The grassroots initiatives are many but most of them did not survive the crypto market crash since their crowdfunding strategy was highly dependent on Token or Coin sales. An exception can be made of Blockchain Art Collective that is promoting its “holistic” approach to Blockchain encryption through physical identification stickers.
There is a grassroots side to my personal vision as well, the one that I extrapolate onto Artsted, an online emerging art marketplace and evaluations platform powered by Artificial Intelligence. In the vision of the Artisfact Ltd the company behind Artsted — it is the artist-centred innovation that makes the change.
Artisfact, the company behind the future digital platform, is strongly convinced that in the online art market, the primary target group is not collectors.
It is artists whose problems should be targeted since only a minority of all artists make a sustainable living from their practice.
A report on “Visual Artists Livelihood” made by the Arts Council in England has a number of findings in support of this business decision: only 10% of visual artists believe that their art income alone provides them with enough to live on, and only 3% of these thought that the income allowed them to live ‘comfortably’.
Therefore, the effort in art-tech should be shifted from high-valued art certification to living artists promotion and market-making through e-commerce. After all, as goes the famous saying, “the dead artists don’t need the money”.
Promoting the model of “artist as entrepreneur” supported by online sales, is a healthy and sustainable model to be incorporated in the creative practice management. The beneficiary artist groups will also consist of those, who are located outside of the major art hubs, like London, Paris or New York. This is supported by the Arts Council Artist Livelihood 2018 Report findings as well: “online & digital sales: London has a significantly lower than average proportion of visual artists saying they earn from online & digital sales (13%), whilst the South West has a significantly higher than average percentage (22%).”
Another crucial point of artistic development is sharing one’s work, exhibiting and becoming critically acclaimed. In the future, this will be facilitated by the use of Virtual Reality technology, which is currently being promoted by such start-ups as VR-all-Art, and can be technically incorporated into online buying experience.
Conclusion
There is no definite answer as to who will shape the change in the art world and when will technology enter its routine operations.
Will it be the current industry leaders chasing the secondary-market services and high-tier commissions or grassroots initiatives acknowledging the potential of technology for artist’s practice?
Collector-oriented ventures, are inevitably focused on larger and faster financial gain, which in turn attracts major investors willing to get dividends. On the other hand, investing in sustainability and improving the livelihood of artists had larger potential to transform the industry in the long run, especially if economies of scale are taken into consideration.
What is next?
There is no definite answer as to who will shape the change in the art world and when will technology enter its routine operations.
Will it be the current industry leaders chasing the secondary-market services and high-tier commissions or grassroots initiatives acknowledging the potential of technology for artist’s practice?
Collector-oriented ventures, are inevitably focused on larger and faster financial gain, which in turn attracts major investors willing to get dividends. On the other hand, investing in sustainability and improving the livelihood of artists had larger potential to transform the industry in the long run, especially if economies of scale are taken into consideration.