This context informs the conversations with artists and creative practitioners in this book.Often, their work with and around Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) emerges from these very concerns.Does that mean that DAOs are capable of solving the sociopolitical issues of precarity, cuts, and censorship?No. 'Free blockchain money' does not exist.DAOs do not 'magically' make more funding appear, least of all structurally so.And DAOs do not allow artists and cultural practitioners to leave behind their national contexts of austerity and repression and exchange them for some virtual utopia.However, this does not mean that engaging with DAOs is pointless in the face of these circumstances and limitations.In this publication, I ask practitioners to share their experiences, focussing specifically on the definition of new forms of agency in cultural decision-making, explorations of shared ownership in arts and culture amid widespread logics of private property and extractivism, and the making of prefigurative claims on futures envisioned from the bottom up.None of these practices will be able to replace the structures of state funding or cancel oppressive concentrations of power any time soon, but they do open up space to manoeuvre and create tactical interventions, to find each other and build solidarity, and to regain a sense of futurity together.In other words, to reimagine, reclaim, and restructure shared socio-technical futures.The six people that I interviewed represent key voices in the countercultural and artistic DAO space.Penny Rafferty is a cofounder of Black Swan -a DAO that pursued horizontal and decentralised approaches to art-making -and she pushes DAO discourse into new directions with critical and imaginative work.Erik Bordeleau is a co-founder of The Sphere -a DAO that explores new ecologies of funding to develop a regenerative commons for the performing arts -and contributes boundarypushing philosophical and media theoretical perspectives to DAO thought.Ruth Catlow developed CultureStake -a voting system for decentralised cultural decision-making that uses quadratic voting on the blockchain -and has been a central Repression of Palestinian Culture and soidarity: Independence as Resistance,' Reset! 8
Ineffective Policies - Causes and Consequences of Bad Policy Choices; Using cutting-edge research and analysis, this book states the case for studying ineffective policies, demonstrates their harmful effects across policy fields and provides policy makers with the tools to reflect, identify and act upon them.
With the rapid advancement of technology, the transformation of images into digital codes has enabled computer technologies and their derivatives to be included in the art environment, production, and exhibition methods, as well as traditional tools used in artworks. Blockchain and NFT technology, which emerged because of these developments, merged with art to create a new digital art field. This new technology offers new perspectives on the preservation, exhibition and evaluation of art and plays an important role in the digital art economy. The main problematic of this study is to develop an in-depth understanding of the rise of NFT (Non-Fungible Token) technology in the art world and how this new digital art form is perceived by virtual communities. The effects of NFT on the production, distribution, appropriation, and evaluation of artworks have provoked different reactions among artists and art lovers. This study aims to reveal the value, acceptance, and criticism of NFT art in virtual communities through a netnographic analysis. In this study, the perspectives of virtual communities on NFT were examined using a netnographic analysis method. For this purpose, forum sites such as Donanım Haber, R10, Reddit, Shift Delete and Technopat, which have high traffic and active members, were selected and the content shared on these sites between January and October in 2021, when NFT was popular, was analyzed. Discussions, comments, and opinions about NFT on these sites were analyzed in depth. As a result of the study, it was determined that NFT has received various reactions in the art world, some users find this technology meaningless and speculative, while others see NFT as a revolutionary step in the digitalization of art. It is concluded that NFT offers new opportunities to artists and collectors by securing the ownership, authenticity, and trade of artworks in a digital environment.
Bilgi sistemlerinin ve kitle iletişim araçlarının teknolojik dönüşümü, dijital çağın önemli bir parçası olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. 21. yüzyılda, internetin ve bilgisayar teknolojilerinin gelişimi, bilgi sistemlerini sanal ortama taşımış ve modern hayatın pek çok alanında değişim yaratmıştır. Bu dönüşüm, kitle iletişim araçlarının evrimini hızlandırmış ve farklı disiplinler arasında yakınlaşmayı sağlamıştır. Sanat da bu değişimden etkilenmiş, dijital teknolojilerle yeni bir boyut kazanmıştır. Dijitalleşmenin sunduğu olanaklar sayesinde sanat eserleri, coğrafi sınırlamaları aşarak geniş kitlelerle anlık iletişim kurabilmektedir. İnternet aracılığıyla dolaşıma giren dijital eserler, teknik olanaklar sayesinde tekrar üretilebilir ve ticari ekosistemler oluşturulabilir. Bu bağlamda, Non-Fungible Token (NFT) teknolojisi, dijital sanatın özgünlüğünü ve sahipliğini garanti altına alarak sanatın dijital dünyadaki yerini sağlamlaştırmaktadır. NFT'ler, sanat eserlerinin dijital ortamda değerli birer varlık olarak kabul edilmesini sağlar ve sanatın ticaretini kolaylaştırır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, NFT teknolojisi ile üretilen sanat eserlerinin dijital kültüre katkısını incelemektir. Çalışmanın temel sorusu NFT teknolojisi ile üretilen sanat eserlerinin dijital kültüre ne ölçüde katkı sağladığıdır. Seçmece yöntemle belirlenen içerik analizi ile araştırılmış olan bu çalışma, dijitalleşen sanat medyumlarının kültürel etkinliğini sorgulayarak literatüre önemli bir katkı sağlamayı hedeflemektedir. Dijitalleşme ve teknolojinin her geçen gün gelişmeye devam etmesi, bu çalışmada yapılan araştırmaların ve parametlerin (ulaşılabilirlik vb. durumlar nedeni ile hedef kitlelerin değişmesi ve satış oranlarının etkilenmesi) değişebilmesi durumu bu çalışmanın sınırlıklarıdır. NFT teknolojisinin sanat üzerindeki etkileri ve dijital kültürdeki rolü, sanatın geleceği ve dijitalleşmenin sanatsal üretim üzerindeki etkileri hakkında derinlemesine bilgi sunacaktır.
Kobe De Keere, Martin Broholt Trans, Stefanía Milan
In less than two decades, cryptocurrency has transformed from being an object of interest for an obscure online community to becoming a globally desired digital asset. By acknowledging the importance of fictional expectations in the creation of economic value, this study delves into the various imaginative values that are being attributed to cryptocurrency. Through quantitative-qualitative coding of YouTube video transcripts (N: 1929), combined with Exploratory Factor Analysis, this article maps out which imaginaries on crypto are being disseminated by the YouTube algorithm. The latter is conceived not as a passive source of information but as a performative market device, steering consumer behavior. This study identifies four distinct imaginaries to which cryptocurrency consumers are exposed: investment, utility, digital metallism, and infrastructural mutualism imaginary. These shed light on the potential value consumers attribute to cryptocurrencies while opening new research avenues towards a better understanding of the different positions within the market.
The concept of symbolic capital, introduced by Pierre Bourdieu (1986), has been applied to explain the circulation of value between game communities and the industry. The bottom-up approach can be found in the studies of so-called “gaming capital” accumulated by gamers (Consalvo, 2009), while the top-down approach focuses on the agents who hold the most power in the gaming industry (Nichols, 2013). These perspectives may require reconfiguration today: since the end of the 2010s, traditional power relations have been contested by ‘decentralized’ gaming that uses blockchain technologies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Their early adopters suggest that NFTs may disrupt traditional circulation of value to the benefit of players as opposed to major corporations. Many gamers, however, vehemently oppose NFTs in games. By combining these top-down and the bottom-up approaches, this article explains that the specific symbolic gaming capital remains systematically underappreciated in blockchain gaming, which operates along different vectors of power. To support my argument, I turn to the longest-running blockchain-based game CryptoKitties (Axiom Zen, 2017), and analyze the elements of the role-playing genre that appeared in the game during the collective process of continuous development. In the first case, these elements (‘fancies’) were added by the developers of the game, and in the second case, an RPG-like extension emerged as one of its fan spin-offs (KotoWars). I conclude that symbolic capital is community-specific in the case of blockchain gaming. It is only available to those who already possess considerable symbolic, and, much more importantly, financial capital within the crypto community.
Teknolojinin gelişmesiyle birlikte pek çok alanda yenilikler yapılmıştır. Bu alanlardan biri de sanattır. Genel anlayışla sanat, galeri gibi kapalı mekanlarda, sınırlı kişilere yakından bakma imkanı sunarken, teknolojinin sağladığı imkanlar dahilinde sanatın oluşum ve dolaşım alanı genişlemiş, dünyanın bir ucundan diğer ucuna sanat eserine erişim sağlamak mümkün hale gelmiştir. Günümüzde popüler bir konu haline gelen, hızla yükselen, sanatı tuvalden sanal ortama taşıyan sanat alanlarından biri de NFT (Non-Fungible Token)’dir. NFT'ler, benzersiz ve değişmez dijital varlıklardır. Bilgisayar destekli teknolojinin kullanılması yeni bir olgu olmamakla beraber, sanat piyasasındaki geleneksel dinamikleri yıkan bir yapıya sahip olan NFT, dijital sanatın önemli ortamlarından biri haline gelmiştir. Özellikle sanat, oyun ve diğer sektörlerde sıkça kullanılmakta olan NFT’ler, sanatçılara birçok avantaj sunmaktadır. Araştırmada, NFT ve içeriğindeki; blokzincir teknolojisi, ethereum, metaverse (sanal evren) gibi kavramlar tanıtılmaya çalışılmıştır. Blokzincir teknolojisiyle birbirine bağlanan zincirlerin, bilgileri nasıl koruduğu, aynı zamanda metaverse ile birlikte gelecekteki sanatçılar ve izleyiciler arasındaki etkileşimi geliştirebilecek sanal dünyaları keşfetmeyi nasıl başarabileceklerinden bahsedilmiştir. Bu bağlamda NFT’nin önemli sanatçılarından olan, eserlerinde yapay zeka ve dijital manipülasyon tekniklerini kullanan Ender Diril’in, dijital sanat ve NFT’ye yaklaşımı, eserleri üzerinden NFT dünyası ortaya koyulmaya çalışılmıştır.
This article examines a recent form of marketing superhero comics that has garnered extensive media attention and has been promoted as the next big step in comics production: the decision by companies like Marvel Comics and DC Comics to offer selections of their intellectual properties as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Focusing specifically on Marvel Comics’ collaboration with the VeVe app, which serves as a digital auction house through which customers can buy comics and related merchandise, this article suggests that we are witnessing the popularization of an already popular product (superhero comics) in a process that is indicative of larger transformations of the popular. As an agent of such transformations, superhero comics were introduced in the 1930s and 40s as a “low medium” with mass appeal that was critically devalued by proponents of high culture, but they are now widely celebrated as a “popular medium.” We argue that this transformation from a popular but devalued (“low”) product to a popular and culturally valued (but not necessarily “high” cultural) artifact marks a shift from qualitative to quantitative valuation that was driven at least in part by popular practices of collecting, archiving, and auctioning that have enabled the ongoing adaptation of these comics to new social, technological, and media demands. The article uses the newsworthiness of big auction sales and the sky-rocketing prices that well-preserved comic books can garner as a framework for assessing the appearance of superhero NFTs and for gauging the implications of this new media form for the cultural validation of comics.
We study the task of generating profitable Non-Fungible Token (NFT) images from user-input texts. Recent advances in diffusion models have shown great potential for image generation. However, existing works can fall short in generating visually-pleasing and highly-profitable NFT images, mainly due to the lack of 1) plentiful and fine-grained visual attribute prompts for an NFT image, and 2) effective optimization metrics for generating high-quality NFT images. To solve these challenges, we propose a Diffusion based generation framework with Multiple Visual-Policies as rewards (i.e., Diffusion-MVP) for NFT images. The proposed framework consists of a large language model (LLM), a diffusion-based image generator, and a series of visual rewards by design. First, the LLM enhances a basic human input (such as "panda") by generating more comprehensive NFT-style prompts that include specific visual attributes, such as "panda with Ninja style and green background." Second, the diffusion-based image generator is fine-tuned using a large-scale NFT dataset to capture fine-grained image styles and accessory compositions of popular NFT elements. Third, we further propose to utilize multiple visual-policies as optimization goals, including visual rarity levels, visual aesthetic scores, and CLIP-based text-image relevances. This design ensures that our proposed Diffusion-MVP is capable of minting NFT images with high visual quality and market value. To facilitate this research, we have collected the largest publicly available NFT image dataset to date, consisting of 1.5 million high-quality images with corresponding texts and market values. Extensive experiments including objective evaluations and user studies demonstrate that our framework can generate NFT images showing more visually engaging elements and higher market value, compared with state-of-the-art approaches.
Open access
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Generative Adversarial Networks and Image Synthesis
Videogames are an increasingly prominent use case for blockchain technology (what has been termed ‘cryptogaming’). Drawing on documents, such as industry presentations, social media posts, interviews and white papers, this article analyses discourses surrounding cryptogames, focusing on the claims made by cryptogame developers and investors. We ask two related research questions: What are the dominant visions of a cryptogaming future, imagined by and for various constituencies? And what sorts of values get realised in such an imagined future of game development and use? We argue that cryptogames imagine players and developers as financialised subjects, adopting attitudes and practices of risk and investment as salves to both microeconomic problems in the games industry as well as broader macroeconomic issues.
S Sarumathi, Altaf Raja, Alok Kumar, Aman Yadav · 5 authors
With the advancement of technology around the globe lead to a rise of technology called Blockchain and amazing technology that completely eradicates the centralized network. Blockchain Technology has got its applications from finance, gaming, supply-chian etc. One of Applications of this amazing technology are NFT’s(Non Fungible Token’s) That act as a digital assets in the world of Blockchain. NFT’s can be any form of data from art, music to video etc. The interest of NFT’s have been growing in every field of various industries like fashion, gaming, etc. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are transferrable rights to digital assets, such as art, in-game items, collectables, or music. The phenomenon and its markets have grown significantly since early 2021.The information about the NFT’s are stored onto the blockchain Where each information is kept encrypted and prevented from attack as its impossible to alter the data in the blockchian. This cutting-edge technology continues to grow and capture the attention of the masses as more applications of NFT’s are identified with time. The System proposed in this paper allows consumers to transfer encrypted content and write it to NFT’s. Various consumers can approach the content of NFT’s by mentioning their purchase or endorsement. Confidential information is licensed for a period of time, after which the information is appropriately deleted.
This whitepaper introduces RIV Coin, a cryptocurrency that is fully stabilized by a diversified portfolio of invested reserves that are evaluated by professional independent third parties, and auditable and provable by the protocol. It is born and managed as a decentralized token, minted by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). All wealthier Users are then accepting a redistribution of income, to the benefit of those who have purchased less tokens. In cooperative Game Theory, maximization of the economic benefit of the ecosystem is achieved when players' incentives are perfectly aligned. The proposed model allows for alignment of incentives: decreasing the risk exposure by wealthier Users, but implicitly increasing that of smaller ones to a level perceived by them as still sustainable and never creating ultra-speculative positions. In other words, wealthier Users stabilize the risk associated with the market value of portfolios in which the reserves are invested in Centralized and Decentralized Finance, without falling into the bet scheme. Users indirectly benefit from the access to the rewards of sophisticated cryptocurrency portfolios hitherto precluded to them, as well as having access to a real redistribution of wealth, without this turning into a disadvantage for the wealthy User, who benefits from the greater stability created by the huge influx of smaller Users. Therefore, the progressive growth becomes additional value that tends to stabilize over time, optimizing RIV Coin on the systemic risk level.
Bu makalenin amacı; kapsamlı bir literatür taramasına dayalı olarak, NFT (non-fungible-token: misli olmayan kripto varlıklar) kavramını işletmeler ve tüketiciler perspektifinden değerlendirebilmektir. NFT; resim, oyun, ses gibi bir dijital varlığa sahip olmak için blok zincire kayıtlı bir haktır. Bir benzeri olmayan, şifrelenmiş dijital varlıklar olan NFT’ler temsil ettikleri dijital varlıkların menşeini/kaynağını koruyarak, önceki sistemlere göre daha kolay ticaretinin yapılmasına, değiş tokuş edilmesine, kimliğinin doğrulanmasına ve transfer edilmesine olanak sağlamaktadırlar. Sanat, koleksiyonerlik, oyun gibi alanlarda görülen NFT uygulamaları yaratıcı içerik üreticilerinin olduğu kadar şirketlerin ve markaların da ilgisini çekmektedir. 2021 yılında hızlı büyüme gösteren NFT pazarı lüks tüketim markalarının yeni tüketici kitlelerine ulaşmasını sağlamıştır. Günlük tüketim markaları da genç tüketiciler ile bağ kurmada ve sosyal sorumluluk kampanyalarına dikkat çekmede NFT uygulamalarını kullanmaktadırlar. Farklı tüketim deneyimleri yaratma, tüketicileri dijital topluluklarda buluşturma yoluyla da NFT’ler tüketiciler ve işletmeler için değer yaratabilme potansiyeline sahiptir.
Crypto, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the metaverse have taken a massive place in our daily conversations and are highly valued. Moreover, NFTs range from luxury fashion to art, and sound is no exception, although it still needs to be explored. Could this be a unique opportunity to go digital from creation to distribution? This study looks at sound NFTs and new avenues for digital audio communication. During the pandemic, podcasts have been exhausted, leaving space for new digital media business opportunities. We look at how sound has grown, assuming a prominent role in the new media ecosystem due to podcasts consumption. We explore NFTs and their evolution in different markets over the years, highlighting the space that sound content has gained on these platforms as new possibilities for dissemination, promotion, and sale. We use content analysis on marketplaces that provide sound NFTs to understand what audio content consumers can find and future opportunities.
NFT piyasası son yıllarda hızla gelişmektedir. NFT kavramı, aslen bir blokzincir altyapısına ait olan Ethereum standardından gelmektedir. Oluşturulan benzersiz kimlikler, dijital varlıklarla ilgilidir. NFT, özelleştirilmiş değerlerle şeffaf bir ticaret sağlamaktadır. Dijital sanat kavramı benimsenirken, yeni bir pazar da oluşmaktadır. Günümüzde, NFT satışları milyonlarca USD'ye ulaşmıştır. Gelişen NFT pazarı dikkat çekmektedir. NFT'nin arkasındaki teknolojiler olgunlaşmadığından, NFT keşfedilmeyi ve anlaşılmayı bekleyen bir ekosistem haline gelmektedir. Bu çalışmada, dijital sanat ve NFT'nin avantajları ve fırsatları tartışılırken, NFT ekosistemi önemli örneklerle gözden geçirilmektedir.
How do feminist activists take over our feeds? And can we really escape the shadows of networked visibility? In a series of five case studies, this text and video-based _Perspective applies the method of visual research to analyze and cross-pollinate visual formulas and platform strategies of Pussy Riot’s and LASTESIS’ networked performances. What started as a social media revolution in 2012 has now spread into the realm of cryptocurrencies and Web3 advances. Formerly situated feminist protests become more and more decentralized and ubiquitory—and so do their audiences. Nonetheless, catering to the demands of networked imagery also entails perpetuating its hegemonic, exploitative, and violent nature, which is ultimately at the hands of the viewer’s and researcher’s interaction.
Metaverse is an indicator of interactions in the virtual world with the support of the internet, software, and hardware to create an immersive user experience. In simple terms, the metaverse is the virtual universe that brings the virtual and physical worlds together in a three-dimensional space and allows users to discover a different internet experience. With the innovation it brought to the internet world, it is often referred to as web 3.0. NFT stands for immutable token. It is usually created using the same type of program as cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. The term metaverse is now used everywhere and it takes an important place in our lives by developing in different areas. Visual design plays an important role in many areas such as the creation of NFT artwork, games, film, and television. At the same time, it creates a three-dimensional world where avatars representing real people live and digital versions can interact in a digital environment. This article researched problems between what is the metaverse and NFT? What are the main features of Metaverse? What does crypto art involve? seeks answers to questions such as Its general purpose is to make a descriptive literature content analysis of the concepts of the metaverse and NFT in the internet database in a general framework, and finally, to examine how crypto art plays a role in today's world together with technology with examples.
Cryptographics is an artwork that reflects on the recent phenomenon of cryp- to art, which involves associating digital artifacts with blockchain, tokenizing artworks with non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This practice has recently been the subject of heated debate within art and the humanities, as well as setting off a feeding frenzy by artists, digital content creators, and speculative investors. In Cryptographics, I take an artistic interpretation of this topic, highlighting the way that while tokenization is intended to make unique digital assets more eas- ily traceable, it treats content as inconsequential, raising a number of questions regarding the value of digital artworks. Working with found text fragments from discussions centered on NFTs and crypto art and existing images, the work seeks to negate the representational role of images, reducing them to mere fields of pixels. By obscuring the visual content of the images and text, this work ques- tions what impacts it may have if we are to treat all digital content as commod- ifiable, yet interchangeable.
La pandemia ha definito diverse declinazioni della liveness nella dimensione digitale. Tra i settori più colpiti e che hanno dovuto reinventare linguaggi e forme comunicative, accanto al teatro quello della musica live (il tema disciplinare sul quale vogliamo riflettere). L’industria musicale, da sempre fortemente legata alla prossimità fisica, al necessario rapporto con la strada, inteso come luogo d’ispirazione e nutrimento (immaginiamo le subculture giovanili: dai teddy boys, ai mods, dal movimento hippie, al punk, dall’hip hop alla trap) si è tenacemente reinventata negli ultimi anni negli innovativi spazi digitali: dai social network ai concerti sui videogames (sperimentando un nuovo modo di comunicare e dando vita ad un rinnovato immaginario). Attraverso questo saggio si intende procedere verso una ricognizione e analisi delle pratiche della liveness multimediali, transmediali, intermediali nell’ambito musicale esaminando, in particolare, come gli NFT musicali (Non Fungible Tokens) si siano rivelati come una delle strade più promettenti per continuare a mantenere il legame emotivo, culturale ed identitario tra i performer e i fans. E gettando le basi per un’economia alternativa futura.
In this paper, I discuss an approach to teaching cryptocurrencies as cryptocultures. Cryptocurrencies are traditionally approached as technical or financial phenomena, but I argue that for students outside those specialist areas, a cultural approach will orient them better. I encourage teachers to first focus on situating students in a place, a shared public commons inhabited by the community of a cryptocurrency. I offer a way to model this place using a hash, bash, cash model of decentralised organisation. I build on this sense of place by then revealing to students the cultural context of a cryptocurrency. The context is comprised of the social imaginaries and the overarching goal animating a cryptocurrency culture. I show how this cryptocultural approach can be used to analyse different cryptocultures through an examination of the competing environmental imaginaries of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Alesha Serada, Tanja Sihvonen, J. Tuomas Harviainen
This article analyzes specific characteristics of value created through digital scarcity and blockchain-proven ownership in cryptogames. Our object of study is CryptoKitties, the first instance of a blockchain-based game that has garnered media recognition and financial interest. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the limits of scarcity in value construction for owners of CryptoKitties tokens, manifested as breedable virtual cats. Our work extends the trends set out by earlier cryptocurrency studies from the perspective of cultural studies. For the purpose of this article, we rely on open blockchain analytics such as DappRadar and Etherscan, as well as player-created analytics, backed by a one-year-long participant observation period in the said game for research material. Combining theoretical cryptocurrency and Bitcoin studies, open data analysis, and virtual ethnography enables a grounded discussion on blockchain-based game design and play.