Net vs NFT art
A few glimpses into the history of Net art brings some interesting parallels to what NFT art has to offer, and to its the potential future trajectories. Interestingly, reading through this quote does not evoke any nostalgia that Net art was more genuine and/or conceptually more thorough.
Quoting from Alexander Galloway’s Protocol:
1. Auctionism, a type of commerce-oriented art making:
“eBay art is therefore primarily a commercial art genre in that it engages with the context of buying and selling via the Web. So, eBay art should be considered in the same category as video game art, or software art, or other related commercial genres. But eBay art is also a way of aestheticizing the network itself, and network relations. The actual Web page on eBay is important, but other related places and events are important too, such as the email lists to which the artist posts the announcements of … her auction, and the interest brought on by the bidding war. The communal network or social space created by the auction art piece supplements the artist’s eBay Web page” (Galloway, 2004:233)
2. The Hacker Manifesto from the late 1980s:
“We explore . . . and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge . . . and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias . . . and you call us criminals. . . . Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto.” (The Mentor, 1986. http://www.iit.edu/~beberg/manifesto.html.)
3. Perhaps the major difference between NFT and Net art is that the latter commented on the technical novelty the protocol of the distributed operation, while the former focuses on the content of the individual art practices, which may not necessarily have to do with the principles of how NFTs work.
Media theorist and curator Tilman Baumgärtel on the Net specificity of Net art:
“It has always been emphasized that the first and most important theme of Net art is the Internet itself. Net art addresses its own medium; it deals with the specific conditions the Internet offers. It explores the possibilities that arise from its taking place within this electronic network and is therefore “Net specific.” Net art plays with the protocols of the Internet, with its technical peculiarities. It puts known or as yet undiscovered errors within the system to its own use. It deals creatively with software and with the rules software follows in order to work. It only has any meaning at all within its medium, the Internet” (Tilman Baumgärtel, net.art 2.0: New Materials towards Net art (Nürnberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2001), p. 24, emphasis Galloway’s)