Let's Get Digital Part 2

Published: Tuesday, 2 August 2024

Welcome back! Last week, you joined me outside my Comfort Zone in learning about digital art. We discussed the historical context of digital art, and how NFTs are just the latest example of new technologies disrupting the art world. We saw how NFTs compare to other historical art movements driven from new technologies, how they fit into the historical context, and why I dislike climbing Scottish mountains in bad weather (I’m over that experience, clearly).

This week, we will explore what the NFT/blockchain is, and how the technology makes NFTs a special case of digital art. I’ll also suggest that perhaps the NFT space still has more in common with the “traditional” art world than it first appears, from an art-historical point of view.

What is an NFT?

An NFT is a “Non-Fungible Token” that is a part of the blockchain ecosystem and the “Web 3.0” technology community. They are “unique digital assets verified using blockchain technology”.

If none of those words make any sense, then I agree lol.

Conceptually, it’s helpful to think about abundance versus scarcity. Most software is abundant: it’s trivially easy to copy code once it’s written. That’s very useful if you’re selling it like Microsoft, and very scary if you’re CrowdStrike trying to stop viruses (too soon?). NFTs are a technology that allows scarcity in digital goods.

At first glance, artificially creating scarcity sounds terrible: isn’t the point of like, capitalism, to create more stuff? But scarcity and exclusion are critical to ownership and personal use: all the apartments in my block of flats are the same, but it’s kinda important to me I’m the only one with the keys to mine. Similarly, there’s value online if you can prove that you are the only one who owns the original Bored Ape Yacht Club #8552.

So, remember NFTs are about uniqueness and ownership i.e. we can prove who owns an NFT, and that it’s the only one. Those concepts are important in the traditional art world too, so we’re happy with that.

Another traditional art world concept is relevant: provenance. We’ll have to talk more about traditional provenance in a future newsletter (lots of gossip and scandals!), but it’s basically a history of who owned something (a “chronology of ownership, custody and location”). Mostly about establishing authenticity, but no denying it’s also for the thrill of association: when starting the auction of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi’ in 2017, the Christie’s auctioneer was quick to state the piece was “previously in the collections of THREE Kings of England…”.

NFTs have excellent provenance, because you can tell exactly who owned them and when: that’s the bit about “verified using blockchain technology”.

So, what's a blockchain?

A blockchain is a database. Lots of things are databases: Barclays has one, with a list of bank accounts. Amazon has one, with all the art history books I wish to buy. My Granny has one, with a list of Birds She’s Seen (2024 Edition).

Blockchains are different. Okay, deep breath:

A blockchain is a decentralized and distributed (often public) digital ledger consisting of records, called blocks, that are used to record transactions across many computers. Any involved block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks. This allows the participants to verify and audit transactions independently and relatively inexpensively. A blockchain database is managed autonomously using a peer-to-peer network and a distributed timestamping server. The use of a blockchain removes the characteristic of infinite reproducibility from a digital asset. It confirms that each unit of value was transferred only once, solving the long-standing problem of double spending (double spending is a potential flaw in a digital cash scheme in which the same digital token can be spent more than once). Unlike physical cash, a digital token consists of a digital file that can be duplicated or falsified. The technology at the heart of bitcoin and other virtual currencies is an open distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way.

Okay, breathe out. We’re art lovers, not bankers, so we’re going to need a picture:

The key differences between traditional databases and the blockchain are decentralization and independent verification. Blockchain technology is hailed as a key technology for the future of art, and it’s the technology that makes NFTs NFTs, rather than just another form of Digital Art.

“But you can just make your own copy?!?”, you’ll say. You are correct: this is a joke in the community called “right-click, save-as” (because of the mouse actions required to save a copy of a JPEG). The joke is accurate and funny and my Dad will not stop making it… but it also highlights a truth: being able to copy something can but doesn’t always destroy the value of the original...

NFTs in the Art World

So, our basic model is NFTs = Digital Art + Provenance Tracking.

Of course, this is the art world, so we have to add some existential questioning: you can choose to see NFTs as an expanded form of art that manifests concepts of value, ownership, and networked community. Or, you can see it as an assertion of crypto's worth, a financial asset valuable because of its uniqueness, a property its signals with a facade of art. The choice is yours.

The Relationship between NFTs and "Traditional" Art

There’s certainly a distinctive art style associated with the most prominent NFTs e.g. CryptoPunks. However, as far as I can tell so far, there’s nothing about the NFT technology that requires that art style: they can appear as pixelated or dynamic and high tech as the artist desires.

As we dive further into the NFT world, it occurs to me some NFTs are influenced, either explicitly or implicitly, by more “traditional” pieces. This allows me to put my art-historian glasses on and do some critiquing (yay!). For example:

While these two pieces are rendered differently, they both fundamentally depict portraiture in an innovative way for their time. Some have argued Dali’s Lincoln is more representative of a person and falls more in line with a portrait. I disagree, it is not capturing the likeness of the individual, some details have nothing to do with Lincoln. If anything, it draws upon the viewers' assumed knowledge of Lincoln to formulate an image in our mind.

Before you call out the artist for copying and reproducing an original work by Claude Monet, it was Picasso who said “good artists copy, great artists steal.” There’s an interesting story around this concept: days (literally) before Michelangelo died, he built two bonfires and personally destroyed all unfinished works of art, sketches, cartoons and ideas in his studio in Rome in what would have been the likely event of other artists stealing his genius for their credit. He was paranoid, “to the end that no one might see the labors endured by him and his methods of trying his genius, and that he might not appear less than perfect.”

Back to Monet: Kane still gave credit where credit was due. While Monet’s work is a masterpiece in and of itself, Matt Kane’s rendition enhances the elements and technique of Monet and the Impressionist movement in a more interactive and engaging way with the viewer thanks to the capabilities of digital art. It is also not a copy in the sense he used the same tools, materials, and process to replicate the same image.

These two works approach the theme of togetherness in loneliness in similar ways. The NFT artist, OSF, stated it's a satire of the loner culture associated with the crypto-NFT boys (exaggerated with the pepe paraphernalia) which he believes most people, including himself, are guilty of. I think this notion expands beyond that social perception and awareness. Of all the famous art historical loners, none stand out more than the Father of Expressionism himself, Vincent Van Gogh. His Night Cafe displays the isolation he experienced and observed of those who wandered into the local Night Cafe who were too poor or drunk to find a room for the night in a setting meant for physical interaction. The empty pool table with its wobbly bystander draws you in, groups of figures slumped over tables in respective corners don’t interact with each other. In SuperFan, the loner is physically isolated in a living room; however, is connected virtually through the various social channels displayed where interaction takes place: phone, laptop, and Netflix (without the chill).

The composition is rendered similarly to each other with lines distinguishing objects beyond their physical form, the space and depth of the room is seen from an elevated angle, and there is a prominence of unsettling light in both spaces, even though the light source is different.

Now What?

We learned last week artistic transformation often coincides with technological advancement (side note: where would Graffiti Art be without the invention of the spray can?). Through that lens, NFTs are the latest in a long line of digital art that is new and disruptive, but the art world has dealt with this before.

This week, we’ve built on that by understanding what makes NFTs different: NFTs = Digital Art + Provenance Tracking (on the blockchain), and blockchains are databases, with decentralization and independent verification. This new tech, and the culture that created and adopted it, has influenced the art styles of the first NFTs. However, I hope through the comparisons in this newsletter you can see the synergy of tradition and innovation from an art historical point of view. As well as the aesthetic comparisons, both the traditional and NFT world share an enthusiasm for auctions, exhibitions and numbers (especially when “number go up”).

There are still significant differences, however: differences are what define a movement and moment in history. If it were too similar, well, then it would just be an extension or subgenre of another movement and wouldn’t be as controversial as it is. Next week, we’ll explore more of the differences, the efforts by the traditional art world to adopt (and absorb) NFTs, and whether those efforts are likely to succeed [spoiler: maybe not?].