
Above: The Mirage Gallery's display room in SpatialWeb
Here’s a question about NFT art that I’ve been thinking about lately, even before the value of the market took a huge hit:
What will owners of NFT art actually will do with it, to justify the prices they just paid?
With real life art, after all, people hang it in their home so they and their friends/family can enjoy it -- or on the high end, lend it out to a gallery or museum to share with the public, either for a fee, or for the kudos for their contribution. The art work is special because it's one of a kind, and people have to go to a specific place, to enjoy it. But because NFT art is usually just a copied digital image like any other copied image on the Internet, what will make it special to their owners over time?
Come to think of it, the NFT art market probably plummeted in part because that question doesn’t have a great answer. Also, because that market’s been overwhelmed by speculators who don’t really care about art as such -- a point made in this excellent essay by technologist Anil Dash, who literally co-invented the NFT.
Anil isn’t sure there's a way that NFT can remain relevant to artists, as opposed to speculators.
“I genuinely don't know, but I hope so,” Anil tells me. “Thing is, if an artist has an audience and interest, they can usually just sell to their fans, regardless of whether the blockchain is involved. It feels like that only adds complexity.”
There may be a sustainable market for NFT art which better fits the virtual medium. For instance, the virtual portraits of great Black artists that Nettrice Gaskins creates using Deep Dream algorithms as her paintbrush:
SL At the End of Major Innovations After Uplift? (Comment of the Week)
My post on Jim "Babbage" Purbrick's long-ignored C#-in-Second Life integration provoked many "Oh what could have been" responses, both here and across social media. (Especially poignant to read posts by other former Lindens, remembering this project fondly, if bittersweetly.) For example, this comment from reader Pulsar, who not only bemoans the loss of this C# feature, but who also sees it as a sign of Linden Lab's waning interest in innovation:
My strong sense is Second Life is now basically in maintenance mode, and that the user base shouldn't expect any major innovations that might drastically impact the existing ecosystem or hurt the world's steady profit, now that it's going directly into the hands of a massive holding company.
Anyway, the ironic thing about all these recent technical shortfalls is that they're happening after the completion of moving SL to the Amazon web cloud, dubbed "Uplift" -- perhaps the last major innovation to the platform. As reader Sally Crofton notes:
Continue reading "SL At the End of Major Innovations After Uplift? (Comment of the Week)" »
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2021 at 01:00 PM in Comment of the Week, Linden Lab News & Analysis | Permalink | Comments (4)
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