Summary
If you’ve ever vacantly nodded along while someone rants to you about NFTs, then this finale episode is for you. Welcome to Blockchain for Bimbos. From a genuine effort to put agency over the sale of their work back into the hands of artists was born a Frankenstein’s monster: the NFT. It’s the internet version of owning a star… if you could resell that star for millions of dollars to a crypto millionaire. Even stranger, the successful marriage of NFTs and legacy art institutions made strange bed fellows out of affluent old art collectors and dweeby tech bros. And while the era of 2021-2022 was a gold rush for those who could wrap their heads around this intentionally confounding technology, it also exposed something we always knew about the world of art, but never wanted to admit…
Ernst De Geer’s THE HYPNOSIS is now streaming on MUBI in many countries as part of their Millennial Meltdown series.
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SOURCES
Kevin Roose, “What are NFTs?” The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/18/technology/nft-guide.html
Valentina Di Liscia, “Artists Say Plagiarized NFTs are Plaguing Their Community” Hyperallergic (2021) https://hyperallergic.com/702309/artists-say-plagiarized-nfts-are-plaguing-their-community/
“10 things to know about CryptoPunks, the original NFTs” Christie’s (2021) https://www.christies.com/en/stories/10-things-to-know-about-cryptopunks-94347afeea234209a7739c240149f769#FID-11569
Scott Reyburn, “Will Cryptocurrencies Be the Art Market’s Next Big Thing?” The New York Times (2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/arts/cryptocurrency-art-market.html/
“Art Term: Readymade” Tate https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/r/readymade
Cynthia Goodman, “The Digital Revolution: Art in the Computer Age” Art Journal (1990) https://www.jstor.org/stable/777115
David Joselit, “NFTs, or The Readymade Reversed” October Magazine (2021) https://doi.org/10.1162/octo_a_00419
Josie Thaddeus-Johns “Beeple Bring Crypto to Christie’s” The New York Times (2021) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/arts/design/christies-beeple-nft.html
Anthony Cuthbertson, “NFT millionaire Beeple says crypto art is bubble and will ‘absolutely go to zero’ The Independent (2021) https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nft-beeple-cryptocurrency-art-b1821314.html
Zachary Small, “The Night That Sotheby’s Was Crypto Punked” The New York Times (2024) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/18/business/sothebys-crypto-nfts-auction.html
Adam Maida, “What Critics Don’t Understand About NFTs” The Atlantic (2021) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-show-value-owning-unownable/618525/
Anil Dash, “NFTs Weren’t Supposed to End Like This” The Atlantic (2021) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/
Blake Gopnik, “One Year After Beeple, the NFT has changed Artists. Has It Changed Art?” The New York Times (2022) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/arts/design/nft-art-beeple.html
Nathaniel Popper, “What is the Blockchain? Explaining the Tech behind Cryptocurrencies” The New York Times (2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/business/dealbook/blockchains-guide-information.html
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Olympics. |
| 0:02.0 | Last week I went to a family barbecue for, we have this annual family barbecue. |
| 0:06.8 | In the summertime, during the Caribbean festival here called Carabana. |
| 0:11.2 | We have our own little carabana barbecue, and my family goes to the festival. |
| 0:15.1 | Then they come back home and we all barbecue. |
| 0:17.7 | Anyways, I went this year. |
| 0:19.2 | It ended up being a bit more low-key than typical years, |
| 0:21.8 | so I ended up sitting on the couch with my dad the entire time watching the Olympics for like |
| 0:27.0 | six straight hours. I know that makes me sound really antisocial. I promise I'm not. |
| 0:32.0 | But this whole year, I was kind of like, oh, Olympics. Fuck that. Like, I don't want to watch that. |
| 0:40.7 | Jingoism, whatever. But then I sat down and started watching that, but I was like, oh, it's kind of good. No, there's definitely a reason |
| 0:46.2 | people like them. I think the Olympics are one of those things that, like, similar to when I was |
| 0:51.5 | a kid, I would just decide I didn't like a food, and then I would spend my whole life thinking I didn't like that food. But then I was a kid, I would just decide I didn't like a food and then I would |
| 0:54.4 | spend my whole life thinking I didn't like that food. But then I recently realized I love hot dogs. |
| 1:01.1 | I think if I watched the Olympics, I could similarly have that experience. But my tourist ass just like |
| 1:07.9 | hasn't come around to letting go of my thought that I hate the Olympics. |
| 1:12.6 | Not to deviate, but you did mention another food the other day that I thought was really funny. |
| 1:18.1 | Dumplings. You didn't like dumplings as a kid, which is so random. |
| 1:21.3 | It was a texture thing and now I'm obsessed with dumplings. |
| 1:24.6 | Hannah's pellet is widening. |
| 1:26.1 | To the most basic universally beloved foods, yes. |
| 1:31.6 | Yeah, no, I just think it made me wish I had because basically we don't really have a living |
... |
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