“The art world — a realm populated by masterpieces often hailed for their transgressive, controversial and taboo characteristics — regularly butts against standards of decency and good taste in the fight for freedom of expression. Throughout history works of art have been altered, silenced and even erased due to unacceptable content, whether the motivations for censorship were religious, social or political.”
Frank, P. (2015)
On NFTs
When I spoke to Laura on the 20th April we discussed briefly the idea of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in regards of being an option of presentation, or a potential aspect of discussion as NFTs despite their short life thus far have already stumbled into controversy in regards to ownership (and subsequently on discussions of censorship). Back in early March I became aware of NFTs in part due to the RJ Palmer vs. tokenizedtweets controversy, Palmer ultimately highlighted and suceeded in making the tokenizedtweets account to become suspended by Twitter.
Whilst I have only just decided to discuss NFTs in my CRJ, Palmer’s comments in the thread in part influenced my sanitization image, particularly in regards to the following paragraph: “The art community has been so preoccupied with art theft and copyright NFTs, the realization that someone can attach a nude to an NFT is truly horrifying. Someone can just sell a photo of your body without permission. What the fuck do we do about that?” (Palmer, R. 2021) Given I discussed at the start of the module the rise of deep fakes that rather realistically ‘nudify’ images uploaded to it, the rise of the NFT becomes even more concerning as not only can you be stripped against your will, but an individual can then sell it without your permission.
Palmer is not alone in having his work stolen, a Gizmodo article on the topic mentions a redditor who had his work taken by the Wu Tang Klan. Interestingly it seems artists are divided on NFTs some are embracing the notion and others are mocking with artists like Ben Grosser whose series Tokenize This (2021) (Figure 2) outright mocks the notion of NFTs commodification of art to a speculative finance crowd. The series is one of self-destructive images which are only visible once, any attempts to copy or share a link leads to a 404 Not Found error, meaning the art is transient and no longer visible once you exit or reload the page, making it impossible to become a NFT. Tokenize This ultimately is a commentary on the state of the digital art market’s capitalist and corporate ties. This intent aligns to comments from art historians who compare the development of NFTs as being the return to the commodity, Duchamp sought to destroy, Joselit summarises:
“Duchamp used the category of art to liberate materiality from commodifiable form; the NFT deploys the category of art to extract private property from freely available information.”
Joselit, D. (2021)
Despite Grosser’s series mocking NFTs longevity, by making his work transient, the irony is that some individuals who have bought NFTs have found them disappearing before their very eyes, leaving behind a 404 error, the image rendered invisible and inaccessible. Grosser’s perspective aligns with older net artists like Stromajer who see it instead as part of “…a wider trend, started by the constraints and censorships of social media, which he calls the meme-ification of post-internet art.” (Stromajer, I. [in] Lawson-Tancred, J. 2021) However, not everyone is of the opinion that NFTs are solely bad news, some like Jan Erichsen have happily embraced this new method of displaying and selling work, going so far as to do a promotional clip to highlight his selling of NFTs in a new rendition of Flower Thief, he wears a mask of blades and lunges forward to burst a pink balloon now labelled ‘NFT’ (Figure 3). Erichsen’s NFTs are relatively simple looping GIFs of videos he’s previously uploaded to Instagram, however other artists have produced more interactive and sculptural pieces, such as (Figure 4) O’Reilly’s You Are Here (2020) which offers you an experience to scroll, zoom, click and drag around the galaxy.
Those buying into NFTs, are not the usual art market collectors, differing in taste according to Sotheby’s specialist Max Moore who states in a New York Times article that the buyers “…are primarily younger and more digitally native than other collectors…” (Moore, M. [in] Small, Z. 2021). Little is known about whether or not NFTs will be merely another hype and ubiquity as other net art like Virtual Reality or early internet art before the dot-com bubble burst. In years to come will these pieces face the same obsfucation as early works as technology moves on and software and hardware that support these current iterations become obsolete. The MCN insights blog considers the development to be highly speculative due to the ethical and financial liabilities that have already become an issue – the disappearance of images, being but one aspect.
Project Development
The past few weeks I’ve spent building up my latest set, an OO scale fenced area, which has been particularly awkward to assemble, as it has been fairly fiddly to make a convincing fence, in a semi-urban setting with grass and tarmac (Figure 5). However I think it’s paid off in it’s effectiveness in Figure 6 which is an outcome which has deviated from my original building intent – instead of referencing to military censorship, I have decided to produce an image which is arguably more of a personal comment on how it feels to be a young woman on the internet, how I have to constantly think about what I post, do or say in an attempt to avoid those from the manosphere and their graphic rape threats. The fence is a metaphor for the boundary of societal norms deemed acceptable for all, and the glass dome is a metaphor for the invisible barrier, with the interior area a metaphor for safe content women can post without attracting unwanted attention.
References
Figures
Figure 1 Palmer, R. (2021) Cool new scam artists should be aware of tweet. [Online] Available from: https://twitter.com/arvalis/status/1369230566843813891?s=20 [Accessed 01/05/2021]
Figure 2 Grosser, B. (2021) Tokenize This demonstration GIF. [Online] Available from: https://bengrosser.com/projects/tokenize-this/ [Accessed 01/05/2021]
Figure 3 Erichsen, J. (2021) Flower Thief (NFT promo). [Online] Available from: https://mobile.twitter.com/janerichsen/status/1380880382275559431?lang=en and https://www.apollo-magazine.com/digital-artists-nfts-bubble/ [Accessed 04/05/2021]
Figure 4 O’Reilly, D. (2020) You Are Here. [Online] Available from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vnqw/david-oreilly-you-are-here-crypto-auction and https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/you-are-here-16036 [Accessed 05/05/2021]
Figure 5 Murray, J. (May 2021) Set Building Security Fence (OO gauge)
Figure 6 Murray, J. (May 2021) WIP: In a Bubble
Bibliography
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Erichsen, J. (2021) Foundation app. [Online] Available from: https://foundation.app/janerichsen [Accessed 03/05/2021]
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Jasmine Murray Photography 