Art Crusade vol. 3

Crypto Art

Mar 10, 2021

Over the last week, there has been a lot in the news about crypto art, NFTs, and making money with digital art. Always being curious, I thought I should explore this somewhat new world and a new market for digital art. I did not expect how much time and effort I would have to devote to educate myself on cryptocurrency and the digital art market.

So what is Crypto Art?

To understand the world of crypto art you first have to understand what an NFT is. An NFT or non-fungible token is a special type of cryptographic token which represents something unique; non-fungible tokens are thus not mutually interchangeable.

Think of an NFT as a certificate of authenticity. An artist can verify that this is the original image, gif, movie, music, etc. Non-fungible tokens are used to create verifiable digital scarcity, as well as digital ownership. It is said that NFTs are the first digital signature that you can not counterfeit.

You can make digital art that no one can counterfeit.

This is important since Art gets its value from scarcity.

“The emerging space built on blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize how people make art, buy products digitally and express themselves more uniquely on the internet.” - Gary Vaynerchuk

So it is all sunshine and rainbows then?

It is a bit of a gold rush mentality at the moment and "artists" are flooding the market. It is difficult to sort through the rubbish bins for the treasure and works by known and upcoming artists.

There is also an often overlooked ecological cost.

To create and maintain this level of digital encryption on a global scale, it takes an enormous amount of computer power and energy. This is very real energy, which takes massive amounts of computers, electricity, and cooling for the computers. A single NFT can involve many transactions. These include minting, bidding, canceling, sales, and transfer of ownership. After creating just one NFT, I now have second thoughts about creating more.

At this point. I’m curious, but cautious.

Further watching:

The Video That Will Get You To Start Your NFT Journey
Gary Vaynerchuk

It is not only Art

NFTs are not just for art. Musicians, videographers, and authors are using NFTs to authenticate and monetize their work.

The Kings of Leon will Be the First Band to Release an Album as an NFT. https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/kings-of-leon-when-you-see-yourself-album-nft-crypto-1135192/

When You See Yourself - Kings of Leon

Watching:

Tron is the 1982 cult classic about a computer programmer, Kevin Flynn(played by Jeff Bridges), who is digitized and downloaded into a computer world.

One of the things that drew me to the film even before I knew who he was, is that French comic book artist Jean Giraud (also known as Moebius) was the main set and costume designer for the film. The design and graphics were ahead of the time, especially considering computer special effects did not exist at the time.

Tron is the inspiration for the artwork in the newsletter this week.

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