Tülay Pirgalıoğlu
The new millennium introduced us new digital artists and new art gallery concepts. The new purpose of these digital art exhibitions is to create interactions with the exhibited art. Some of the recent great names are Chris Milk with “Treachery of the Janctuary” when artist used interaction between audience and digital birds to explore the possible reaction of the audience. Apart from Milk’s magnificent work, Aaron Koldin and Ben Tricklebank created another fascinating digital art project called “Light Echoes” that is also resulted in an extraordinary technological experience in which sincere reactions were seen among audiences. Another equally valuable name would be Yayoi Kusmaci, a woman who impacted many fields of art with her extraordinary digital artwork and projects. Her childhood trauma also shaped her perspective in art in which she created art installations called “Infinity Mirror Rooms” that she wanted to give the audience the feeling of the contrast between life and death. Following the groundbreaking implications of digital art nowadays NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are shaking up the world of art. NFTs are designed to give you something that cannot be copied which means the true and sole ownership of the work. Artists can have copyright and reproduction rights just like with physical artwork. NFTs can be anything digital such as drawings, music and you can sell it as a digital artwork on this realm. You can also trade NFTs with different value as opposed to bitcoin where the value stays the same.
On the other hand, there are still traditional art collectors who cannot define or describe the real value of NFTs in art world. Traditional collectors claim that experienced people in art belongs to an older age and they do not have the need or the attempt to step into the language of the Internet.
However, Sotheby recently announced its partnership with NFT artist Pak to show their interest in trying to understand this new genre.There are still some concerns regarding NFTs legal layout and also its environmental impact since it requires an enormous amount of raw computing power that causes the higher-level use of fossil fuels.
Climate-minded artists would move to some alternative blockchain platforms with less environmentally impact. But NFTs world is also trying to find other beneficial formats, for example, they set up their tokens to be compensated every time artists work is resold. Blockchain technology is expected to create transparency throughout the chain therefore to be accepted as more trustworthy among organizations.
All these fascinating changes and developments in both worlds have proven us how advanced technologies are transforming the perception of art. Technology has given more access to the arts, collectors to build their art collection and share with others. Furthermore, audiences have had the opportunity to express their emotions and beliefs through interactive and highly engaging digital artworks. Using AI, VR, AR, digital designs, 3D printers have changed the contemporary art and its market in different ways such as how they are created and shared in a connected world. Digital art brought masterpieces to closer to the audience and now creating new opportunities for other artists. It is exciting to see how this era will evolve and how advanced technology in art is going to take the audience next.