What is Sedition
Hello and welcome to Sedition’s brand new Medium blog! 👋
We’re happy to open our Medium blog and here we will be publishing a lot of various content. You will find general articles related to our company updates, articles related to NFTs and cryptocurrencies, Meet the Team articles where we will introduce you to the Sedition team, information about art and blockchain events where Sedition participates, guest articles by our artists, collectors and industry opinion leaders — and so much more!
What could be a better way to start this blog though than by introducing Sedition and quickly recapping its history and where we’re heading…
Sedition is the digital arts platform that was founded back in 2011 by Harry Blain. In 2013, Rory Blain became the company’s CEO. Harry and Rory Blain both come from the traditional physical bricks-and-mortar art background, having respectively founded and managed contemporary fine art galleries Haunch of Venison, Blain Southern and Blain’s Fine Art in London, Paris, Zurich and New York.
Their experiences in the traditional art world significantly informed the founding of Sedition as they noticed how privileged and inaccessible the world of fine art could be. Few people can afford to buy their own Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst masterpiece — the majority of people are completely cut out of the market by the price tag of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
This viewpoint informed the very founding idea of Sedition — to democratize access to fine art, to turn art collection from a privilege accessible to only a select few to a possibility open to all. The way to do this was in bringing fine art into the digital domain — and so the concept of a digital limited edition was born. Private collectors can buy these digital limited editions for very affordable prices and they can enjoy the artworks they own on screens and devices anywhere in their world. By making editions digital, everyone can have their own original artwork by Tracey Emin or an original piece by Bill Viola — and they no longer have to take out a second mortgage to pay for one!
In addition to selling digital limited editions, Sedition now offers a subscription service, called Art Stream — through which you can enjoy everything! We understand that not everyone immediately knows what they want to collect and wants to try how different art would fit before jumping in, and Art Stream is a perfect vehicle for that. For just 15 dollars a month (or 10 dollars a month, if you buy a year in advance), you get to enjoy the entire collection of artworks on Sedition’s platform. Our subscription model does not undercut the collecting and scarcity model of digital limited edition, as subscription does not give you access to sold out editions. Instead, subscription actually underpins collecting by offering subscribers a 10% discount on any purchase on the site.
Besides edition sales and subscription, Sedition is also involved in public licensing. All artworks on Sedition can be licensed for public display to brighten up any public space by purchasing a PDL (public display license) from Sedition. We’ve done public displays in collaboration with hotels, restaurants, lobbies, waiting rooms, professional conferences, concert stadiums, bespoke public events, airports and other transportation hubs, as well as corporate collections, property developers, interior designers, museums and sometimes the canvas of a city itself! Commissioning an artwork is also possible.
Finally, in the very near future, Sedition will be introducing NFTs onto the platform. In the first phase, our plan is to allow for artworks that were purchased over our 10 year history (and which are now in people’s collections) to be mintable as NFTs. In the second phase, we aim to launch new artworks as NFTs — by enabling those new works to be mintable at the point of sale. However, it is worth noting that we’re not interested in obliging our collectors nor our artists to play with NFTs and crypto — this is one of the tools that we want to add to the toolbox. Collectors and artists who are not interested in the game can continue with digital limited editions and nothing will change for them!
Hopefully this gives you a brief overview of Sedition — if you weren’t familiar with us before. We do hope you enjoy our Medium blog and stay tuned for more!
