Issue editor: Małgorzata Dancewicz-Pawlik (University of Wrocław)

NFT understood as a non-fungible token, is a digital object, such as a jpg, giff, mp3, mp4 or any else, that is linked to a blockchain element in peer-to-peer technology, and serves as a reference to a transaction contract. The Janus face of NFT has sparked both – excitement and indignation. It is related with the potential to make or waste immediate money by creating and mediating digital images and has become known due to such works as The First 5000 Days by Beeple, Bored Apes, or Cryptopunks.

However, whenever new technologies enter the market, artists constantly find a way to apply critical methods and reconsider the concept of art commercialization. This strategy is used by, among others, Fred Forest, Kevin Abosh, Damien Hirst, and Marina Abramović. NFT as a new actant on the stage of digital cultures performs various functions: social, aesthetic, didactic, economic, ludic and even charitable. Formally, it is both a medium and information, a substance and distribution platform. It is one of the most debated phenomena in new media art, polarizing both public opinion and artists, who must strike a balance between the ideas “harmful to the environment” and “lucrative for the artist.”

A number of questions arise when contemplating NFT as a new digital art phenomena. The following topics are proposed to be addressed:

• NFT aesthetics,
• NFT archeology,
• aesthetic values and economic values,
• image extensions, non-visual NFTs,
• new colonialism in blockchain minted art,
• technology and its energy-intensive nature, the impact of blockchain on climate changes,
• NFT portals as collectors and taste experts,
• peer-to-peer – a utopia of creative freedom or a crypto-capitalist delusion.

Various additional subjects can be added to the list above.

Deadline for submitting a text is 30 April 2024.

Articles should be sent electronically to the Editorial Board’s email address prace.kulturoznawcze@uwr.edu.pl