“I’ve crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I’ve come to a place I never thought I’d have to come to. And I don’t know how I got here. It’s a strange place. It’s a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.”
― Raymond Carver, Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories
I don’t know about the death and annihilation part but somedays I wake up and feel as though I have stumbled into an alternate reality where there are things going on that baffle me completely, that don’t have any basis in the world from which I come.
Like I am a goat farmer from the late 1700’s who has suddenly been thrown through time and ends up in the middle of a Times Square with huge walls of lights flashing, cars whooshing by and jets thundering overhead.
The place and everything associated with it just doesn’t line up with anything I know or have ever seen. I am confused, to say the least. Maybe even a little scared because if I don’t know what the hell it is, I have no idea if it can hurt me.
That is exactly the feeling I had when I read that on Thursday a piece of digital art, an NFT— a non-fungible token— had sold in auction at Christie’s for $69 million. The artist’s is Mike Winkelman who goes by the name Beeple and he is a digital artist from Charleston, SC who until October of 2020 had never sold a print for more than $100.
Then came NFTs. Those cuddly non-fungible tokens.
Here’s where I fall through time and space.
I wish I could explain it to you but it feels like the translation of a language I’ve never heard of translated into a language that was just invented and is, yes, unknown to me.
The only thing I understand is the concept of attaching value to an object that is not contained in the value of the raw materials or labor that made it. That is the definition of art and most collectibles. For example, a painting is a token in that it has value attached to it. But a painting that sells for $100 million dollars is not much different in real world terms from one that sells for $10,000.
The difference is that there is a higher value attached by the market– the potential buyers– that reflects its history, the artist’s reputation, its rarity and provenance and whatever the heck makes a painting worth $100 million. But even then, after the huge piles of cash have been exchanged, the buyer still has a tangible object in their hands.
Probably a closer analogy to NFTs is collectible cards like baseball cards. They are nothing more than a penny’s worth of cheap cardboard with an image printed on one side and some stats on the back. But value is somehow added to them to the point that some are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while most end up propping up off level tables.
I still don’t know if I am explaining this well. Remember, I just got into this century from the 1788 with goat dung on my boots. Which makes the next part even more difficult to explain.
These NFTs are attached and sold via blockchain technology. Like cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. Ethereum. You know what I’m talking about, right?
I think Yogi Berra would be better equipped to explain this.
I tried at one point a couple of years ago to better understand cryptocurrency but I just couldn’t fully grasp it. It seemed so much like a giant pyramid scheme. But what made it even harder to grasp was that there are actually bitcoin mines.
Yeah, bitcoin mines.
I am standing here with goat stink still on me and I am trying to grasp the idea that bitcoins are mined — created, actually– by people around the world trying to solve the same mathematical puzzle using very large and powerful computers. About every 10 minutes, someone solves a puzzle and is rewarded with some bitcoins. Then, a new puzzle is generated, and the whole process starts over again. As more people become involved around the globe trying to solve this puzzle, it is made more difficult so that it is estimated that it will take ten minutes to come up with the new solution.
Every ten minutes. So, in order to be the first to solve this puzzle and get the bitcoins, one has to have computers that use enormous amounts of electricity. We are talking something on the order of 72 terawatts expended to create a single bitcoin. That is 72 trillion watts of electricity. Every ten minutes.
This first came to my attention when I learned that there was a proposal for a bitcoin mine to be built on nearly Seneca Lake. If I am not mistaken, it would use the water from the lake to run a hydroelectric generator to produce the huge amount of power needed for its computers.
I still am in the dark on this and can’t even begin to explain blockchain technology. Remember, I am from a time when the Snickers Bar was still a 150 years from being developed and marketed. That’s a technology I can understand and maybe even explain.
So, here I am wondering how a digital file that anyone can download and display is somehow valued by its owner, a person who shelled out $69 million bucks. I really am confused and have all sorts of questions.
Can this affect my own work? Might my work be stolen– this has happened to other artists– via these NFTs? What does this mean for the future of art? With all due respect to his talent, Beeple is now one of the most valuable artists in the history of art. I think that’s a statement even he would find laughable. Granted, its a lot easier to laugh with $69 mil in the bank. Or is it in cryptocurrency?
Good for Beeple. But the real question is: How do I do this?
The price for goat feed is a lot higher than it was in 1788.
I think I will go outside and bang my head against a tree. Now that I understand.
I read about this. If it somehow had come into my possession and was hanging on one of my walls, I’d pay someone a hundred bucks to take it down and get it out of my life. And I’d pay in old-fashioned dollars.
That’s pretty funny. I don’t think this whole thing has anything to actually do with the art or its aesthetics. It is simply something attached to a monetary unit, like a decorative label on a box of cash. Whatever the case, it’s still a mystery to this old goat herder.
The art that changes hands at these absurd stratospheric prices has always been ridiculous…but at least in most cases it was truly art.
I’ll always be much happier with a GC Myers on the wall than with any NFT.
Thanks, Stevan. I have nothing against digital art or the work of Beeple. His digital work can be pretty funny, such as “Tom Hanks Beating the Shit Out of Coronavirus” below. I am just so mystified that I can’t get comfortable with the whole thing. I like my tokens fungible, I guess. [image: beeple-03-12-20.jpg]
https://www.beeple-collect.com/collections-1/tom-hanks-beating-the-shit-out-of-coronavirus
Truly concerning where our society and for that matter where mankind is headed. I fear not a good place. 😞
It is concerning, Sheila, and like I said, I can’t comprehend it enough to know whether I should be afraid or not. And that might be even scarier in itself because you can’t rationalize it.
You can’t even hang it on a wall…it’s digital… right? I guess individual pics can be printed…
Being from another century too, I don’t understand bitcoins and… what’s that called? Cryotocurrency? It sounds like something used against Superman! Help us Leonardo…
I know. It’s well beyond my comprehension, Jackie.
In the interview I saw, he didn’t even want to be called an artist. He considered himself a designer… And designers are all a little off… I should know, I once had the job title… Design Manager. Truthfully, the guy seemed pretty blown away by the hoopla even before the auction…
Oh, I have no doubt he is blown away. It was like winning the lottery for an artist — excuse me, designer– to go from relative obscurity to the top of a heap that contains the entire history of western art. I think it had little to do with his work actually and that is not a knock or critique. I think his work was unique and quirky enough to serve as a symbol of sorts for vehicle that moves money around. A cool label on a big box of cash. Or album cover art for a record made of gold. Though I don’t understand it or necessarily approve of it, I give kudos to him for putting himself in the position where he could run into such good fortune.
I guess my thing about all this is… Who put Christie’s up to this.
I’ve always felt that cryptocurrency was some type of scam that I just hadn’t figured out yet. I think I feel pretty much the same way about this. I don’t know, but I think it would be interesting to follow the money. Who really gets it, and where exactly did it come from. The whole thing almost smells like a money laundering situation. But more power to the designer… I wouldn’t want to be buying his hats anytime soon. Talk about a big head.
re: 72 Terawatts, here is a quote from Wikipedia:
“As of July 2019, bitcoin’s electricity consumption is estimated to about 7 gigawatts, 0.2% of the global total, or equivalent to that of Switzerland…”
Though complex, the situation may be only 1/10,000 time as bad as you describe it. 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency#Mining
The 72 Tw expense would make it 30 times more expensive to create a bitcoin today than it’s current astronomical value of $75,000 CDN.
That Wikipedia entry was from 2019 but the electric demand to create bitcoins has grown dramatically in the past two years. According to a recent article in the Guardian “Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finances estimates that bitcoin’s annualised electricity consumption hovers just above 115 terawatt-hours (TWh) while Digiconomist’s closely tracked index puts it closer to 80 TWh”
I am not positive but I believe that much of the energy expended comes from the many miners who are not the final recipient, the miner who solve the puzzle for each 10 minute interval.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/27/bitcoin-mining-electricity-use-environmental-impact