From the Digital, to the Physical: Exploring Aura in Cryptocollectibles
I can imagine standing in front of the painting, the three women are paused mid-motion, a static twirling trio. The quirky wallpaper, the numerous disjointed eyes staring out, the black mask-like figure in the background, the vivid blue of the sky framing the women. While I cannot currently stand in the Tate Modern, I can remember the presence of this painting. Since studying The Three Dancers by Picasso during my undergrad, I have always been transfixed when looking at this painting and looking at the digital version on the Tate website provokes memories of wandering the Tate galleries with friends and family, staring deeply into the work and letting its unique presence take hold.
This unique presence of an artwork is also known as aura, an idea which derives from Walter Benjamin’s well-known essay on the mechanical reproductions of artworks. Here, he argued that reproductions lack the ability to recreate the aura of an original. In arguing this, Benjamin suggests that reproductions lack a sense of authenticity, something which recent literature now disputes. Indeed, the research of Adam Lower and Bruno Latour (2011) set out the argument that aura can migrate to reproductions. Using the case of the Veronese’s Nozze di Cana (Wedding at Cana), they highlight how reproductions can give an auratic experience which can even exceed viewing the original. Their argument lies in the question of the quality of the reproduction rather than questioning whether an artwork is an original or a copy. In this way, they break down the dichotomy logic between an original and a reproduction.
Migratable aura proposes a form of authenticity which does not relate to material and objective truth. This form of authenticity is also referred to as a constructivist approach to authenticity as the concept depends on the viewer’s own perceived sense of aura (Jones, 2010). While this is not to suggest that materiality does not matter when determining authenticity, it does offer a way to think about the authenticity of digital objects.
For example, Sarah Kenderdine and Andrew Yip (2019) explore how digital immersive experiences of reconstructed UNESCO world heritage site the Mogao Grottoes in Gansu Province, China can convey auratic experiences for visitors. They propose that ‘the proliferation of aura in digital objects’ depend on the experience and interactions between visitor and object which enable the viewer to relate and connect to the meaning and histories the object represents (Kenderdine and Yip, 2019, p. 23).
A similar conclusion is made by Stuart Jeffrey (2015) who examines how co-production can play a role in building perceived authenticity by communities in three-dimensional (3D) modelling of archaeological objects. The process of transforming the physical into the digital and re-materialising this into the physical helps to create a sense of ownership as the 3D printing offers a haptic presence which is otherwise lost in digital objects. Therefore, engaging others in the methods of digitising and re-materialisation can create a sense of personal aura which is also reinforced through the ability to physically touch the work, creating a sense of ownership.
Aura, in these instances, has formed around these digital reproductions and it is the re-materialisation which has made this happen, allowing viewers to comprehend the digital in a space they are familiar with.
Aura in the Cryptocollectible
This idea of re-materialising the digital into the physical space to create an auratic experience is salient when reflecting on my research on blockchain and the arts. My research involves working with digital objects known as ‘cryptocollectibles’, which is a type of token exchanged on a blockchain. Blockchain is an open decentralised ledger system which offers a way of tracking the digital exchanges of tokens in its network. Its original use was for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as the technology provides a way to trace the transactions taking place for each Bitcoin in its system. In this way, blockchain can be used to trace the ownership of any token and so provides an element of scarcity to these digital pieces of money. Cryptocollectibles are like pieces of digital art which engage in this idea and use blockchain to store and provide provenance and ownership of digital artwork. For the Internet Art movement, this is an exciting opportunity as it offers artists a way to sell their digital artwork without the issue of trying to prove authenticity or ownership.
Born-digital artwork reside in the online space, we see it through a screen. But, recently I across the Meural Canvas, digital art frame which lets you display your digital artwork. With their app, you can crop, filter and change your art on display, giving you flexibility in what and when you want to show certain pieces.
Using a Meural Canvas, born-digital artwork, like those stored through cryptocollectibles, can be materialised in the physical space. We can size and place our digital artworks wherever and whenever we want to (within the limitations of the canvas), giving us the opportunity to enjoy a digital work in the material world. In thinking about auratic experience, a Meural Canvas could offer a similar engagement of presence as those described by the re-materialisation of digitised artefacts. Digital artwork can begin to feel more ‘real’ through its physicality, it could take on a new form of aura which might not be realised through a smaller screen. In other words, this process of enlarging a digital artwork and placing it within the physical space of a room can help to form a new way of looking at the artwork and this can form a sense of aura and perceived authenticity to those who view it.
This is significant because the digital is a difficult concept to grasp for many, indeed, the concept of a digital world can seem strange and confusing for those who have not been brought up on a diet of digital. From their perspective, it can be challenging to consider digital art as something of value and with aura when compared to a physical artwork. Products such as a Meural Canvas could provide a way of realising the value and aura of a digital artwork by materialising the work into a space which is familiar. In doing so, this process merges the physical world with the digital world, breaking down the barriers to the digital space and forming value in digital artwork.
References
Jeffrey, S. (2015) ‘Challenging Heritage Visualisation: Beauty, Aura and Democratisation’, Open Archaeology. De Gruyter, 1(open-issue). doi: 10.1515/opar-2015–0008.
Jones, S. (2010) ‘Negotiating Authentic Objects and Authentic Selves: Beyond the Deconstruction of Authenticity’, Journal of Material Culture, 15(2), pp. 181–203. doi: 10.1177/1359183510364074.
Kenderdine, S. and Yip, A. (2019) ‘The Proliferation of aura: Facsimiles, Authenticity and Digital Objects’, in Drotner, K. et al. (eds) The Routledge Handbook to Museum Communication. London: Routledge. Available at: https://wiki.epfl.ch/cultural.data.sculpting/documents/Kenderdine%20and%20Yip.pdf (Accessed: 5 May 2020).
Latour, B. and Lowe, A. (2011) ‘“The Migration of the Aura, or How to Explore the Original through Its Facsimiles”’, in Bartscherer, T. and Coover, R. (eds) Switching Codes. Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts,. Chicago, U.S: University of Chicago Press, pp. 275–297.
