part 3
Part 2 recap:
Two days ago my artist friend called to talk about their dealer.
'oh, and they want me to issue an NFT, because Chrisites is closing the auction on a million dollar one the day after our show, and we want to offer one in the show'.
'Oh. And the show is in 4 days..' 2, now.
What to mint? How to mint it? Who will mint it? What would it mean to own it?
What to mint?
So: Is there a digital asset? 'Yes: I've made a few recordings of {famous name musician here}, they are around somewhere.'
How to mint it? Who will mint it?
I had never heard of NFT art up to this point, but had some ideas about how to do it. 'Get someone to make a pgp hash of the file to sign it, and send me that.' I said. Ya, a naive roll-your-own. On investigation, there are SWARMS of folk set up to help you upload and mint your tokens. So at least I do not have to re-invent this, eh?
Not exactly an NFT. What would it mean to own it?
As I learn more about what a NFT is, I think my notion of crypto-provenance is not exactly the same thing, though it has a lot of the same characteristics. I think , as old school creatives, we eschew the abstract value of ownership. And yet, getting paid for work requires an interface. As Keith Haring said:
"... Money is the opposite of magic. Art is magic. The worlds of art and money are constantly intermingling. To survive this mixture the magic in art has to be applied in new ways. Magic must always triumph.” — June 13, 1984
So, my friend, issuing an NFT based on your animated gif made from photos of the strobe-wheel art that took many many hours, days, months to make just right is one way of letting money mingle with your art, and finally pay the artists who created it.
What would it mean to own it?
Yes we have to be clear, owning an NFT based off your digital artwork does NOT convey copyright. That needs to be clear to your buyers. There is growing law to support crypto evidence of ownership, however. So if you WANT to make a contract granting copyright to the owner of the NFT, you could probably get a lawyer to write that up, and it would probably be binding.
How to mint it continues.
From bitcoin (bought this computer) to bitcoin-cash (leftovers from the fork) to ethereum to Opensea.
The trick with Opensea is, you can set up pretty far without having funds on hand. But eventually you need to spend some ethereum to pay gas to make the proxy contract with Opensea. It wasn't obvious to me where that happened; turns out you have to try to 'sell' one of your listings, that is when it asks you to sign the proxy contract. How much that costs depends on the time of day!! Gas prices were bumping 300 from lows of 70. Whatever. Early in the AM, I pulled the trigger, spending $70 worth of eth.
0.25BCH -> 0.21BCH/0.06xEth -> $70 gas ->proxy with opensea
Well, I have spare change still in the BCH, and some in ETH too, so let's be happy for now.
