NFTs and Digital Disruption

More than as investments, NFTs are disrupting artistic processes as tools to create ever new experiences. Filipino artists have been using NFT platforms, too, and are taking responsibility for the environmental impact within the space. A question: where else is the NFT causing disruption?

Written by Jaymes Shrimski
August 8, 2023

Jopet Arias’ “In between dimensions”.

I was two whiskies into a start-up mixer before a kind venture capital gent whipped out his phone and showed me a picture of a Picasso he owned—that is, at least partially, by way of a non-fungible token or “NFT.” I’d never met anyone in ownership of a Picasso before—then again, it may have been any other artist. I did drink a bit that night after all. But quickly curious, I asked him to show me through the app other pieces he owned pieces of, and tried my best to repress a nascent ooze of jealousy. If not for the fact he owned fantastic pieces of art (well, pieces of them), then for the fact the value of these ownership rights had increased a fair bit.

Gosh, what miniscule ownership of stocks I had was suddenly antiquated and boring. I felt behind.

But this was just one small touchpoint of humanity with this recently flourishing (and floundering, depending on who you talk to) technology. As I was to learn during Filipino artists in the world of NFTs on Tezos: A conversation about crypto art in the Philippines at Art Fair 2023, this knotty piece of tech has created a new medium for artists to explore. It has created new layers for art owners to appreciate, and new connections between artists and their work, as well as their clients and collectors.

It’s created new ways for artists to generate dough too. Chatting with another fantastic artist post-evening run over greasy wafts of frying chicken, I learned that he spent evenings digitally rendering cats in different roles and costumes. Interesting post-work hobby, I thought. “They’re paying me two-thousand dollars per collection I draw,” he added. Wow, this is serious, I realised.

“Basically,” Brian continued, “I’m given a brief for what kind of character or world they want and I just make whatever that is and the traits and variants of [them]. Then they do the rest of the backend like the website and community. [The] minting and selling.” But, upon being asked when he’s making his own NFT, Brian said he enjoys the degree of separation from the minting and selling. “I feel like it’ll turn into something I’ll not be proud of,” he says. “Though I have some NFTs I made for my clients that I can do what I want with also.”

What amazed me, during a particularly thick toke of chicken-scented air, is how many relationships have been born following the advent of the NFT craze. This artist’s work had been shown to a tech-marketing company by a college friend. And the result? A 2-year-and-counting working relationship.

NFTs are almost everywhere, quickly traversing our phones and wallets, and embedding themselves in our economy.

But what is an NFT anyway?

And trust you me, I’m no subject matter expert.

Luiz Octávio, CEO and founder of Dux Cripto – a crypto gaming community for P2E games, metaverses, and NFTs – defines an NFT as a form of decentralised certification. Rather than a certificate or deed, it’s a little piece of data added to a file to give it a unique, that is non-replicable (hence non-fungible), signature. Per one author, “​​It can be an image file, a song, a tweet, a text posted on a website, a physical item, and various other digital formats.”

So while I could’ve grabbed my new venture capitalist friend’s phone, then while running around the bar, snatch a screenshot of the art and email it to myself, the effort would’ve been useless. While I’d have successfully, if idiotically, gotten the image, I simply wouldn’t have had the ownership rights to the digital signature—and that’s the thing with the value in it.

And why is the value in the digital signature? Because we, the people on the Ethereum blockchain, say so. From a Verge article, we grasp that “Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin, but its blockchain also keeps track of who’s holding and trading NFTs.” While there are other currencies out there (which we’ll learn about later), most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain. And while the idea of a blockchain is in my opinion the most exciting thing about crypto-anything, let this incomplete description suffice for this article: it’s a way to store data without entrusting it to any one entity to keep it secure and accurate. The mechanism by which the blockchain does this is the real special sauce which makes the space so exciting.

I’m about to get back to the art, I promise.

I just wanted to set up the backdrop behind how we are now interacting with a complicated piece of tech which is a growing part of our lives. And I can’t stress how quickly it’s grown. The current NFT market size is estimated at USD 3 billion and one forecaster predicts this to grow to USD 13.6 billion by 2023.

Given its size, it’s no surprise that Filipino artists have their hands in this market, too

It’s a sunny morning, and I’m sat in a brightly-lit tent on the top of The Link in Makati with one of my best friends—I’ve had zero whiskies so far. In front of us and on a stage are Bjorn Calleja, Sheila Ledesma, Andre Baldovino, and Jopet Arias—artists who’ve navigated all the technical stuff in the previous section and have begun exploring new methods in their artistic processes by way of NFT.

Sheila Ledesma’s NFT journey began in the pandemic. She’s a graphic artist whose primary way of expression is collage. Through this mixed-medium, she is able to engage in what she calls serious play, discovering the intersection of design, art, and social impact. While I expected the journey from collage to NFT to be complicated, just like the technology itself, Ledesma whittled away layers of complication to reveal that NFT creation is as simple as scanning a piece of work and minting it online, that is, publishing the piece on the blockchain—where it may then be sold.

Andre Baldovino’s “Genesis NFT Joya x Baldovino”.

Andre Baldovino works primarily with oil on canvas but is now too exploring NFTs with the same explorations of abstract compositions he’s done on canvas. Baldovino is also the grandnephew of the late José Joya, a Philippine National Artist. During the talk, my ears pricked up starkly when Baldovino spoke of NFTs as a tool to “collaborate” with his late granduncle. And I supposed that, with the fusion of Baldovino’s oil on canvas familiarity, digital copies of the late great Joya’s works, and a shared penchant for the abstract, the limits of these collaborations aren’t within sight. The tech created a bridge between generations, allowing them to collaborate.

Bjorn Calleja’s NFT piece.

On the topic of collaboration, the NFT has also made it possible for artists to gain traction outside of the country. Bjorn Calleja, an interdisciplinary artist, who creates pieces with incredible plays on scale dotted with small cartoonish, humanoid characters, found extra textures to exude his artistic flourish on the NFT platform—movement, changes in colour. Even sounds can be added to NFTs. Pointing at the online marketplace for NFTs, Calleja talked about the opportunities digital art creates for up and coming artists—it has connected him with collectors and collaborators from across the globe.

Jopet Arias’ “The Muse V2”.

It’s part of the globalisation that has made it possible for digital nomads like Jopet Arias to thrive. With over a decade of experience as a visual artist, Arias became a crypto artist in 2020, fusing mixed media and augmented reality. Arias directed us to the power within the online communities that have clustered around art: from how one artist’s work was revived not by its artist, but by loyal collectors and members within the blockchain, to how artists are now in control of their own marketing via Twitter—with Twitter also being the frontier at which artists can interact with their audiences.

NFTs have disrupted almost every point of interaction in the art space

From how artists create the work, to the layers of the fabric they can incorporate into the pieces, how audiences can view and sell the works, to how artists collaborate, and how artists can market themselves. It’s created significant opportunities for artists as so much of the marketing and sales process is suddenly sifted into their hands.

One point touched on by Arias is the varied methods for artists to earn from a minted piece of work. Aside from an outright sale of a work to possible collectors, the arrangement can be structured such that the artist receives a royalty payment each time a given work is sold (or traded).

And although this all sounds fantastic, as though a world is opening up for artists who would otherwise be looking for other sources of income to get on with their lives, Ethereum and NFTs are not free of impact. They are detrimentally disrupting our environment. While it’s easy to imagine that images on our phones aren’t contributing to any environmental detriment, the fact remains that traditional blockchain technologies are hugely energy consuming.

One article claims that, “The creation of an average NFT has a carbon footprint of over 200 kg [which is] about the same as driving 500 miles in a typical American gasoline-powered car.”

The four members of the panel opted for a more energy-efficient platform to mint and sell their art. Tezos allows users to “directly and frictionlessly interface with each other over a decentralised network, exchanging value and interacting with various applications.” Basically, it has the same special sauce, allowing users to create unique signatures of data and trade them; however, this blockchain requires significantly less energy to operate.

Ethereum requires a proof-of-work method to validate blocks on the chain. This means the currency relies on crypto mining whereby validators use massive amounts of computing machinery to solve cryptographic puzzles for rewards. Tezos, on the other hand, functions via proof-of-stake, which “a​​llows people to pledge or lock up some of their holdings as a way of vouching for the accuracy of newly added information.”

The talk was over and I walked downstairs to interact with physical objects

My head was spinning. As it is now—with buzzwords and tech lingo. And amazement.

Although the most basal building blocks of the technology are the most difficult to understand, it’s upon these that more artists are able to create livelihoods for themselves. It’s upon these blocks that collaboration can occur across countries and generations, between artists, corporations, collectors, and (honestly…) the most random stakeholders out there.

These blocks are building digital experiences of colour, pattern, movement, and sound, which have tactile impacts—which can weave even richer experiences for audiences.

Further to that, the relationship between the artist and the audiences has become a more casual dialogue as even the most sought after artists can actively troll their collectors on Twitter. They can, through online personas, fan the glowing embers of their audience base and create networks – communities – far outside the bounds a physical presence can allow.

Bjorn Calleja’s NFT piece.

As relationships in the art world become exponentially more numerous via NFT technology, the sensible thing to do is ensure that it’s truly sustainable. Questioning the very blocks, the currency too, on which these uniquely 2020’s experiences exist, is at the heart of moving to platforms like Tezos which offer artists all the good in this world, less a couple hundred kilos of carbon emissions.

And more than that, I think there’s something to ask in the way of value. Though there is a goodness to, and whole market around “trading” online works – that is, buying them with the thought of flipping them for profit – it’d be nice to think that we’re “investing” in these works too, that is, buying them with the thought that there’s true value in owning them. There’s certainly value in the interconnectedness within the NFT art universe, of the online community created largely in the pandemic.

Now though, as the whole crypto space submerges in what is a “crypto Winter,” I think there’s a finger pointed squarely at us with an enigma behind it asking, “what is it you truly value?”

Perhaps that is the disruption NFTs have created in our selves. And I’m here hopeful we value more than a return. We value connection—with artists, the new fabric NFTs allow their work to take on, and the community we share the experience with.