NFTs are Bad For Art
So NFTs are a big thing at the moment. Personally, I’ve been getting a bit obsessed with them in the same way that I got a bit obsessed with videos of people dunking on the new Lion King when that first came out. I’m currently writing an essay on xerography (i.e. photocopiers) and how they were used in Queer activist art in the 80s and 90s. A major reason it appealed to artists was the way it allowed them to make almost infinite copies of their work, allowing its wide distribution and avoiding capitalist commodification. So something that is basically doing the opposite — taking a medium that is inherently replicable and turning it into a commodity — is pretty relevant to me right now.
First off, I just want to say that I’m no expert in this, I’ve read/watched quite a bit on it but there’s some pretty complicated tech stuff in it that’s way beyond my field of understanding.
So now the obligatory definitions — NFTs are lines of code on a blockchain that confer ownership of a specific digital file to someone. A blockchain (in extremely simple terms) is a collectively stored record of actions. Information can’t be edited once it’s added, and it can only be added to the end of the record (hence the chain). Adding new information (whether an NFT, a transaction or something else) takes a lot of energy and computing power, as it involves many people’s computers solving complex equations. But once information is added, it’s permanent and doesn’t rely on a centralised authority to maintain it.
NFTs function like a certificate of authenticity attached to a specific file. So no matter how many times the file is copied, only one instance of it is linked to in the NFT. This was created to solve the “problem” of digital objects being infinitely replicable and turn them into commodities that can be traded.
There are a couple of major issues with this. First of all, certificates of authenticity for real-world artworks are created either by the artist or trustworthy institutions. They exist to assure the buyer that it’s a genuine work by that artist. Even for photography, where identical unauthorised copies could easily be made, the certificate gives reassurance that that particular print was part of the artist’s intention for the work. However, anyone can make an NFT of any image, and there have been countless instances of artists having their work stolen and made into NFTs. The website DeviantArt implemented software to alert artists of their work being sold as NFTs, and they’ve found hundreds of thousands of instances of this theft. There was even a case of a recently deceased illustrator having all her work sold as NFTs without the knowledge of her family. Some platforms will refuse the creation of NFTs if they’re informed that the work is stolen, but not all do. So if it’s not actually assuring authenticity, what’s the point of it?
Like I said, it’s all about taking digital files which can be infinitely replicated without any change and making them more like physical objects for the market. It’s about creating false scarcity to increase value. Since the development of photography and printing, the art market has struggled to maintain itself within its capitalist, art-as-commodity model. One way it’s done this is by creating false scarcity with things like limited editions and certificates of authenticity. People often say that NFTs are good because they’re a way for digital artists to make money from their work, however I don’t think replicating harmful capitalist concepts like false scarcity is the way to do this. The only people who benefit from this is those who trade in these commodities, certainly not artists who are constricted in what they can produce and constantly at the whims of the market, and certainly not those who want to enjoy the work. A better and more equitable system would be one that removed false scarcity entirely, allowing everyone to share in all available resources rather than limiting access to them for the good of The Market.
Capitalism is not good for art or artists. False scarcity is not good for anyone. A genuinely radical future for allowing artists to be financially supported to produce work wouldn’t rely on the work itself being commodifiable, and a genuinely beneficial financial future wouldn’t rely on depriving people of resources to make those resources more valuable. This would require an entire overhaul of our understanding of economics, but those who promote blockchain technology already say that’s what they’re doing.
