Image: Mad Dog Jones | Lost in a Moment
It's almost hard to remember a time to just last year when I was not completely obsessed with trying to understand the digital world and the incredible opportunities the digital space opens up for creatives. Time is not the same in the digital space, things move at such a fast pace, around every digital corner there is another invention to be discovered. 24hr feels like a week in the meta-verse. I have fully dug myself deep down the rabbit hole and I am so curious to see where it takes me. I have no intention of digging myself out.
Understanding the limitless potential of the digital space is much like trying to make sense of where Alice ended up. Flowers talk, tea cups walk, its all possible. If you think its a fad, or its people just selling 'air' - you unfortunately just don't understand it yet.
The topic of conversation at the moment is around NFT's. If you asked me back in December I would not be able t
o tell you what they were. But now in April 2021, I feel they are already so 'yesterdays news.' But lets break it down in simple terms. NFT's are non-fungible tokens. They allow you to own a piece of digital art, music, a film, a item of digital clothing, a digital car, a digital watch - literally anything you have in the real world you can turn into a digital asset and into an NFT.
Artists are going crazy over this space.
NFT's allow artists another medium to explore, create and ultimately sell their creations to collectors all over the world. They allow artists an opportunity to challenge their practice, and NO I don't mean just making an artwork spin. That is so amateur. You can see how amateur all these no
n-digital artists are when approaching this space, when you compare it to the complex worlds being built by Mad Dog Jones.
You will quickly realize which artists are in the space because they respect it, understand it and actually like to fuck around with tech, and who are the ones that have been painting with real paint in a four walled art studio, scratching their heads on how to 'animate' their lifeless painting. I am not dissing painting, i love paintings - but i am just saying its really clear who has been in the NFT space, and who is just jumping on the digital money band wagon. BUT thats all okay. The average person is just catching on and waking up out of the Covid-Coma, some though - Are RUSHING into it without really understanding it.
Why I like the digital space? Well, because I find it fascinating, and I don't fully understand it - so the researcher in me wants to find out everything I fucking can and BOY O' BOY - is there a lot to learn. The potential is limitless. LET THAT SOAK IN.... THE POTENTIAL IS LIMITLESS.
So to sell an NFT' or
create an NFT' you need to mint it - that means securing its place on the blockchain and paying the (current but temporary) fees to do this process. The blockchain is an open sourced, decentralized chain where things are stored and protected. No one owns the block chain, its owned by everyone that adds to it, mints on it and mines crypto. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, maybe google it. Some tech guy will explain it better. But in simple art terms, rather than printing a artwork out, or painting an artwork - the art work lives in the digital space and is secured on the block chain. The works then also can be sold on a secondary market place and re sold to other collectors, all digitally using digital currency and all fully transparent on the block chain. You can of course display your digital collection - on a SCREEN. Just imagine a world where everyone has art screens in their homes....oh wait, like a TV? Ahh yes, but it displays ART not crap sitcoms on netflix.
(A blockchain is a digital record of transactions. The name comes from its structure, in which individual records, called blocks, are linked together in single list, called a chain. Blockchains are used for recording transactions made with cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, and have many other applications.)
No dealers, no galleries - just the artist and the buyer. That is a great thing about NFT's and digital art all together is it removes the middle man (you do still have to pay the platform a %!) . But of course when you remove the dealers/ curators, or the 'FILTERS' you get all the crap coming through - anything goes. So the digital marketplace is yes...full of crap. Anyone with a computer and microsoft paint can create digital art and sell it. So really we need some filters to help filter out the rubbish.
That will come. The road is still being built as we are running down it.
So good things are, anyone can get involved that has an internet access. People can take control of their own art career and sell artworks and do not have to try and climb the ladder of privilege to even get noticed. This is a good thing. The power of the market is in the hands of the creators, not the people with the hook up.
Platforms where artists can mint and sell NFTS?
Well there are lots of them and to be honest there are new ones launching every week.
First thing is first - you need to create a crypto wallet and specifically get yourself some Ethereum. This way you will be able to connect your crypto wallet ( using extensions like Meta Mask) to your p
rofile on the NFT platforms. This allows you to mint your artworks and of course get paid when you sell your NFTS.
Then you need to get on a platform. Unfortunately due to the increased demand, many of the money making platforms are back-logged for a long while, so getting a time slot to release on a platform like Nifty Gateway is almost impossible. In all honesty, Nifty Gateway has become the Blue Chip gallery or high end auction house...so I guess its not much different to the exclusive art market. And lets not forget you need the Whales ( the big crypto collectors) to notice you, and how you do you do that - through having the right hook ups and being pretty active on Club House where all these guys hang out and talk about who to buy.
Platforms to look into:
1.Nifty Gateway - Here they do timed releases, open editions, drawings and auctions.
2. Foundation - Auctions only, invite only
3. Makers Place - Editions and Auctions
4. Known Origin - Editions and Auctions/ offers
5. Super Rare - 1/1 editions
6. Rarible - Editions or uniques - anyone can create an account
7. Kalamint - using Tezos rather than ETH. - new more carbon friendly platform. Applications open.
Go on and explore, researc
h and dig deeper into the exciting world of NFT's.
I am what possibly could go wrong :)