Bleeptrack: NFTs & Art - A Toxic Relationship

My first contact with NFTs was with “Cryptokitties”: virtual cat pictures that can be swapped or even crossed. The gimmick has since become a popular technology that is also used by museums, galleries and artists to trade digital art. As an active digital artist, I am very interested in this topic and would like to take some time in this newsletter to organize my thoughts on the subject.

NFTs, blockchain & art - three misconceptions

What are NFTs? NFTs, or 'non-fungible tokens', are unique data sequences that can be generated, stored and then traded on a logically linked data chain - the blockchain. Rather like a digital image - only not visually represented, but translated into a series of zeros and ones. The creation and trading of NFTs is subject to a fee.

1. NFTs do not make the art market more inclusive

Unfortunately, crypto art does not deliver on its promise to democratize the art market. The fees alone for selling art on a blockchain can generate considerable costs that small artists cannot necessarily afford.

This is because the generation of NFTs is expensive - it consumes a lot of energy in the computing power for the blockchain. And that currently also means high costs and high emissions.

2. the blockchain is not meritocratic

One of the solutions is to simplify the decentralized computing process. In the “proof of stake”, the way in which the individual blockchain nodes reach consensus is changed. Originally, whoever contributed more computing power to the system had a greater say (“proof of work”), but now the node with more tokens (i.e. objects on the blockchain) has a greater say. Power is therefore given to those who are already powerful: however, this also makes the decentralized network centralized again.

3. NFT purchase is not the same as art ownership

When you buy an NFT, you do not acquire any rights to the art object; you have merely bought the blockchain entry.
Established blockchains, such as Etherium or Tezos, are often behind the trading platforms. The artworks are then not even stored directly as a blockchain entry, but end up on outsourced servers. And since Bitcoin currencies come without a guarantee of existence, this creates a problem. If the temporary platform or image server closes, the NFT purchase is invalid.

NFTs have changed my concept of art

My genre is generative art: a set of rules is defined, according to which a whole series of artworks can be created. These are usually pictures, but it can also be music, text or anything else. Rule sets can, of course, be perfectly captured in code, which is why generative art is mostly found in the digital world. The term “procedural generation” is particularly well known in the field of computer games, but also “generative design” in component development.

Now the NFT world has discovered generative art particularly quickly. Sure: create thousands of images that can be sold at a high price with just one click of the mouse? Bingo! And unfortunately, the artists who disclosed the source code of their projects were quickly left behind. Images from their generators appeared everywhere on the well-known NFT platforms. This led to discussions about licenses that prohibit the use of the generated images as NFTs and, to my great regret, the source code of many projects disappeared [https://twitter.com/marceloprates_/status/1450136242285383690, https://twitter.com/kcimc/status/1435281948839223296].

I find this development particularly worrying and unfortunately have no solution at hand. It was out of the question for me to convert my projects to closed source and so the only thing left for me to do was to change my point of view: the individual image has no value. The generator - the variety - the whole package: that is the work of art. And nobody can take that away from me by putting a few of “my” pictures on Bitcoin and declaring them their property.

Give art freedom, only then does it become valuable!

Digital art thrives on being freely viewed, exchanged, tried out and modified online. NFTs undermine this philosophy of early net culture by declaring every digital object to be property. Even as an artist, I keep asking myself: why should we want to strengthen the idea of ownership in the digital world?

However, NFTs are here to stay and will not disappear any time soon. I have actively decided against this technology and have thought a lot about how I can work against this speculative trend and for free art and free knowledge. I would like to share my thoughts here and yes - they are not new. From an artistic point of view, however, they may bring a few new aspects.

1. open source

Digital art can also be “open sourced”. Maybe not always as nice and easy as code, but it often works quite well. In my case, it's actually particularly easy, as I work with generative art and that is based on code. But visual artists can also share their 3D projects, for example, to give an insight into their working methods. It becomes more difficult with classically painted pictures, because the individual digital brushstrokes are rarely recorded and cannot be manipulated later. But seeing for yourself how someone handles layers, mixing modes or other settings can be enormously helpful for others. Open sourcing also makes archiving much easier. If the source code is available, there is a much greater chance that someone will take the time to port the code to a new system in the future and bring it back to life.

2. “Pay what you want”

Art should absolutely not be a luxury and I find the above-mentioned use of art objects for speculation terrible. That's why I try to sell my generative art under the “pay what you want” policy as much as possible. There are projects where this works particularly well, such as the pictures from my pen plotter. The material price is very low and the biggest expense per plot is time. It's even easier with digital images, because the effort required to create an image is practically zero, which is why I prefer to let people create their own images using an online version of the generator.

But there are also things where this is difficult. For example, with physical objects such as my generative circuit boards: here I have to pay quite a lot in advance and then have to ask for a fixed minimum price. However, this shows that cross-financing is very successful! Some people are happy to voluntarily pay more so that others can get a circuit board for less or even for free. So far, I have also been able to give away circuit boards to apprentices.

3. enable direct use.

Publishing the source code is one thing, but publishing a directly usable or playable version gives many more people direct access to the art project. The aim here is to keep the barrier to use as low as possible. Of course, how this can be implemented depends heavily on the project. But here are a few suggestions: in my case, it is of course another generative art project. I publish the generator as a website, possibly with building instructions if you can generate parts for the laser cutter, for example. With video games, it is practically a matter of course to publish an executable version. But what can you do with a board game? Perhaps there is a printable version of the board and pieces for you to take home. Sure, it might not look as good, but it's still fun! Especially with physical installations, the idea of “rebuildable at home” is a factor that needs to be considered when planning the project. And I would very much like to see many interactive projects that incorporate this idea!

At this point, however, I must also say that freely accessible art projects are unfortunately also a poor source of income. Instead of relying on an unregulated speculative market, society needs to find a solution here. Patreon and other donation-based projects are a good start here - but they are basically just a privatized version of an unconditional basic income. And so NFTs actually have a positive aspect: they have fueled the discussion about art ownership and artist financing and thus brought these issues to the attention of people who had never dealt with them before.

So my final appeal is: let art be free! Make art, share knowledge and start a conversation. The KI Salon is a fantastic starting point for this.