As 2022 is drawing to a close with mere days left until Christmas, one can’t help but reflect on the year that has all but passed. 2022 has certainly been an eventful year — both for Sedition, and of course for the world at large. There’s not much we want to say about global events (too depressing!), so we thought we’d give you a recap of the year on Sedition.
The largest event of 2022 for Sedition was the introduction of NFTs to the platform. Sedition has very deliberately held back from utilizing blockchain technology until now, but this year we felt confident that the technology has matured to the point where we and our community are happy to use it. In the first and current stage of our NFT integration it is possible to turn some of the artworks you already own into NFTs. We initially announce which artworks can become NFTs in our Discord server during our ‘Mint of the Week’ event. In addition, many new artworks are now possible to mint as NFTs immediately after purchase. We envisage that in the long run every artwork on Sedition will have the option to be minted as an NFT — however, we’re not fanatical about it, and we do not wish to push our artists and collectors into something they may be uncomfortable with — so this process may well take several years, and will be dictated by the desires and appetites of our community. It may be that some artists and collectors prefer to permanently refrain from engaging with the world of NFTs — this is entirely up to them, our intention is to offer our community the choice, not the obligation. As of this moment, only 100 works on Sedition have been made available as NFTs, though this figure grows each week.
In addition, as you may have noticed already, new artworks released on Sedition tend to be either smaller editions or even unique iterations. This is a direct result of our conversations with you, our audience. Many of you have reached out to explain your preferences in terms of edition sizes and what you prefer to collect, and we’re extremely grateful for the input! As a result we have been focusing on scarcity — smaller editions or even unique works, alongside the more accessibly priced larger editions.
During 2022, we significantly increased our presence in the world. With the pandemic finally subsiding and life returning to some sort of normal, events and expos are back in swing. Sedition has participated in numerous events in 2022, namely Paris NFT Day and World Blockchain Summit Singapore to announce our entry into the NFT space, and ExpoReal and EquipHotel in order to start building more partnerships with various hotels and other display partners.
Post-pandemic, we are delighted to see our licensing division blossoming once again. During the shut-down this arm of our business has essentially been on hold, however now that things are open again many of our hotel clients and display partners are recommencing their displays, or looking for new ways to brighten up their blank walls and dead spaces.
During 2022, we introduced over a dozen new artists onto Sedition’s curated platform: Wisse Scheele; Costas Picadas; Dagmar Schürrer; IIONN; Makoto Inoue; Youngjun Chang; Dennis Miller; Ben McDonnell & Nemo Nonnenmacher; Anthony James; Brendi Wedinger; Herwig Scherabon; Arttu Nieminen; Manuel Tozzi; Ke Jyun Wu; Kirsten Swensen; Black Forest Collective; Ployz; Studio Above & Below; Nataša Prosenc Stearns and Soa J. Hwang — these artists have launched over a hundred new and fascinating artworks. This is, of course, not counting the many artists already on the site who added new works to their profile such as Snow Yunxue Fu; Can Büyükberber; NONOTAK; Terry Flaxton; Overlap; Ozan Türkkan; Louise Stern; Trippy Everything; John Sanborn; Jevan Chowdhury; Luigi Honorat; Nicolas Feldmeyer; LIA; Francisco Telleria; Pierce Warnecke; Liao Yibai; Graham Fudger; Guli Silberstein; Alessandro Niro; Brendi Wedinger; Philip Clemo; İrem Çoban; Pandelis Diamantides; Eloise Fornieles; Francesca Fini; Thomas C. Chung; MARIEVIC; Darryl Rogers; Enzo Roff; Doug Foster and FIELD.
In summary, 2022 has been an important year in the development of art in the digital domain (though on a personal level we’re quite happy to see the end of it!)
It is hugely exciting to see the digital art landscape further maturing and evolving in 2022 — there are still steps to be taken but for artists wanting to make their mark on society, or to engage with an audience there has never been a better time in human history to do this! The reach and penetration of new technologies into every sphere of humanity is unprecedented. As the original digital art platform, we’re delighted to see digital media become firmly established in the landscape of contemporary art. We’re thrilled with the progress we’ve made so far and excited about our next steps! Stay tuned for part 2 of this story — what to expect from Sedition in 2023!