Is Art by Rhea Myers

This piece from July 23, 2014, under three months after Quantum is another proto-NFT from 2014, yet it derives inspiration from Duchamp, 1960s Conceptualism and net.art. Other early proto-NFTs include NILIcoin and Quantum from the same year, and Mothership from 2013—all found on the Timeline.

The work, published as contract code in 2014 and deployed to Ethereum in 2016, that can be toggled between states of being “art” or “not art” by anyone who sends a transaction to it. This work echoes Marcel Duchamp by reframing a smart contract as a found object. The concept draws from the legacy of 1960s Conceptual Art and 1990s net.art, both of which critically engaged with the systems of their time, using dematerialization, decentralization and interactivity as key elements. Myers’s piece explores how blockchain technology can serve as a modern platform for these ideas, questioning the essence and authentication of art by making its designation as “art” a participatory and dynamic process.

The artwork thus not only interrogates the art historical context of blockchain art from its near-beginnings but also the technological and communal frameworks that support and challenge the notion of what constitutes art today. Like the McCoys—and to some extent Kevin Abosch and ascribe—this early attempt at inscribing creativity on the blockchain was rooted in net art and artist-led.

Myers spoke to this author (Peter Bauman) for Le Random Editorials on the foundations of her work and more.

Jason Bailey spoke about how this project was typical of the fragmented nature of art of the blockchain and proto-NFTs at this time. Rather than the community that would eventually form, during this time the work consisted of “individuals playing around with the concept, working on individual projects,” according to Bailey. He continues to say that there was “not much interest and not a movement; not community driven.”