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You can test any claim that a problem can be solved 'by blockchain' by substituting 'by database' instead. If it now sounds like nonsense, it always was. If it still makes sense, why not simply use a database?
Exactly the same is true for 'NFT' – just substitue 'contract'. https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1378291877162713089
Exactly the same is true for 'NFT' – just substitue 'contract'. https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1378291877162713089
Like blockchain/database, the only genuine functionality of an NFT comes from the ways in which it imitates a signed contract, the rest is at best obfuscation and at worse loopholes deliberately left open for criminal exploitation, and it doesn't solve any problems it claims to.
The question of ownership of digital art is a fascinating one, that touches on so many concepts we struggle to define such as originality, authorship, reproduction, value, scarcity, inspiration, immitation, tradition, process and direction that have always existed in art.
Example: I create an illustration in Photoshop. I claim it as an original artwork and use an NFT to cement that claim, and sell the NFT. I then add a few extra cyan pixels to the original. I then claim this is a completely new artwork. What's to stop me selling it as such by NFT?
Example: I create an abstract illustration in Photoshop using only Photoshop actions, and record those actions while doing so. I claim the resulting image as an original artwork. I then get Photoshop to replay the actions, and claim this new, identical copy is still new artwork.
Example: I give ta thousand digital artists the same two photographs, three brushes, and one font to use in the creation of an illustration advertising a specific product. Some of the resulting images are practically identical. Which is the original artwork and which is the copy?
(ofc this is assuming that NFTs were a good faith solution that is genuinely trying – and failing – to solve the issues around ownership of digital artwork, and not just crypto-bros desperately trying to scam up more patsies before the whole pyramid crashes spectacularly down.)
There are entire art movements built on the question of what is originality, what is reproduction, what is art. Warhol's soup cans. Lichtenstein's 'borrowed' comic panels. Duchamps toilet.
I am assuming someone has already created an NFT of a tweet saying "This is not an NFT." In fact, I'm assuming there's probably a hundred of them.
I have a series of photos of people interacting with Gormley's 'Another Place'. If I gathered them into an exhibition, they'd all be my original art. But they only exist – and only tell the story they do – because of the Gormley sculptures...
But Another Place only exists in the way it does, only tells the story it does, because of the existence of all that other sculpture that *isn't* stationed on sandbanks in an estuary, that doesn't get submersed and revealed with every tide. Without that, it couldn't be what it is
It's one of the contraditions at the heart of art, both visual art and in the wider sense of any creative endeavour: every work of art must stand alone; no work of art can ever stand alone. Even before you get to questions of reproducibility in digital art, you hit that conundrum
And reproducability was an issue long before digital art existed. Photography is an obvious one. What is an 'original' photo. If you make 10 prints, which is the original? Is originality held in it the negative? But half of the creation of photography comes from the print process
(And this is entirely reflected in some of those Photoshop examples. As an image editing tool, Photoshop strove to reproduce some of the actions a photographer would traditionally perform in a darkroom, as the tool names still reflect. Effectively adding that extra hint of cyan.)
Long before photography, students copied their teachers work. Some of those students went on to be teachers. Sometimes their students turned out to have finished their works for them. Some art historians are still arguing over exactly who painted what, and whether it even matters
If a student copies their teacher's finest work, but their teacher stands over their shoulder as they did so, directing their every movement, dictating every stroke, correcting the mistakes that they themselves had made the first time around... then who is the 'genuine' artist?
So yeah: tl;dr – NFTs are a scam by con artists desperate to shill more trash-coin before the final collapse. The question of ownership and authenticity in art is fascinating and complex and is never going to be 'solved' by tech-bros, whether they're crypto-zombies or regular DBs
Bonus: photo of @kittylyst at Another Place, an original digital artwork by me!
