{"id":564,"date":"2022-02-28T22:37:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T03:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/62-830\/s2022\/?p=564"},"modified":"2022-02-28T22:37:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T03:37:24","slug":"nfts-digital-renaissance-or-death-knell-of-traditional-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/62-830\/s2022\/?p=564","title":{"rendered":"NFTs: Digital Renaissance or Death Knell of Traditional Art?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The hype around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seems to be reaching a fever pitch. With news of certain digital art pieces selling for tens of millions of dollars and conjecture about what utility these tokens may have outside of the art world, for better or for worse, Web3 has arrived. These technological developments aren\u2019t just demonstrating a technological evolution, though. They are also creating massive disruption across the visual art industry. The advent of NFTs is spurring a digital renaissance, creating alternatives for artists, galleries, and museums at nearly every step of the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An NFT is a non-fungible token<\/a> or a non-replicable digital item that proves authenticity. They are sold exclusively using cryptocurrency and are considered to be inherently secure because of the decentralized nature of blockchain networks. Any digital file can be minted as an NFT, meaning that videos, music, documents, AI bots, tweets, and more can be uniquely registered on the digital blockchain ledger and put up for sale. So far, visual art is gaining traction as the most common NFT use case. It is important to note, however, that the arrival of NFT technology is not synonymous with new emergent techniques for creating art. Rather it is an instrument for the sale and dissemination of art that can be created through any number of traditional or digital methods. While NFTs could, in theory, offer a more democratic entree into the art world for artists and collectors, they bring issues both novel and familiar to the legacy art world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Primary amongst the objections to NFTs is the concern about their environmental impact<\/a>. When Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were first created, scarcity was a crucial part of the design. In other words, it is only possible to mine or create a limited number of Bitcoins. As the number of possible new Bitcoins dwindles, it takes more and more electricity and computing power to solve the equations that produce them. Current estimates<\/a> suggest that \u201cBitcoin mining uses more power globally per year than some countries, including the Netherlands and Pakistan.\u201d This consumption would be concerning on its own but should elicit particular scrutiny in countries still largely dependent on fossil fuels<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More tangibly, the processes surrounding cryptocurrency mining and transactions begets computer waste. Miners need continuously expanding computer processing power to compete for the diminishing quantity of these coins. As more advanced technologies are developed, miners have a persuasive incentive to toss aside their current devices in favor of new, more powerful ones. This kind of waste<\/a> alone adds up to over 30,000 tons each year, in addition to other sorts of consumer or industrial tech waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crypto world also perpetuates the same sort of anonymized bad behavior that is already well known on the internet. Behind the anonymity of a username, one creator or group of creators has created an NFT project titled \u201cFloydies,\u201d<\/a> a series of NFTs roughly depicting a pixelated George Floyd in a variety of racist scenarios and stereotypes. While OpenSea<\/a>, one of the primary NFT marketplaces, removed the images from the platform, others are more hospitable to such offensive content. Other NFT projects lean on racist or ableist themes, and such projects are platformed directly to consumers without the kind of guardrails (legitimate, flawed, or otherwise) that traditional arts institutions provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the legacy\/traditional art world and the NFT space foster extreme gender disparity. The National Museum of Women in the Arts amalgamates data<\/a> on these discrepancies. These figures are particularly disturbing given that a strong majority of students in university fine art programs (at both the undergraduate and graduate levels) are women. This indicates that the inequities are reinforced by industry, professional, and purchaser prejudices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gender disparities in visual art. Source: National Museum of Women\u2019s Art<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some optimistic women see the NFT space as a solution, full of open opportunities<\/a> sans glass ceilings, but the full realization of this hope is yet to come to fruition. While the anonymity of these digital transactions could, in theory, support greater gender parity, \u201cfemale artists accounted for just 5% of all NFT art sales\u201d<\/a> over a recent 21-month period. The anonymity has also created opportunities for more pernicious deception. In summer 2020, a group of NFT creators posed as \u201cthe first ever female-led crypto art collective,\u201d<\/a> and raised $1.5 million before it was revealed that men were actually behind the enterprise. And the few women invited to speak at in-person NFT panels or conventions find themselves the targets of the same sorts of patriarchal and sexist assumptions and behaviors that continue to govern too many areas of society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the individuals actively interacting and, therefore, legitimizing this market are largely male. Recent data shows that \u201cone in five online male adults in the U.S. indicated they already own at least one NFT versus just 7% of online female adults.\u201d<\/a> Given that STEM fields are historically male-dominated, the \u201ccrypto bro\u201d reputation of NFT aficionados follows logically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The make-up of the NFT artist and consumer communities also affects the kinds of images and themes being explored in NFT artwork. As certain NFTs sell for astronomical sums of money, some far eclipsing what revered classic pieces have fetched at auction, some people bristle at \u201chow little [the] aesthetics and modalities [of those NFT pieces] align with traditional fine art values.\u201d<\/a> Many NFT artists are choosing to reference and riff on a wide spectrum of pop culture icons and imagery, rather than the annals of art history that more formally trained, traditional artists would.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Quantity over quality seems to be a leading philosophy as NFT creators (some of whom are more computer savvy opportunists than artists) race to cash in on the fad. In his video \u201cWhy are NFTs so Ugly?,\u201d<\/a> YouTube creator Solar Sands breaks down how NFT creators create templates for NFT collections and then use algorithms to randomly swap out certain characteristics or accessories in order to generate large numbers of unique images. The result is something obviously computer-generated, that often feels a stone\u2019s throw away from clip art, and jarring in its juxtaposition of characteristics that were collaged together without greater attention to the coherence or integrity of the final piece. In other words, there are a lot <\/em>of ugly NFTs out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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