An Artist in Crypto

There’s art that I consider art, and there’s other things – things that could be beautiful, but too superfluously so. The intention behind their creation is the desire to please the eyes. They want to be fashionable. But true art is disinterested. True art doesn’t care to be appreciated, obsessed over with, or owned. It holds a certain self-respect... See more

... I realized I associate art with gifts. You don’t mark a true gift with a monetary value. You don’t predict the rise and fall of that value. If an art is important to you, you want to hold onto it, instead of trading it with others. And if an art is to initiate a spiritual experience for an audience, it should not involve itself with transa... See more

The main thing crypto challenged me to consider was the definition of art itself.  What I consider to be art is different from what the crypto world calls art. To me, art is more than an aesthetic image. Inputting a prompt, generating an image with a style transfer, for example, isn’t enough to be art. Drawing, and then generating, a thousand ... See more

Most of what the crypto world calls art is entertainment, or fashionable assets. They snatch your attention. They care more about making a tweet or a headline declaring they SOLD OUT, they set a HISTORICAL RECORD, and they tell you this is the art’s value. But the value of what? Monetary value is not a good indicator of the aesthetic value, the his... See more

And therefore, on the collective level, crypto has predominantly encouraged creations, but not creativity. Crypto rewards popularity and suggests that popular content, regardless of its intention, is inherently more valuable and deserving of rewards – not only (sometimes ridiculous) monetary rewards, but also the rewards of being written into (art)... See more

I think of my friends with wild creativity and technical skills, who aren’t at all interested in participating in the conversation in the art world, with no intention to be remembered for their art, or anything. Something about the idealism of web3, its insistence on a narrative of revolution now, its urge to change the course of history right away... See more

In a way, crypto only magnifies or exposes the historically intimate ties between art, status and money. When we are in the thick of operating in the art system, it’s easy to forget how the aesthetic value, historical value, monetary value are actively negotiated for each art object. What web3 did was simply render art as a literal currency.