NFTs: Where did they come from?
Part One: NFTs in 120 Minutes Series
Bernadine Bröcker Wieder is a prominent thought leader in the art tech community. She founded Vastari in 2021 and it has become a portal for the art cultural exhibitions and tech community. Bernadine was awarded Apollo 40 under 40 in 2018, is a PAIM member and alongside Christie’s set up the first Art Tech Summit.
In the first of this three-part series, Bernadine will unpack the history, mysteries, how to’s and how not to’s, the ethics, and the issues of the world of Non-fungible token (NFT).
“Misinformation can discredit the technology and sometimes can cause people to write it off when actually there are a lot of opportunities that might exist when you wrap your head around what it is, how it works and what the potential is for that technology.”
Where did NFTs come from?
NFTs started off as daily digital drawings by Mike Winkelmann known as the digital artist Beeple. He created and posted a new digital image every day and after 13 years, they had become increasingly advanced. He put his collection together in a monumental digital collage for Christie’s to sell. The man who purchased the piece (Vignesh Sundaresan) bought it because it echoed his life over the past 13 years and how technology has advanced.
What does it stand for?
Blockchain technology has existed for a while. The reason why NFTs were created was “so you could timestamp data and know it was saved into the internet at a specific time by a specific entity.” Every transaction issues a token and the token is an encrypted hash that is used to save the next transaction. Tokens are unique but they are fungible meaning it is like currency - you can exchange them and it is the same thing (like how one bitcoin is the same as another bitcoin).
Bernadine continues, “You don’t really own the asset. The asset is on a database, usually a file storage in what is now coined the permaweb.” You pay in advance for the hosting of that image and then it will be hosted indefinitely.
“What you own is a certificate that links to that file storage.” The certificate stays in a wallet on the blockchain and that is what is sold on the market place. Bernadine explains, “so technically you don’t own the jpeg, you own the certificate that says you own the jpeg.” The certificate stays in a wallet which is an online location where you can store crypto assets and cryptocurrency and can use it when making different transactions
Bernadine summarises the important things to know:
NFTs are secured in a blockchain
You can open them within a crypto wallet
Each NFT is unqiue and it is not the same as anything else.
What are the ethical views on a blockchain?
A blockchain is “decentralising power and authority and giving people ownership of their own assets again. So you do not need a bank to own currency, you do not need a centralised auction house to buy an artwork…you can own your assets yourself.”
Why have NFTs gotten popular?
The value of cryptocurrency increased meaning people became richer and therefore bought things. “NFT’s are the perfect collectible to buy with cryptocurrency at the moment. You might say they are trying to diversify their assets in case cryptocurrency prices go down again.”
Predictions for the NFT
Bernardine predicts more established contemporary artists will come into the space. She believes the most successful artists will be the ones who collaborate with people already in the community.
Better infrastructure will be developed for sharing, lending, and licensing these NFTs so that people do not just have a percentage of resale but also a percentage of licensing if the images are used around the web.
Digital art criticism will improve so there is an understanding of what is good and bad NFT art beyond that of contemporary art standards. The movement will develop its own critical language.
Example Digital Artists
PAC - popular because the work is minimalist
Robbie Barrat - trains AI to make new images
Kevin Abosch - made himself a bloodstain with his own blood and DNA and encrypted in onto the blockchain
Grimes (partner of Elon Musk) - designs ulterior realities
Voracious - colour explosive images that wouldn’t exist offline because they are animated
Anna Zhilyaeva (aka Anna Dream Brush) - 3-D virtual reality work
Jonathan Yeo - 3-D sculpture which can be imported into a virtual reality
Bernadine concludes the first of this series with a recommendation to visit the website of Jason Bailey, Founder of Artnome. He analyses the aesthetics of crypto art and what people want to buy.