When Yayoi Kusama meets NFT, can it bring new ways of playing?

Comment: 0x13, beat BlockBeats

NFT has undoubtedly been the most active field in the crypto world since the beginning of 2021. With crypto artists such as Beeple appearing at top auction houses such as Christie's, the new technology is also making waves in the art world. A growing number of "traditional" artists are making their first NFT art foray into the crypto world, and a growing number are exploring how the new technology can be incorporated into physical art.

The intersection between NFT and physical art has not been unheard of, and some pioneers have tried.

Some people are so radical that they choose to burn the original artwork while bringing the physical art work into the blockchain. Only one of digital identity and physical identity can exist in this world. One of Banksy's prints, "Fool", was burned and minted into an NFT sold at OpenSea auction and sold for more than four times the price as the debate raged.

More people are more conservative in their thinking, and some platforms offer custodian functions for physical art, where it is held in a vault and an NFT, which represents ownership of the work, circulates in the market. This often involves simply uploading scanned metadata to a decentralized storage server such as IPFS, and once a physical work and a digital NFT are both circulating in the marketplace, there is a debate over which version of the work is more valuable.

Although there have been practical cases in the above two ways, they are also accompanied by considerable controversies. So how can NFT and physical art be combined?

In fact, whether it is burning the original work or allowing NFT to circulate in the market, the hope is that NFT can replace the original medium of the work of art, and the hope is that digital can replace physics. But not all works of art are suitable for NFT as a medium, and not everyone is comfortable with NFT as an alternative to physical art.

Another solution of "physical art +NFT"

Try taking advantage of the most basic features of NFT.

At present, the most common explanation for NFT is "non-homogeneous warrant", and this time, cryptoart.ai takes full advantage of the function of NFT "warrant", and closely connects the two irrelevant things, Yayoi Kusama and NFT.

The Infinite Web (MGPP) -- Yayoi Kusama

In July 2021, Shanghai Jiahe Auction Co., Ltd. joined hands with NFT digital art platform Cryptoart.ai to form a combined bid of two of Kusama's most representative and historic works, Infinite Web (1959 C.1979) and Infinite Web (MGPP). Auction will be conducted in the form of an independent special exhibition "Eternal Thoughts · Yayoi Kusama's Original work of The Infinite Web and Special Blockchain Digital Storage Certificate Exhibition".

Cryptoart.ai will encrypt all the authentication data of the two works of Yayoi Kusama -- including circulation records, exhibition materials, publication catalogue, certificates and so on -- in the way of "NFT enabled" physical artworks, and cast them into a complete NFT and save it on the blockchain. The NFT will also be presented to the winner of the auction of the two physical works. The NFT has not yet been cast, as the process of this auction will also be included in the metadata.

"The Infinite Web 1959 (c1979)" by Yayoi Kusama

This time, Cryptoart.ai does not allow itself or collectors to make an either-or choice, but uses NFT as the ownership certificate. This time, NFT does not replace the physical artwork, but works with the physical artwork. In this way, it hopes to help people solve the authentication problems that have plagued collectors for hundreds of years, such as authenticity and right confirmation.

Infinity Network (MGPP) | NFINITY-NETS (MGPP) catalogue

This is an important but easily overlooked idea. When people are looking for further ways to combine NFT with physical works of art, they tend to ignore the most basic uses. Artists entity when must be the most suitable choice of media art works express, like the artist doesn't in creating a painting ink painting on the canvas, the electronic screen is hard to present entity full details of works of art, so the combination of art and NFT entity is not necessarily the entity was replaced by the digital, should be a better way to cooperate with each other.

To face the question

However, this combination has also been met with some skepticism.

First of all, blockchain seeks to "de-trust", that is, we think something on the blockchain is true because it is on the blockchain, not because someone said something, or did something, or provided some information by someone. The metadata that was created as NFT this time was provided by a collector of Yayao Kusama. Although the data was stored in IPFS in a decentralized way, which could guarantee that it would not be tampered with, the information came from the collector. Although it was comprehensive and abundant, it could not meet the conditions of "de-trust".

Second, apart from the fact that the special will deliver the physical art to the buyer tied to the NFT, subsequent transactions do not guarantee that the NFT will be handed over to the next collector along with the physical art. If this NFT does not change hands with the original work, in fact, it cannot meet the function of recording every transaction since then. If the collector chooses to change hands with the entity work and NFT respectively in the future, then the situation of this NFT will be extremely awkward. Physical art works can also be verified as authentic through the method of physical art authentication, that is, through the process of analysis of work style - analysis of signature - analysis of historical materials (sources, authoritative literature, exhibition catalogue, past transaction records, etc.)- technical analysis and detection report. So what will this NFT represent? Is it possible to have an ulterior motive to buy this NFT "certificate of authority" alone, and then match the fake entity work, and then claim that this is the original, after all, this "certificate of identification" is true.

Finally, we need to understand that the link on our cast NFT is simply a "hyperlink" to the metadata stored in IPFS. That is to say, anyone can cast a NFT, and let the "link" link to the current record, exhibition information, such as the identification certificate of the metadata, for the couple, they don't know the block chain "timestamp", "contract" and other information, it is difficult to distinguish what a "identification certificate" is the official, the market may also be chaos. Country "copyright law" although has to copy the digital works as a kind of way, and will work into one or more copies of digital rights, copyright belongs to the individual, but as described above, the NFT "hyperlinks" pointing to the source file, not replicate a new file, this how to legally recognized also needs to be confirmed. However, this is not a unique problem, it is a problem that the entire NFT industry needs to solve.

It's a long way to go

These are the problems that Cryptoart.ai needs to solve in this attempt. Although each problem is not easy to solve, Cryptoart.ai has started to try to combine physical art with NFT in a new way. Exploring an unfamiliar road will inevitably encounter difficulties, and we need to solve them. The mountains are high but not insurmountable, and it is more acceptable to the public, so it is worth the effort to explore in this direction.

The preview and auction of the special auction of "Yayoi Kusama's Unlimited Web Original and Blockchain Digital Storage" will be held in the Banquet Hall and Banquet Hall on the second floor of Shanghai Marriott Hotel. The specific time is 9:00-18:00 preview from July 20th to July 23rd, and the auction will start at 21:30 on July 23rd. We are all interested in how the story will be told.

For NFT, art is the most widely applied scene at present, and the physical art market is much larger than the NFT art market. We hope to explore a way to perfect the combination of physical art and NFT. We can not only use NFT to empower physical art, but also draw nutrition from physical art. Feedback to the development of NFT field.

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