{"id":5303,"date":"2023-03-27T20:58:43","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T20:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/27\/the-story-of-nfts-artists-technology-and-democracy-review\/"},"modified":"2023-03-27T20:58:43","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T20:58:43","slug":"the-story-of-nfts-artists-technology-and-democracy-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/27\/the-story-of-nfts-artists-technology-and-democracy-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of NFTs: Artists, Technology, and Democracy (Review)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The significant drop in the price of Bitcoin<\/a> from $47,000 to $16,000 in 2022, along with a related fall in the average price of NFT art from $3,200 in 2021 to $1,200 in late 2022, led many commentators to declare a \u201ccrypto winter.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

But, the authors of The Story of NFTs: Artists, Technology, and Democracy<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>a new book released on March 7 with Rizzoli<\/a> \u2014 offer a different metaphor. Co-author Amy Whitaker<\/a> <\/em>told nftnow that the structure of NFTs and crypto is similar to hiking in Yosemite, where there had been a forest fire several years earlier. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe giant trees survived from unharmed roots. The mid-sized trees were decimated \u2014 absolutely charred, like giant blackened toothpicks. The forest floor was covered in a chaotic and verdant regrowth.\u201d Whitaker continued, \u201cWe are seeing something similar today. The forest floor is the most interesting because that is where creator royalties are changing the structural economics of being an artist\u2014or creative worker in any field.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe metaphor for the current state of crypto I prefer is a wild fire. It does burn high and low, trees and bushes, but there is always, always a reforestation after with a new vegetation growing\u201d. Amy Whitaker on the bear market @theamywhit<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, Amy\u2019s book is coming out soon pic.twitter.com\/pXZR0ZmBvL<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 \u2726 \u028f\u1d00\u0274\u1d00 \u2726 (@yanasosna) November 28, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In the past couple of months, the arts field has seen some NFT artists be recognized by stalwart \u201cgiant tree\u201d institutions: So far, in 2023, the Centre Pompidou and LACMA announced major NFT acquisitions<\/a>. And in December of 2022, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum staged the first museum retrospective of NFTs<\/a>, curated by Tina Rivers Ryan.<\/p>\n

Whitaker\u2019s co-author, Nora Burnett Abrams<\/a>, a director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, echoed the forest fire analogy. \u201cWe are already witnessing\u00a0new approaches to art-making, presentation, and collecting,\u201d Burnett Abrams said. \u201cAnd excitedly, the invitation to new audiences and other stakeholders to participate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Credit: Addie Wagenknecht<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Their book aims to place NFTs in a longer root structure of conceptual art practices, dating back to Sol LeWitt\u2019s Wall Drawings <\/em>from the late 1960s. The practice of issuing certificates of authenticity for conceptual artworks echoes the function of the NFT as recording ownership of an artwork \u2014 a set of instructions \u2014 that would be hard to \u201cown\u201d otherwise. <\/p>\n

Whitaker and Burnett Abrams take readers through the economic precursors to NFTs, too \u2014 the 1971 Artist\u2019s Reserve Rights Transfer and Sales Agreement<\/a>, which allowed artists to claim 15 percent of the increase in value when a work of art resold. <\/p>\n

As blockchain platforms debate resale royalties<\/a>, this history of artists\u2019 activism puts recent innovation in a longer context.\u00a0The book is structured around the many intersecting stories of NFTs \u2014 not just the \u201cmoney\u201d and \u201ctech\u201d stories of crypto but the \u201cartist\u201d and \u201cdemocracy\u201d stories of shaping the future too. <\/p>\n

If \u201cwinter\u201d is an arms-length metaphor for cooling, the forest fire is an idea of regrowth. As Burnett Abrams says, \u201cI\u2019ve always thought of artists as the \u2018seers\u2019 who help pull us to the future.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Story of NFTs<\/em> pulls in Whitaker\u2019s work as a longtime blockchain researcher and professor, and Burnett Abrams\u2019 work at MCA Denver to create an uncommonly warm invitation to the art-history prequel of NFTs \u2014 as a set of foundational questions for the future. It also happens to be a gorgeous coffee table book, with Addie Wagenknecht\u2019s vibrant Rainbow Eugene Man<\/em> gracing the cover.<\/p>\n

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Anne Bracegirdle is a partnerships and web3 strategic advisor for FKB Studio, previously VP of Business Development at Metaversal<\/a>. She co-founded Christie\u2019s Art+Tech Summit in 2018 and the Art & Antiquities Blockchain Consortium. Find her at @annebracegirdle<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n