At the Edge of the Metaverse: Just what is it that makes today's art so different, so non-fungible?
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At the Edge of the Metaverse: Just what is it that makes today's art so different, so non-fungible?
By Dr. Peter Humphrey, Cultural Theorist & Content Creator
20 years ago I remember going to the toilets in a modern art museum in Europe and as I walked towards a urinal I saw that all of them had been manufactured with a signature on the bottom: “R. Mutt 1917.” These mass produced urinals were a reference to Marcel Duchamp’s infamous “Fountain” artwork, where the artist submitted a signed urinal to an exhibit. Was this a challenge about what was allowed to be called art, or was Duchamp pissing on Western art culture, like I was in the museum? Probably both, and people have been equal parts dumbfounded and offended by the Turner Prize ever since. I wonder what happens when we take all of this to our emerging virtual reality? Is metaverse art the future, or will it be confined to the the sewer of history?
One of the art forms that appears in the Metaverse discourse is NFT (non-fungible tokens) art. NFTs have been promoted as early examples of the kind of digital ownership that will be the norm in our future virtual lives. Companies like Bored Ape Yacht Club convinced people to part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in return for complete and guaranteed ownership of a picture that unlocked access to online events. I can actually understand the appeal of this. I like the idea of a token that can grant access to certain things, opening up new worlds and experiences. I think some of the success of the Bored Ape Yacht Club lies in their ability to attach both a narrative and an aesthetic to their products. Each ape exists in a collection and they’ve released add-ons such as “Mutant Serum” that gives you the option to “mutate” your ape. And why wouldn’t you? I see this kind of NFT as a combination of a Pokemon card and a bus pass: it’s a cool little thing that also gets you somewhere.
However, when it comes to NFT art there is a confusing mesh of ideas and concepts going on. On the one hand, some artists are simply using NFTs and the blockchain technology therein as a way to fund their art. In this case, the “artwork” is made into an NFT which gets sold, but they are still making their art, be it an illustration, painting or video, it just also gets made into an NFT. On the other hand, some are actually talking about and promoting NFT art as a new art form in and of itself. It is this latter claim that is particularly confusing. NFTs simply utilise a technology that verifies a user as the official owner of some content. The content is fine (and can be reproduced ad infinitum) but its the ownership that counts, it’s the ownership that is being sold. And ownership is not an art form. So who benefits from this charade? Here are a few ideas.
PIXEL NFT 3D ART: Fountain (Duchamp) by deepwarp
Digital artists
I can see why many artists who create with digital tools would encourage hype around “NFT art” - it has allowed them to make money from their work. This is a situation many creatives can sympathise with. NFTs are presented as the magic acronym that will somehow turn the tide against profitless work. I have seen them promoted in various entertainment and creative sectors as the answer for all manner of monetisation woes: release your album as an NFT, make your drawing an NFT, make an NFT out of your sex tape. The internet has given a wide range of content creators an audience, but it hasn’t given them a steady pay check. NFTs have offered some hope that this could change. It has also enabled creators from outside the art-industrial complex to gain the kind of attention normally reserved for big-name artists like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.
Art Museums and galleries
In recent times, museums (just as adept at the hype game as any tech startup), have been guilty of rechristening digital art as “NFT art.” To repeat myself: the only thing that qualifies digital art as NFT art is if it has a blockchain that verifies the owner. So really an art gallery of NFT art should be blockchain code. That’s its defining feature, that’s what separates it from all the other new media art forms we already have going on. Investing in 4k screens to exhibit digital art is fine, but its not a requirement for NFT art. Surely looking up the most famous “NFT art” on Wikipedia is more “metaverse” anyway. Of course, NFTs aren’t limited to digital art either, even though that particular aesthetic seems to be the only one labelled “NFT art.” A company called LaCollection currently offers art museums the chance to create digital twins of their back catalogue.... which can then be sold. So whether capitalising on the craze for futuristic digital art or selling off art history one NFT at a time, galleries and museums have plenty to gain.
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Metaverse boosters
Metaverse proponents have shrewdly found a way to connect the hype for virtual living with the craze for NFT art. It’s another aspect of life they can simulate virtually: you own art in real life, why wouldn’t you own art in the metaverse? And there is a cross-over here. The value of NFT art is predicated on the security and universal recognition of blockchain ownership. The metaverse aspires to a similar level of trust and universality. When we start paying for things in the metaverse we want to know that they will work everywhere within that virtual world. Trust has to be earned. Everyone knows that tech companies love to change the device we use to consume the content we’ve already bought. I can’t even insert a CD into my new MacBook. All these issues are nothing new, and NFT art is nothing new. Art has always been considered non-fungible, since it can’t be replaced by an identical item. This is exactly what Duchamp’s Fountain challenged and demonstrated.
The hype surrounding the metaverse is a perfect match for the art world in its current state. Both can simultaneously feel like the NEXT BIG THING and also like a scam. Art has this lofty place in our minds. It’s a legitimator. I can urinate into one urinal but another one has a signature on it and sits behind velvet ropes with an attendant who would not offer you cologne and a mint should you attempt use of it. The art gallery, the attendants, the all important velvet rope - they seal off the art work from the everyday. All these objects, these institutions, legitimate the exhibit’s status as ART no matter how banal or bad it may be. But this situation can also arouse suspicion and the NFT art phenomenon has a lingering wool-over-eyes whiff to it. I cant help but look back at the high aims of the modernist avant-garde art groups who wanted to articulate and imagine a new future, whereas NFT art seems content to just sell it. As Homer Simpson shows us though, art can be used to justify lots of things - so why not NFTs, why not the metaverse?