Recently, Beeple, the famous digital artist sold one of his NFT works for $69 million at Christie’s. But how does it all work, we found out.
There’s really so much going on in the times we’re living in, that sometimes one loses track on what to keep on top of.
But lately, it seems like the world is turning heads over a new, so to say, ‘art expression’ that is becoming very popular, with famous artists choosing to identify themselves through it.
The New Art
You have probably seen and heard that the latest original Banksy, was burnt and destroyed in a live-streamed video, and then later sold via a digital token representing the work for $380,000 (£274,000).
The work was sold as digital art through NFT (non-fungible token) technology, but what blew me away is that this ‘type’ of art has no physical presence and can be reproduced, offering only an online ledger of ownership to its buyers.
That’s what triggered me to find out more on the matter, and a young fellow volunteered to answer all of my questions.
Art Domi is a 3D motion designer, passionate and curious about the newest practices of the digital art world.
We at Youth Time Magazine wanted to draw more from his perspective on the latest, popular NFT ‘trend’. So read on for more details!
So, what is all the NFT buzz?
As the audience reading this is probably more or less aware , a non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data on a digital ledger called a blockchain, where each NFT can represent a unique digital item, and hence, become interchangeable.
NFTs can represent digital files such as art, audio, videos, items in video games and other forms of creative work.
While the digital files themselves are infinitely reproducible, the NFTs representing them are tracked on their underlying blockchains and provide buyers with proof of ownership. Blockchains such as Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Flow each have their own token standards to define their use of NFTs.) –
In a nutshell, we’ve been hearing a lot about the unbreakable and decentralised system of the cryptocurrencies.
Being the unique system that it is, the blockchain, in order to maintain itself, uses all the ‘miner’s’ computers to validate and secure all data that gets transferred each day.
This gives the possibility to ‘tokenise’ any data that gets put into the blockchain web, meaning that whoever owns that token, can decide it’s worth.
Being able to tokenise artworks, verify and validate ownerships of the file is how NFTs attracted a lot of artists as well as collectors.
It looked like a win-win situation, where the fan can support its favourite artist and own his digitally created works too. Below we spoke to Art Domi about this new phenomenon.
NFT 101
What aspect of digital art is NFT impacting the most? And What does NFT mean especially for young artists?
Up to date, we can see a variety of digital artists getting involved in NFT’s, ranging from digital illustrators, to cool feature film visual effects artists.
The NFT impact started to get noticed as soon as the seniors of this field started landing hundreds and thousands in cryptocurrencies from their artworks.
Up until now, the abstract category was always a hit. It looked like a trend that it won’t go away anytime soon.
Through today’s technology, the artist’s imagination is unlimited to the terms of exploring, that’s why this category was also a major hit in terms of the possibilities it allowed for expanding the artist’s imagination.
Target for Collectors
The NFT category is the main target of collectors all around the world. We can definitely notice its evident rise, as many of the new artists try to make it into the crypto-scene.
With that being said, we can notice the growth in NFT hashtags too.
Some people are also referring to those artworks as ‘NFT art’.
In my opinion, this whole NFT trend is impacting the amount of effort and love that new artists put into their works.
I know that always through history, artists have had difficulties monetising their work of passion, and often not being able to survive on one’s art.
Now, seeing the masters getting valued highly for their work, (which has taken a real amount of time), the young artists are rushing into their work, meaning they are missing out on the meaning attached to their work and overlooking the message.
The NFT Experience
What is your experience with digital art?
I started editing videos with Windows movie maker when I was about 10 years old. Later on, I started watching tutorials on visual effects.
Since then I have tried many tools and experimented a lot on computer aided design. I dropped out of Architecture college in my last year to pursue my career in visual graphics generally on my own.
Currently I am working at a Visual Effects Studio pulla.tv . The last two years with Pulla, I’ve been learning a lot and watching the advertising industry from up close.
Producing a variety of videos for advertising purposes. In my free time I experiment a lot with tools and render engines to learn new ways of expressing myself.
Photos: Art Domi
From art tech to medical tech, how will this look in the near future?
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