Auras, NFTs and the Problem of Scarcity in Digital Assets

"Aura" and authenticity in art

In "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Walter Benjamin writes on the 'aura' that a genuine work of art possesses, and that a reproduction of that piece of art lacks. Although never really defined by Benjamin explicitly, the 'aura' is implied to be broadly the uniqueness and history that an original object has. A reproduction, by implication, lacks this 'aura'. The 'aura' is the knowledge that the object was touched, fashioned, pored over by the artist themselves, it is the sense of the history and custodians that the object has had since... It is the patina of 'nows' that the object has been party-to leading up to the special 'now' of the viewers encounter with it. A reproduction of the object, no matter how faithful, cannot have this 'aura', it cannot have this history. Furthermore, the viewer's encounter with the reproduction is unlikely to be a special moment of pilgrimage and discovery, more likely the flicking of a magazine page, the clicking of a link...

To date, every artwork I have created has been purely digital, meaning it has only existed as a bunch of pixel values in a file. There is no way that these pixel values can have an 'aura' because they do not exist as a physical object. For sure they exist as magnetized zones on my hard-drive, but these are meaningless without the software to decode them, without the screen to display them. When I send someone the artwork, I don't take out my hard-drive and ship it to them... In this sense, I propose that there is no original in digital art, every copy is just a copy. 

Authenticity and value

If there is no original, there can be no aura, and if there is no aura, value becomes difficult to measure. For instance, suppose I create a beautiful painting. You see the painting, and you fall in love with it, you have to have it. I agree to sell it to you for £1000, and you are very happy (my art has made your life worth living! ;) ) and you have something worth £1000. Your friend sees my painting on your wall, and she wants it too, real bad... She can only have it if you sell it to her. Sure she can get someone to make a copy, but only if you agree, and even then, her copy is just that... a copy. So now the question becomes: how much does she like it, how much do you like it, and how much money does she have... She buys it from you for £2000, and you use the money to buy more art. That's sort of the non-digital art economy, albeit eye-wateringly simplified... 

Suppose now, I create a beautiful digital picture... You see it, you fall in love with it... I agree to send you the source file, you print it out (via a professional art printer, please, for the love of everything pure!) and hang it on your wall. Your friend comes around, she loves it, you send her the source file, she puts it as the backdrop of her iPad. Everyone is happy... In this extreme example, no money has changed hands, and actually everyone in the world could have a copy, and still almost no money will have changed hands. This is the digital art value 'problem'... 

Some quick fixes spring to mind... I could refuse to share the source file, and I could charge you for my making a print instead. I say it's £1000, you are shocked - why so much? You go on the print website and see it costs £100 for a print that size, and you are outraged. Maybe you agree to pay £1000, swearing to never speak to me again... Next week, you visit your friend and she also has a print, identical to yours, and I also charged her £1000.... "WTF?!" you scream, spittle flying from your lips. 

Maybe next time, wiser and with fewer friends, I explain that this is a limited print run of 10 prints, I show you where it says "3/10" and assure you that the scribbly mark is my signature. I say it's £1000, you explain that since I'm printing 10, £100 would be fairer...You ask how you can be sure that I wouldn't print more? I shrug and look offended. You pay £500, and next week you visit your friend, and she has the same print, except hers says "1/10", and suddenly you don't like your print so much.

NFTs to the rescue?

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) claim to solve this problem. Instead of selling you a print, I sell you an NFT of the artwork. The NFT effectively represents the artwork, me, and you, in a way that can be independently verified. It's like writing "Tom Grey (Tom's fingerprint), sold this artwork (artwork fingerprint), to Bob Tables (Bob's fingerprint)" in permanent skywriting for everyone to see (except permanent skywriting would probably still be better for the environment). You are happy, because everyone can see that you own it, and when you grow bored, you can sell it to someone else by creating another transaction that says you are transferring it to Sharon Footstool, or whatever. The digital asset, my picture, is still intangible, but there is a little bit of aura in the NFT - you can see me create it, you can see Bobby buy it, you can see him sell it on.... The image isn't unique, but the NFT actually is.

For me, there's an achilles heel to all this... And I'm wary that the value of NFTs (like the value of most things, to be fair), comes from belief in that value, so articles like this one can be quite unpopular... What I can't understand is how the 'aura' of the NFT remains tied to the 'aura' of the image. Sure the NFT points to one image and one image only. Sure you can prove that the image is the one in the NFT, that you own... But, if someone wants to, they can still download the image, they can still print it out (via a reputable art printer, of course), and they can still hang it on their wall. Is theirs a copy? Sure. Is yours a copy? No! Yes! Maybe? You can print the image, but you can't print the NFT (well you can, but you won't want it on the wall). The NFT is unique (non-fungible in fact) but the image is not...

NFTs might be art after all

So where does that leave us? It may leave some of you screaming "you don't understand NFTs, you moron", and I'm sure I'll hear all about it in the comments. But I think it actually leaves me in an interesting philosophical spot, one I've been contemplating for a while for other reasons. I think it leaves us saying "what is art?". Is the image art? Or is the NFT art? When you buy the painting/image/balloon dog, are you buying the 'thing' or the 'aura'? Are you actually buying into the artwork and its history? If so, then NFTs really do solve the problem, but it's an interesting mental/cultural shift to make. It's a bigger shift than just digital art, and one I think modern art has been making for a while - if I put a urinal in a gallery, am I saying the physical object is art? Or am I saying the statement is art, and the physical object represents it? If I burn a flag and put the ashes in a condom and put it in a gallery, am I saying the ashes are art? Or am I saying the ashes represent the art - the flames, the anger, the burning?

All this probably sounds like art bunkum, and maybe it is... I'm probably in too deep now! However, I think it actually offers an interesting way forward for digital art, one I am thinking of exploring. Can we actually make art that's about people and interactions, and use NFTs as the representation? Can the act of making the NFT become part of the art? Can we make art that's an event, where the NFT is the 'artwork' and the physical object (or virtual image) is just a 'souvenir'?

Further reading: For some examples of incorporating minting of NFTs into artworks, check out the very interesting Tyler Hobbs.