Open Forum

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

While I don't have specific input I would like to draw your attention to this year's MuseumWeek themes - Tuesday June 6th includes NFTs

Homepage • MuseumWeek, the worldwide cultural event on social media (museum-week.org)

MuseumWeek 2023 will take place both online and offline from June 5th to 11th! This year marks the tenth anniversary of the official international week of museums.

June 5 Environment

June 6 Web3

June 7 Food

June 8 Oceans

June 9 AI

June 10 Heritage

June 11 Sun

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hi Katy, 

Thank you for your reply ! I will watch this carefully. 

While I don't have specific input I would like to draw your attention to this year's MuseumWeek themes - Tuesday June 6th includes NFTs

Homepage • MuseumWeek, the worldwide cultural event on social media (museum-week.org)

MuseumWeek 2023 will take place both online and offline from June 5th to 11th! This year marks the tenth anniversary of the official international week of museums.

June 5 Environment

June 6 Web3

June 7 Food

June 8 Oceans

June 9 AI

June 10 Heritage

June 11 Sun

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hi, Marie!

I think you can find two different issues here. 

1) NFTs as valuable, interchangeable objects. This is nor particularly new, as NFTs act as original pieces in the context of art sales. I don't see this aspect as very relevant, even if they are introducing new means of proving an artwork's originality. Furthermore, I guess this idea of creating an image (without a great effort) and selling it for a huge price is part of a scam in which many people can fall into. 

2) The second aspect if far more interesting and if refers to POAPs. NFTs can be used as certificates of assistance, as part of a museum donor's club or to engage existing audiences in a exclusive group that can enjoy some special features given their participation in museum's activities or echibitions.

In our museum (a national museum in Argentina) we're now developing this second aspect. 

I hope this can be useful to your investigation!

Best,

------------------

Tomás Dotta

General Coordinator

Museo Nacional de Arte Oriental

Buenos Aires - Argentina

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hi Tomas,

Your use of POAPs is very interesting.  Can you share more about how you are integrating them into the visitor journey  - both their real world journey and digital journey.

Hi, Marie!

I think you can find two different issues here. 

1) NFTs as valuable, interchangeable objects. This is nor particularly new, as NFTs act as original pieces in the context of art sales. I don't see this aspect as very relevant, even if they are introducing new means of proving an artwork's originality. Furthermore, I guess this idea of creating an image (without a great effort) and selling it for a huge price is part of a scam in which many people can fall into. 

2) The second aspect if far more interesting and if refers to POAPs. NFTs can be used as certificates of assistance, as part of a museum donor's club or to engage existing audiences in a exclusive group that can enjoy some special features given their participation in museum's activities or echibitions.

In our museum (a national museum in Argentina) we're now developing this second aspect. 

I hope this can be useful to your investigation!

Best,

------------------

Tomás Dotta

General Coordinator

Museo Nacional de Arte Oriental

Buenos Aires - Argentina

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hi, Marie!

I think you can find two different issues here. 

1) NFTs as valuable, interchangeable objects. This is nor particularly new, as NFTs act as original pieces in the context of art sales. I don't see this aspect as very relevant, even if they are introducing new means of proving an artwork's originality. Furthermore, I guess this idea of creating an image (without a great effort) and selling it for a huge price is part of a scam in which many people can fall into. 

2) The second aspect if far more interesting and if refers to POAPs. NFTs can be used as certificates of assistance, as part of a museum donor's club or to engage existing audiences in a exclusive group that can enjoy some special features given their participation in museum's activities or echibitions.

In our museum (a national museum in Argentina) we're now developing this second aspect. 

I hope this can be useful to your investigation!

Best,

------------------

Tomás Dotta

General Coordinator

Museo Nacional de Arte Oriental

Buenos Aires - Argentina

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Good luck with this question.  As Editor of Curator: The Museum Journal, I've received innumerable PR releases about this novelty items, asking me to cover the flurry of media around their release. I have asked museum professionals, NFT creators, and their media representatives to write an article for our journal and haven't received a thing.  Given that this is your research question, i'd be very interested in an article, a. perspective piece on why you're pursuing this research, etc... You can learn more about our journal guidelines to authors on the journal website.

For me, questions about NFT's is their intensely carbon negative due to the underlying code versus what the actual product is and how it is used once purchased.  They seem to be things that slide quickly into a wealthy person's library never to be looked at again.  That would mean they appear to have speculative value but neither actual intellectual value as objects that contribute to society, nor ideas worthy of an audience, even if they are part of our current material culture.  Like history museums that have an old scrub board that is no longer used for cleaning clothes, the object and its provenance are marginal novelty items, like carnival glass.  I believe they are the latest disposable commercial item that has no real relevance to the collections. I have heard presentations by people who mint the coins that they can add depth, value, and backstory to artifacts selected from a permanent collection which makes them more "collectable" but mostly they are about making something private. 

Few museums (meaning I have yet to hear from one but hope your request does better) have specific accessioning and deaccessioning policies for "born-digital" content but that's the category these would be.  They are either gift shop items (ie: affinity relationship tokens or momentos) or they are collections items.  it seems that some folks are arguing that they are interpretive materials which makes them similar to a walking tour that you can download to your digital device. 

I believe that museums involved in this speculative market should create a policy to ensure at least five tokens of the total number minted are retained by the museum, two for the permanent digital archive to reflect the museum's history in the financial market and three outside the archive that can be sold in the improbable event these things rise in value.  It may only be a few euros later, but it would also ensure that the museum can participate if speculation in these markets increases to very high levels.  

I have heard that it is possible to embed a % fee on each transaction in perpetuity so when the token changes hands in the future, the museum does continue to derive income.  But I would be very interested in knowing the calculation for the real carbon cost of that transaction so the museum could do the responsible thing and offset those receipts with some form of mitigation. 

I don't think these are a crime, just a time-intensive brand extension of the type of products that land in gift shops. So I don't see any justification for considering them more than part of the financial history of museum fundraising from wealthy individuals.  I hope you can interview some of the creators to investigate their sales pitch, and then unpack that through a museum practices lens.  

Good luck!

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

Hello all,

I'm doing research on the place of NFTs in the new museum practices. I am a master student at the University of Paris Sorbonne and I would be honored to discuss these issues.

In this context, I am interested in the use of NFT as a new digital object in the museum but especially in the question of how technology can contribute to the production of value in digital museum objects that goes beyond monetary value.

What do you think: does the current NFT craze respond to a trend, a fad or, on the contrary, is a future-oriented solution, respond to a structural evolution of museums towards digital?

Thanks so much! I look forward to your input.

------------------------------
Marie Degonse PhD
Student
Sorbonne University - Paris
------------------------------