“Black on White Möbius IFS IV”

Made by Johan Karlsson, his page 

“Falling Upwards into the Giants”

Made by Black Sneakers, their page

“Cells 1.0”

Made by Noah, his page

“Haze aesthetics #63”

Made by NEURAL HAZE, Neural vaporwave NFTz aesthetics.

After browsing many of the NFTs on several different sites, I’ve come to see so many variations of digital and physical art made within the community. Out of the hundreds I viewed, these four caught my eye with their movement, color, tone, etc. Two of the NFTS were found on Hic et Nunc, and the other two were found on SuperRare and Foundation.

Within many of the amazing artists within the NFT community, I’ve come to see how several artists present their work to the public and how their style carries throughout their work. But also I’ve realized how impersonal some of the work is on these websites. Since they are mostly based on aesthetics and graphics, I’ve found really beautiful visuals but with little to no meaning? However, on #BlackNFTMonth, I did find a lot of purposeful art that represented very powerful symbolism and imagery.

Out of the websites that I viewed, I felt that Hic et Nunc had the most art variation and style complex. It also had a lot more of abstract art that I could read more into than just solely aesthetic art. But I did enjoy both SuperRare and Foundation. It was super fun to browse around and see the extent of how art can be distributed and seen to millions across the world. As for every artist, I never really seemed to remember certain names, but it does seem like the farther you go down and scroll, the more variation you see within the pieces. I’ve also noticed how different and similar a lot of the art pieces can be compared to each other. Styles such as geometric shapes, animation and cartoon with people, and just unique visual stances, a lot of the pieces were jumbled on top of each other, making it harder to focus on one. Overall, I had a really fun time scrolling on these websites and finding some really cool art.

1. NFT 1 Textile Techniques 01 by zachdarren
   
2. NFT 2 A moment of light. by spongenuity
   
3. NFT 3 Here honey let me straighten your tie by this person
   
4. NFT 4 CryptoSnail by @im3dartist
   

So, words brain is bad right now but I guess we’re gonna do this anyway:

Looking at the endless scroll of NFTs on my screen reminds me of the good ol’ days when tumblr.com was a prime platform for sharing artistic content: two squares of Amazing Content, ten squares of Decent Content, and three squares of content that makes you question why humans possess the ability to create. NFTs seem to take this to an elitist extent in some cases, though, with people selling art that worships the ethereum currency for thousands of dollars and the low, low, price of ecological destruction. In other cases, like hic et nunc, it isn’t so bad, where there’s a digital platform to distribute one’s art but it also is founded upon the use of a digital currency that isn’t ethically, eh, bad. That being said, I doubt hic et nunc has the overall traction or presence that other sites such as foundation have, and therefore the method by which you peruse its art is a bit unrefined, in my opinion.

Who makes this art? Artists. Or, in the case of the fourth work listed above, devout worshippers of online currency that–I’m trying to keep an open mind here–are probably okay-ish people, but like… why do art that is that openly based off the snail from an ill-remembered DreamWorks movie and cites a particular mode of currency that is (despite whatever positive impacts it may have) not environmentally good as a source of hope? I don’t know. The idea of holding any sort of currency in that regard just seems so disgusting to me.

Who goes for this art? I think it depends on which platform one observes. I’ve been told that hic et nunc is supported in part by artists supporting each other’s work, but if we talk a walk over to foundation you’ll see things going for the equivalent of tens of thousands of US dollars, which, I don’t think your average person has to spend on art in a single purchase. Therefore, I’m looking at sites in the tier of foundation as supported by uber-capitalist tech bros who care little about the environmental impact of NFTs, rather than a well-meaning community.

Immersion

https://foundation.app/studioknife/crypto-artist-s-routine-6111

This piece called “Crypto Artist’s Routine”  is by Studioknife and owned by Mondo. The piece was sold for 3.608 ETH. Instantly, I felt that this was a genius piece of art. It pokes fun at the stereotypical trope of the hyper-obsessed gamer child-man working in the basement of their parents house getting sunlight  once every two days. The ominous green and the intricacy of all the flashing technology  captured my attention at first glance. What really pulled it all together was the title which just made me literally laugh out loud. The more I looked around I was able to see the smaller details that the artist considered. Around the overwhelming scene of wires and monitors, there are small remnants of the crypto-artist daily routine including copious amounts of red bull, soda, cigarettes, and pizza. Initially, I found this piece to be humorous and then I began feeling pity for this generated figure. The man is easily triggered by the decline of the ETH price. This points to my personal feelings toward the destruction and dissatisfaction of the love of money. For me, I don’t think the practice of selling cryptoart is necessarily a black and white situation. However, it can easily be distorted by one’s perspective and devotion to the practice. A haunting symbol of this piece is the headgear, covering the person’s eye,  with a multitude of wires connecting to an unknown source. Without interpreting too much, I just assumed that it could represent a sort of obsession or puppeteering from an overarching theme. 

https://foundation.app/katherine/sparklepuregreen-nrg-leaves-7175

I despise this piece because it makes a profit out of someone just eating fruit. It is so strange to capitalize on something I do not consider art. It just seems too easy to get thousands of dollars out of a fruit-eating video. Interestingly enough, I looked into her website and found out she is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.  To be fair, many youtubers also make a huge profit from making “mukbang’s” which are basically videos of them eating. This comes in many forms such as ASMR, food challenges, or tempting and deliciously arrayed banquets. I am guilty of participating in the mukbang culture, especially when I am dieting and need some motivation. These youtubers and streamers make thousands to millions of dollars by just eating, a popular pastime of people worldwide. However, there are many critics of the mukbang world, often calling it “glorified binge-eating” nudging into the consciousness of a community of those suffering or recovering from eating disorders. As I get back to the main point of this artist’s video, I would also like to point to OnlyFans or other fancam based networks. At the root of these websites and applications is the feticization of human figures or actions. I find this pretty atrocious and do not support it morally. This is the reason why I was repulsed by the simple video of this artist eating. It may seem like an extreme opinion but to me, I see some underlying hints that I just cannot stomach. 

https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/fiat-vs-bitcoin:-nbatopshotthis.-20819

This is an artwork by Jon Noorlander showing a figure representing bitcoin as this basketball player stomping multiple other players representing fiat. Fiat money refers to physical money- both paper and coinage. The contrast using the red and the lighter gold and green in this piece is phenomenal. Just like the first piece I found, I think this is a light and playful piece. Obviously, it is talking about a more complex issue about the rising influence of bitcoin over fiat currency. One thing I noticed that I would have changed, personally, are the paper money figures that leave a visible shape after being crashed into. I think it doesn’t give the satisfaction of defeat when there is some residue of a figure left rather than the idea of disintegration. 

https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/objkt/5946

This is an interactive artwork made by tz1Q4…3rX8G who I found a lot of interest in. This particular piece is relevant to our class because of the project we did with generative and interactive coding. I enjoy it because it doesn’t just exist as a still image that the buyer owns but it provides some interaction with anyone who views it. When you aren’t motoring the project, it orbits on its own. I think this type of design would attract certain types of people. 

These pieces almost read to me as artistic research. Two of these pieces are more entertaining and the other two appeal to niche audiences. 

Works I feel strongly about.

Hand Touching Stones, by Eva Papamargariti: https://foundation.app/evapapamargariti/hand-touching-stones-3249

This is the kind of gif that should only exist on Tumblr while you’re scrolling through your dashboard. It has a charming stupidity and absurdity to it which I admire, but of course it just has to be sold using ether. It baffles me as to how it exists, and I want to know more about it and why it was created.

Captivates me: Pain: https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/objkt/9589

This piece is the kind of thing I’d see literally made by children when they first start out on MSPaint, posted to their first Deviantart page. It’s either a true piece of angst or is a wildly authentic feeling recreation of one. I lean towards the latter given the title, description and tag are all “Pain”. Even so, it brings me back to an earlier time, and given its on hit et nunc I’m a little less irritated by its existence. If the artist can really sell it for 5 tez per edition then more power to them.

I detest: Yosemite Falls by Coldie: https://superrare.co/artwork/yosemite-falls-1201

It makes my blood boil to see this person wax poetic about a time before fires ravaged the west coast, how the clouds of this piece symbolize a better future, etc etc etc while engaging actively in using one of the more environmentally dangerous cryptocurrencies. This dogshit piece is selling for 15 ether @ list price. Visually, it’s perfectly serviceable. In fact the clouds and burnt edges of the piece could mean a lot if it wasn’t destroyed by its own oxymoronic, ridiculous ignorance.

Dog “Dark Companion” by Konogatari: https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/objkt/9475

This one is charming!

Overall, the landscape of NFTs seems to be dominated by easily consumable artworks. In my experience, I didn’t come across a piece of art that not only made me think (there were a few of those), but invited me to think. (Both about it and the world around us.) There were a lot of tech demo looking pieces, many of which were rough enough that it was almost uncomfortable to look at. Under this umbrella were also generative artworks, but many just looked lazy and uninspired.

I found a lot of photography as I was scrolling, but much of it had those ‘sketchy’ filters overtop to make it look artsy. This feels like instagram except it kills even more of the environment. These marketplaces with perhaps the exception of hic et nunc make me sad because there could be some incredible opportunities for artist friendly marketplaces online, but we get this instead. Anyways, back to the photography: it’s all wallpaper shit. A high contrast photo of a contact lens. A picturesque view of the Tetons. It feels, again, bland. There were some photo collage works that looked more thoughtful and less like screengrabs from google images. I actually felt something looking at those.

I think right now, the vast majority of NFT artworks are cashgrabs. I don’t have any high opinion of what art should be, I don’t need to be chastised for thinking art should be x, y or z. These marketplaces, primarily Superrare and Foundation, really seem to be catering for the easiest dollar. The lowest apple hanging on the tree that looks ripe. It’s frustrating, and I want to see more illustrative works but at the same time..I think that would be even more frustrating. I can feel a bit of separation between myself and works shown there because we do different styles of art, if the work I do was represented more obviously there, I think it’d just be more heartbreaking.

My favorites:

1. Title: the appropriate loss of control
   Artist: @xcopy
   Link: https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/the-appropriate-loss-of-control-5882
   Screenshot:
   

2. Title: Bitcoin Chart
Artist: @pocobelli
Link: https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/bitcoin-chart-21679
Screenshot:

3. Title: Blond
Artist: @benabstract
Link: https://rarible.com/token/0xd07dc4262bcdbf85190c01c996b4c06a461d2430:164314:0x1c9fefb363361b303f9ab3cb08395cf863461784
Screenshot:

I don’t absolutely detest this, but it makes me feel uncomfy for some reason >.<
Title: Bop_BOp
Artist: @strack
Link: https://foundation.app/strack/bop-bop-7967
Screenshot:

Written response:

There was such a diverse selection of artworks that it’s difficult to explain a common element throughout, but I guess the most obvious commonality was that it was all digital. NFTs don’t sell any physical artworks; thus, the artworks themselves are very digitized rather than hand drawn. Some are still images that have been highly manipulated while others are animated loops that seem very professionally made. 

The price range of the ones I saw surprised me because I thought that some artworks that were admittedly not the best were priced very high while the ones that I thought were fantastic were not bid at all. I came to the realization that many people that are buying the NFTs are not just buying to own the artworks themselves but to invest in them and sell them in the future in order to hopefully make a profit. When there is no demand, people seem hesitant to be the first to bid. Therefore, even though some artworks are better than others (even though art is subjective), the bid price may have a psychological effect on the people buying.

I also noticed that many of them seem reminiscent of surrealist paintings. However, instead of painting the objects, the artists either rendered them through software or manipulated multiple pictures and put them together. For NFTs, I think interactive artworks are missing. I wish there were art pieces where when a user clicks on a certain area, the artwork perhaps changes.

1. AM  04  by  @jorencull

I absolutely ADORE Where’s Waldo?-type art like this with a lot going on. You can zoom in and find something new every time you look at it; it’s so incredible. If anyone else is really into these, there’s this awesome subreddit called r/wimmelbilder where artists post things like this!

2. OLD MONEY CORRUPTS VI @missalsimpson

I also really love collages, and the changing colors/gif aspect of this one was a really lovely and captivating touch.

3. Lockdown by ?

Though this one is really simple, I found it quite charming. It reminds me a lot of something I would make, so I was quite drawn to it.

4. Eruption by @macomoroni

This one I find incredibly disturbing. There were a lot of hyper-realistic animations with super surreal concepts I found scrolling through these sites, and though I can see how much work went into making this (something I can really appreciate), the video and the sounds and everything about it are not for me.

5. first poem to be sold as nft by @nikolatosic
In contrast to my “This is not for me, but I appreciate the artistry” feelings about many of the pieces I saw (like the one above), this is just straight up the laziest, most annoying things I’ve ever seen. I mean, seriously? To be fair, I’m not a poet, but I feel like this hardly qualifies as a poem, let alone one that should be sold for $183.71 (the current bid at the time of writing this).

After exploring all the art- just scrolling through- I noticed a lot of surrealist, 3D animated, clay animated, cartoony, and pixelated artwork (at least, those were the ones that most stuck out to me). There also seems to be some photography and even just screenshots/text of things. But, most of the artwork I saw overall look to be digitally created somehow or another! I think that points to what really came off as “missing” to me, which was hand-drawn/hand-painted/hand-something’ed works. Though I definitely saw a few, it seemed kind of rare to scroll past one.

There’s a lot of peculiar and almost meme-esque work that I saw, and even an interesting amount of cannabis/drug-related creations, leading me to believe a lot of the artists posting these NFTs are young. However, I am a little confused about who is buying them. A lot of the art, I felt, is geared toward a more millennial and Gen. Z audience, but a lot of them are being sold for the equivalent of thousands of dollars – disposable income I thought would be more common with an older audience. Regardless, the look of these creations are incredibly modern and exciting, and I think that the people selling them were previously struggling, young artists who have found a new and blossoming outlet with a lot of interested buyers.

This may be a hot take, but part of me thinks the excitement over this new medium will die down soon. Though I suspect it’ll always remain a large industry, I think that it’s currently reaching its peak that I find really common with other pop culture fads. But as of now, I think a lot of the people posting these are posting because it’s a new opportunity to establish a following and make money, and a lot of people are buying them because of the modernity and exclusivity of the medium.