In my creative life, I’ve always been drawn to the digital realm. Although I used ink and paint for most of the art I made, I dabbled in graphic design projects on Photoshop and Illustrator. One thing I appreciated about creating art digitally was that it set me free from physical limitations. It was easy to erase, I could move objects around, and I could change colors when I changed my mind. And using layers was amazing! Something completely different from the way we create art in the physical world.
Throughout my life and in my experience with art, I’ve always encountered the argument that digital art was somehow less valuable than a physical piece of art. The most common argument I heard was that it was cheating. It was too easy to make lines, you had all these tools to help you, and in the end you had something on a screen, not a tangible artwork from the artist’s hand.
I never bought these arguments. I saw it as another medium with more tools to use. If you have more tools, you have more possibilities. Are we not supposed to discover new possibilities and utilize them? And for me drawing on a tablet or Cintiq isn’t all that much easier than pencil and paper. I still have to do all the same things and pay attention to the details. If you have a power drill instead of a screwdriver does that mean you’re cheating? Sure, you may be able to do things faster, but you still have to know where to put all those screws! Time is valuable. If you can do the same thing in less time, you have more time to think about and create other things. That’s something to embrace, not reject.
It makes me think about the advent of digital photography. I lived through the transition from film, and I heard very similar arguments. Digital was cheating because it was skipping the process of developing film. And the digital photo was just on a screen, it wasn’t the same, it wasn’t as real.
When it came to digital art or photography, I didn’t agree that they were less than. They were just different, and new. But I did recognize that the art world didn’t accept digital art yet. The biggest problem I considered with digital art was how easy it was to duplicate and copy. And this made it hard for me to use the medium in the ways I wanted to. I created drawings digitally, then printed them out in limited editions, for example. That seemed like the only way to have some control over the value and scarcity of the art. And even then, I would still get that same pushback that the origin was digital rather than “hand drawn.” But they were still hand drawn! I used a stylus on a screen vs a pencil on a paper, not so different. But even so, why should that matter? Why wasn’t a mouse an acceptable creative tool? But people to this day have a hard time recognizing and accepting this.
With these hurdles I continued to do things digitally, but not as much as I would have liked. Digital took a backseat to my physical work. Professionally, for example, there would always be an issue of licensing, and protection of the file! I had to trust my clients and they had to trust me that the artwork was only going to be used for the agreed purpose, and that there was only one, original file. It worked for the most part, but there was no real peace of mind. What if a client shared the file, or used it for something else? What if someone stole a copy of the file, what might happen with regard to its intended purpose and its value? How could you trace the original? Who owned it if everyone had a copy?
Then came blockchain technology and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). It’s finally possible to tokenize an original, digital work of art. Ownership is possible, scarcity is possible, and provenance is possible. This changes the game. For someone like me, it’s one of those things I’ve been waiting for. I didn’t know I was waiting for it, but now that it’s here, I realize the possibilities and where this is going. It’s an exciting time! I feel fortunate to be involved in the crypto art world at this stage, first with a drop of selected works on Nifty Gateway, and now with a drop on SuperRare. These are online marketplaces where artists can sell their work to collectors, and collectors can resell to others from their collections. The creation of the artwork and each transaction is recorded onto the blockchain. Now that gives me peace of mind for a piece of mine.
As more people understand the potential this brings and cross over into the ‘block side’, there will be more acceptance and it will become the norm. One thing that remains an issue, at least in people’s minds, is how easy it is to copy the imagery of an art work, even if it’s tokenized. These days it’s easier than ever to grab a digital image. You can literally screengrab from your phone. I think this is the main point of contention with digital art as a whole, because it’s different from physical art in this way. We have been accustomed to valuing something we can hold and own that isn’t easy to recreate or copy. With digital art, it’s not in your hands, and the image can be easily copied, even though you can own an original artwork. That’s counterintuitive to a lot of people. But it’s just part of this new realm, a byproduct of innovation. It’s just a different normal. We will become more familiar with valuing digital art and distinguishing between the art itself and ownership of that art, and in the future we will wonder why everyone made such a fuss about something so obvious.
