Stephen Curry wiggles her shoulders on my kitchen counter. Nobody cares, not even the most devoted Curry fans. Every now and then a friend asks what it is it is, this never-ending cycle of Curry successfully throwing a bomb just past half court in a Golden State game against Dallas in February 2021. Then the shoulder move. Some movement in the hips.
It’s a framed NFT, I say. An NFT video, actually. There’s another box next to it, a pulsing blue jellyfish that looks like a novelty item bought at Spencer Gifts around 1994. It beats in a loop, like a GIF. That is not an NFT. Between these two acrylic frames is a third one that cycles through the digital images from my iPhone’s camera roll, just normal images.
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What do we get when we buy NFT art, unique bits of code that are certified through the exchange of non-fungible tokens? Do we own the art itself, or the certificate for that art, or both? I have a Steph Curry highlight on my kitchen counter, and I have no idea. I have posed the question and cannot guarantee a satisfactory answer; this is not unlike the promises of NFT art. This hasn’t stopped hardware manufacturers from capitalizing on the NFT trend, which, at the moment, is in recession. You might even call these frames token devices: sleek, sturdy shards of atoms that sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, existing solely to give you a way to display your new art.
“I think we have such a unique view in terms of approach to display technology and how display technology is really representative of a single blockchain-backed asset,” Joe Saavedra, founder and CEO of Infinite Objects, told me in February. . Infinite Objects makes the frames that I have borrowed from the company, the ones that currently house Curry’s move and the trippy fish.
Saavedra acknowledged that other display manufacturers are also getting on board with NFTs, such as Samsung, which announced earlier this year that certain models of its TVs would support the art of blockchain. What’s different about the Infinite Objects frameworks, Saavedra said, is that the company is elevating videoturning it into “something collectible, something that is treasured, and can be bought and sold”.
Unlike traditional photo frames, IO frames cannot be modified. (You could even call them non-fungible.) You can place an order for a frame with an NFT video or one with normal non-blockchain art, but either way, that’s the art you’ll be stuck with forever. And even if you go through your NFT’s ownership verification process before ordering the frame, Saveedra stressed that the image you’re receiving isn’t the NFT art itself. “It’s a physical twin of that asset on the blockchain,” he said. Saveedra actually owns the Steph Curry NFT, which I verified by scanning a QR code on the back of the frame. He purchased it through NBA Top Shot, the league’s official marketplace for digital collectibles. He then had it put into an IO frame. It’s a lot of work for a little art.
Infinite Objects frameworks are not cheap, but compared to other NFT frameworks, they are cheap. Most range from $79 to $450, depending on the size and quality of the frame and how an NFT is valued. The Steph Curry video print is $199. The most expensive item on the IO site? A $600 video depiction, created by an artist collective called Keiken, of Elon Musk, Grimes, and baby X Æ A-12. Musk inexplicably holds a knife. They are part human, part Avatar, and they all have chips implanted in their skulls. “Their glass pregnancy bellies are both a container and a shiny varnish displaying a range of different objects that represent the inner workings of their minds and transport awareness, feeling and belief from one space and time to another,” he says. the description of the art, apparently borrowing a page directly from the WeWork brochure.
If that hasn’t blown your mind, other NFT framework makers’ releases just might. A new hardware entity called Lago, backed in part by Master & Dynamics CEO Jonathan Levine, is selling a 33-inch screen for NFTs for $4,500. For that kind of cash, the screen will “display NFTs in the intended quality as the artist envisioned.” For an extra $500, you can add a Lago gesture camera, which lets you turn your wrist on your NFT frame to cycle through the art he’s showing to his bewildered friends. Do you prefer a bargain? A 32-inch NFT Tokenframe display, which connects to Wi-Fi and allows you to stream your own NFTs to the display, costs just $999. Step up to a 55-inch Tokenframe and you’ll pay a very specific $2,777 (in Ethereum, of course). ).