Clit Splash: Women transform the art landscape through NFTs
“The pandemic forced many of us to find other means through which to sell art,” is how Luisa Ausenda, begins the story of Clit Splash, an all-female digital art collective she co-founded. Luisa co-founded Clit Splash with friend and fellow art curator Gladys Garrote in Cuba, as a way of helping many of the island’s digital artists and graphic designers whose work was now disrupted due to travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic. The collective now works with three different Non-Fungible Token (NFT) platforms, including Snark.art, through which they curate and help with the minting of the work of emerging Cuban artists and others worldwide.
What are NFTs
“Minting is the correct word for the process through which art is tokenized.” Luisa explains. “An NFT is essentially a piece of code running on a blockchain, the same way that cryptocurrencies run on blockchain.” In simple terms, blockchain is a database storing information or data in sets (blocks), with each set annotated with a time that data is stored in code. This timestamp is the reason that blockchain does not require a bank or government to certify its validity.
As the chain grows, a considerable amount of energy would be required to hack every instance something is stored, which occurs every time a transaction is made, for example. Like a currency transaction (e.g. bitcoin), a token is another piece of data you can store in a blockchain. In marketplaces like Snark.art, the NFT is stored in a digital wallet, and therefore only accessible to the owner. NFTs are certainly a perfect fit for digital art because the stored data can act as a certificate of authenticity, and even include royalties. “Yes, you can even write into the code how much you can claim for royalties; that’s the best part!” Luisa exclaims.
She is rushing through her words because she is excited about this brave new world in which she finds herself. Manager and saleswoman for the Italian Galleria Continua, an enterprise with spaces in Italy, China, France, Brazil, and the first and only non-Cuban art gallery in Cuba, Luisa’s background is in business and the arts, but she says that the NFTs community has been nothing but friendly and helpful. Luisa emphasized Twitter, Discord and Clubhouse’s Women in NFTs as being great sources of support and information on minting artworks.
Criticism against NFTs
I am quite happy to hear her enthusiastically talk about this rapidly rising cryptoart world. Yet, I tell her I still have my concerns regarding exploitation. We echo each other: “exploitation in the arts is a tale as old as time.” The things we complain about in the NFTs world are part of our own societal constructs: earning gaps between men and women and demand differences between young and established artists. These are issues we must fix, but they’re currently our garbage; it’s only natural that we will also litter in the digital space.
In fact, seeing that cryptoart platforms, such as the Winklevoss twins’ recently acquired Nifty Gateway were often male dominated, is what drove Luisa and Gladys to focus primarily on curating art “with a feminist lens —Luisa explains — to amplify the voices of Cuban artists, particularly women, queer folks, and BIPOC, but our collective does not exclude Cuban or international artists that fall outside this focus. The goal is to highlight and uplift the under-represented experiences of these artists.”
Many other communities involved in cryptoworld are emerging throughout Latin America, and I am eager to continue seeing them grow across the developing world. The problems with NFTs in Latin America have also been pointed out (article in Spanish), namely, currency issues, environmental concerns, and community exclusion (e.g., smaller rural communities, indigenous artists, etc).
Regarding currency issues, Luisa explains that, “Artists and collectors still need a digital wallet (cryptowallet) to pay a fee for operations such as the transferring of an NFT between a platform and a wallet.” Such fee, as you’ve likely seen in articles circulating online, is called a “gas” fee. Luisa mentions that “in my experience, because cryptocurrencies fluctuate, fees in the most prominent platforms such as OpenSea and Foundation, can range anywhere between USD $80 to $150.” This could still be quite expensive for independent artists in the developing world, which is why collectives such as Clit Splash are important for representation.
Currency issues can be especially challenging because cryptocurrency is not yet exchangeable across many countries. But, Luisa points out, “the fact that there isn’t much control from governments and banking institutions also has its benefits.” Artists from developing countries could be paid more generously. However, she adds, “It’s difficult to set up cryptowallets as not all are accessible from Cuba.” Cryptowallets become the collector’s digital storage for the purchased NFT, and allows the collector to re-sell their prized possession on other platforms should they wish to do so. The one they resort to in Cuba is called Trust Wallet, as that seems to be the one from which they can exchange and transfer money. Other countries in the developing world might encounter similar barriers with web accessibility.
Environmental issues should continue at the forefront of improvements required for NFTs. As consumers and artists, we can choose through which platforms to buy and sell art. It’s part of the reason why Austrian artist Chris Precht decided to cancel plans of selling three ecological architecture art pieces each at 100 editions. Efforts are underway to minimize the carbon footprint of NFTs. Currently, Clit Splash features a small number (one to three) of editions per artwork per artist, which minimizes their carbon footprint and benefits the artists they represent by increasing their value and demand. Plus, by working with platforms like Snark.art, an NFT marketplace, other than a large profit margin for artists, artists can earn 10% in royalties from future sales — rare in the analog world — through their platform or OpenSea, a bigger NFTs marketplace, and even work with the platforms to find greener blockchain options.
NFT uses: at home, galleries, and museums
Luisa also would like to challenge our perception of NFTs. She believes that “the digital world can also be curated.” NFTs go beyond the benefits to artists in developing countries. They will change the way we consume art worldwide: at home and in museums. We buy and seek art to understand each other and biologically, we also buy art because, like many other animals, humans love to nest. To decorate your nest (your home), you need art. And in 2021, the digital space is just another room in our home. The world as we know it today includes a rich milieu of analog and digital experiences.
We already spend most of our time glued to our phone, stationed in some digital space; the pandemic itself has added to this by shifting our world into mandatory introspection. We’re already digitally stuck; we might as well nest and decorate with pixels! Many now proudly display art on their TV, so why not use it to showcase your cryptoart? In fact, TV companies know their young, middle class market well because one of the sell features of large screen, smart TVs nowadays is that you can display your favourite works of art on shuffle in that same screen. If you buy an NFT, you can then showcase it on your 120-in, and support an emerging artist! You can even hang that TV on your wall.
Two years ago, my partner and I spent some time at Canada’s Centre PHI, where we experienced an AI-curated art exhibit. From a perfume coded just for you to a virtual reality immersive ayahuasca trip, the exhibit was mind bending to say the least. Centre PHI gave us a taste of how the digital space might merge with the tangible one. In the not-so-distant future, we might see analog galleries collaborate with digital laboratories such as Snark.art.
An excellent example is Snark.art’s recent exhibition “Bridge to Metaverse” curated by Nadia Taiga. In this exhibition, Nadia walked viewers through the world of Crypto Voxels, a gallery in the larger Metaverse, the online version of our offline world. Nadia walked the audience through the Crypto Voxels gallery, just like you would in the analog world. This is also why Clit Splash partnered with Snark.art, which at its core is a laboratory using blockchain as a digital medium.
After my conversation with Luisa from Clit Splash, I can see how NFTs can serve as a tool to sustain artists and even drive the economies back home. Most interestingly, NFTs will become part of the art ecosystem and our lives in new meaningful ways. Time will tell what this NFTs experiment will yield; for now, the future looks bright.
TL;DR
· NFTs are non-fungible tokens, meaning a piece of code running on a digital ledger called a blockchain — the same software used for cryptocurrency that do not require legitimization from an organization like a bank or government
· NFTs store art information, including how much an artists can take from future sales; artists very rarely (if ever) earn any royalties (money claimed from future sales) in the physical art world
· NFTs store timestamps, and because many computers encode the timestamp all over the world, this code chain makes it very hard to copy the exact same NFT
· Some platforms offer a link accessible for all, but more and more platforms like Snark.art, only allow the art owner to access the NFT on their cryptowallet; this increases demand for the artist and minimizes (to an extent) theft
· A consumer that chooses to extort the art also exists in the real world; it’s not necessarily easier digitally. In other words, NFTs are prone to theft in the same way that art in the physical world is prone to theft
· Platforms such as Foundation and Snark.art work through invitation, and typically vet those in the community a bit more than other platforms, preventing extortion a bit more
NFTs are particularly useful to underrepresented artists. You can read more here: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/08/10520561/women-artists-nft-opportunities
· You can showcase an NFT at home digitally
· Galleries can buy NFTs and showcase them digitally; museums can also do the same. In fact, some galleries are already doing so.
