NFT is a type of cryptographic token. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it is non-fungible, which is not inherent in the nature of tokens. Over the past two months, the popularity of NFT has grown dramatically, and unique digital artworks are already being sold by the world's auction houses. Let's figure out what it is and how it influenced the art world.
How it all started
On March 3, an anonymous group calling themselves "art enthusiasts and NFTs" set fire to Banksy's original $ 95,000 seal live and posted a digitized, single version (NFT) to investors for auction. After a five-day trading war, this NFT token sold for 228.69 Etherium, which is the equivalent of $ 380,000.
The painting "Morons (White)" by British graffiti artist Banksy was not meant to be destroyed and resurrected in the virtual world in 15 years. This shows that NFT tokens are becoming an increasingly common and legitimate means of copyrighting an art object.
NFT (pronounced "nifty") is a means of marking any digital object as the only original. These tokens have a unique blockchain-based ID that goes all the way back to the original. This ID is a kind of digital signature of the creator, proving the true authenticity of the material.
Non-NFT objects essentially have no originals, only countless copies. On the other hand, only one or several versions of a work pass through the blockchain, which makes this or that material unique. Due to this exclusivity, NFTs can be owned and sold in exactly the same way as other physical objects: hand-painted, for example.
Winckelmann's first 5000 days
In February, Christie's launched the two-week auction "Everydays: The First 5,000 Days" by Mike Winkelmann, a graphic designer better known as Beeple. Christie's said the work was the first all-digital NFT ever to be auctioned.
The starting price was only $ 100. A few hours later, the cost had already risen to $ 1.8 million, and by March 9 it had reached $ 8.3 million. The auction lasted until March 11.
Winkelmann has long been at the forefront of digital art based on NFT. He set a record on the Nifty Gateway platform in December 2020 when a series of his works sold for more than $ 3.5 million.
“Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” is a collage of 5,000 images that Winkelmann has been making every day for 13 years, honing his computer drawing skills. When he finished and posted the picture on the Internet, he was overtaken by immense fame. This collection shows his growth as a designer and artist.
“This is truly a diary of technology, my life and the world for the past 13 years,” says Beeple.
Winkelmann's cartoony, sometimes monstrous images of prominent cultural figures became a provocative hit among young people. This has earned him 1.9 million Instagram followers and designer gigs with brands such as Nike and Louis Vuitton.
Asian collectors were the first buyers of Beeple's NFTs. A collector calling himself MetaKovan, rumored to live in Singapore, bought everything, 20 copies, but one of them was auctioned off last December.
MetaKovan already owned an impressive collection of NFTs, including a portion of the racetrack and a digital race car designed for the F1 Delta Time. It is a blockchain racing game powered by the Ethereum platform. These objects cost him 223 and 113 thousand dollars, respectively.
“This is not just a referendum on Beeple's work. This is a referendum on a completely new environment for the global art market. He's a pioneer - the game changer, ”says Jehan Chu, a cryptocurrency investor and art collector.
NFT - a necessity or a way to make money?
Many in the art world see NFT as more than a temporary fad that solves authentication problems in a technological way. At the same time, some believe that investing in the art that fuels the NFT is nothing more than a way to make money, and has nothing to do with art.
“I think NFT tokens are interesting, but definitely not revolutionary. It is rather old-fashioned to think that there is something magical in a work signed by the author's hand, different from copies, ”says Blake Gopnik, an American critic.
The controversy over truth and authenticity is not new in the art world. In 1966, Andy Warhol, an American artist and designer, posted a note in The Village Voice magazine asking them to bring him random items that he signed and exhibited with the original Warhol.
"Warhol played games, joking with the silly belief that a signature and only a signature can authenticate art," says Blake Gopnik.
NFT currently
Now people are ready to pay millions of dollars for anything: for avatars from video games, videos, paintings, and more. For example, the first tweet from the Twitter co-founder sold for $ 2.9 million. The proceeds will go to charity.
The Pringles CryptoCrisp tuba is up for auction: just an MP4 file, but at the moment the highest bid is almost $ 1,700 (about 129,000 rubles).
In addition, Time magazine auctioned three magazine covers in NFT format. The highest rate at the moment is 27.5 Etherium, which is equivalent to 3.5 million rubles.
Interesting details about Winkelmann's work
Beeple says that among his works featured in Everyday, there is a mocking cartoon of Kim Jong Un wearing a Pikachu cap. His other work depicts two people drinking milk from pipes connected to a hybrid of Buzz Lightyear's milk machine. They called it Buzz Lightmilk.
"He has such a stupid smile on his face ... a kind of analogy to capitalist oddities," - says Winkelmann of the frequent appearance of Buzz Lightyear.
Even after he has completed his life's work, Winkelmann will continue to improve. He also claims that he has never deceived anyone, and for 13 years now, Mike has been uploading a new image every day.
Beeple recalls with horror the day when his entire series of photographs could have ended. He was on a night flight to Brazil for a conference. He had to post a finished photograph before takeoff. After an hour of flight, he doubted that he had emailed the photo.
“It was just brutal, very brutal eight hours of flight. I turned airplane mode on and off to catch the network, but there was hardly a cell tower over the middle of the Amazon rainforest, ”he recalls.
When the plane landed, Winkelmann immediately checked his mail. Luckily for him, he still didn't forget to post that image. The series of photographs continued every day.
