you are
witnessing, or missing, art/human history change right in front
of your eyes
If you are new to this, half paying attention, or a flat out
skeptic...let's make something clear.
NFT is a MEDIUM, like painting is or movies are or music.
In each of those is plenty of garbage like the movie "Paul Blart
Mall Cop", if people paraded that around as an example of film,
like people parade around 16bit pics of a panda, people would
laugh out loud at the idea of paying to see a movie. But
Paul Blart is not the exactly the panicle of film is it? And it
would be absurd to show that as high film work instead of
Apocalypse now.
So...when next you hear "NFTart" think THIS
Yeah...as different from a 16bit cat as Apocalypse now is
from Paul Blart.and there is everything in between
NFT is a new medium and it is being explored,
to my mind the best nft art are things that could not
exist in any other medium...not really. This here is an example
of something I've done that I can explain why it only could be
an nft...
Seems like a simple animation, and it is...however I could not
do this even in a "cartoon" because the frames of a cartoon are
on the screen for split seconds. The viewer would not be able to
take in all the detail, I would have to move the camera in to
show the men at the cauldron. There are several things happening
at once and a lot of detail and the viewer's visual perspective
does not have to change. The viewer can remain looking over the
shoulders from the back of the room and still be able to take in
what is going on far ahead...without it getting bigger.
Make no mistake, there are already masters of NFT art using and
creating more advanced techniques and doing mind blowing visual
work. That piece above took about 80 man hours. That's about
average for a legit piece, though everyone works at their own
speed.
So, when you get shown a 16bit pic of a kitty...that is not the
tip of the spear that is creating this revolution. That is "the
Spice Girls" not "David Bowie".
Let's back up to a bare bones explanation of what a piece of #nftart is.
Being that it is 2022, many if not most artists work with
digital tools, so a work of art they create exists as a digital
form/file. Meaning there is no painted canvases to hang, no
sculpture to put on a pedestal. It is no less a work of
art though...sooo...how will we in this modern age pay these
people for their work and have ownership of their work?
Some
clever people figured out that they can attach ownership of that digital art
file to blockchain technology, which is what cryptocurrency is
rooted in. .
That art/file, although digital, now is unable to be duplicated,
because any duplication/copy of that file would not be attached
to the blockchain. the NFT is not simply the file, it is the
file combined/attached to the blockchain. Make sense so
far?
That file/digital art that is attached to that blockchain is an
NFT.
That is a crib notes explanation, if you delve deeper and
read/hear a different explanation...that's fine, this is enough
for you to get the general idea, though.
It now being unique and it's single ownership able to be
confirmed, makes it able to be owned and thus able to be bought,
sold, given....collected. Collected like physical artwork, or
statues, or baseball cards, or first printings or records, or
first edition books. You could have a reproduction of a Willy
Mays rookie card, or a reproduction of a Picasso, or a reprint
of Grapes of Wrath...but they would not be the original. That
might not matter to you, and that's fine. To other people that
has great meaning. Have you seen the end of Citizen King? A rich
powerful tycoon's last thought are of a sled he had as a child.
Human joy is a very very precious thing. a valuable thing. a
reproduction of his sled would have been frowned on. A
reproduction of a Willy Mays rookie card may look the same, but
it is not the same. It will never have the same emotional value
as holding the card that was created when Mays was alive and
young and not yet a legend.
A copy of a digital file may seem like a different thing, but it
is not. That file was created and added to the blockchain itself
by the artist...verified...dated. There is a profound connection
there.
Perhaps you are still wondering why someone would pay money to
"collect" work that is not a physical thing...uhm...do you have
Itunes? Did you pay for the movies and songs you have there?
Well...guess what? You collect works that are only digital.
With that sorted out, let's move onto the fact that we are
watching art history itself. Simple things that are just the tip
of the iceberg like, making the canvas any size or dimension you
want, having the canvase change it's perspective, mixing digital
and collage and traditional tools...
Very few times since mankind has crawled out of the caves has
there EVER...been a new creative medium. This is the advent of
the printing press, the invention of recording sound, the
invention of "moving pictures" . Think about the affect music
has on the world, movies have on the world, books have on the
world. Now think about what the world that was before we could
record sound, make movies, print books....before the masses
could enrich their lives with these things...or at the very
least use them to help forget their lives when life becomes
unbearable, taxing or needs to be fled from temporarily.
All those ways of art touching peoples lives was, by and large,
absent before those inventions. NFTart can and likely will have
a similar affect.
Think about all the innovations that have come to those mediums
since their inception. Thousands of years music had not changed
much, then recorded sound and we went from Big Band to Jazz,
Pop, Rock and roll, Rap and hundreds of sub-genres. The
instruments themselves changed, as did the ability to merge
them. A violin player in Japan can collaborate with a master of
the synthesizer in California. Think of the music and lack of
variation of it in the early days of recorded sound...and look
at what we have since.
NFTart is that level of invention, that much of a new medium,
for the art world.
A oil painter in Brazil can collaborate with
an animator in Florida and a sound editor in
Chicago...oh...that's right, you can have sound.
You...as an artist...can create an image, make the image move.
make the tones/hues change, add sound! The only limit is the
size of the file. Allow me to give a little of the nuts and
bolts of why this is all so exciting as an artist...
You have an image, a painting let's say...there are basic
visual, unavoidable, elements that need to be taken into account
for the composition of that image to be appealing. "It's an art
not a science"...is a odd saying, because there is a bit of
science to art, and composition is slave to that. BUT...if the
image moves....that means the composition can move! The visual
center can move, the way you lead they eye and the way to put
emphasis on certain aspect can change! The mood can be set by
the music, the movement, the pacing...and the visual can
contrast or work with that.
A static image allowed none of that, a purely animated clip can
have that but details are often overlooked/unnoticed by the
viewer. That WAS the give an take between a short film and a
piece of art that is static. WAS. But now you can have that
movement while STILL loading up the details or the color
gradients or patterns, because that image is not only going to
be a brief moment in a film or animation...that brief moment IS
the piece. and the viewer can watch over and over and take it
all in, for as long as they wish to.
I'll use the gif of the Aliens above as an example, not just
because I am an ego maniac, but because it's visually simple pop
art-ness makes it easier to explain. As a static image the mood
and fantasy would be less, because the hand would not twitch
(leaving it up to interpretation how long it had been since
victimized) , the smoke would not move (leaving it less
menacing, less tense ), the space craft could be interpreted as
en route, instead of hovering. The eyes would not move, and I
would have to choose if I wanted them to be looking and the
victim or the viewer. See what I mean? If a picture is worth a
thousand words, and NFT might be worth a thousand pictures.
Suddenly there is a whole box full of tools at our disposal, so
many that it is just what I've called it - a new medium.
It is revolutionary. It is visionary...and visionaries have come
to play.
We are seeing...in our lifetime an absolute art revolution.
Artists from all mediums, all backgrounds, all disciplines, or
even no discipline are ALL...CONVERGING...ONTO THIS NEW MEDIUM
AT THE SAME TIME.
Look up Cambrian evolution explosion if you are unfamiliar with
the term. That's what we are at the beginning of.
That is what we are alive to see and have front row seats for.
You don't need to collect anything, if that's not your
interest...but as long as you have a pulse and a shred of human
curiosity, you're going to want to soak this in.
Soak it in, like you are seeing Dizzy Gillespie pick up a
trumpet for the first time, or the Rolling Stones at their first
live tour, or Jimmy Hendricks deciding to try the guitar, or
Public Enemy picking up their mics with the express intent
making the whole country pay attention...or perhaps Johnny Cash
realizing simple and straight forward is how he wants to express
himself.
Because those are the likely parallels of what is going on and
what is about to start happening. Unprecedented combinations of
skill, talent and perspective merging with an unprecedented
level of artistic possibilities.
Rather than just plug my own work or favorites...which would fly
in the face of the spirit of exploration that this whole thing
is for artists, collectors, and even spectators...here as some
links to NFT sites, look around, spend time, enjoy yourself.
You'll see a WIDE range of talent, skill levels, and
styles...and given the natural order of things, that wide range
might also never been seen again.
Get a weekly email
from the writer illustrator of Arsenic Lullaby.
Some week's it's a sneak preview, or a long
rant, or news about new projects before we tell
anyone else, or a discount code. HERE
