NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are one of the headlines in today's art market and this is being watched by digital artists and audiences with keen interest. Sedition, as the leading contemporary digital art platform, unveiled the plan for 2022 and our approach to NFTs through the first Live AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on 10th February.
Rory Blain, Director of Sedition, explained the framework for entering the NFT market in the coming months. Sedition’s community of both artists and collectors enriched the conversation by asking questions and sharing their concerns and insights.
We recap some of the featured questions during the session:
What to expect from the platform this year? Are you going to pivot into NFTs?
Yes. This year, we are entering the NFT space.
We’ve been doing something very similar to the blockchain for the last ten years. But our version was a centralised version of ownership with data held on Sedition’s servers. The decentralised, blockchain version is simply better. So, we are going to pivot to using blockchain technology as a superior decentralised system.
However, ultimately we’ll be doing the same things we have always done. We will be working with the artists in our community and reaching out to the world's most exciting creators who are not yet on the platform. We will continue to introduce new audiences and artists around the world and to further develop the enjoyment of art in digital media for the global community.
Are all Sedition artworks going to become NFTs?
Yes. But not all at once.
However, if you don’t want to engage with crypto we will not oblige you to do so. We intend to provide an easy-to-use gateway that will allow you to engage with these developments - however if you prefer to carry on using Sedition the way you always have done, then you can continue as before.
As we have always done - we will provide a range of options to enjoy the Sedition artworks as artworks. Our suite of apps will be enhanced and improved, and the compression and coding of the works on our servers is optimised for perfect playback on a wide range of screens and devices.
If, on the other hand, you decide some works no longer fit your collection and you want to sell them on Sedition or present them elsewhere for sale, you will have the means to do so - now in a decentralised way.
In the long term, we envisage listing all of the artworks on Sedition on the blockchain. The ledger of ownership for these works will be decentralised and more secure. In every other respect the way you access and enjoy the artworks on the site will stay the same.
Have you chosen a platform partner or a specific blockchain yet?
Yes. We are preparing our NFT entry on Ethereum.
We have been quite deliberate in taking our time about this. Like many people, we have concerns over the environmental impact of NFTs and the blockchain technology. From a business and usability perspective, ETH seems the ideal route for us, however we wanted to wait for 'proof-of-stake' rather than 'proof-of-work' which now appears to be imminent. We are committed to an ecologically responsible approach, and we intend to make very limited use of NFTs on the site whilst the switch is in progress.
Will the introduction of NFTs change the artistic direction of Sedition?
No not at all - our mission is to present the best of the contemporary landscape to a global audience.
Sedition already hosts an incredible wealth of artistic talent, from emerging new digital stars through to well established gallery and museum figures. One of our concerns about NFTs is what we see as a drop in artistic standards, amongst all the excitement surrounding cryptocurrencies. Sedition intends to present the art and the artists with the same curatorial standards we have always held.
So no, we are not changing the artistic direction of Sedition. We offer a platform as a broad umbrella that can hold everything from the likes of the Bored Apes Yacht Club to the most complex, generational videos. There is an incredible amount of work out there and we don’t want to be prescriptive about what the artists create. We provide a beautiful, contextualised space for artists to present their practice and engage an audience. The artists will decide their own direction.
Listen to the full version of AMA, click HERE.
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