NFTs take off

Is the art world moving into a singular moment?

There is, at least, an ongoing cultural metamorphosis we should address.

What is the degree of transformation imposed on artistic conventions and art in general by digital societies?

Will it ever be possible to protect digital authorship, namely using the paradigm known as Blockchain? If there is, for example, a major electrical storm, or a world war, which entities would guarantee the reliability of computer networks? What if governments take control of cyberspace (as a CCP decided to do in Communist China after Xi Jinping came to power)? Would guaranteeing the authenticity of digital art, on itself, ensure its intrinsic value to artists, collectors, art markets and museums?

Does the Blockchain threaten capitalism? Or, on the contrary, it will eventually overcome yet another bottleneck of value accumulation, caused this time by a resource and demographic crisis, as well as by a general monetization of public and private debts?

In short, how much can we trust the Blockchain? Will they protect authorships and creative work in general, or will it be more of a stimulus for rampant speculation and the construction of new and gigantic Ponzi Pyramids? Is it reasonable to believe in the advent of a desirable, transparent, shared and secure democracy, as well as free access to virtual goods protected by NFTs?

Seven topics on art and blockchains (NFTs)

1) SCARCITY — the need for authorship protection, ownership certification and scarcity management.

What happens to my art (my money) when an NFT company, or platform, goes bankrupt?

2) COMPLEXITY — implies some knowledge-intensive artistic creation process.

Can we expect friendlier platforms to create NFTs? iNFTs? Could new developments in the worlds of cryptography and IA generate their post-human paradigms of artistic creation and reception?

3) BINARY CODE — the latest computational mode for dematerializing the art object, but quantum computing could be just around the corner…

In the 1970’s one spoke about the dematerialization of the artistic object. Now we should also refer to the dematerialization of artists, the public, and markets. It is not sure, however, that the ‘output’ should always be digital. 3D printing, synthetic bio-art (namely through the development of cyber-bodies), hardware and software retro-engineering and bending, geo-art and space art will end, one day, with the screen as the leading standard of digital art. The scientific-technological and philosophical expansion of art may appear to be an essential but limited transformation. It would be a necessary condition (hence the importance of 2021!), but not a sufficient one.

4) METAVERSE — may “intelligent NFTs” (iNFTs) send cryptographic art to an even more radical state in the current cyber revolution, which seems destined to establish new protocols for definition, authorship, authenticity, commerce, usufruct and conservation of works of art?

5) POST-CONTEMPORARY ART — real and digital time, being both of a material nature, are, however, different. In the same way, crypto-art and so-called contemporary art (Romantic and Modern on its roots) are radically apart. Although we can find links between some cryptographic works and the genealogy of “conceptual art” / namely Dada and Situationist, it would perhaps be prudent to accept that this link is somehow fragile. Was there an earthquake or not in the meantime (Neuromancer, Snow Crash)?

6) GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS — will 18th-century art museums be able to adapt to the cyber revolution? And art galleries born in the 19th century, would they be able to overcome the technological crisis? The challenge is only now truly beginning.

7) THE SUBJECTIVE REALM. Do you expect to see in the foreseeable future a crypto Van Gogh?

António Cerveira Pinto
Artistic Director
TNAF