A Blockchain-Based Solution to Chain (Im)Material Art

Abstract

This study starts from some preliminary considerations relating to the recent, and tumultuous, changes to the concept of authenticity and ownership of the work of art. Art in the era of its technical reproducibility has seen the very meaning of a work of art change starting from its attribution to the definition of uniqueness and the determination of value. In contemporary works of art, the theme of reproducibility changes radically. Many scholars have analyzed the phenomenon by referring to the reflections of Benjamin and Mc Luan, emphasizing the power of the medium. Immateriality, and the simultaneous need for visibility, have generated the need for new IT tools in digital art for the definition of possession and uniqueness. The procedure that identifies the creation of a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) in fact replaces the art expert and the documents that accompany a work and certify its history, possession, and even its value in some cases. Our research aims to investigate the potential of digital art by a double approach. On the one hand, the approach tries to reconstruct the virtual galaxy to which these digital works belong, and on the other hand, it experiments the techniques for the ad-hoc definition of NFTs without relying on the standard and widely-used platforms. By experimentation, we analyze the strengths and weaknesses derived from the use of blockchain, and we quantify the times and costs for the creation of a customized solution for the creation of NFT through a low-level implementation. The ultimate goal of our research is to offer a synthetic reference framework that highlights the specificities of digital art and the new dissemination and qualification tools.