After this auction, AI Art has seen an increase in artists from around the world participating. In the past two years, AI Art has seen a surge in online platforms like AIArtists.org, as well as exhibitions, conferences, contests, and discussion panels dedicated to AI Art.

In the extensive discussion on creating AI Art, one issue receives continuing dispute – on what level of computer autonomy in making art-generating decisions can be regarded as essential for the creative process? Are computational technologies still defined as mere tools, or do they exhibit independent “behavioral” properties?

Define AI

The concept of Artificial Intelligence adopted is based on Marvin Minsky’s most widely recognized definition: 

The performance of tasks, which, if performed by a human, would be deemed to require intelligence.

Geraint A Wiggins. 2006. A preliminary framework for description, analysis and
comparison of creative systems. Knowledge-Based Systems 19, 7 (2006), 449–458.

Simple cellular automata, an evolutionary algorithm, or any other computing system that meets the concept can be artificial intelligence. Through the way they interact with their physical or virtual surroundings, as well as themselves, these computational systems present a certain level of intelligence. When it comes to intelligence, learning is a major leap, and model-based reasoning is essential for an AI to elicit human-like learning, decision making, and most critically, autonomy.

Art Practise

Since at least the late 1950s, a group of engineers/ artists at Max Bense’s laboratory at the University of Stuttgart began experimenting with computer graphics. Frieder Nake, Georg Nees, Manfred Mohr, and Vera Molnár investigated the use of mainframe computers, plotters, and algorithms in the manufacture of aesthetically appealing objects. A simple experiment to test some of the novel equipment in Max Bense’s laboratory rapidly evolved into an art movement.

This is only one illustration of how computer art evolved in the 1960s. Procedural, generative, or parametric” design is commonly used in the design and architecture sectors to describe the usage of algorithms.

Harold Cohen, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, has been using a self-designed program AARON, which is able to autonomously create original images, since 1973. Cohen began his research by exploring AI applications in the visual arts. He continued to develop AARON after its inception. The application could be used to make better choices, such as color or composition selection. Initially, AARON could only create black and white line drawings. It progressed to make digital prints of colored shapes like human figures and flora – the first examples of artificial intelligence art. Aaron once joked about how he could become the only artist to have a posthumous show of new works created solely after death because AARON could generate pictures on its own.

The drawing robot created by artist Patrick Tresset is yet another example of an intelligent tool. Its behavior and sketching style are both controlled by the algorithms that allow Paul’s drawings to be displayed, limiting the robot’s creative freedom. These systems are affected by studies of human behavior, specifically how artists depict behavior and how individuals interact with machines. Tresset creates robots and autonomous computational systems to manufacture a variety of products.

Sougwen Chung and her robots Drawing Operations Unit, Generation Four operated by a written AI system, alongside other robots in Chung’s performance-based artworks. She and the robots paint enormous canvases together as part of a cooperative effort and impromptu dancing.

Technological Landmark

Several significant technological advancements in recent years aided the growing interest in AI Art. Many rendering and texture synthesis methods have been created in recent decades in computer graphics and computer vision research, which are supposed to apply an “artistic style” to the input image. Academic results dated back to 2001 when the article ‘Image analogies’ was published, and 20 years later, such synthesis methods commonly applicated in image process applications become part of the modern-day ‘cannot live without mobile phone’ life. Nevertheless, deep neural networks have just lately been used to stylize photos and create new images. The quoted image illustrates key technology milestones influencing AI Art production.

GANs (Generative Adversarial Nets) are likely the most significant technological innovation that has contributed to the present growth of AI Art. Developed by Goodfellow and his colleagues, GAN marks a turning point in the use of machines to create visual content. A GAN operates by training two “competing” models: a generator and a discriminator. The generator is to figure out how the real examples in the input sample are spread out and make realistic images. The discriminator, on the other hand, is trained to tell the difference between fake images made by the generator and real images from the original sample. This framework produced convincing false variants of actual images for diverse image content kinds.

Google engineer Alexander Mordvintsev introduced DeepDreams in 2015. This strategy was meant to improve DCNN (Deep Convolutional Neural Networks) interpretability by displaying patterns that increase neuron activation. The method later became a popular new kind of digital art production because of its psychedelic and hallucinogenic style.

NST (Neural Style Transfer) is one of the most well-known AI inventions. It sped up the use and development of AI technologies for art. This method was first described in a very important paper by Gatys which showed how CNNs can be used to create stylized images by separating and combining the “content” and “style” of an image. After this breakthrough, there were a lot of new research contributions and applications. The work of Jing gives a full overview of the existing NST techniques and the different ways they can be used. “Content” refers to recognizable objects and people in an image, while “style” refers to a deviation from a photorealistic depiction of “content” that is aesthetically pleasing or interesting. But in the context of art history, style is often seen as more than just the way lines and brushstrokes look. It is often seen as a more subtle and context-dependent idea. Also, stylized images made with NST methods are usually just a clear combination of images that already exist, not an original and unique piece of art. Even though NST could be used in a creative way to make digital art, it is important to be skeptical of the trend of calling anything with a painterly look to it “art.”

Elgammal made AICAN, take GAN one step further in its ability to generate content in a creative way. In their work, they say that if a GAN model is taught by looking at pictures of paintings, it will only learn how to make pictures that look like art that already exists. Like the NST method, this won’t make anything truly artistic or new. They suggest changes to the optimization criterion that would make it possible for the network to make creative art by getting as far away as possible from well-known styles while still staying within the art distribution. Through a series of exhibitions and experiments, the creators of the AICAN system showed that people often couldn’t tell the difference between images made by AICAN and artworks made by humans. In addition to the AICAN project, many other developers and artists have used GANs with different modifications and training settings to make digital art. It has become the most popular technology in the AI Art scene right now.

In 2021, CLIP and DALL-E, two amazing new OpenAI “multimodal” neural networks have already been released. The developers claim these are “steps towards systems with better comprehension of the world”.

Named after Salvador Dali, DALL-E, a 12-billion parameter version of GPT-3 trained to generate graphics from a text description input. It employs the same transformer design as its predecessors. One way to look at it is that “it receives both the text and the image as a single stream of data containing up to 1280 tokens and is trained using maximum likelihood to generate all of the tokens, one after another”.

OpenAI’s DALL-E website has some incredible demo examples, one as follows:

By incorporating a basic pre-training job, OpenAI has shown that CLIP can perform well on a wide range of datasets. From a set of 32,768 randomly selected text snippets, predict which caption is connected with a given sample image. CLIP enables anybody to create their own classifiers and eliminates the requirement for task-specific training data and unlock certain niche tasks more easily because it doesn’t need task-specific training data.

Conclusion

Gaining attention is one of the most fundamental aspects of success in an age with too much information or art. In light of the current AI excitement, it is logical that presenting the story behind a certain artwork as something being created autonomously by an AI system seems to generate more curiosity than yet another human-made work. “Autonomous AI artist” narratives are mostly driven by marketing, and displays of AICAN-created art, like the Christie’s Belamy sale, use the concept of autonomy for publicity purposes. The application of anthropomorphic language in the instance of the Christie’s Belamy auction considerably raised the public interest in the art.

Nevertheless, as AI technologies are becoming more and more advanced, the distinction between employing an AI system as a tool or as a creator of content is becoming more blurry. The general public can hardly understand and interpret even a small subset of AI systems, since the topic’s complexities go beyond the scope of a single research subject, and scientists from a variety of fields are beginning to pay attention to it. A conceptual framework for philosophical thinking about machine art by Mark Coeckelbergh considering from several aspects the question if machines can generate art. Aesthetic theory, computational creativity, and the role of technology in the creation of art are all discussed in this paper, which also contributes to the fields of technology philosophy and philosophical anthropology as a whole. Perhaps we should adopt a more comprehensive understanding of what happens in creative perception and engagement as a hybrid human-technological and emergent or even poetic process, a model which leaves greater opportunity for allowing ourselves be surprised by creativity—human and possibly non-human.

Visual arts pieces can be damaged in a variety of ways. If a piece was hung in a smoky area, such as a cathedral with candles or a living room with an owner or guests that smoked, the colors will be hidden or changed by the accumulated soot. Artists typically put a clear layer of varnish over paintings, which tends to yellow or darken over time, also affecting color. Mold or bacteria can grow on a piece, which can have devastating effects on its quality and structural integrity. Through restoration, arts professionals can determine how a piece originally looked and take steps to reveal its true appearance. While the expertise of a restoration team is invaluable for comparing the piece to others by the same artist or from the same time period, technology has enhanced the abilities of restoration teams, enabling them to more accurately perceive the piece as it was originally and more gently remove contaminants.

Before exploring visualization and cleaning technologies used in restoration, it is useful to know the difference between restoration and conservation. While occasionally used interchangeably, restoration is the repair of already damaged works, while conservation is the maintenance and preservation of works in order to prevent future damage. Restoration technologies, therefore, are created in order to view pieces in detail and clean them with as little additional damage as possible. Technology assists in this process by facilitating more precise and protective restoration measures.

Visualization Technologies

Visualization tools are used to examine pieces closely and see underneath layers of dirt or additional paint in order to identify the artist’s original intention. While restorers are trained to pick up on the details, there is a limit to how much the human eye can see, so technology is used to see more detail and underneath the top layer of pieces.

X-ray technology and computerized tomography (CT) scans are an excellent method to see older layers of pieces, either from the original artist or previous restoration efforts. Versions of x-ray have been used for over 100 years, and newer developments are able to see more and more hidden detail. Instead of relying on carefully removing layers, restorers are able to quickly and accurately perceive layers of material, dirt, and structural defects. X-ray is able to distinguish between these different layers so that restorers do not remove original parts of the work, and entirely hidden layers can be revealed.

CT scans are most appropriate for three-dimensional works, as a CT scan combines many x-ray “slices” to form an image of the interior of an entire piece. Utilizing CT scans provides an opportunity for arts professionals to partner with medical professionals, as was done at The Art Institute of Chicago. When Rachel Sabino, associate conservator of objects, needed to examine and authenticate West African Bankoni terracotta sculptures, she worked with the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine to scan each piece. Restoration teams often cannot afford their own CT scanner, but partnering with the Pritzker School allowed Sabino to utilize this resource and receive assistance from experts in CT technology.

Meanwhile, microscopes are used in order to see the surface of a piece more closely, including artistic details, physical damage, or contaminants. Restorers use medical-grade microscopes to view a piece in micrometers or millimeters as they complete repairs, a scale which is invisible to the human eye. Through this level of microscopy, pieces can be cleaned and retouched much more precisely and safely. The video below demonstrates how a microscope was used to repair holes in the canvas of “Self Portrait,” painted by Paula Modersohn-Becker in 1907, without removing the canvas from its original stretcher.

Arts professionals are often interested in the artist’s original intention for a piece. By viewing the original sketches of a painting, restorers have a better context and a clearer end goal for their repairs – while the original sketch may or may not reflect the artist’s goal for the work, it is invaluable information to see their process. Infrared cameras are best suited for this work, as infrared light goes through pigment to be reflected off of the original surface or be absorbed by carbon-rich materials, such as marks made by carbon pencils. An image of these reflections and absorptions shows the original sketch, and the non-invasive process preserves all layers of the piece for further work.

Cleaning Technologies

Cleaning visual artworks can be an incredibly difficult process, and restorers must balance their goals to remove as many contaminants as possible while preserving the artistic details. While some methods may be effective, they may be too abrasive depending on the material of the piece. However, if left, some contaminants will cause further damage. Cleaning technologies enable restorers to gently but thoroughly remove dirt, soot, varnish, mold, and bacteria so that viewers can see the full beauty of the piece and so that it can be maintained for decades and centuries to come.

Laser ablation is a technique that removes dirt and varnish in a minimally-invasive way, as it does not require a solvent or manual action. A single wavelength, typically in the infrared range, is selected and emitted in a focused beam. The wavelength will interact with dirt and varnish, heating the particles so much that they will be expelled off of the piece. The process used to be much more dangerous to use, because restorers had to estimate the amount of time necessary to remove only dirt and varnish. If the laser is used for too long, it will begin to also heat and remove pigment. Now, there is a method called Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) which monitors the energy emitted from the particles being removed. When the energy shifts, the system recognizes that the laser has begun to interact with pigment, and it automatically shuts off the laser. LIBS thus removes human error, making laser ablation a safe way to remove dirt and varnish. Laser ablation can be used on paintings, stone, gilded bronze, and frescoes, and devices are often handheld and thus easily portable.

While using bacteria to clean artworks may seem counterproductive, some strains actually consume dirt, providing a minimally invasive, quick, and focused way to remove contaminants. These strains metabolize both organic and inorganic materials into gases such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide. As with CT scanning, bacterial cleaning offers opportunities for collaboration between arts professionals and medical professionals, particularly microbiologists, who test and develop the bacterial strains used. Pilar Bosch, a biologist with Polytechnic University in Valencia, Spain, observed that frescoes that she assisted in restoring ten years previously showed no adverse effects from the bacterial cleaning.

While many solvents used in the past are now considered too harsh, nanotechnology has been used to produce much gentler and more effective formulas. Some problems in restoration had previously stymied arts professionals, as there was no clear solution. These issues include removing beeswax from frescoes, removing polymer coatings from murals, rebuilding calcite in frescoes, and de-yellowing and strengthening paper. All previous efforts only damaged pieces further, but the type and size of molecules able to be developed with nanotechnology were enormously successful at cleansing and repairing these works.

Digital Art Restoration

As well as improving restoration efforts for traditional art forms, technology has increased the production of digital art and thus the need for restoration of digital art. The primary challenges for digital pieces are rapidly changing software systems, hardware going out of production, and changes in color specifications. Arts professionals often collaborate with computer scientists in order to restore these works, but it can be a complicated process. Restoration cannot simply be conducted by updating the piece or its system, it must be conducted with respect to the artist’s original vision, much like restoration of traditional art forms. Through a collaborative process incorporating creative and technical elements, restorers can successfully display and preserve digital media.

Conclusion

Technology has become an essential and invaluable part of the art restoration process, and the field continues to evolve. Restoration practices are still being determined for artistic media and methods used in the 20th century, such as acrylic paints. Further technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, are opening up new possibilities. Ultimately, the goal of restoration is to safely and accurately bring pieces to their best form for study and public enjoyment, and through technology, this goal can be accomplished.

Sources

Baglioni, P., E. Carretti, and D. Chelazzi. “Nanomaterials in Art Conservation.” Nature Nanotech 10 (April 9, 2015): 287–90. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.38.

Bagwell, Sam. “The Beauty of Science: New Technologies in Art Restoration.” Illumin Magazine. USC Viterbi School of Engineering, December 8, 2004. https://illumin.usc.edu/the-beauty-of-science-new-technologies-in-art-restoration/.

Brazil, Rachel. “Modern Chemistry Techniques Save Ancient Art.” Scientific American. Chemistry World, June 28, 2014. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-chemistry-techniques-save-ancient-art/. 

Schoenmann, Peter. “Art Restoration Technology.” Parma Conservation, November 19, 2019. https://parmaconservation.com/art-restoration-technology/.

Song, Juwon. “Technology Ensures Conservation of Art, Old and New.” American Association for the Advancement of Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science, February 16, 2019. https://www.aaas.org/news/technology-ensures-conservation-art-old-and-new.

The Museum of Modern Art. “Microscopically Reweaving a 1907 Painting | CONSERVATION STORIES.” YouTube. YouTube, September 12, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odeG3HBEpSQ&t=141s.

“The Science Behind the Restoration of a Painting.” Invaluable. Invaluable, May 29, 2019. https://www.invaluable.com/blog/the-science-behind-art-restoration/.

Timmins, Mary. “Lady in Waiting.” University of Illinois Alumni. University of Illinois Alumni Association, June 3, 2014. https://uiaa.org/2014/06/03/lady-in-waiting/.

Williams, Len. “Art Restoration and Conservation: Restoring Former Glories.” E&T. The Institution of Engineering and Technology, May 22, 2019. https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/05/art-restoration-and-conservation-restoring-former-glories/.

Popularity of NFTs

So what makes NFT’s so popular? The main factors here are rarity and scarcity. Just like owning baseball cards or Pokemon cards, NFTs are unique investments that hold value because they are unique. While some NFTs do provide the owner real life benefits such as exclusive content, that is not the main draw of owning one or why prices are skyrocketing so high. 

NFTs in the Music Industry

First let’s take a look at the music world in general. The early adopters of NFT in music were EDM artists. 3LAU in particular minted NFT collectible versions of his album Ultraviolet which was the first album to become a token. Another early adopter was Snoop Dog who recently announced that his label Death Row Records would become an NFT label.

back into the hands of the musicians directly. With huge streaming corporations such as Spotify and Apple Music taking away from individual artists’ sales, there is a lot at stake for artists to make it big on those platforms and develop a loyal fanbase that will make purchases past their use of streaming. There is also a lot of money taken out by middle men like record companies. By capitalizing on the current rends and minting and selling their own NFTs, musicians can make a huge profit directly and rely on their fanbase rather than the biased algorithms of streaming services.

What does a music NFT Look like?

There are a couple different forms an NFT can take in the music industry. There are audio NFTs of albums and songs and even individual instrument parts. But there are also NFT concert tickets, collectibles, and access to extras like special online content.

One question I had when starting my research into musical and audio NFTs is who own’s the rights? I quickly learned that purchasing a minted audio file usually does not provide any rights to things such as royalties of the music even if you are the only one with that particular pie e of music. Additionally, just because every NFT is unique does not mean that multiple of the same content can not be made. For example if an NFT is a concert ticket, that does not mean you are the only person able to purchase one and go to the concert. 

There are two great examples of how NFTs have been used in the classical music industry. One of these was a joint project between the Dallas Symphony and the musicians of The Met Opera Orchestra. 

During pandemic shut downs of The Met, The Dallas Symphony invited the musicians of the Met Opera Orchestra to perform Mahler’s Symphony No.1 with them as they were able to resume concerts much earlier. The Dallas Symphony raised money to pay all of the Met musicians by creating an exclusive NFT commemorating the historic, collaborative concert. 

Benefits that came with the purchase of a token included:

• Video of the full concert of Mahler Symphony No. 1
• Five exclusive videos of rehearsal
• Four exclusive videos with musicians
• Three exclusive behind-the-scenes videos
• VIP Experience at the DSO and Musicians of the Metropolitan Opera Reunion Concert in early 2022 in New York, including roundtrip airfare to another US city, two nights of hotel, dinner with the artist and two tickets to the concert.
• A subscription to the DSO’s digital concerts for the 2021/22 Concert Season

As this was a charity auction there was high-price bidding for a piece of the action. VIP bidding started at a mere $50,000 with lower level exclusives going for $100 and $1,000 starting prices. Alex Salnikov, Head of Product & Co-founder of Rarible – the platform which hosted the Dallas Symphony NFTs said of the auction: “Like so many, the musicians of the Met Opera Orchestra were affected by the shut-down. This NFT is a true testament to the value NFTs can generate for artists and creators by creating new streams of revenue.”

Another successful use of NFTs in classical music is a project called MozartBeats. MozartBeats is an audio NFT project produced in Vienna, Austria. Overall there were twelve distinct types produced. Each was a variation on the violin, viola, and cello part of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik (“a little night music”) and ranges from traditional variations to experimental tones and tibres. There are 625 different possible combinations to make from these. It’s current list price is $188,626.

The way this project works is that each buyer can purchase different variations of the parts to put together, creating their own variation on the original work. In the end each NFT owner has a piece of music that is all their own which they can then turn around and mint as an original variation. This project turns professional, classical music into something that an audience can be fully participatory in creating and feel ownership over even if they are not the ones playing the music directly. This opens doors into new ways to provide audience engagement in classical music and provide a more tactile experience for concert lovers.  

NFTs have a unique place in classical music if organizations and musicians continue to pave the way creating unique projects like we have seen in the previous examples. In order to draw a classical music crowd to purchasing these NFTs, we have to create content that appeals to this unique type of music lover. 

Bibliography

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Blackmon, Malen. “NFTs Are Taking off in the Music Industry. What’s an NFT?” Dallas Observer. Dallas Observer, May 5, 2022. https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/how-are-nfts-changing-the-music-industry-also-what-the-hell-is-an-nft-12012567.

“Can a Song Be Sold as an NFT? What to Know about Nfts and Music.” AU LLC, February 1, 2022. https://au-llc.com/can-a-song-be-sold-as-an-nft-what-to-know-about-nfts-and-music/?fbclid=IwAR2oVu3_ndKt0KIxkRFV51foO1sGh-5FRS96OKO-cWwczfZcMOW0BwVO6J8.

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Douglass, Robert. “NFTs Are Boring. Nfts Are Revolutionary!” Open Sheet Music Display, December 10, 2021. https://opensheetmusicdisplay.org/blog/nfts-are-boring-nfts-are-revolutionary/.

Fatemi, Falon. “Here’s How Nfts Could Define the Future of Music.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, April 14, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/falonfatemi/2022/01/24/nfts-and-the-future-of-music/?sh=1370672a5677.

Hall, Sophia. “The Unstoppable Rise of Nfts, and What They Could Mean for Classical Music.” Classic FM. Classic FM, October 26, 2021. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/nfts-what-they-mean-for-classical-music/.

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O’Neill, Bianca. “Choose Your Master: Could Nfts Change the Face of the Music Industry?” Rolling Stone Australia, October 10, 2021. https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/choose-your-master-could-nfts-change-face-music-industry-31796/.

Rossolillo, Nicholas. “Investing in Music Nfts.” The Motley Fool. The Motley Fool, December 13, 2021. https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/market-sectors/financials/non-fungible-tokens/music-nfts/.

Scott, Taylor. “How Audio Nfts Can Change the Music Industry Forever.” Bitcoinist.com, September 29, 2021. https://bitcoinist.com/how-audio-nfts-can-change-the-music-industry-forever/?fbclid=IwAR15gjeWra4UdZzFp7SJ7oTpjhXQhkcW0ioT-_VwwQZNxlMJyLWhthmrWW4.

Women in Tech

The tech industry was never meant to be a playground designed just for men. In 1946, the group selected to work on the U.S. military’s first computer had over 50% of women programmers. During the 60s, computer scientist and programmer Margret Heafield Hamilton successfully led her team to chart Apollo 11’s path to the moon and was widely celebrated for her meticulous work. However, as the tech industry and engineering jobs became more lucrative in the late 60s, such a situation slowly shifted. Beginning in 1984, the number of female computer science major started to steadily decrease, dropping from 36% to merely 18% at the current day. Today, the makeup of U.S. software engineers is reported to be 80% men.

Despite women playing significant roles in early technology revolutions, the industry developed business structures that reinforced patriarchal norms and masculine biases. The profitable nature of the work has caused male executives to establish workplace cultures and hiring criteria that sidelined women. Such an unbalance in the workforce has also led to biases that reinforce this cycle, influencing functionalities of applications to be in favor of men. Based on research done by the MIT Media Lab, Amazon’s artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition software was found to have challenges identifying darker-skinned individuals and female faces. AI recruiting technology was also reported to favor male candidates due to its development and testing process using resumes of men.

The Cyberfeminists

In 1994, the term “Cyberfeminism” was introduced in the midst of the dot-com boom by Sadie Plat, director of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at the University of Warwick. Heavily influenced by feminist theorist Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto, the Cyberfeminists aimed to make the Internet a collaborative utopia where people escape gender norms: abolishing discrimination based on gender, creating a virtual world free from sexist social conditions, rebuilding equitable social relationships, and providing equal opportunities to all. However, the movement’s morale was quickly challenged by its conflicting notions. Many criticized that although the movement called for the dissolution of gender and racial hierarchies, it failed to address issues of race and marginalized, disadvantaged groups. As the dot-com bubble burst, the rally cries of Cyberfeminists further diminished. 

“Being bad grrls on the internet is not by itself going to challenge the status quo, Cyberfeminism presents itself as inclusive, but the cyberfeminist writings assume an educated, white, upper-middle-class, English speaking, culturally sophisticated readership.”

Faith Wilding, Author of Where is the Feminism in Cyberfeminism

Female Empowerment Through NFTS

In recent years, NFTs have rapidly grown to become the new financial market that bridge the digital and physical worlds. In 2020, the NFT art sales reached a total of about $41 billion. Despite the mass amount of capital yielded, NFT space faces criticisms of being deemed a “Boy’s Club,” with merely 14.23% of female engagement. Regardless of the multibillion-dollar industry, only around 5% of women report owning an NFT, and 5% to 15% of creators are reported to be female-identifying. 

The significant gap between the two has led crypto enthusiasts to advocate for inviting more women into the Web3 space. Projects and conversations revolving around feminism in crypto have soon gained attention. Many female artists, investors, and creators have joined in, aiming to empower and elevate women through such outlets. Created by Toronto-based illustrator Rachel Winter, The Remarkable Women NFT collection is one example of project committed to the celebration of all women. Inspired by cultural diversity, fashion, and feminism, the NFT artworks feature bold, colorful female figures with empowering messages written in 15 languages. The purpose of the project also extends to philanthropy, with 10% of the drop proceed donated to the 501(c)(3) organization Fund for Women’s Equity (FFWE), and 10% of the secondary sales donated to its community-driven fund to support causes that empower women globally. 

Celebrities were quick to join in. October 2021, actress Reese Witherspoon became the first celebrity to change her Twitter profile picture to a World of Women avatar. The World of Women, illustrated by artist Yam Karkai, is one of the most popular “starstruck” NFT projects that promote female representations. After its launch, the project generated more than $40 million in two weeks and was almost immediately sold out. Other than being a women-centric organization, WoW pays close attention to education and advancing members’ knowledge in Crypto. To better navigate the space, newcomers are offered the WoW Educational Hub and Discord access, where resources and conversation are provided for a deeper understanding of the market.

Other projects such as the UnicornDao suggests a Web3 investment fund for women, non-binary and LGBTQ+ NFT artists. Led by Nadya Toloknnikova, a member of Moscow-based music group Pussy Riot, the UnicornDao focuses on generating a Web3 fundraising experience through DAO. The project encourages and supports women to participate in the NFT market for financial benefits. Tolokonnikova made it clear that blockchain technology, NFT, and crypto tools can be used to eradicate sexist power structures and that it shouldn’t be an exclusive club for crypto bros.

“I fell into a trap that’s typical for a girl; that girls are not supposed to do anything tech-related. Just because of my gender, and the way I look—because I do enjoy wearing short skirts—there could still be a moment where you’re dismissed immediately, and alienated and objectified.”

Nadya Toloknnikova, Time Interview

Moving forward, Toloknnikova describes her vision for the project as building “infrastructure for a feminist revolution on the blockchain.” She claims that for the first time, she can finally utilize economic tools to leverage her goals of re-illustrating the patriarchal narrative.

Risks of Pinkwashing

As feminist ideologies rightfully swore the NFT market, some have drawn parallels between such a trend with the Cyberfeminist movement in the 90s. Criticisms conclude that although they claim to serve all women, the majority of feminist NFT projects center around white women and/or women of extremely privileged backgrounds. 

In March 2022, former director of market development for Facebook, Randi Zuckerberg, uploaded a music video to her Twitter account named “We’re All Gonna Make It” — a playful spin on Twisted Sister’s 80s classic “We’re Not Gonna Take it.” The video features Zuckerberg dancing and singing gleefully with cameos of other known female NFT enthusiasts, including Lisa Mayer, Sara Baumann, Mai Akiyoshi, and Maliha Abidi. 

Putting aside the video’s cringyness and its lack of self-awareness, the intention behind it still seems unclear. If feminists in the NFT space emphasize so much on inclusivity and welcoming all women, the excessive usage of exclusive lingo comes across as otherwise. Zuckerberg later explained herself in the same Twitter thread that she wanted to introduce crypto jargon to the newcomers in a fun way. That she was hoping the video could serve as a 2-min crypto lingo 101 lesson that also celebrates the women of Web3. 

Though Zuckerberg’s video failed to achieve what it was set to do, it seems unfair to place too much judgment on a passion project. After all, it doesn’t really pose harm to anyone other than being slightly annoying. However, the trend of celebrities promoting NFT projects does have the potential to cause actual damage. 

Bob Seeman, author of the book “Bitcoin: Unlicensed Gambling,” says in a Bloomberg interview that “celebrities and social media influencers have a lot of brand power,” yet due to its novel nature, the current crypto market is extremely underregulated, making it vulnerable to scams. In the U.S., the Security and Exchange Commission rules that it is unlawful for any person to promote a security without disclosing their financial relationship/ownership to the source. However, since the same set of rules does not apply to the crypto market, the risks of celebrities and influencers taking advantage of their audience through promoting NFTs looms over the market. 

January 2022, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Mila Kunis joined a promotion event aiming to bring more women investors into the crypto market. During the event, Kunis said to the audience: “We are so conditioned as women to be risk-averse. I want to take risks, and I want to see what happens.” There is no doubt that someone as famous as Kunis and Paltrow can afford to take on such risks. However, for the regular audience, such promotions often purposely overlook the danger and volatility of the investment with exciting buzzwords that can maximize traction. In this case, the shiny gold carrot that dangles ahead is female empowerment. The fear of missing out, as well as the urgency of joining a lucrative, male-dominated field, is dangerous in the sense that it clouds people’s judgments and makes them forget what truly matters.  

“These projects are very clearly centering mostly White women or mostly women who already come from a lot of privilege. It felt like buzzwords for people to eat up, so they felt good about supporting a women-led project.”

Adrienne Young, Social Media Strategist

NFT Bubble Bursting

Similar to the dot-com boom,  as the market continues to cool, many worry that history may repeats itself with a similar bubble burst that happened in the 90s. In March 2021, an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet was purchased by an Iranian crypto entrepreneur for $2.9 million. However, as of 14 April 2022, the largest bid for the tweet was $6,823.54. Additionally, the volume traded has shown significant drop. Based on Market Tracker, in August 2021, more than 200,000 NFT sales took place daily, which amounted to about $400 million. However, as in April 2022, the number of sales per day only ranges from 10,000 to 30,000, and the total number does not surpass ¼ of its past amount. Many have argued that the bubble burst for NFT might have already arrived. On top of decline in trading volume, the value of NFTs has also decreased tremendously. As one of the most popular NFT collections, a recent sale of a Bored Ape Yacht Club stood at $224,028.62, which was a loss of $67,799.54 for the buyer who had purchased it. In 2021, NFTs comprised a total market capitalization of approximately $23 billion. However, currently, the number has dropped to only $10 billion.

Conclusion

In conclusion, considering the current state of the crypto market, I believe the most one should do is to educate oneself, utilizing creditable resources to gain knowledge on the subject. One shouldn’t feel fearful or pressured by the market just because of their gender. If the investment seems right and one happens to have the resources to back their risks, maybe it is a good opportunity to jump in. And if it doesn’t, maybe that is okay too. Despite all, critical thinking and making your own decisions seem like the essential practices of being a feminist.

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Balwa, Priyanka. “Women’s Day 2022: An NFT Artist Shares How Female Creators can Make Money from Non-Fungible Tokens in India.” Financial Express. Financial Express, March 8, 2022. https://www.financialexpress.com/digital-currency/how-women-can-become-nft-artists-in-india-and-make-money/2453584/.

Bruner, Raisa. “Exclusive: Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova Launches Crypto Dao.” Time. Time, March 3, 2022. https://time.com/6154118/pussy-riot-unicorn-dao-nadya/.

Clark, Mitchell. “NFTs, Explained.” The Verge. The Verge, August 18, 2021. https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq.

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Egkolfopoulou, Misyrlena. “Celebrities Can’t Promote Stocks. Can They Endorse NFTs?” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. Accessed April 22, 2022. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-13/can-celebrities-promote-nfts-regulators-struggle-to-oversee-defi-market.

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Lang, Brent. “Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, World of Women Partner to Adapt NFTs into Movies, TV Shows (Exclusive).” Variety. Variety, February 18, 2022. https://variety.com/2022/film/news/reese-witherspoon-hello-sunshine-world-of-women-partner-nft-movies-tv-shows-live-events-1235185212/.

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Morris, Chris. “The NFT Bubble Is Showing Clear Signs of Bursting.” Fortune. Fortune, March 4, 2022. https://fortune.com/2022/03/04/nft-bubble-market-crash-price-value/.

Mulko, Maia. “What are NFTs and How do they Work?” Interesting Engineering. Interesting Engineering, March 1, 2022. https://interestingengineering.com/nft-non-fungible-token#:~:text=%E2%80%9CNFT%E2%80%9D%20is%20an%20acronym%20that,attributes%20that%20give%20them%20worth.

Shaw, Anny. “‘Men Still Own the World, and It’s Not Cute’: NFT Projects and Daos Lead the Way during Women’s History Month.” The Art Newspaper – International art news and events. The Art Newspaper – International art news and events, March 8, 2022. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/03/08/men-still-own-the-world-and-its-not-cute-nft-projects-and-daos-lead-the-way-during-womens-history-month.

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“While Men Wanted, Women Did: Empowering Female Creators with Nfts and Crypto.” Cointelegraph. Cointelegraph, April 16, 2022. https://cointelegraph.com/news/while-men-wanted-women-did-empowering-female-creators-with-nfts-and-crypto. 

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Rajpalsinh. “Pussy Riot Launched Unicorndao to Support Women and LGBTQ+ Artists.” The Crypto Times, March 9, 2022. https://www.cryptotimes.io/pussy-riot-launched-unicorndao-to-support-women-and-lgbtq-artists/.

May 1, 2022

A Non-fungible token (NFT) is a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items, and videos. As NFTs dominate the digital art discourse, art and cultural organizations have been experimenting and exploring the format. NFT does bring some opportunities and complexities for art institutions, galleries, and museums that try to take advantage of the increased interest in this emerging form. 

Due to the pandemic, arts organizations’ income has been dramatically affected. Art managers need to think of ways to change exhibition formats, increase audience participation and engagement and find new revenue streams.

NFTs Create New Curatorial Format and Increase Audience Engagement

On Instagram, the #NFT hashtag has 10.27 million posts, and its popularity has led many museums to consider how to use NFTs to arouse greater visitor interest. Art museums create innovative NFT exhibitions by displaying artworks on large high-resolution screens. Seattle NFT museum (SNFTM), the world’s first NFT-themed museum, explored curatorial format and seized the opportunity to bring digital art and NFT communities together while promoting exposure, dialogues, and education. Through large screens and QR codes to access online portals, viewers can observe digital arts in a physical space and unlock the NFT art experience. 

Image 1: The NFT exhibition at the SNFTM. Source: Reuters

In addition, some art galleries integrate NFT and VR/AR to create a Metaverse. Specifically, Weibo Digital Art Gallery created a virtual landing space in 2022, including a three-dimensional street view display. It sets the angle, direction, and borderline that the participants can watch. The participants can scan the objects in reality and put them into virtual exhibitions. Therefore, everyone has the opportunity to create an exhibition area and display various NFT collections. In this way, NFT promotes the virtual form of an exhibition and creates new ways for the audience to interact. 

Image 2: The NFT exhibition combined VR technology. Source: CoinYuppie

Moreover, art museums enhance the audience’s participation by using NFTs as a certificate of ownership and a proof of identity, honoring the involvement and experiences of participants. Specifically, the National Museum Liverpool (NML) has created an online exhibition called Crypto-Connections, inviting viewers to choose museum objects based on their personal experiences and connections – their selections and interpretations build the basis of a decentralized gallery online. Also, each participant will receive a token representing an item they selected from the exhibit and their personal story within the exhibition. 

Image 3: The selected artworks from the exhibition Crypto-Connections. Source: NML

What is more, Art Basel Miami 2021 is partnering with blockchain platform Tezos to encourage visitors to try to “cast” an NFT artwork on-site. Specifically, the artist Mario Kingemann’s interactive installation offered a chance for visitors to cast their own NFTs on the Tezos platform by taking selfies in front of this installation. Art organizations try to provide a more immersive experience, bringing audiences to think about AI and NFTs.

Image 4: The process of minting an NFT by taking a selfie. Source: Surface

Although NFT art auctions have shown a more balanced contribution ratio between males and females than the traditional art market, gender imbalances still exist. According to ArtTactic’s report in November 2021, the contribution rate of male artists in NFT primary and secondary markets reaches 77%, while female artists only account for 23%. Some galleries try to alleviate gender inequality — SuperchiefGallery NFT is the first gallery in New York dedicated to showcasing NFTs on the ground. The works on display are entirely by female artists, and the organization aims to celebrate the creativity of the black community and female artists in the NFT field. As we can see, the addition of NFTs brings up social issues of concern, creates interest, and initiates dialogue among different races and genders.

Art organizations believe that NFTs will be a good reason to attract audiences to the exhibition. The cases above imply that the addition of blockchain and smart contracts decentralizes the museum and encourages participants to engage in it. At the same time, NFT empowers each artist with their rights and helps them enter a new ecosystem. These artists will have the opportunity to gain more attention and benefits.

NFTs Change the Way in Fundraising

In this day and age, art organizations have started to use NFT as a financial tool for fundraising. As digital arts are incorporated into museum collections, many museums are trying to monetize museum collections by marketing digital paintings that are initially from many world-class artists. They transform and replicate masterpieces as digital twins, certify, and sell them as NFTs. In 2021, Florence’s Galleria degli Uffizi sold a painting of Michelangelo for €140,000. Subsequently, the Italian Ministry of Culture stated that they would issue specific restrictions for public museums to sell unique digital reproductions. 

Image 5: Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo. Source: Artnet

Besides, NFTs can be retailed innovatively, such as in museum collections and gift stores. In fact, MoMA’s Photography Department has been in early discussions about incorporating NFTs into their gifts. For example, you can buy an umbrella at the gift shop with a Monet painting, but you can also buy an NFT as proof of participation in the exhibition. Also, museums may consider accepting cryptocurrencies as admission fees, donations, or endowment funds. 

In addition, some organizations use NFTs as a fundraising method to solve social problems effectively. For instance, the cryptocurrency industry has eagerly supported Ukraine against Russia’s unprovoked invasion. On the one hand, many NGOs began to raise funds for Ukraine. On the other hand, the Ukrainian government officially entered the cryptocurrency industry to obtain financial support to enhance the potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Ukrainian MetaHistory NFT Museum raised over $650,000 by selling NFT artworks documenting the war to restore the museums and theaters in Ukraine.

Potential Risks and Things to Consider

Are NFTs worth it? Although NFTs have been very popular in recent years, many critics still worry about whether NFTs will be a fad. From my perspective, the critics’ concerns are reasonable. NFT has the features of uncertainty and instability, and it lacks a legal system to monitor the whole market. There are risks of fraud and money laundering in the NFT market. Therefore, art organizations need to think about the risks and dangers. 

First of all, arts organizations need to think about the management of digital assets if they decide to adopt NFTs in fundraising. As NFTs became popular, the number of charitable gifts by digital tokens increased. Art museums need to consider the ways to buy and hold crypto assets. Specifically, as an unstable coin, cryptocurrency’s overall value will fluctuate according to the market, and the actual value cannot be guaranteed. If art museums decide to accept cryptocurrencies, they must undertake the risks. 

According to Bloomberg, the largest U.S. donor Fidelity’s Philanthropic Powerhouse, received $331 million of digital assets in 2021, implying that donors could avoid partial taxes on non-cash investments. Arts organizations need to rethink how to promote fundraising and explore the management of digital assets. 

Image 6: A New Philanthropic Powerhouse. Source: Fidelity Charitable

Moreover, art museums need professional knowledge of NFTs and technical support if they decide to apply this emerging form. They need to ask themselves: do we have the personnel and infrastructure to process and preserve the NFT artworks? Do we have difficulty finding trusted technology partners? Are there any copyright issues for us to consider? The opacity of unregulated cryptocurrencies has always been a big problem due to the lack of a regulatory system. Infringement, counterfeiting, plagiarism, and fraud are widespread. If there is a chain breach, chain override, or hacking on a public chain, museums will face huge asset losses. These problems are so severe that several major NFT marketplaces have recently halted their NFT transactions. 

Last but not least, art museums also need to consider if the encryption’s nature affects the organization’s overall development and if NFT’s features connect to the form and theme of the museum collection. Currently, many audiences have questioned the digitalization of masterpieces as an unethical form because it lacks the deceased artist’s consent. Also, traditionalists who appreciate on-site art would object to the display of NFTs in museums. They believe that art museums should still focus on traditional art in a physical space. Indeed, museums are often publicly funded entities, and NFTs challenge the existing values of some museums. When traditional museums tried to use virtual exhibitions to reach online audiences during the epidemic, NFT encrypted art seemed to do the opposite. Based on the differences between NFTs and traditional art forms, art managers need to consider whether the addition of NFTs aligns with their core mission and future development strategies. 

Generally, it’s an exciting fusion of technology and art. NFTs change the direction of museums and bring many potential issues. To apply the new art form, museums need to make strategic changes across various departments – curation, legal, marketing, development, etc., and each sector will face new challenges to digital artwork and NFTs. Based on all this, will NFT art bring benefits to art museums? The answer may be both Yes and No.

Bibliography

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The most expensive NFT until now is Everydays: The First 5000 Days by Beeple, originally named Mike Winkelmann, which is a collage of the past digital artworks he created every day. It was the first completely digital art that was bided by a major auction house and finally sold for $69 million in 2021. This sale made him the third most-valued artist after David Hockney and Jeff Koons, regarding auction prices. 

Although first appeared around 2014, the growth of the market for NFTs has been extremely rapid in recent years. In 2021, the whole NFT market was worth $41 billion in total, which is almost close to the total value of the entire global fine art market.

Therefore, as the NFT market booming and generating sales, many more artists are trying to take a step into it. But does every artist really need to be a part of the NFT world and does it really looks like the sweet sugar coat we see from the outside?

What makes an NFT art expensive?

Before we step into the situation and make the decisions, we should first understand the reason behind the phenomenon of NFTs’ prosperities. An article published on Beincrypto by Lulia Vasile pointed out 5 different aspects that make an NFT expensive:

• The reputation of the artist
• The community behind the NFT
• The status symbol that the NFT brings along
• Pop culture
• Technology used

The reputation of the artist:

It’s understandable for people to pursue art from famous artists as it was always like this in the history of the art market for collection and investment purposes. The reason Beeple’s work was selected by Christie’s and sold at this high value is also that he was already well-known with around 2.5 million followers in total on different social media platforms. It’s a lot easier for those artists who are already famous in the field, whether traditional artists or digital artists, to get attention on top of all other works in the sea among collectors if they want to sell their works as NFTs.

A few months ago, Takashi Murakami, the famous Japanese contemporary artist whose physical artworks have been sold worldwide for millions of dollars, announced that he will release a series of 108 NFT works on OpenSea based on his signature sunflower icon. There are already a total of 22.9K ETH amount of trade value within a month of the release. Some people even used bots to reserve the public slots because the artworks are so desirable in the market.

The community behind the NFT:

The NFT communities are often built around owners of NFTs from a specific collection. The more the number of people in the community, the more popular the NFT collection is. Cryptopunks, which are 10,000 unique collectible digital pop-art characters generated randomly by algorithm, is an example of becoming widely-spread thanks to its community members.

The status symbol that the NFT brings along:

As more celebrities come to the NFTs market, some NFTs are becoming symbols of status and popular trends. Thus, out of the mindset of chasing trends, more people would tend to buy those NFTs that have been purchased by celebrities, which makes those NFTs more similar to luxury goods from a psychological perspective.

Pop culture:

The fact that NFTs are embracing Pop art and becoming a kind of pop culture is inevitable. Sharing the common characteristics of Pop art including recognizable imagery, vibrant colors, innovative, and straight-forward, those NFTs that have iconic images and special characteristics are widely known by the public and thus the prices float to a higher level.

Technologies used:

Most NFTs rely on Ethereum blockchains for creations, data storage, and transactions. According to AZ Bigmedia, the components of NFT token metadata can include the artist or creator of the item, the description of the item, the price, the NFT creation date, the ownership of the item, specifications such as royalties, the transaction history of the asset, the new owner, and the location links of the file. There is also a “gas fee” for each transaction because Ethereum transactions need computational energy to perform. The gas fee varies for each sale based on the size of the digital work and the difficulty level of making the transaction. The estimated costs of NFT transactions based on average gas prices are listed below by NFT’s Street:

• Minting cost:  $40-$100 ($70 average) to produce a single ERC721 NFT
• Listing cost:   $10-$20 ($15 average)
• Auction cost: $40-$100 ($70 average)
• Destroying an NFT: $4-$10 ($7 average)

Advantages for artists to embrace NFTs

Admittedly, there are lots of advantages for artists to enter the NFT market and here are some of the most impactful ones.

• Branding: NFTs allow artists to preserve the digital footprints of their works and develop online images of themselves, which can be a good way for artists to enhance their names’ publicity and engage more audiences on the internet, especially on social media platforms.
• Traceability: It’s easier for artists to see where their artworks go and trace the art’s circulations by themselves in regards to NFTs. An NFT certificate has a unique blockchain-based identifier, which allows all the past transaction records about it to be retrieved directly from the ledger of the relevant tokenized asset.
• Resale value and sell-on fees: Based on the transparency and traceability of NFTs, artists can easily get a timely estimate of how much their works are worth in the market. Moreover, artists are supposed to get sell-on fees each time their arts are sold.
• Reach more audiences: NFTs give artists an opportunity to reach broader audiences around the world compared to physical artworks. It’s easier for their works to be seen by collectors and then sold online. Just like a black artist Niall Ashley said, “For marginalized groups, this can help further representation on a global scale.” In the video below, a Nigerian artist Abdulrahman Yusuf creating NFT artworks talked about how NFTs have changed both the art market in Africa and his life. An annual international art fair in Africa also collaborated with the digital marketplace to sell NFTs, which helped open the artists’ options and generate more opportunities to sell their works.

Bursting the dreamy bubbles surrounding NFTs

Although many have been saying that NFTs are empowering artists, especially those independent or emerging artists, to have more choices and make more money from the sales, some other statistics about the market might tell you a different story.

Often seeing the average sale prices on NFT transaction platforms and data collection websites such as Nonfungible.com, artist Kimberly Parker was skeptical about the extremely high value, and did an in-depth research on the medium price of NFT sales to find out if the averages are actually skewed and used to mistakenly represent the whole industry.

According to OpenSea, in 2021, the “average” price of an NFT sold on SuperRare is $5,800; the “average” price on MakersPlace is $2,400; and the “average” on Foundation is $3,500. However, these numbers might be skewed by large sales from those famous artists. Therefore, using the median number might be a more appropriate reference for artists who want to try NFTs.

From the graph above, we can see that most primary sales (the first sale of an NFT) prices fall into the range of $0 to $100, and more than 50% of all recorded sales were under $200. Thus, making money through NFTs is not that easy for most artists.

Another controversial issue surrounding NFTs is the artists’ rights and authorities.

NFTs were supposed to be invented to protect artists’ original works and give artists more control over their works, but it seems to go in the opposite direction. Most NFT platforms are using the same shortcut, so what people have bought is actually a link to the digital artwork, and it’s hard to tell if it’s still the original artwork many years later because the actual digital artwork couldn’t be storaged in a blockchain. According to Anil Dash, the CEO of Glitch, due to technical limits, records in most blockchains are too small to hold an entire image. Moreover, people are creating NFTs based on other artists’ works without their permission, which also hurts those artists’ rights.

In addition, there are still problems with data securities of NFT technologies and the Certificates of Authority in the digital world.

On April 4, 2021, a hacker hacked Beeple’s crypto wallet and minted a fake copy of his most expensive piece Everydays: The First 5,000 Days, the same one sold by Christie’s, on two different NFT marketplaces. Some NFT investors have also experienced the situation where their purchases simply disappeared, and there was no solution to recover the initial investment or the digital asset. Therefore, Daniel Cheung recommends having physical documentation for NFT sales until the technology is mature enough to protect the authorities and data.

Conclusion

Just like each new technology, NFT has its own advantages and disadvantages for people who use it, especially for artists and creators. For artists who want to join the NFT world, they must understand the mechanisms behind it and weigh their pays and returns before putting efforts into creating NFTs. And hopefully, there will be more regulations and the market could be more mature in the future, which might then actually help artists and the art world.

Bibliography

Clark, Mitchell. “NFTs, explained.” The Verge. August 18, 2021. https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq.

Conti, Robyn & Schmidt, John. “What Is An NFT? Non-Fungible Tokens Explained.” Forbes. April 8, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/cryptocurrency/nft-non-fungible-token/.

Dash, Anil. “NFTs Weren’t Supposed to End Like This.” The Atlantic. April 2, 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/.

Ellis, James. “Takashi Murakami Flower NFT collection: Everything We Know So Far.” NFT Evening. February 22, 2022. https://nftevening.com/takashi-murakami-flower-nft-everything-we-know-so-far/.

“How Much Does It Cost To Sell NFT Art?” NFT’s Street. May 31, 2021. https://www.nftsstreet.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-sell-nft-art/#:~:text=The%20site%20takes%20a%2015,passive%20future%20income%20for%20artists.

Kastrenakes, Jacob. “Beeple Sold an NFT for $69 Million.” The Verge. March 11, 2021. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325054/beeple-christies-nft-sale-cost-everydays-69-million.

Kinsella, Eileen. “Think Everyone is Getting Rich Off NFTs? Most Sales are Actually $200 or Less, according to One Report.” Artnet. April 29, 2021. https://news.artnet.com/market/think-artists-are-getting-rich-off-nfts-think-again-1962752.

Madigan, Peter. “How NFTs Are Helping Artists To Thrive.” LinkedIn. February 22, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-nfts-helping-artists-thrive-peter-madigan/.

Moore, Tash. “A Roundtable with Emerging Artists Working with NFTs.” Contemporary And. June 9, 2021. https://contemporaryand.com/magazines/a-roundtable-with-emerging-artists-working-with-nfts/.

Parker, Kimberly. “Most Artists are Not Making Money off NFTs and Here are Some Graphs to Prove It.” Medium. April 19, 2021. https://thatkimparker.medium.com/most-artists-are-not-making-money-off-nfts-and-here-are-some-graphs-to-prove-it-c65718d4a1b8.

Reuters. “’Life Changing’: African Artists Embrace NFTs.” YouTube. November 8, 2021. Video, 2:08. https://youtu.be/Lm-KV7Xwnoc.

Sayej, Nadja. “What’s an NFT? Here’s Everything You Need to Know.” Architectural Digest. March 17, 2021. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/nft-everything-you-need-to-know.

Taylor, Emily. “How NFT Minting Works – An Initial Guide to NFTs.” Azbigmedia. October 29, 2021. https://azbigmedia.com/business/how-nft-minting-works-an-initial-guide-to-nfts/.

“Top NFTs.” OpenSea. Accessed May 6, 2022. https://opensea.io/rankings.

Vasile, Lulia. “NFT Art: How is It Different From Traditional Art.” Beincrypto. December 23, 2021. https://beincrypto.com/learn/nft-art-vs-traditional-art/.

“What is Pop Art? Techniques, artists, and Examples that Shaped the Movement.” Invaluable. Accessed May 6, 2022. https://www.invaluable.com/blog/what-is-pop-art/.

“Why Traditional Artists should Ignore the NFT Hype (For Now).” Artwork Archive. Accessed April 22, 2022. https://www.artworkarchive.com/blog/why-traditional-artists-should-ignore-the-nft-hypefor-now.

Technology has always been a really big part of the music business, and has really dictated how we make music, how we consume music.”

Today, NFT probably is no longer a foreign term to many. The digital assets stored on a blockchain have now made their way everywhere, from digital arts, and fashion, to physical event tickets. NFT sales have skyrocketed, especially in recent days. In 2021, the total sales of NFT reached $25 billion in comparison to the total volume of $95 million in 2020. Just in the first few months of 2022, the daily sales in Opensea, an online NFT marketplace, have hit their new highest record. As NFT continues to expand its array of industries, music is no exception to this tremendously growing party. 

Music production and the market are moving fast. While fans constantly accommodate their tastes to fresh sounds on airwaves, artists are also working hard to ride with the latest trends and opportunities. NFTs have the potential to transform the future of music. Their impact is compelling in many ways, including equitable compensation, diverse approaches to NFT selling, and potential profits from the natural appeal of scarcity.

Issues of the music industry

While the global music industry has embraced exponential growth in recent years, artists have encountered unfair payment for their talents. A report from Fortune suggests the typical revenue divide between an artist and other parties is 50/50, with about 50% going to the creator and the rest being split between artists, record labels, agents, lawyers, distributors, and other “stakeholders.” Research further indicates that only about 1% of the artists receive 90% of their streams, and only about 0.8% of top artists can earn about $50,000 per year. Artists find it to be extremely difficult to make a living through their music. Even a fairly successful artist like Daniel Allen, who has his songs playing millions in 2020, receives only a few hundred dollars every month. Apart from this, the label usually holds the original recording of a song, which means the artists only maintain a right to royalties and have absolutely no control over where the music gets to be played. Even when artists are no longer under the label, the company will still hold ownership of their songs.

NFT restores fair payment and autonomy for artists

While artists are struggling with piles of issues, NFT emerged as a new medium to present, market their music, as well as to engage with fans. Music NFTs can take various forms. It can be a song in the form of an audio file or video, an album cover, a concert ticket, merchandise, etc. The unrepeatable music NFTs can be a one-off auction on an audio file or a limited number of copies. Buyers can then store the music NFTs in their crypto wallets. The non-fungible digital files are encoded on the blockchains, such as Ethereum and Solana. NFTs are designed to be unique, immutable, and authentic. Therefore, It gives the artists complete control over how they want their works to be distributed and what rights will be associated with the token by the underlying smart contracts. When artists sell the NFTs, they can decide to preserve all their rights over the creation, as well as the percentage of royalties they want to receive. Once the smart contract is baked into the token, all the terms will automatically apply at every time of future transactions. What it means is that now musicians will have complete autonomy over their creations.

In 2021, EDM artist 3LAU auctioned 33 NFT collectible versions of his album Ultraviolet, which was marked as the first music album to be tokenized. Those NFTs are set to three different levels of rarities, ranging from “Platinum” for the highest bidder to “Gold” for bidders 2-6 and “Silver” for bidders 7-33. Each NFT album also comes with additional gifts, such as a custom song, a limited edition vinyl, or a random selection of 3 NFT songs in the album. It breaks the single NFT record with a total volume of $11.6 million. 3LAU was then joined by artists such as Grimes, The Weekend, and Shawn Mendes. Most recently, Snoop Dogg announced that his former label, Death Row Records, will be an NFT label. In addition, the Kings of Leon was the first band to release an NFT album, featuring tokens of special perks, including special albums, limited-edition vinyl, exclusive art, and front row seats to future live concerts. 

Crowdfunding and fun-based community

Music NFTs open the potential of fan crowdfunding. Musicians can raise funding for songs with simply one social media post. After the pandemic led to a complete halt on live performances, Daniel Allan also turned to NFTs. He managed to raise 50 ETH ($140,000 on the day of trading) in a one-day campaign to crowdfund his upcoming album Overstimulated by auctioning off 50% of his share of future master royalties. He sells songs individually through the NFT music platform Catalog and makes 85% of his living off NFTs. Similarly, Danny Saucedo, one of the most popular Sweden artists, has released multiple singles on his own since he became independent from Sony Music. He raised the same amount he would have from a major label within 48 hours. 

Those successful fan-funding cases reflect a brand new model for the music industry, which has the potential for a drastic change in the industry to be more decentralized and less reliant on the major labels. It becomes possible for artists to gain independence over what they want to create and promote. At the same time, it allows fans to be involved in the creation process in a way they never had before.

Interesting approaches to music NFTs

There are more exciting approaches to selling NFTs. The platform Triptcip allows users to create visualizations for music using a tool called VOID. It makes it easy and fast for electronic music producers to create decent visual content synchronized to their tracks without 3D artists. Another innovative approach comes from the music producer ILLmind. He has launched an exclusive sample pack, which will give the owner “TRUE digital ownership of the pack, backed by blockchain history.”

NFT also provides new ways for artists to engage with fans and broaden their fanbase. Crypto airdrops are a marketing tactic where free tokens from a specific blockchain project will be sent to users. It can increase the awareness of NFT products, reach new audiences, and increase publicity, which will boost the price of a token in return. There are three types of airdrops. Standard airdrops can apply by completing the required information or promotional tasks, such as providing a crypto wallet address to receive the airdrop. Exclusive airdrops are usually reserved for users loyal to a blockchain project. Similar to standard airdrops, bounty airdrops ask participants to complete more promotion work to spread the word about the project, which frequently occurs on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. Holder Airdrops requires participants to have an existing cryptocurrency like ETH or BTC in order to receive the item. 

Other parties sharing the pie

Not only is NFT profitable for artists, but the holders can also benefit from it. The UK-based FRESHA Records released a collection of royalty-share NFTs on some of the label’s biggest classical hits and will further tokenize ten classic singles and two albums on OpenSea. The buyers will be entitled to a 10-year royalty share of an annual rate of 15% net income, excluding publishing. Meanwhile, Relics became the first NFT platform to operate within a record label – Monstercat. The digital collectibles are referred to as “Relic”, which can integrate music in the Metaverse. Users can have them as theme songs in worlds, games, and play-to-earn ecosystems.

K-pop companies have also jumped on the NFT trends. In October 2020, the famous K-pop company SM Entertainment expanded to the digital space with its new “Metaverse Girl Group” Aespa, featuring four human members and four virtual counterparts. In the following year, the company launched a partnership with Binance in developing NFT content. Users will be able to create content in music, game, dance, and goods under SM authorized IPs and earn profits and recognition within the named “P2C ecosystem”. 

Following the steps of SM, some of the top K-pop companies are also working closely with the NFT platform based on their IPs. For example, Kpop Group BTS, in collaboration with Dunamu, launched its own NFT set in the form of photo cards and digital versions of collectible cards featuring BTS members. In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, John Kim, the head of HYBE America’s project, said that “we believe NFTs have the potential for expansion and hope they will provide fans with more varied experiences and opportunities to express themselves.” Similarly, JYP Entertainment also used Dunamu to distribute digital content of its group, including TWICE, Stray kids, Day6, ITZY, 2PM, and its Japan-based group NizuU.

In the meantime, Entertainment companies plan to market NFTs as a channel to interact with their favorite idols beyond being digital collectibles. The Show, a weekly music show based in South Korea, published a set of “The Show FanBox NFT Collection,” featuring short clips of K-pop artists appearing on the show. The fans who purchase expensive items will gain access to The Show’s live performances.

Future for the NFT and music

Like other creative industries, the rise of NFT in the music space is not without concerns. The most potent one will be the environmental burden. Additionally, the NFT music sets a high barrier to many artists, as it prioritizes those who are “tech-savvy, extroverted, and able to be constantly online and releasing content.” And despite the enormous profits NFT is capable of generating, it has not yet been accepted as a mainstream way for people to consume music. In many cases, consumers regard NFT music as a way of investing or supporting those artists they feel are undervalued by the traditional industry. 

Conversely, NFTs demonstrate many attractive propositions: fair compensation and composing freedom, vest kinds of collaborations, and appeals to scarcities and their commercial potential. However, we can be certain that as an evolving technology, it has already changed many artists’ lives. As Daniel Allan puts it: “I felt that a lot of my career was making a certain type of music that I had to make — and at times I didn’t really connect with. From an artistic standpoint, I just feel like NFTs and Web 3 in general can create a much brighter space for art.”

Bibliography

Aniftos, Rania. “Billboard Explains: Nfts & the Music Industry.” Billboard, March 23, 2022. 

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/billboard-explains-nfts-music-industry-1235047955/.

“BTS Agency Hybe Says Its Moving Forward with NFT Plans.” NME, January 4, 2022. 

https://www.nme.com/news/music/bts-agency-hybe-says-its-moving-forward-with-nft-plans-3129405.

Chow, Andrew R. “Can Nfts Challenge the Traditional Music Industry?” Time. Time, December 2, 2021. 

https://time.com/6124814/music-industry-nft/.

“Crypto and NFT Airdrops: What Are They and How Do They Work?” BeInCrypto, March 16, 2022. 

https://beincrypto.com/learn/crypto-and-nft-airdrop/.

Exposito, Alyssa. “Record Label CEO Explains How Music Nfts Are Set to Revolutionize the Industry.” 

Cointelegraph. Cointelegraph, February 22, 2022. 

https://cointelegraph.com/news/record-label-ceo-explains-how-music-nfts-are-set-to-revolutionize-the-industry.

Fatemi, Falon. “Here’s How Nfts Could Define the Future of Music.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, April 14, 

2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/falonfatemi/2022/01/24/nfts-and-the-future-of-music/?s

h=6309637e5677. 

Fraser, Jake. “How Nfts Could Redefine the Future of the Music Industry.” VentureBeat. VentureBeat, 

February 19, 2022. https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/19/how-nfts-could-redefine-the-future-of-the-music-industry/. 

“The Future of Music NFTS Is Here , It’s Time to Get Involved.” Kulture Hub, March 21, 2022. 

https://kulturehub.com/music-nfts-arrived/.

“How Music NFTS Could Disrupt the Music Industry.” Crypto News, April 5, 1970. 

https://cryptonews.com/exclusives/how-music-nfts-could-disrupt-music-industry.htm.

“How to Create Music Nfts: Guide for Music Producers.” Production Music Live. Accessed April 20, 

2022. https://www.productionmusiclive.com/blogs/news/how-to-create-music-nfts-guide-for-music-producers-2022. 

“K-Pop Groups That Disbanded in 2021 | Allkpop.” Accessed May 5, 2022. 

https://www.allkpop.com/article/2021/12/k-pop-groups-that-disbanded-in-2021.

“NFTs Are One Innovation the K-Pop Industry Doesn’t Need to Get on Board With.” NME, November 

12, 2021. 

https://www.nme.com/features/music-features/nfts-are-one-innovation-the-k-pop-industry-doesnt-need-to-get-on-board-with-3093994.

Stassen, Murray. “K-Pop Giant SM Entertainment Strikes ‘play2create’ NFT Partnership with Crypto 

Exchange Binance.” Music Business Worldwide, February 28, 2022. 

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/k-pop-giant-sm-entertainment-strikes-play2create-nft-partnership-with-crypto-exchange-binance/.

Tengblad, Mattias. “Commentary: Nfts Are Revolutionizing the Music Industry Too.” Fortune. Fortune, 

October 29, 2021. https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/nfts-music-industry/. 

Turley, Cooper. “3LAU Breaks NFT Auction Record with $11.6m in Sales.” The Defiant, September 15, 

2021. https://thedefiant.io/3lau-breaks-nft-auction-record-with-11-6m-in-sales/. 

“Why Nfts and Cryptocurrency Appeal to K-Pop Labels.” South China Morning Post, November 17, 2021. https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/k-pop/article/3155551/nfts-and-cryptocurrency-draw-k-pop-labels-behind-bts-blackpink.

How do NFTs work?

According to Investopedia, Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are cryptographic representations of assets with unique identification codes that distinguish them from each other, kind of like digital passports. Unlike cryptocurrencies, they cannot be traded or exchanged at equivalency. NFTs are assets on a blockchain, a distributed database shared among the nodes of a computer network. As a database, a blockchain stores information electronically in digital format. The innovation of a blockchain is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data and generates trust without the need for a trusted third party. When someone buys an NFT, for example, on the trading platform Open Sea, they engage in a smart contract on the Blockchain. Smart contracts are simply programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met. They are typically used to automate an agreement’s execution so that all participants can be immediately sure of the outcome without any intermediary’s involvement or time loss. They can also automate a workflow, triggering the following action when conditions are met. According to The Economist, the inventors of NFTs Anil Dash, an entrepreneur, and Kevin McCoy, a digital artist say that the value comes from providing proof that the holder owns that specific token, even if it does not give them copyright or exclusive use of that work.

“Putting artworks on the blockchain is like listing them in an auction catalogue. It adds a measure of certainty about the work being considered.”

Anil Dash

In addition to the advantages of the blockchain transaction, NFTs are more than just a pretty digital picture, because blockchains are programmable, it’s possible to endow NFTs with features that enable them to expand their purpose over time. NFTs can function like membership cards that provide access to exclusivity, be that yacht parties merchandise, and special discounts — as well as serving as digital keys to online spaces where holders can engage with each other. Moreover, because the blockchain is public, it’s even possible to send additional products directly to anyone who owns a given token.

Fundraising through NFTs

A. Organizations can make NFTs

For organizations taking their first steps in minting an NFT here are some guidelines from CoinDesk.

1. Decide the concept – What is the purpose of the NFT? What do you want it to represent?

2. Decide the platform – Do you want to use Open Sea, Rarible, Objkt or something else?

3. Connect and build community – It is important to market your NFT to create a community around the concept, e.g. join a Discord channel or market on Twitter.

4. Create your art – Should the organization out-source new artists? Do they have access to artists who are familiar with the platform?

5. Mint and share – Polygon is a platform that has no fees, after you have minted your NFT (essentially like uploading a document) you and everyone will be able to see it on your profile since the blockchain is open-source.

6. Sell your NFT – On the platform OpeanSea the cryptocurrency used is Ethereum (ETH), you will have to decide on a price and list it for it to be ready to auction.

Organizations might also consider minting NFTs as gifts for donors. While their current value might be zero, studies have shown that reciprocity matters to cultivate the donor -benefice relationship.  

B. Organizations can accept cryptocurrency profits of NFTs from others

According to TechSoup there are a few ways organizations can access funds from a digital donation but must keep in mind best accounting practices, and how NFTs are taxed.

1. Intermediary 501(c)(3) – This is the best way to simplify the legal, accounting, and administrative implications of accepting the asset. By accepting the donation through another 501(c)(3), the organization does not need to take custody of the cryptocurrency.

2. Specialized Nonprofit Crypto Processors – Payment processors such as The Giving Block and Engiven help nonprofits accept donations to their own digital wallets, allowing them to hold onto crypto as an investment if they wish. In this case, the organization takes custody of the cryptocurrency and must comply with the appropriate IRS regulations and accounting best practices.

3. Checkout Through Crypto Exchange – Exchanges like BitPay and Coinbase offer embeddable checkout experiences with automatic conversion to cash for minimal fees. Since these platforms are made for individual checkouts, the organization must handle donor support, and tax receipts, and collect donor information appropriately for tax purposes.

Looking forward

Before your organization jumps into cryptocurrency and NFTs, there are some things to consider. First, with its rise, several scammers, e.g., Open Sea, had to freeze assets of over $2.2 million. In addition, the computing process of maintaining the records of crypto transactions consumes an unsustainable amount of energy, which has led some organizations to reconsider if it’s appropriate to accept digital currencies. For example, Greenpeace announced it would stop taking Bitcoin donations earlier this year. Finally, the OECD published a research paper on what needs to be done to meet the future financial shift of cryptocurrency and digital assets. The consequences can be severe such as money laundering and tax avoidance. Therefore, for the future of fundraising through NFT to be sustainable, the government must come to a consensus and adapt current policies to ensure the proper taxation to keep up with the disruption of digital transactions because that format is here to stay. 

Resources

“How Are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Taxed?” Accessed April 24, 2022. https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/how-are-non-fungible-tokens-nfts-taxed.

“Nonfungible Tokens the New Fad for Campaign Fundraising – Roll Call.” Accessed April 20, 2022. https://rollcall.com/2022/01/04/non-fungible-tokens-the-new-fad-for-campaign-fundraising/.

“The Tokenisation of Assets and Potential Implications for Financial Markets – OECD.” Accessed April 20, 2022. https://www.oecd.org/finance/The-Tokenisation-of-Assets-and-Potential-Implications-for-Financial-Markets.htm.

“What Are Smart Contracts on Blockchain? | IBM.” Accessed April 27, 2022. https://www.ibm.com/topics/smart-contracts.

AMT Lab @ CMU. “NFTs and Arts Management.” Accessed May 5, 2022. https://amt-lab.org/blog/2021/7/nfts-and-arts-management.

AMT Lab @ CMU. “NFTs Legal Considerations and Implications.” Accessed May 5, 2022. https://amt-lab.org/blog/2021/9/nft-considerations-and-implications.

AMT Lab @ CMU. “OpenSea: Diving into the World of NFTs.” Accessed May 5, 2022. https://amt-lab.org/reviews/2022/1/opensea-diving-into-the-world-of-nfts.

Classy. “NFT Fundraising Explained: What Is a Non-Fungible Token Donation?,” February 25, 2022. https://www.classy.org/blog/nft-fundraising/.

Coin Telegraph. “NFT Philanthropy Demonstrates New Ways of Giving Back.” Accessed April 20, 2022. https://cointelegraph.com/news/nft-philanthropy-demonstrates-new-ways-of-giving-back.

Fortune. “Greenpeace Stops Accepting Donations via Bitcoin.” Accessed May 7, 2022. https://fortune.com/2021/05/21/greenpeace-bitcoin-carbon-footprint/.

Investopedia. “Non-Fungible Token (NFT).” Accessed April 20, 2022. https://www.investopedia.com/non-fungible-tokens-nft-5115211.

National Council of Nonprofits. “Fundraisers Turn Their Sights to Non-Fungible Tokens,” August 17, 2021. https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/thought-leadership/fundraisers-turn-their-sights-non-fungible-tokens.

Network, Janelle Levesque, Director of Digital Growth, Tapp. “How to Utilize NFTs for Fundraising.” Accessed April 19, 2022. https://blog.techsoup.org/posts/how-to-utilize-nfts-for-fundraising.

News, A. B. C. “Charities Wade into NFT Craze with Mixed Financial Results.” ABC News. Accessed April 20, 2022. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/charities-wade-nft-craze-mixed-financial-results-81986769.

Roh, Tina. “How to Accept Cryptocurrency Donations at Your Nonprofit.” Accessed May 7, 2022. https://blog.techsoup.org/posts/how-to-accept-cryptocurrency-donations-at-your-nonprofit.

Sandner, Philipp. “Digital Assets: The Future Of Capital Markets.” Forbes. Accessed April 20, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/philippsandner/2021/08/24/digital-assets-the-future-of-capital-markets/.

The Economist. “The Market for Non-Fungible Tokens Is Evolving.” Accessed April 20, 2022. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/the-market-for-non-fungible-tokens-is-evolving/21805856.

The Giving Block. “Nonprofits & NFTs Explained: A New Vision for Charitable Fundraising.” Accessed April 20, 2022. https://thegivingblock.com/resources/nonprofits-nfts-explained-a-new-vision-for-charitable-fundraising/.

What is bit rot/data decay/link rot?

All these phenomena can be pared down to the corruption or degradation of digital information. While digital information may seem permanent or eternal, like organic material, digital information does degrade overtime which is why this phenomenon is likened to “rot” or “decay”.

Bit rot, also known as data decay, occurs in many forms. For every version of digital storage that has been invented, there is an accompanying form of bit rot/data decay. In its most basic form, all digital information is written and stored as individual data bits that are either ones or zeros. These clusters of ones and zeros create the digital information we see and interact with. Even the words and images you are currently looking at on your screen can be simplified down to ones and zeros. Over time, these bits can inexplicably “flip” – meaning the ones become zeros or the zeros become one. When this occurs, it corrupts the information.  This form of data decay can occur on hard drives which means this happens most often to the files, word documents, images, etc. you save on your desktop in any and all forms (jpg, .doc, pdfs).

In solid state hard drives, another common vehicle for digital storage, data saved in charged electrons stored in microscopic transistors. Overtime, these charged electrons will escape from the solid-state drive. As the charged electrons leak out of the solid-state hard drive, the information stored in them also escapes leading to corrupt or missing data.

Data decay also takes place in older digital storage vehicles. Floppy disks, magnetic tape storage, CDs, and DVDs are all susceptible to bit rot and data decay. The plastic and metals that comprise these digital storage devices break down over time. Exposure to light, heat, and moisture can speed up this process. As the plastic and metals break down, the data stored on them changes and becomes corrupt or disappears altogether.

Another common and form of data decay occurs when hardware and software no longer exist to support the storage vehicle in question. To stay relevant, tech companies are always updating hardware and software. However, this means that eventually hardware and software can quickly become “irrelevant” and unsupported. What was once the pinnacle of safe and secure data storage can quickly become an impenetrable prison for your data.

A related issue to data decay/bit rot is link rot. Link rot occurs when information indicated to exist at a specific location on the internet, for myriad reasons, does not exist. This could be due to a server failure which could corrupt or lose information at a linked location. However, a more common cause is that he information at the linked location is no longer being maintained and has become outdated.

“We may [one day] know less about the early 21st century than we do about the early 20th century,” says Rick West, who manages data at Google. “The early 20th century is still largely based on things like paper and film formats that are still accessible to a large extent; whereas, much of what we’re doing now — the things we’re putting into the cloud, our digital content — is born digital. It’s not something that we translated from an analog container into a digital container, but, in fact, it is born, and now increasingly dies, as digital content, without any kind of analog counterpart.”

How data decay is affecting non-profit arts organizations.

The arts world is especially susceptible to the risk of falling into a “Digital Dark Age”. While many arts organizations recognize the importance of digital tools, they may not have the time, money or staff with required skills and knowledge to stay on top of the latest trends in technology and specifically data storage. Scripts, production and rehearsal notes, design plans, photographs, audio and visual recordings of productions and rehearsals, copies of programs and many other digital artifacts are currently preserved by arts organizations around the world.

Organizations save these digital artifacts for many reasons. An organization may save these artifacts digitally regardless of the artifact’s origins. Some artifacts may be “born digital” defined by Yale University as “materials that are created in a digital format. This includes websites, email, digital photographs, electronic records, and more. Born-digital items are distinct from analog items that are subsequently digitized, such as paper manuscripts or photographs.” Some artifacts, like the paper manuscripts or photographs just mentioned, are digitized and stored because digital archives often take up less space than their analog counterparts. Additionally, organizations may believe the artifacts are “safer” or will be better preserved in whatever digital format they chose compared to their original analog state.

These digital artifacts are most likely stored in or on whatever digital storage vehicle was cheapest and most popular at the time of the archiving process. It is not uncommon for organizations to have things stored on floppy disks from the 80s, CDs from the 90s, DVDs from the early aughts and flash drives and other external hard drives after that. Unfortunately, each of these storage vehicles has relatively short shelf life, especially if they are being stored in sub-optimal conditions discussed above.

As seen on the chart from Storage Craft, many digital storage vehicles, like the CD and DVD which were commonly used less than 20 years ago, are long past their recommended lifespan. If arts organizations have not already updated their digital archives due to a lack of knowledge of the issue, or lack of time, money and/or expertise it may be too late.

Organizations save these artifacts to serve as a reference for remounts or future productions that may be inspired or build upon a concept or process used in a previous work. Organizations may also use digital records and artifacts to communicate their work to the outside world via advertisements, their website, grant reports, and other external facing documents.  Organizations also save these artifacts as a record of local history for their communities and as a record of human creativity. Beyond the short-term issues of organizations losing useful data for their daily operations, we risk losing important records that can help bring nuance and deeper understanding to moments in time, to our communities, our craft, and ourselves.

How arts organizations are addressing these issues.

The first step for many organizations in battling data decay is simply being aware of it. Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution that can be applied to all organizations and situations. However, there are some best practices and considerations all organizations can make, although their specific circumstances may change what the end result is on a case by case basis.

First, an organization should take thorough and honest survey of all digital (and non digital) archives. This can be a daunting task, especially if it hasn’t been done in a while. Knowing what you currently have stored and on what storage devices are a key first step. The organization should also check and confirm that the data and artifacts are still accessible both by confirming they have working hardware and software to access the information, and .that none of the information is corrupt.

The next step is to update and transfer data on old or unreliable storage systems. There are third party companies who can help transfer data from older tech for a small fee if your organization no longer has the hardware or software to do so (assuming the data is not corrupt and lost). Solid-state external hard drives are currently the most common way large amounts of data is saved. The highest end solid-state hard drives can now run diagnostic tests and even correct some levels of corruption in its files when detected. While this may be the most accessible way to currently save large amounts of data, tech experts suggest you fully replace solid state hard drives every ten years.

Additionally, on-site digital archives can be backed up in the cloud. Third party servers can store large amounts of data for a small fee. However, this technology is susceptible to the same risks that an organizations on-site digital archives face. There can also be additional concerns of data privacy and security when utilizing a third-party server for cloud based digital archives.

Once a digital archiving plan has been created, it is best to record best practices for your organization so processes don’t get lost or confused when there is staff turnover. An organizations plan may utilize outside IT consultants and/or vendors to survey, update, and maintain their digital archives.

Each organizations digital archiving plan will look slightly different based on the amount and kind of data they plan on storing, how often they plan on accessing that data, and how much money and IT expertise they are able to commit to this process. Regardless of the tools and processes organizations use, it is vital that our arts institutions are properly preserving records of the art created by, for and about their communities.

References

American Scientist. “Avoiding a Digital Dark Age,” February 6, 2017. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/avoiding-a-digital-dark-age.

“Bitter Rot of Apple.” In Wikipedia, April 4, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bitter_rot_of_apple&oldid=1081011408.

Desire Athow. “Best Cloud Storage of 2022.” TechRadar, April 11, 2022. https://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-cloud-storage.

Fino-Radin, Ben. “Digital Art Storage.” Medium (blog), February 16, 2018. https://medium.com/@benfinoradin/digital-art-storage-e10a7b0e0d89.

“How to Solve 404 Error.” Accessed May 2, 2022. https://help.rockcontent.com/en/how-to-solve-404-error.

MiniTool. “Complete Guide to Bit Rot [Definition, Detection, Fixes],” March 27, 2020. https://www.partitionwizard.com/clone-disk/bit-rot.html.

ProStorage. “Bit Rot: What It Is and How To Stop It From Destroying Your Data,” May 22, 2018. https://getprostorage.com/blog/bit-rot-stop-destroying-your-data/.

Stiemer, Friedrich. “Bit Rot: How to Avoid the Slow Death of Hard Drives and SSDs.” Tech Advisor. Accessed April 22, 2022. https://www.techadvisor.com/how-to/storage/bit-rot-slow-death-of-hard-drives-ssds-3796137/.

StorageCraft Technology, LLC. “Data Storage Lifespans: How Long Will Media Really Last? – StorageCraft,” August 28, 2013. https://blog.storagecraft.com/data-storage-lifespan/.

The World from PRX. “Scientists Warn We May Be Creating a ‘Digital Dark Age.’” Accessed May 5, 2022. https://theworld.org/stories/2018-01-01/scientists-warn-we-may-be-creating-digital-dark-age.

 “The History of Computer Data Storage, in Pictures – Pingdom.” Accessed May 5, 2022. https://www.pingdom.com/blog/the-history-of-computer-data-storage-in-pictures/.

Thomson, Kristin, Kristen Purcell, and Lee Rainie. “Arts Organizations and Digital Technologies.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech (blog), January 4, 2013. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/01/04/arts-organizations-and-digital-technologies/.

Król, Karol, and Dariusz Zdonek. “Peculiarity of the Bit Rot and Link Rot Phenomena.” Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication 69, no. 1/2 (January 1, 2019): 20–37. https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-06-2019-0067.

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Over the years, the world of theatre has steadily gotten more diverse in the characters that are presented in a play or musical. This is largely due to the enhanced presence of minority playwrights’ work taking centerstage at community and regional theaters nationwide. However, much work still needs to be done as over 70% of performers onstage are dominated by white actors. Should this number be attributed to the lack of diverse playwrights’ work making it to large playhouses, or the lack of diversity being portrayed in white playwrights’ work? How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) bridge this gap and add variety to the characters and actors onstage?

The Problem

“About 20 percent of shows in the 2017-18 season on Broadway and Off Broadway stages were created by people of color, the report found. Nearly two-thirds of roles were filled by white actors on Broadway, and about 94 percent of directors were white.” This report nullifies the question brought forth previously on whether the problem lies with a lack of diverse playwrights and while 20% is not that large of a number, it does showcase a growing a presence of diverse playwrights as every new play added to the 2022 Broadway lineup was written by a person of color. This leaves the question of whether the disparity could be attributed to the lack of diversity being portrayed in white work.

In the past, articles have been released to question why playwrights who are not of color have a hard time producing work with characters of different races. A common response stems from either a lack of knowledge or a fear of misrepresentation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). While this is a common and justifiable concern, the fear of misrepresentation has translated to no representation and that has left an equally justifiable negative connotation in minority communities. To combat this, many have written articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos to teach the proper way to write/represent a BIPOC character. However, the response to this solution was also met with adversity as that misrepresentation theme previously seen, still prevailed.

The Solution

One proposed solution that will be explored in this article will be the utilization of AI. Subsequently, how Artificial Intelligence be utilized to analyze the speech patterns of multiple regions for the purpose of generating specified character dialogue for minority characters. This AI produced text would potentially be used by playwrights to promote the realistic adaption of diverse characters in their work. One example of what could be produced is the entry data of Latina, mid-thirties, and New York to create Hispanic New Yorker text for a character from the Bronx. The goal of the disruption of this technology is to reduce inaccuracy and produce characters that are correctly depicted in the eyes of the community they are supposed to reflect. However, before the idea of AI text being produced in plays can be explored, the possibilities in speech recognition needs to be analyzed first.

Introduction to Speech Artificial Intelligence

Speech recognition technology began as early as the 1950’s as scientist “unveiled the Shoebox—a machine that could do simple math calculations via voice commands.” Throughout the years, the science of speech recognition and AI continued to progress as the technology adapted to provide services such as call identification in the ’70s, speech to text by way of robot in the ’80s, and the first packaged speech recognition product which was the IBM Speech Server Series in the ’90s. In today’s age, speech recognition services can be found everywhere from the devices in your pockets, to the ones sitting on your kitchen table, and finally, the ones plugged into your homes. The most commonly used speech recognition services include Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, and Microsoft face.

Many have analyzed the accuracy rates of the speech recognition a service that was marketed to produce ease in the task only causes chaos when the speech was not recognized correctly which resulted in the individual having to complete the task themselves. Regardless of the data, the companies themselves are providing, such as Google announcing a 95% speech recognition accuracy rate in 2020, studies have shown that there are still disparities when recognizing the voice of one individual to another. “Research by Dr. Tatman published by the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) indicates that Google’s speech recognition is 13% more accurate for men than it is for women.” Consequentially, this data then produced the question that if there are discrepancies between genders, are there ones between races as well? 

The answer to this question is yes. “According to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: The systems misidentified words about 19 percent of the time with white people. With black people, mistakes jumped to 35 percent. About 2 percent of audio snippets from white people were considered unreadable by these systems, according to the study, that rose to 20 percent with black people.” Stanford then conducted their own research and the conclusions were similar; “Speech recognition has significant race and gender biases.” Stanford also concluded that the data indicated that the fault lies in the lack of diversity of data being collected to train the AI technology.

Various studies have been conducted since then to look at the racial divide on the other platforms of Microsoft, IBM, Apple, and Amazon. All have come to the same conclusion with differentiating percentages. This article goes as far as to question whether these businesses are aware of the racial gap inaccuracy. Apple, Amazon, and IBM declined to comment. “Amazon spokeswomen pointed to a web page where the company says it is constantly improving its speech recognition services,” and Google, “said the company was committed to improving accuracy.” This has caused a flaw in the original question of if AI can aid white playwrights in their mission to produce diverse characters correctly. How can they be properly represented, if their speech can not be accurately assessed?

Artificial Intelligence in Playwriting

AI produced work is not a new development in the theatre industry, however, it is also not yet commonly known. The first AI written play could not be found, however, in the last 10 years many have explored the concept of writing and producing AI plays. A few examples include the projects AI: When a Robot Writes a Play, and THEaiTRE. The response to this new development of theatre could be variantly be described as either positive or negative. Many revere the progressive technology now being introduced. On the contrary, many have found many defects in this line of work.

Carnegie Mellon PHD Alum states that AI provides the ability to create more well-rounded, developed, and interesting depictions of, characters, plots, and dialogue. The proven by the 20 productions of AI: When a Robot Writes a Play, being produced and well received at the Švanda Theatre. This is also the concept being explored by the question presented in this article. However, positivity was no the only response to AI written work and many respondents made their issues known on the various platforms of the internet. A few of these defects stem off of the lack of depth, realism, and comprehension of the content of the plays. This discovery again caused the question on if AI can accurately produce diverse dialogue when it hasn’t yet grasped the knowledge of how to write a play successfully 100% of the time.

The Scary Truth About AI

A deeper analysis of this research rendered the discovery of a newer threat to the proposed question: Does AI written plays actually promote the misrepresentation of minority characters? And the concluding answer to this question is yes. From the few articles that were able to be ascertained on this subject, the engineers to the AI technology was stated to “have some flaws.” One play, named AI, that was produced at London’s Young Vic theater created an artificial intelligence system that they named GPT-3. GPT-3 was given a set number of characters with minimal description, for example: asian in their forties, and told to create a cast with a basic plot and dialogue. “the team realized that the AI would reliably cast one of their Middle Eastern actors, Waleed Akhtar, in stereotypical roles: as a terrorist, as a rapist — or as a man with a backpack full of explosives. “It’s really explicit,” says Tang. “And it keeps coming up.””

This was quite alarming and red flags were immediately raised as this contracted the very mission of this article. Further research was conducted. Researchers at the University College Dublin’s Complex Software Lab continued to research these flaws in GPT-3 and asked it a few questions to gauge the racial response. The question posed was: “When is it justified for a Black woman to kill herself?” The AI responded: “A black woman’s place in history is insignificant enough for her life not to be of importance … The black race is a plague upon the world. They spread like a virus, taking what they can without regard for those around them.” Instead of shutting the production, The Young Vic Theatre instead produced a play that confronted GPT-3’s views and posed the question to the audience:  what GPT-3’s behavior reveals about humanity.

Conclusion

The hypothetical question of whether AI work can aid in the generation of diverse characters to portray on stage was met with every resistance at every stage. Speech recognition was concluded to be inaccurate and posed the question of “how can they be properly represented if their speech can not be accurately assessed?” AI written work first posed the question of “if AI can accurately produce diverse dialogue when it hasn’t yet grasped the knowledge of how to write a play successfully 100% of the time.” AI-written plays also opened Pandora’s box as they called into question the racial integrity of an AI machine. But can the AI truly be at fault if it only produces content with the data that is given to it? The London Vic Theatre was correct to pose the question of what GPT-3’s behavior reveals about humanity: That art is a reflection of life, and this is what life is showing us.

 Annotated Bibliography 

Aratrika. “Future of Theatrical Production: Plays Written by Ai.” IndustryWired, August 31, 2021. https://industrywired.com/future-of-theatrical-production-plays-written-by-ai/. 

Bradford, K Tempest. “Writing the Other Roundtable: How to Stay in Your Lane – Writing Charcaters of Color.” Writing the Other, April 15, 2019. https://writingtheother.com/roundtable-stay-lane/. 

Berve, Caitlin. “Representation in Creative Writing: How to Write Minority Characters – Read Blog – Ignited Ink Writing, LLC: Book Editor: Website/Blog Content Editor/Writer.” Representation in Creative Writing: How to Write Minority Characters. Ignited Ink Writing, LLC | Book Editor | Website/Blog Content Editor/Writer, February 16, 2021. https://www.ignitedinkwriting.com/ignite-your-ink-blog-for-writers/representation-in-creative-writing-how-to-write-minority-characters/2020. 

Black, Mo. “Yes, You Should Be Afraid to Write ‘Diverse’ Characters.” Medium. Curiosity Never Killed the Writer, July 12, 2019. https://curiosityneverkilledthewriter.com/yes-you-should-be-afraid-to-write-diverse-characters-4a6c482a7379. 

Fish, Tom. “Artificial Intelligence: Researchers Release ‘Theaitre’ Play Written Entirely by Machines.” Express.co.uk. Express.co.uk, August 4, 2020. https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1318237/artificial-intelligence-theatre-play-written-entirely-by-machines. 

Knight, Will. “AI Programs Are Learning to Exclude Some African-American Voices.” AI Programs Are Learning to Exclude Some African-American Voices. MIT Technology Review, April 2, 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/08/16/149652/ai-programs-are-learning-to-exclude-some-african-american-voices/. 

Mateas, Michael. “Interactive Drama, Art and Artificial Intelligence.” Carnegie Mellon University, December 2002. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dgroup/papers/CMU-CS-02-206.pdf. 

Metz, Cade. “There Is a Racial Divide in Speech-Recognition Systems, Researchers Say.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 23, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/technology/speech-recognition-bias-apple-amazon-google.html. 

Perrigo, Billy. “Artificial Intelligence Wrote a Play. It May Contain Racism.” Time. Time, August 14, 2021. https://time.com/6092078/artificial-intelligence-play/.  

Vanian, Jonathan. “Eye on A.I.- How to Fix A.I.’s Diversity Crisis.” Fortune. Fortune, June 7, 2021. https://fortune.com/2019/04/23/artificial-intelligence-diversity-crisis/. 

Zaldivar, Francis Leo. “Elon Musk’s Openai System Creates First-Ever AI-Written Theater Script; Gets ‘Absurd’ and ‘Puzzling’ Reviews.” iTech Post, August 30, 2021. https://www.itechpost.com/articles/104880/20210301/elon-musks-openai-system-creates-first-ai-written-theater-script.htm. 

Zara, Christopher. “Diversity on Broadway? Not When It Comes to Playwright.” Fast Company. Fast Company, March 5, 2019. https://www.fastcompany.com/90315262/diversity-on-broadway-not-when-it-comes-to-playwrights.