Digital arts


$70m digital-only artwork shakes up art world The sale of a digital collage by Beeple


for $70m has shaken up the fine art market. Big prices are usually reserved for Impressionist masters or Renais- sance classics. This digital piece was offered with a non-fungible token to guarantee authenticity and paid for in cryptocurrency The piece, titled Everydays: The First 5,000 Days, sold for $69.4m in an on- line auction, “positioning him among the top three most valuable


living


artists”, Christie’s said via Twitter on Thursday. Christies said it also marks the first time a major auction house has offered a digital-only artwork with a non-fungible token as a guarantee of its authenticity, as well as the first- time cryptocurrency has been used to pay for an artwork at auction. Artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, called it ‘the beginning of the next chapter in art history’ “Artists have been using hardware and soft- ware to create artwork and distribute it on the internet for the last 20+ years but there was never a real way to truly own and collect it,” Beeple said in a statement released by Christies. “With NFTs that has now changed. I believe we are witnessing the beginning of the next chapter in art history, digital art.” Christies did not identify the buyer of the artwork, which consists of 5,000 individual digital pictures stitched to- gether that Beeple created – one each day – since May 2007.


Non-fungible tokens, known as NFTs, are electronic identifiers confirming a digital collectible is real by recording the details on a digital ledger known as a blockchain. The tokens have swept the online collecting world recently, an offshoot of the boom in cryptocurren-


Barco has provided projection technol- ogy for a ground-breaking new immer- sive art centre, Infinity des Lumières, in Dubai (UAE). The new digital art centre will allow visitors and residents of the UAE to discover a novel ap-


12


The sale of a digital collage by Beeple for $70m has shaken up the fine art market. Big prices are usually reserved for Impressionist masters or Renaissance classics. This digital piece was offered with a non-fungible token to guarantee authenticity and paid for in cryptocurrency. [Picture Credit] Getty Images.


cies. Used to prove that an item is one of a kind and are aimed at solving a problem central to digital collectibles: how to claim ownership of something that can be easily and endlessly du- plicated.


Christies said the artwork fetched the highest price in an online-only auction and the highest price for any winning bid placed online. About 22 million people tuned in on the Christies’ web- site for the final moments of bidding, with bidders from 11 countries taking part.


proach to experiencing art. The first set of digital immersive shows, start- ing in 2021, will focus on the mas- terpieces of coveted artists including Van Gogh, Japanese artists such as Hokusai and Kuniyoshi, as well as the


Others have also joined the craze for NFTs. Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO, put his first ever tweet – “just setting up my twttr” – up for online auction as an NFT, with bids reaching as high as $2.5m, and he promised to donate the proceeds to charity. The rock band Kings of Leon is offering a version of their latest album with the tokens that come with extras. A blockchain com- pany bought a piece of work by Brit- ish artist Banksy, burned it and then put a digital version on sale through a non-fungible token.


Infinity des Lumières to be powered by Barco


contemporary artist and moviemaker Thomas Vanz.


Infinity des Lumières is the brainchild of organizing company INFINITYART and French company CULTURESPAC- ES DIGITAL, the renowned provider


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28