What is it like being an artist “on the blockchain”?
One month ago today, I got my first rewards vested on creary.net for digital works I’d made and uploaded to their network. This wasn’t my first experience with art and blockchain, but it has been the most engaging and enjoyable one so far! So, I thought I’d write up my experiences so far and sort of chronicle what it feels like to me in this space.
What is ‘art on blockchain’ really?
‘Blockchain art’ or (the vague misnomer) ‘crypto art’ is often compared to early ‘Net art. It is probably an overused analogy. While I am sure that there will be new art forms that come out of the experience of artists and blockchain technologies (indeed, there already have been some good examples of this), I think the main contribution this technology will make in the art world is a growing awareness that peer-to-peer (p2p), by-passing the traditional gatekeepers of the art world (and hopefully not just replacing them with other gatekeepers as many existing internet platforms have done), is the future.
The one thing, ironically, that seems to unify this movement is its diversity — of people, of styles, of forms, of mediums. Think of the early punk movement (the 1970s, that is; not the recent cryptopunks!) and think about the diversity of music that arose from that. I expect the same will happen in the crypto art world and over the next few years, we will see what emerges. It is important that, as a community, we embrace this diversity and nurture it.
Although blockchain is certainly a component of crypto art I’d certainly not want to exclude the great work of artists such as Trevor Jones like his crypto themed augmented reality work from being included. (Not that I think he’d care one way or the other! And it is just that attitude that, to me, embodies just what crypto art is!)
So, I don’t think crypto art can be limited to just those works ‘on the blockchain’ or those works that directly make use of blockchain technology. This is one of things that makes it resist those attempts at definition that seek to narrow the scope of what is or, more particularly, what is not labelled what or even trying to decide what labels to give things. (Maybe we can just stop needing labels? Maybe?)
Recent experiences
What has my experience, particularly over the past month, been then? Nothing if not interesting!
I initially approached digital art in a way similar to my approach to any other medium (because to me, it _is_ another medium at an artist’s disposal), which is: “What can I do with this that I can’t do in other mediums?” That means I’ve played with AI algorithms, Deep Dream, fractals, glitches and other things inherent to manipulating digital images. This, by the way, has very sweetly coincided with desire to explore colour in more depth. Being able to digitally separate colour channels and manipulate them will be an integral part to that exploration in a way that would not have been available to me in any other medium.
People and Places
To be honest, none of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for Creary. I have always thought of myself as a physical medium artist and the primary thing I was looking to solve in the blockchain space was tying physical pieces to certificates of authenticity and provenance information recorded securely (and accessibly) in a distributed ledger like blockchain. (That is something I will continue to try to do, but it’s not there yet!)
I found Creary to be the most straightforward and well designed sites backed by blockchain tech that I have come across. It was instantly engaging and extremely user friendly! If you do digital art (or have ever wanted to try to learn!) I’d highly recommend creating an account and sharing your work there.
Being a part of the Creary community has been a real bonus to my experiences so far in many ways. Primarily, it has led me to try things I would have never tried otherwise (glitches for example) and provided the incentive to experiment with my images and see what new creations could be made. I almost compulsively take photos of things I find interesting. Now, I had a use for those photos. One of my next projects will likely be to take my photoroll from Flickr and create some photo book projects out of them on Creary. It also means that I have a record of the development of my projects and the progress I’ve made towards finding my ‘digital style’ (diverse as it is!). I’m looking forward to building skills and learning new ones; and I’m keenly interested in how this will all feed back into my practice with physical art (as I’m sure it will!).
The conversations and interactions I’ve had with other artists both on Creary, on Twitter and through the Group for Actions in Cryptoart (Telegram Group — ask for an invite if you’re interested!) have highlighted the common ground shared by artists pretty much anywhere and in any medium. They have also made the real issues that need to be addressed clear. There is much work to be done. It is high time we just started doing it! There are some inspiring people out there doing some incredible work and I count myself lucky to be at least a little bit a part of it.
Going back to the original question: “What’s it like being an artist ‘on the blockchain’? Well, at the best of times it kinda feels like you are a part of re-creating the world. So, I think rather than ‘crypto art’ or ‘blockchain art’ being about a particular artistic style, theme or medium, I think it is more accurate to think of it as a social movement consisting of groups of people trying to imagine a better and fairer way of putting art out into the world. I don’t think crypto art can actually be defined as such, any more than getting agreement about what 1970s punk actually was; but we will see the effects of it for years to come, and we will look to the actions taken now by artists, the works produced, and the experiences had during this time as clear signs of a shift in the way art interacts and manifests itself in the world.
