For this week, I realized I need more new insights other than focusing on the impact NFT arts has on the artist community. In order to proceed with the next steps, I started to research the existing platforms of NFT art trading and use them as a first-time user. Looking at the existing solutions provides me with a lot of new insights and new directions.
Then, I continued the secondary research based on the reading list I selected last week and the new insights I gained. By reading the scholarly articles, I gained more insights about my research topic as well as pivoted a little bit from my original topic because of the new insights gained. First, looking back to the reading list I picked, there are three main articles I found on Google Scholar that I decided to use as my main articles. These three articles are “Non-Fungible Tokens and the Future of Art”, “Virtual Art and Non-Fungible Tokens”, and “Blockchain Technology and Non-Fungible Tokens: Reshaping Value Chains in Creative Industry”. From these articles, there are three main insights I gained that helped me pivot away from my original research topic, which is “How NFT arts can empower the minority group?”
From reading those articles, the first insight is creativity and aesthetic values are less important for NFT arts, compared to traditional digital arts, because a lot of people are participating in the NFT community for making money instead of examing the art. It is common that on a lot of NFT art trading platforms, arts that are selling for high prices are less aesthetic appealing. However, some of the really great drawings which people can obviously tell that the creator put a lot of effort are not selling too well in terms of trading and selling for value. I found that a really interesting phenomenon. The second takeaway is “a substantial amount of NFT art traders have fintech background.” At first, I thought since we are talking about NFT art, people participating in it should somewhat focus on art, however, that’s not the case. A huge amount of people in the NFT art trading community either have a finance or technology background, which is not that surprising to me because NFT art is different from traditional art, and it is based on blockchain technology, which has a threshold for entry. Therefore, I would expect that people with relevant backgrounds can do better in terms of trading. And the last takeaway, which is also the one that I found most interesting, is “privilege plays an important role.” As mentioned, NFT trading has a certain level of threshold for entry, so people with higher educational levels or those who are financially better being are more likely to benefit from NFT trading platforms.
For my next steps, I’m planning on scheduling interviews with gallery owners, the local digital artist community, and NFT art traders to gain more insights into what their experiences are. And I might do some field research such as visiting galleries that exhibit NFT arts.
