trained and common people alike, it is useful a symbol of status
* New art inherits some of artist's prestige; say a newly discovered Picasso painting will be recognized as valuable just because it's a Picasso
* It is very difficult to produce enmasse - a computer-generated drawing in the style of Picasso will not be valued as an original Picasso
* Wealthy people agree it's a storage of value - when somebody needs liquidity they can be assured that somebody will buy their unique piece.
Do NFTs touch all of these points? 1, yes. 2. they're trying to build the fame of NFTs now. 3. they're trying to build it now, very unlikely it will succeed. 4. Are some NFTs esthetically pleasing ? I would guess this is why it's needed to be tied to an artwork. 5. Unlikely.
The link is a red herring. Just like an original Picasso, the content of the thing you own is responsible for very little of its value (an excellent forgery would deliver all the aesthetic value of the original, but it would be much less valuable). The provenance of the thing is the reason it is valued. There’s really nothing new or unique about NFTs other than the technology used to implement them.
It's not that different than buying an original artwork. It's not as though you couldn't get a copy of the Mona Lisa that is technically superior (i.e. larger, no defects, modern materials, doesn't require absurd security, etc.).
The original artwork is an assemblage of atoms touched by the original creator, just as these NFTs are an assemblage of math touched by the original creator. The main distinction in my mind is that an NFT is not intrinsic to the original work. It wasn't created as a consequence of making the original.
We could create intrinsic NFTs if we wanted to. Something like a digital photo digitally signed by the author, with the outer 1% of the pixels cropped off and added to the NFT block, just as the back and unseen edges of paintings are used to prove provenance.
I still don't get it. Sure art work is artificially priced. But if I buy a Picasso original, I can hang it on the wall, show it to my friends, look at it closely, burn it, even. Yes, "bragging rights" might be part of it, but I own something physical and (probably) scarce or unique. What do I actually get when I buy an NFT?
I think your point on scarcity and attention are well put, but can't apply to NFTs in the way as physical commodities because I think there has to be some notion of originality intertwined.
Like for art pieces, sure people can make copies and put the copies on a wall - but only I have the original to hang up my wall. There is value to most people between having a copy vs the actual thing.
There is obviously a massive disconnect with this and NFTs because anyone can save a copy of a NFT (or the image a NFT represents) and not have its value diminished because all the "copies" of the NFT are the same - since "originally" doesn't apply to digital goods.
It doesn't matter if there is some hash on a blockchain out there saying so-and-so "owns an image", I can still copy the image and get the same value. That is not the case with say having a copy of the Mona Lisa vs the actual Mona Lisa.
NFTs are worthless to me for the above reason aside from the value that other people think they have.
It's not considered original, if you don't own the NFT. Like money, it's a social contract.
For the longest time, in order to enjoy something, you had to own it. Because physically, there was no way to enjoy it unless you were in its physical presence.
Then we had analog tech like photography, and for a little while, people wrestled with who owned what. But we decided that the original physical painting is proof of ownership, and a photograph of it can still be enjoyed, but is worth less, and not actually owned. This makes sense, because the physical copy is less easy to reproduce.
And now, we've figured out how to make digital things scarce. Now, the ownership of something is indicated by ownership of the NFT, not of the physical original work of something. The tie between the NFT and the digital image is largely a social contract, in the same way that money is a social contract.
That's where you're mistaken. An NFT is distinct from the work that the NFT is tied to, which might not necessarily be digital.
You can copy a Picasso, but no matter how good your copy is, you can't copy the "original" quality of a Picasso. That's all an NFT is, representing the "originaL" quality of something.
The worth (or lack thereof) of copies is completely irrelevant.
Your explanation only makes sense if you base the value of the art on the experience of viewing it, or the intrinsic value.
People like owning objects that have a history or story about them, like a ring worn by their great great grandmother, a medal earned by their grandfather for fighting in a war, or something their child made for them. These things have little to no intrinsic value, yet people can regard them as priceless because of the history surrounding the object.
The same can be true of paintings and other works of art. It's one thing to hang a thing on your wall that a world-famous master created and an entirely different thing for a copy made by a low-wage worker in Asia. Physically they could be identical but the history is different.
To get to NFTs specifically, I don't think an NFT as currently implemented captures this concept.
It makes no less sense than a painting. If you accept that an original painting has more value than a perfectly good copy, whilst being undistinguishable for anyone except a few experts, you should realize NFT's have the exact same arrangement, except 'originality' is determined by the blockchain instead of an expert.
> The value of an asset gives incentive to collectors, but it’s not the point. It’s supporting the artist who created it to enable them to make more and sustain a career.
Nothing about NFTs makes this easier. NFTs don't make it easier to donate money to an artist, their only innovation on top of the existing system is that they create an asset that might increase in value for the owner. That's it. NFTs provide nothing other than incentive to collectors, that is exactly the point, there's nothing else of substance to them that could be the point.
> Can you do that by looking at a reproduction of the original JPEG?
I hear this argument a lot, and I sometimes wonder whether or not peopele really understand that NFTs are NOT the original JPEG. NFTs have no relation to the original JPEG, they're something that gets created after the fact.
Buying an NFT is not the same as buying an original painting, when you buy an NFT, you are buying a token -- not the original token, not a token that is intrinsically linked to the creation of a piece of artwork -- a token that is created after the fact that has no fundamental link to "original" or "unique" qualities of the artwork itself.
In fact, when you look at an NFT, you are necessarily always looking at a reproduction of the original JPEG, because that's how the Internet works. What gets transmitted to your computer from the hashed link or reference in the NFT is a reproduction of a reproduction. 100% of the time.
So the comparisons to buying a physical piece of artwork are absurd; this is nothing like going to a museum and looking at an original piece of work. There is no lighting or quality difference between an NFT and a normal JPEG like you would see at a museum. There also is no spiritual or emotional difference, because you can't look at an NFT and say something like "these were the bytes that were made."
In terms of the artwork itself, buying an NFT is the same as buying a reproduction of the Mona Lisa at a gift shop. The token itself has no connection to the original artwork beyond a link/hash and the identity of the person who minted it. And if that's enough of a connection for you, fine. But what you're buying is a poster reproduction with a certificate from the copyright holder. There is no spiritual or physical connection to the "original" JPEG happening here.
The full quote is below:
----
> The argument is easily dismissed when you understand why owning art is essential. It’s not holding it that matters. The value of an asset gives incentive to collectors, but it’s not the point. It’s supporting the artist who created it to enable them to make more and sustain a career. Because without that, we simply don’t have art.
It feels like a symptom of our current scarcity-obsessed society that the author so sincerely and immediately connects "supporting the artist" with "owning art". There's no attempt to explain why support can only be expressed through owning a scarce asset, and I think the author doesn't take the time to explain that because it may have genuinely never occurred to them that there are ways to interact with an artistic ecosystem that aren't based around property, ownership, and exclusivity.
Often when I talk to people about NFTs, I find that this bias in their philosophy about how art works and about the essential nature of ownership over the world blocks their ability to evaluate what the technology really is and what is actually happening when they buy an NFT.
NFTs are really only an innovation if you have a worldview that states that the only way to appreciate and foster beauty is to own it and to exclude it from the world around you. The people who have that worldview could always have been commissioning and donating to artists. Doing so would have given them a much more direct, moral and/or spiritual link to the creative process of the artist.
But also in a strange way they couldn't do that, because that concept is foreign to them. In their mind, an artistic piece that can't be owned, traded, bought, and sold almost doesn't exist. They look at the increased availability of the Internet and view that increased access as inherently cheapening art, and so they look at NFTs as a kind of savior technology that pushes artwork back into the realm of something that can be coveted and speculated on, which to them is more fundamentally "real". They are incapable of separating beauty from exclusivity.
Of course, NFTs are also a poor system even for their intended goal of increasing scarcity: the technology is flimsy and disconnected from reality, and it's too easy for artists to flood the market (sometimes not even with their own artwork). But even with its flaws, there are certain people with this mindset who still flock to NFTs because to them it promises to make art "real" again, and to move artwork back into a realm that they understand and can interact with in the only way that they know.
We value the original.
We value the thing that represents that initial spark of something brand new in the world that latched itself in our collective consciousness. We value that because everyone else values it. It gives people a sense of awe to learn that you own an ORIGINAL Picasso. It's a display of wealth and power, but also tickles something deep and almost spiritual in the human mind.
I wouldn't be surprised if we learn to treat original NFTs the same way for digital art. Maybe first we need good ways of displaying our ownership of them.
reply