NFTs\, Crypto Art\,
and Digital Collections? - A Roundtable Discussion
Presented
by faculty\, staff\, and alumna of the Department of Art History\, Visual A
rt and Theory
Wednesday\, March 9\, 2022\, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
This virtual event is free and open to the public
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NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have taken the visual art s by storm over the past few years. This roundtable\, moderated by Professo r T'ai Smith\, will take a look at the economic\, historical\, technologica l\, and preservation aspects of this new art form. The roundtable will brin g together participants from different perspectives. Blake Finucane\, who e arned her MA in Art History in 2018\, will talk about the ways her historic al research into crypto art informs her current practice as an investor in NFTs. She will underscore how NFTs can help artists from minority or less-p rivileged backgrounds attain visibility in a traditionally rarefied environ ment. Timothy Fernandes (AHVA Digital Media Technician) will address some o f the technological aspects underpinning NFTs. At the same time\, he will b ring a critical eye to an artistic sphere that seems to be so strongly driv en by commercial considerations. Rémi Castonguay (Curator of Collections in the AHVA Visual Resources Centre) will bring the perspective of an informa tion professional\, concerned with collecting and preserving cultural repre sentations. His take will be inscribed within the history of image technolo gy. T’ai Smith will moderate the roundtable and frame the discussion from a n art and economic historical perspective.
Rémi Castonguay is Curator of Collections at the Visual Resources Centre (Department of Art History\, Visual Art and Theory\, UBC). He received his master's de gree in Library and Information Studies from McGill University in 2000 and an M.A. in Musicology from Hunter College in 2008. His varied experience in New York City took him from the Frick Collection to Columbia University an d the City University of New York. He was Public Services and Project Libra rian at Yale University's Gilmore Music Library from 2008 to 2015. In Briti sh Columbia\, he worked at Lucidea\, an ILS software company based in Richm ond\, and at Simon Fraser University as Digital Scholarship Librarian. In r ecent years\, his work has focused on analog and digital preservation and t he digital humanities. He has presented numerous times at the International Association of Music Library (IAML) and the Music Library Association (MLA ) conferences\, and his articles have appeared in Fontes Artis Musicae\, Mu sic Reference Services Quarterly\, the Journal of Web Librarianship\, and o ther publications. Remi plays the piano\, harpsichord\, accordion\, guitar\ , recorder\, and a little bit of ukulele!
Timothy Fernandes is a digital artist\, designer\, and technician focused on the sens ory and social effects of new media technologies. His work encompasses a wi de range of media\, leveraging techniques from film and video\, audio engin eering\, computer programming\, cognitive science\, and interaction design. He holds an undergraduate degree in Cognitive Systems\, and a master’s deg ree in Digital Media. He is currently the Digital Media Technician for the Department of Art History\, Visual Art and Theory at UBC.
Bla ke Finucane is the Chief Strategy Officer at Pluto Digital\, where she runs both the crypto venture capital investment fund and NFT fund. She also has a number of advisory roles including a blockchain gaming studio a s well as a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). She graduated with her MA in Art History from UBC in in 2018 where she wrote her master’s the sis on how blockchain technology and cryptocurrency can be applied to the a rt world\, under the supervision of T’ai Smith. It was one of the first aca demic theses ever to be published on “crypto art.” Since this time\, she ha s been featured in top cryptocurrency and business publications\, including Cointelegraph and Business Insider\, as well as in academic journals such as Leonardo. @blakefinucane
T’ai Smith is Associate Professor in Art History\, Visual Art and Theory at UBC\, where she teaches modern and contemporary ar t history and media studies. Author of Bauhaus Weaving Theory: From Feminin e Craft to Mode of Design (University of Minnesota Press\, 2014)\, her arti cles have appeared in various journals\, including Art Journal\, Grey Room\ , Leonardo\, and Texte zur Kunst\, and in numerous edited volumes and catal ogues\, most recently for the Museum of Modern Art in New York\, Tate Moder n in London\, and the Museum Brandhorst in Munich. She is currently working on two book manuscripts: Fashion After Capital and Textile Media: Tangents from Modern to Contemporary Art.
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