WTF is Crypto Art?

[HisBobness]

Either way, that's what really has led me to conclude the customers really don't value the art at all, just it's resale value.

This 100%. I own NFT's because there is a metric drymount ton of money to be made. I couldn't care less about what the "art" errr image is. I'll ride this wave as long as I can and fill my wallet full of eth.

[Thinker]

Either way, that's what really has led me to conclude the customers really don't value the art at all, just it's resale value.

The reason why you all are going to just keep going around and around in circles on this whole NFT debate is because you are ART collectors on an ART forum talking to an ART gallery owner.

NFTs are not Art. They just sometimes have art applied to them to represent them visually. Sometimes people buy them for the art, sometimes people buy them for the NFT. Depends.

If you REALLY understood the difference then whether or not someone value's the art wouldn't be a question.

[partpat]

This is the best thread on the forum these days.

[Thinker]

This is the best thread on the forum these days.

A thread started by DrewJ, too. The irony!

[maddog76]

I can't read this thread with a straight face when you "collectors" act like you own anything. You own a code on a blockchain with a url link to a jpg stored on a server which will disappear eventually.

Hahahah. "Once samsung has a digital frame to display NFTs!!!" Are you drymountin for real? I've had a "digital" frame for 10 drymountin years. Guess what, if i wanna look at your dumb ass fudge ugly ape jpg i'll drymountin download and and add it my frame.

[Thinker]

I can't read this thread with a straight face when you "collectors" act like you own anything. You own a code on a blockchain with a url link to a jpg stored on a server which will disappear eventually.

lol. The level of ignorance in this post is astounding.

Welcome to 2022. You don't have to participate if you don't want to for now, but when web3 becomes the standard and blockchain technology is a part of our everyday lives, you'll likely own an NFT at some point, just probably not for its artistic qualities. Then maybe by then, when you've seen and understood the functional side of these things, you'll see why people were eager to jump in early.

[lebantz]

Blockchain is the best Certificate of Authenticity for so many digital applications it cant be ignored, every ticket system. Your state ID might be on the blockchain one day. Its also the best Cert you could own for art regardless of the challenges tying the paper(if included) to an NFT.

Perceived value and applicable function is a can of worms as it is for any limited commodity.

[acidburn]

"Once samsung has a digital frame to display NFTs!!!" Are you drymountin for real? I've had a "digital" frame for 10 drymountin years. Guess what, if i wanna look at your dumb ass fudge ugly ape jpg i'll drymountin download and and add it my frame.

Eh it goes beyond that. Not many of the digital frames for it are large enough to display and the ones that are are super expensive. Plus, what they plan on doing for them seems fun.

And no I'm not talking about a picture of my ape. I don't need a frame for that silly goose. I'm talking about more the 1/1s we were discussing. Like this piece. Want it for our Kitchen:https://foundation.app/@lilvinci/garyvee/1

[ygolohcysp]

Whoever tipped me off to garyvee's book promotion is a golden God. Got like 10e in free NFTs.

[acidburn]

Whoever tipped me off to garyvee's book promotion is a golden God. Got like 10e in free NFTs.

[Thinker]

Whoever tipped me off to garyvee's book promotion is a golden God. Got like 10e in free NFTs.

Damnit. Too late i'm guessing?

[acidburn]

Whoever tipped me off to garyvee's book promotion is a golden God. Got like 10e in free NFTs.

Damnit. Too late i'm guessing?

yea had to buy the books in august. Had 24 hours to do it.

[ygolohcysp]

Whoever tipped me off to garyvee's book promotion is a golden God. Got like 10e in free NFTs.

I should have went harder!!

[jvwoodford]

It's absolutely a way to diversify and hedge. Plus since I have the "wrecking ball" nft I get to meet Miley backstage at the next local show! And I get a free merch bag! Just kidding about the Miley NFT but utility, utility, utility. Owning an nft can put you in a members only club. Or it could give you a vote in an upcoming project decision! That decision could be to liquidate the projects assets and deliver an equal portion of ETH to each holder. There are so many possibilities beyond "derpy derp I'll just right click and save". Get with the program or get left behind crying about it.

Are there actually any creators/artists here to comment? I know there have been some PR statements made by artists about the whole thing but I'm interested to hear some real opinions and if possible discuss this thing openly because it still just sounds like a big old gimmick to me, albeit a very lucrative one.

Like I said before, can't blame artists for wanting to jump on the action but to my original point I still want to understand if creators are really ok with being associated with this scene knowing nobody cares about their actual art. Now I understand (at least from the few who have directly responded) it's not really about that and hardly anyone buys them for that, but that's exactly my point - isn't that pretty drymounted up if it's true?

And yes, someone commented that the only reason why this is being discussed in the context of art is because this thread was posted in an art forum - well yeah, go figure! That doesn't mean I don't understand it, just that I don't understand it in this context. If this has nothing to do with art then you have to question any gallery or artist's intention for releasing them, no? Speaking personally, depending on the reasoning behind that decision they could lose a lot of my respect. A big reason why I follow artists is because I respect their passion, skill, taste. If all of that gets thrown out the window then why else would I be interested in them?

The meat of what I'm really trying to dissect here goes beyond what the blockchain/NFTs offer, it's really about integrity I think. Further to that point, I actually have a newfound respect for the artists I see who appear to have a similar opinion about the whole thing and will not be associated with any of it, even though they could make an absolute fortune if they did. Are they really being dumb or risk being 'left behind crying about it' or are they just refusing to kneel to a popular gimmick that might make them lots of money but at the cost of any pleasure or fulfilment? It's not all about money, if it was they'd likely be in a different industry, trust me on that one.

The comment I quoted above is a great example of someone who was by their own admission (and they really like to hammer home this point) once a skeptic 'just like me', but it seems to me they got lucky on a drop, made (quite) a bit of money out of it and is now suddenly a die hard advocate, because why wouldn't you be after that? In their defence they also seem very excited about the future possibilities of the tech and who knows, maybe blockchains are going to take off in other areas that make more sense to me but at the moment this makes ZERO sense in this particular context if the art is secondary or of very little importance - something this guy clearly doesn't mind by the way.

P.S. And at the risk of opening up yet another side-topic to this particular discussion (and it may have already been addressed somewhere in the previous 100+ pages), whilst I don't have the facts on the energy consumption for minting items on the blockchain etc. I'd like to get some clarity on what exactly their carbon footprint is. It's no secret there has been widely publicised controversy over the carbon footprint but I was also interested to see Shephard Fairey (an environmental activist) and PangeaSeed (a non-profit environmental organisation acting to preserve our oceans) release numerous NFTs recently. Now to most people this could either look like a declaration that there's nothing really to worry about in that regard or a severe error of judgement for being associated with any of it.

[ygolohcysp]

Murakami's statement:

https://murakamiflowers.kaikaikiki.com/

I am releasing Murakami.Flowers in February—the lunar new year—of the Year of the Tiger, 2022.
There are 12 signs in the Chinese zodiac: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar. I was born in the Year of the Tiger and this is the fifth time my sign has come around in my life, which means I am 60 years old this year.

Murakami.Flowers is the very history of my career as a painter.

My background as a painter is as follows. I was a stupid high school student who actually wanted to be a manga or anime creator, because I vaguely liked to draw pictures. But I didn't have any talent in that area, and I wasn’t smart enough to go to a normal university, either, so I decided to go to the art university I could enter just based on a drawing exam. I further chose to study in the Japanese Painting (nihonga) Department because the competition was relatively low among various departments. (Incidentally, the most popular department at the time was Oil Painting, with 65 times more people applying than spots available, so those who passed the exam were treated as geniuses! The Design Department had 55 times more applicants, whereas Japanese Painting had around 25 applicants per spot… Well, it was still a challenge at the time, but the ratio was the lowest among the departments.)

Among the painting subjects you study in the nihonga course were "snow, moon, and flowers”, as well as "flowers, birds, wind, and moon”—traditional themes of natural beauty. I personally loved flowers, so I studied a lot about them, which led me to create the paintings of flower characters that you all know today.
I was in the world of Japanese historical paintings until I, at age 26, was awakened to the world of Western-style contemporary art. This was at the tail end of the major New Painting (American Neo-Expressionism) boom in New York. So I moved from Tokyo to New York and became a contemporary artist.

This time, I'm taking a big step away from the world of New York-style contemporary art and into the world of the metaverse.
My awakening to the metaverse happened in the summer of 2020, the first year of the pandemic, when I saw the way my children interact with "Animal Crossing: New Horizons.” One day they were watching some fireworks display within the game while talking on Zoom with their school friends, whom they could no longer meet in person, admiring wholeheartedly how beautiful it was. I saw the reality of the shifting values when I realized that these children could discern beauty within a small video game screen.
This experience was similar to the one I had when I first encountered contemporary art at the age of 26, when I was shocked by how there was always a gap between what you saw and the concept, and realized that once I understood the context behind the gap, the artworks took on entirely different appearances. I shuddered with a sensation that made me want to roar in excitement.

And riding on the momentum of that sensation, on March 31, 2021, I started to release 108 images called Murakami.Flowers on OpenSea. As I learned more about the NFT world, however, I realized that I was totally unprepared and withdrew the sales on April 11. Although I didn't actually sell any NFT then, as a result of this action I have since received a number of invitations to participate in auctions and new NFT projects, and I declined almost all of them.
The reason was that it seemed as though the interests in the NFT art at auctions were concentrated only on the numbers game, and I found myself also overly concerned about the market trends than about NFT's creative potential. So I decided to first take a deep breath and cool my head down.

Then, I received a really casual invitation from RTFKT to collaborate. I felt that I could learn a lot about metaverse from these young people. I also thought that their genuine love for sneakers was something I could trust, so I accepted their invitation.
In the meantime, my company has been developing a handheld Tamagotchi-style game to immerse ourselves in the world of games, and we have also been preparing our own smart contract for Murakami.Flowers.
Clone X project with RTFKT was released in December 2021, and at the moment I'm still amazed at the magnitude of reaction it generated.

In this essay, rather than explain the contents of my project, I wrote about my initial motivation for entering this space. I plan to write more essays about the project itself going forward, so please keep an eye out for them.
Takashi Murakami

Not financial advice of course, but I would try and buy these when they come out. If you like money. Or if you like flowers