Collective Intelligence¶
The seminar on decentralised networks introduced to us some of the technical advancements in this landscape. We started by learning about the differences between Web 2.0 and 3.0 and the underlying technologies to make Web 2.0 possible.
Then with Mar Canet, we explored the blockchain paradigm, NFT technology and some art projects and artists who utilise these technologies including his own work. The course felt like it required some basic understanding and exposure to this field and I was lucky to be aware of some of these developments in the last years.
The concept of art in a digital world and the intention to make things unique in the digital is a new different landscape to understand, and in my view, it’s not the most straightforward one with the traditional understanding of what art is, where and how it’s accessed, and why it’s valuable. For me what’s surprising is how the behaviour of some people changed so quickly in the face of these new paradigms.
I enjoyed being able to create an NFT in class and starting to trade them between peers. I was expecting to get more hands on with blockchain programming, and understand that part of the paradigm a bit as well, which wasn’t possible - and probably it was a better choice given how technical it can get.
These said, I didn’t get why this seminar is called “collective intelligence”. It seems to me that collective intelligence is a much broader and abstract concept that can be realised through many different things - not necessarily through blockchain or even the web (internet). A physical library or a small public gathering are instances of collective intelligence as well.
In the final challenge of the class, I created an NFT as an invitation to provoke some thoughts on why we value NFTs - questioning our desires for ownership and their roots of it. Why does it matter to own beauty - what it means socially and interpersonally? And if we can let go of the idea that owning something makes us special.
The NFT I made could be the first of a series of pieces that connect the same idea - To allow people to own something that’s actually free to grab. Something that doesn’t even require digitisation. The first piece is the view of the sea on a tranquil beach, in black and white, adapted from an open-source script that’s shared along with the NFT. The goal is to create some confusion and internal questioning on the user to ask themselves what is it that they are doing by buying NFTs, and what’s the meaning of it.
All that said, digital arts is a beautiful evolving field, and supporting artists working in this field through NFTs or other mediums is meaningful. That’s not something I’m against. I’m against the race towards money-making just because a new technology now allows certain capabilities to sell things differently. It’s supposed to be just a new marketplace, nothing actually changed in the process of making of the art itself. However, we see that the marketplace is actually changing the art and what art is being made. That’s another way markets are manipulating our behaviours which we should be aware of. That’s what I believe we need to think more thoroughly about.
