Contemporary art and crypto culture. Blockchain as a thematic core in current artistic practices

Abstract

This article examines the relationships between contemporary art and crypto culture, analysing a series of artistic practices that question the technocultural values and dynamics that have emerged with blockchain technology. These practices form a specific path in the development of contemporary art which, through neo-conceptual strategies, is oriented towards the critical thematisation of crypto culture in its multiple dimensions (creative, economic, social). In these works, blockchain, far from being considered merely a cryptographic recording system or a means for commercialising digital goods, becomes a space in which to poetically explore the multiple contradictions and paradoxes of the digital economy. The text places special emphasis on the main thematic nuclei of these artistic practices: The NFT business model based on the creation of verifiable ‘digital scarcity’, the problematisation of the concept of authenticity in the field of digital objects, the emancipatory potential (and its limits) of the decentralised nature of blockchains, and the ecological impact of crypto economies.