Is digital art worth the same as ‘real’ art?

I wanted to write a post about NFTs for digital art in an attempt to wrap my head around the concept of NFTs, which is blowing up right now with record-setting sales being made for art, music, sports highlight videos, and even GIFs. However, my conclusion is that I still don’t get the hype. I’ll attempt to briefly summarize and leave you with an article that I found more interesting than anything else I’ve read about NFTs: “The NFT craze encapsulates the absurdity of the art world—and its obsession with authenticity”

NFTs stand for “non-fungible tokens,” and are digital keepsakes that can be bought and sold. They are authenticated using a token with the same technology used for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. They are “non-fungible” because each piece is not worth the same amount and are not interchangeable, whereas 1 Bitcoin is worth exactly the same and is completely interchangeable with another (thus allowing it to be used as currency). The value is in the token authenticating each piece of art, so you can buy and sell it same as if it were physical art (with proof that you are selling a unique piece) and there is limited supply controlled by the artist. A great benefit is that you can directly support artists upon mint and auction of the NFTs and even later on in the resale market (each artist typically gets a cut of the proceeds each time a piece is sold).

What is debatable though is who actually wants to buy these NFTs, because while each piece is “authentic,” often times the work itself can still be reproduced (or has been reproduced thousands of times before already) and you don’t need to actually own it to enjoy it. Additionally, you don’t get any additional rights like a license to reproduce it nor the copyright.

Some examples and stats that demonstrate the craze

Grimes recently sold digital images and short videos for prices as high as $389,000 ($6 million total for all pieces)—but all are freely available on the web, so you don’t really have to “own” anything to view and appreciate the art.

Electronic music producer 3LAU sold the first-ever tokenized album for $3.6 million each (and $11.6 million for all pieces combined) —this one is a bit more understandable to me because the winning bidder of the platinum-plated vinyl record NFT version can also redeem a custom song by 3LAU, as well as access unreleased music and a bonus physical vinyl.

I think the history of “authenticity” explained by The Art Newspaper article validates why I along with many others are bewildered by the high price commanded by NFTs, since I personally don’t believe items should have value just because they are scarce. As a bonus, I loved this anecdote about Andy Warhol as another example of how artists have satirized and incorporated commerce into art: “Andy Warhol, after launching his Pop career with almost interchangeable paintings of interchangeable household objects, went on to place ads inviting the public to bring any object at all to his studio so that he could ‘certify your WARHOL WORK’ with his signature. Those ads were meant as absurdist experiments in tokenising, not to make an actual profit from signing.”

Additional info via Slate and edm.com