POST: 0024
Critque
04-08-2022

I’ve no urge to adopt a firm opinion of the speculative currency that is the Non-Fungible Token (NFT).

The 𝔸𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕤𝕥 ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕚𝕔 in me views them with a haunted sense of Nostradamian doom.

TheⒽ𝐎𝕃𝐘 丅𝐫Ꭵc𝐊ѕ𝐓𝒆𝕣 in me is actively trying to snag a piece, rushing into the burning Wells Fargo to grab a handful of soon-to-ash cash.

The ★optimist★ in me sees them as an artist's late-stage-capitalism saving grace. The payday that the hungry 99% of creatives have been waiting for since the 2008 crash, or the last Carnegie Museum, or when the Medici family fell from power . . .  or forever.

It's the trickster perspective I feel the most akin to. I’m looking at the 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚝-centric art world through the green eyes of the gremlin in the machine. . .

. . . and I’m thinking of the art piece known as “Can’t Help Myself.” An installation created by the Chinese artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu. It features a large hydraulic robot arm with a squeegee for a hand. The arm occupies its time by dragging its own leaking oil–the crimson lubricant essential to its operation–back into its ball-bearing base. In its early stage, the arm did not need to labor much. It had plenty of time to perform its programmed celebratory dances. It had a great work/life balance. But as time progressed, the leak progressed. The arm worked endlessly at its own self-preservation, the walls of its plexi-pen covered in oily gore.



NFTs feel like this leak: the inevitable stage of a 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚝 culture that requires continuous growth in a finite place. Early-stage 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚖 was breathing deep and calm. Today, it is hyperventilating in an oxygen-scarce environment. The leak is becoming torrential.

It might be that NFTs represent a different ‘End of History’ than ol’ Francis Fukiyama predicted. It will not stretch forward into a Neo-Liberal utopia of continuous process improvement. NFTs could reflect a final phase of monetization. A monetization of an essence, the suchness, of theｔａｔ░ｔｖａｍ░ａｓｉ. The inevitable conclusion of the 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚝 mission to transform more & more nuanced pieces of our world into wealth-growth ploys. C𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚝 culture is settling into its final form: a Babel tower of speculative investment.

This ever expanding 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚝 culture contains the same amount of matter it began with. Its expansion only produces more void. In this vacuum–the bardo between nowmoney & potentialmoney–the NFT was discovered. That discovery is evidence that the 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚝 culture/universe is convulsing at the edges of its expansion. The ↦↦Big Crunch↤↤ is close at hand.

This might have first begun in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp scrawled ‘𝓡. 𝓜𝓾𝓽𝓽’ on a urinal. But the energy was different. Duchamp’s trick of elevating a toilet to ℍ𝕚𝕘𝕙 𝔸𝕣𝕥 did a grand job arguing that anything could be ℍ𝕚𝕘𝕙 𝔸𝕣𝕥 if the right artist declared it that and the right patrons agreed. Part of this trick was the inflation of monetary value that this urinal instantly commanded, but only part. There were holy trickster vibes. Museum visitors, critics, and Professors Emeritus to this day have been condemned to discuss, seriously, a dusty urinal. I see sacred subversion in Duchamp’s Urinal, I see Hermes & Coyote. I see beautiful performance art. I don’t see that in NFTs . . . yet.



Because NFTs are not elevating everything to ℍ𝕚𝕘𝕙 𝔸𝕣𝕥. Not even ironically. They have reduced everything into wealth storage devices. They are stocks & commodities in the same speculative fashion. The tech needed for them is not the groundbreaking part. It is the 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚝 culture that accepts their validity as investments that is the impressive groundbreaking innovation. The culture, the speed; again, the hyperventilation.

Unlike commodities that need to be excavated & refined, unlike stocks, as pieces of institutions that alchemize those commodities into Hello Kitty Bath Mats & Predator Drones, NFTs start from and deliver nearly nothing. JPEGs of quickly drawn apes priced in the millions. Not pure nothing, but as close to nothing–no thing–as 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚖 has been able to muster. C𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚖 is accelerating. I am fettered to it. The air is getting thin. I’m being deprived of the deep belly breath of integration. It is hard to find the oxygen to utter the old prayer of comfort:

“This is fine.”

But even prayers are NFTs now.



The Pope might auction an NFT for Catholicism. Nothing in the religion will change, but someone somewhere will own a key piece of its demise. That is worth something. That is worth something?

I won’t make the easy claim that NFTs are bad because the art is “bad.” What makes good and bad art is subjective. I think it is mostly ℂ𝕦𝕝𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 🄲🄰🄿🅃🄸🅅🄴 ͎A͎R͎T͎, as opposed to A͎C͎T͎I͎V͎E͎ ͎A͎R͎T͎. It is art reacting to the market. Quickly drawn apes trade for 6 figures next to 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙣’𝙨 ‘NFTPs’ & 𝓟𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓵𝓮’𝓼 CryptoCrisps.

And . . . I am also playing with the idea of creating several series of NFTs for 3 reasons.

To learn in the best way I know how: participation.

With the goal of acceleration. I want 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒$𝚖 to end, so I will throw more coal in the wailing engine. I’ll leak it a bit o’ oil. It refuses to stop, so I will help it explode. I want it gone. I will give it speed.

Money.

This logic is not logic. It is a bet, a gambit, a grift. It rests on assumptions loaded with hypocrisy and holes. I’ll defend it like I defend the idea that private property does not exist. That borders are artifice. That art is so sacred it can survive any profanity. I’ll defend it like a trickster.

In 2019 the robot arm died.