Between process and object: NFTs and the artification of digital assets

Abstract

By bringing digital artworks to one’s everyday shopping list, NFTs have revolutionized a large group’s understanding of art. In this article, I challenge the stance presented by authors such as Taylor and Sloane that NFTs shift the consumption of objects to the liquid consumption of the non-material by drawing on the aesthetic identity of NFTs as images. Firstly, I analyse the evolution of blockchain products’ function from that of strictly fungible tokens to non-fungible goods. NFTs rely on art’s specificity and acquire their new identity by virtue of entering the art market, which does not happen with ordinary cryptocurrencies. NFTs thus benefit from the contextualization of art as a socially and technologically mediated immaterial process: they emerge as instances of the artification of a non-artistic immaterial experience and become art-like. However, an NFT as a commodity is not pure code; it does have an image attached. This distinguishes NFTs from particular fungible tokens that hold added value due to their unique historical context. I further point out that the fact that NFTs have, as commodities, taken the form of digital images is an expression of a pervasive need for interaction with objects in today’s everyday digital experience. Also, the shift of NFTs from being just “specific” phenomena as art objects to “singular” phenomena construed as authors of the ways in which they will be perceived and understood is discussed. NFTs create their own impact, on the one hand, independently of their often poor artistic or aesthetic quality, and on the other hand, as entirely dependent on their aura as mathematically and ontologically unique, visually perceptible entities.