Article: Artwork, Market and Commodity Form
Author(s):
Abstract
The article examines the relationship between NFTs, digital art, and their existence
as commodities through three interconnected analyses. In the first step, the article
investigates how the ERC-721 standard shapes monopolistic market structures
and transforms digital artworks into commodities. Secondly, it explores theoretical
questions about artistic labor from a Marxist perspective, particularly examining problems
in a value-form based analysis of artworks and questioning whether artistic
work can be considered productive labor in the classical Marxist sense. Finally, the
article analyzes artistic practices that engage with smart contracts as a medium, proposing
a unique convergence of commodity form and artistic expression. The aim of
the article is to highlight how this convergence both reinforces the artwork’s status
as a commodity but how it also creates opportunities for artists to critically examine
and reconstruct notions of commodity and value in the artistic production process.
Keywords
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