How the future of NFT’s will empower artists forever
Non-fungible token (NFT) art is taking over the world and the future of NFT’s will give more power to artists than ever before. If you’re unfamiliar what exactly NFT’s are, they are digital assets that exist on a blockchain system that cannot be replicated or reproduced — a unique token. Think of the Mona Lisa for example — there is only one original Mona Lisa painting and even though it can be replicated or copied, there will never be two original Mona Lisa paintings.
If we look back in time, traditionally an artist would create a piece of art and hope to get the opportunity to present their work at a gallery. The majority of gallery-artist agreements work on commission, where the artwork is displayed in the gallery for a certain period of time. Nobody makes any money until the artwork sells, and at this point, the two parties split the sale according to the agreed commission split (usually the gallery would take anywhere between 30% and 50%).
After the artwork is sold, the artist loses contact with that piece of art and will not benefit from that piece of art again. Fast forward to the new era of digital art, “the gallery” is now a peer-to-peer online marketplace (such as OpenSea) who take 2.5% of the earnings once the art is sold, while the artist takes home the rest. Wait, it gets better. Not only does the artist earn the majority of the sale (as they should), but the artist is also paid ongoing royalties (up to 10%) for every single time the art is resold to a new owner. As Gary Vaynerchuk says in his latest book “The number of people pre-NFT who could earn $219,000 a year as artists is a fraction of those who will be able to in 2031. NFT’s are going to do for artists what social media did for people with personalities”.
Not only do NFT’s give artists a tremendous opportunity to monetise their work, but they also allow artists to establish a direct connection with their buyers and nurture that relationship, like never before. They put artists back in the drivers seat by giving them true insight of who their audience is and who is buying and selling their art at any given time — because everything is recorded transparently on the blockchain.
Damien Hirst, one of the UK’s richest living artists, recently released his first NFT project. He launched his collection The Currency — which is an artwork in two forms. Its physical form is 10,000 unique hand-painted A4 sheets covered in colourful dots. In the same way as paper money, each sheet includes a holographic image of Hirst, a signature, a microdot and — in place of a serial number — a small individual message. The second part of the artwork is that each of these hand-painted sheets has a corresponding NFT.
But this is where it gets interesting, he has given buyers 12 months to choose whether they want to keep their digital NFT or exchange it for the physical equivalent.
If collectors do not exchange their NFT within the exchange window, the corresponding physical artwork, currently stored in a vault in London, will be destroyed. On the other hand, users that exchange their NFT for a physical artwork will have their NFT destroyed. If you’re a collector, the choice is yours.
Think about this for a second — on July 27th 2022, Damien Hirst will literally destroy the unclaimed physical pieces of art, disintegrating thousands of dollars of value into thin air. (At the time of writing, just 1288 NFT’s out of 10,000 have been exchanged for the physical equivalent). It certainly begs the provocative question at the core of this social experiment: do we preserve the traditional art world, or do we burn it down, in favour of the digital?
“This project explores the boundaries of art and currency — when art changes and becomes a currency, and when currency becomes art. It’s not a coincidence that governments use art on coins and notes. They do this to help us believe in money. Without art, it’s hard for us to believe in anything.” — Damien Hirst
What excites me here, which Hirst has perfectly executed, is the merge between the physical and the digital. Art is created to be enjoyed, but how do you still get this feeling of enjoyment with digital art? If your NFT locked away in your digital wallet on your computer, perhaps not as much as if it was physically hanging on your wall?
This is where projects like Muse Frame come in and help the art industry during this inevitable transition. The Muse Frame is basically a bridge between physical and digital worlds — an NFT dedicated smart frame that allows collectors to enjoy and showcase their digital art collection seamlessly and safely. The Muse Frame software is built on a foundation of provenance which, very important for the art world, allows collectors and gallery’s to show ownership verification of their collection.
Suddenly you’re living in a world with elegant NFT frames rotating immersive digital art on your walls: art that can even change and evolve over time. It’s a pretty exciting time to be alive, isn’t it?
To the artists who grew up and thought “I’m going to be the next Banksy”, but settled for a safe job in the advertising industry — this is your moment. Technology is about to create an opportunity that we haven’t seen in the history of mankind. Now is the time to cash in on your passion.
