I talked to a guy a few weeks ago. He needed help with his art related NFT project. Basically he was looking for a CTO because he had no idea whether his developers were doing a good job (and, I'd also add, what he built wasn't necessarily what he needed to build).
I have a pretty good understanding of block chain technologies but didn't hear about NFTs before, so like you, I started to challenge his ideas. Partly to understand what he was building. Because at first I tried to find real and practical applications for the platform that somehow connect to physical things, works of art.
But what he said was pretty interesting. The guy had a background in art management and, I think, trade. He said that art collection has always been about being able to say that you have the original piece. And that it's not rational anyway, not even for physical works of art, like paintings. It's not that you like the actual picture on the actual canvas so much that you want to buy it for say $1M and if you just had a copy you'd notice the difference and that wouldn't give you as much pleasure. It's simply about having the original. And also collecting related originals.
Now it's easy to trace it back to real, actual scarcity, where indeed there weren't many e.g. paintings (or books, etc.) and there was a big difference between the paintings of different artists (both in style and quality) and you had no way of looking at these other than having the originals probably.
I guess the big question here is whether this phenomenon is strong enough on its own to transfer to purely digital assets or whether this is really rooted and tied to that original scarcity that we kept changing the story around. (I.e. while it's not about being able to enjoy and look at the piece anymore, now it's tied to the knowledge that that specific piece of canvas was painted on by that specific very talented guy X hundred years ago, and he was standing in front, etc.)
One hint might be those 'limited edition' sport cards that some people seem to collect, as well as 'limited edition' e.g. CD or vinyl albums from the past millenium. (I never understood those, but I had a friend who did get a very obvious joy out of being able to buy those. For me, these were always just delivery mediums and I only cared about the music.)
Honestly, I have no idea, but that call was definitely interesting.
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 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.
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.
Are you an art collector? Because I'm getting real tired of criticisms of NFTs that actually apply quite generally to the entire art collection space.
I am not an art collector, but as I understand it, the most important thing that they care about, even before aesthetics of an art piece, is *provenance*. That is, who created it, and who has owned it since it was created. NFTs provide a nearly unforgeable cryptographic record of both of those things, and are therefore a perfect fit for this market.
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.
Do you understand art in general? It is valuable because there are people that believe it is valuable. The NFT advancement is that it proves some sort of proof of ownership. Yes, it can be copied, but someone can also take a picture of a famous painting, or buy a cheap print. But they can't claim ownership. Only one person can do that, and people attribute value to that.
Also there are a lot of crypto-millionaires that believe this is the future. So that's why they are going for large sums so soon. I am not one, but I do think they are right.
The problem with art is good provenance. NFTs specifically solves this issue. Provenance was a common word used by art collectors describing the issues with Art auctions during NFT.NYC. Noah Davis really opened my eyes to this topic, here's his speech at NFT.NYC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeVZeXsRKhs
It would take a while to explain provenance in crypto space. It's largely based on credibility and ownership of addresses. Once credibility and address is established, it is a simple operation to prove the Bridge picture came from a specific artist. Things like ENS (Ethereum Name Service) are examples of deep support for provenance in Crypto.
The whole point of NFTs is that the provenance is 100% traceable. The value is derived from a market created by the artist, not the fact that it exists on the chain. The blockchain simply provides a way to prove that it is authentic and trace its ownership history. So if you copy one to another chain, you've created a new piece of art that will only have value if you can create a market for it. It might be a bit-for-bit copy of the original, but it won't have come from the original artist, and therefore won't have the same value.
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.
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.
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.
One of the interesting things I got out of this article is that Beeple and his wife actually ended up creating physical artifacts to send out to the people who bought their art. In a way that feels like the more salient (and obvious) innovation: it gives buyers of digital art a way to show lay-people that they actually own the piece itself and not just a print.
It's also interesting that these nfts are rarely presented as solutions to prove the ownership of non-digital art. There are millions of people who own (very convincing) prints of Mondrians, and yet when we enter the home of someone rich enough to buy an actual Mondrian we usually just assume all the art hanging on their walls are originals.
That's what seems counterintuitive about all this: In a sense this is the most successfull instance of NFTs being used to sell digital art yet, but also the most unnecessary. If you are a crypto millionaire from Singapore you don't need NFTs to convince anyone you actually own the Beeple piece you say you own.
(Although an obvious use of all this is that it turns digital art into a store of value that buyers can potentially sell at a higher price.)
I like a comparison of NFTs to a casino. People care (cared) about the profit, and about their number winning, not necessarily about the number itself.
Having said that, I recently finally saw an art project I actually think makes sense as an NFT. Don't remember its name, but it's artist selling actual rights to their works on an auction to people that want to invest in the pieces, people trading the art NFTs, with the art piece being stored securely, and then one day if someone wants the physical piece for themselves, they can burn the NFT to request it's delivery.
Speaking of art, we did a project ~6 years ago, where we released ERC20 tokens attached to physical objects - imho this makes way more sense, because it allows for a fractional ownership of art/collectibles. Ideas like this make way more sense than NFTs.
I think the majority of the value in art nfts will be derived from being part of the provenance, or being part of the history of the beginning of 'owning' digital art, much like owning a famous painting. By extension it could be applied to digital culture, for example the tiktok guy riding his skateboard is selling that meme as an nft. So if collectors are good (and lucky), they are basically able to buy their way into a niche of history by being associated with works that represent periods of cultural significance.
Sure that may seem stupid to most people, but most people don't even get why regular art is significant or can be very expensive. Personally I would attribute it to my lack of understanding rather than dismiss it outright.
This is exactly what I don't understand. If it's the same art, why does it matter if the art is in an NFT or in a physical representation? Like, why are people buying pieces of art using NFTs?
Let me try rephrasing the question into a scenario. Would be great if someone who understands NFT better than me can take a stab at it:
What if a more well known artist copies the art of a barely known artist and puts it back into the chain again? There’s a good chance this “replica” of the original art would sell for greater value until the original one is found?
Art is something we can appreciate the beauty of and for that alone, we don't per se need originals.
Arguably, however, someone wanting to own the original painting by a well regarded artist (say a van Gogh) you're stepping into Veblen goods territory[0] as its a display of wealth, status and prestige. This is what NFTs are trying to achieve
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: ¯\_(?)\_/¯
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[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.
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.
I have a pretty good understanding of block chain technologies but didn't hear about NFTs before, so like you, I started to challenge his ideas. Partly to understand what he was building. Because at first I tried to find real and practical applications for the platform that somehow connect to physical things, works of art.
But what he said was pretty interesting. The guy had a background in art management and, I think, trade. He said that art collection has always been about being able to say that you have the original piece. And that it's not rational anyway, not even for physical works of art, like paintings. It's not that you like the actual picture on the actual canvas so much that you want to buy it for say $1M and if you just had a copy you'd notice the difference and that wouldn't give you as much pleasure. It's simply about having the original. And also collecting related originals.
Now it's easy to trace it back to real, actual scarcity, where indeed there weren't many e.g. paintings (or books, etc.) and there was a big difference between the paintings of different artists (both in style and quality) and you had no way of looking at these other than having the originals probably.
I guess the big question here is whether this phenomenon is strong enough on its own to transfer to purely digital assets or whether this is really rooted and tied to that original scarcity that we kept changing the story around. (I.e. while it's not about being able to enjoy and look at the piece anymore, now it's tied to the knowledge that that specific piece of canvas was painted on by that specific very talented guy X hundred years ago, and he was standing in front, etc.)
One hint might be those 'limited edition' sport cards that some people seem to collect, as well as 'limited edition' e.g. CD or vinyl albums from the past millenium. (I never understood those, but I had a friend who did get a very obvious joy out of being able to buy those. For me, these were always just delivery mediums and I only cared about the music.)
Honestly, I have no idea, but that call was definitely interesting.
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