NFTs and the Museum

Let’s start with a primer:

What are they?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens that are registered on a decentralized blockchain (a distributed digital ledger that is maintained and updated by a network of computers performing complicated functions—but more about that in a minute)...

This post features Jeffrey Blair, LACMA General Counsel and Assistant Secretary, in dialogue with Sarah Conley Odenkirk, partner in Cowan, Debaets, Abrahams, and Sheppard LLP's Entertainment group. Odenkirk co-leads the firm's art law and NFT practice, and advises artists, collectors, dealers, and art institutions in art world negotiations and transactions.

This post features artist and Art + Technology Lab grant recipient Cayetano Ferrer in dialogue with artist Peter Wu+, whose platform EPOCH recently offered the entirety of its current virtual exhibition as a NFT.

Here we talk with Art + Technology Lab grant recipient Tom Sachs about his Rocket Factory, a custom-built digital platform that lives on the blockchain and serves as a marketplace where branded virtual Rocket Components are bought and sold as NFTs. The Rocket Factory allows participants to assemble three Rocket Components into either a Perfect Rocket or Frankenrocket: Perfect Rockets are composed of matching and singularly branded Components, and Frankenrockets are a discordant combination of different brands.

NFTs present challenges for collectors beyond the logistics of ownership and exchange, but also in terms of long-term sustainability and authorship of these artworks. Questions arise as to what stake various blockchain technologies have in guaranteeing that these unique assets have a life beyond the immediate, and questions around the transmutability of these assets onto other blockchain systems remain murky. For this installment of NFTs and the Museum, LACMA Digital Preservation Manager Joey Heinen interviewed Elian Carsenat, computer scientist and founder of UNCOPIED, an authentication system for digital artworks (including NFTs).

Continuing its practice of fostering artist experimentation and innovation at LACMA, the Lab has teamed up with EPOCH, UNCOPIED, and a selection of artists in its program to create a virtual exhibition that will be minted as an edition of non-fungible tokens on the Algorand blockchain.

For this post, we speak with Art + Technology Lab grant recipient Kyle McDonald, whose new project Amends spotlights historical emissions from three major art NFT marketplaces with the artworks priced to fund the complete carbon mitigation of each.