| Abstrakt: |
The digital circulation and forms of digital artworks appear to be immaterial. However, our analysis of their materiality discloses new dimensions of affinities between the art market and the financial market. These relations have been recognized in the social sciences in order to understand the transformation of standardized mass markets into markets in which the highest value is attached to the singularity and authenticity of a commodity. Financial markets are undergoing such a transformation. The art market is essentially associated with singularity and authenticity. New digital technologies transform the art market's working. Despite the hopes and visions of art being liberated from the present curatorship of gallery and museum representatives, curators, critics, collectors, and gallery owners, art's valuation perpetuated in blockchain infrastructure comes closer to the valuation and appreciation stemming from financial markets. We study three auctions of artworks that took place in Poland and were hailed as the first auctions of NFT tokens associated with art. Thus, we delve into the most common and propagating forms of digitalization based on blockchains that have been associated with art. The focus on materiality enables us to identify new dimensions of this process. We present two understandings of art's materiality. The first assumes that materiality is a transmitter of meaning. In the second, materiality refers to the interaction with - and usage of - not only physical, but also digital objects. From the first perspective, artworks' manifestations are anchored in physical objects or singularized data files whose value is assessed by current decision-makers, such as gallery and museum representatives, collectors, curators, art critics, and gallery owners. Physical objects are kept in galleries, museums, and among collectors. Such a vantage point hampers how digital circulation co-creates the valuation of artworks, their originality, and the logics of circulation. From the second perspective, the standards of smart contracts, the means of token collecting, and their pricing are used not only by humans, but are also submitted to data processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
