World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

The blockchain is just the ledger that is shared by everyone using the system. Say bitcoin, people download the entire ledger that contains every address and transactions. You send someone bitcoin (or on other blockchains an NFT) and everyone's ledger updates to include it. You can offer to verify transactions and get rewards, which keeps the ledger secure and prevents fake transactions.

When you buy this particular NFT, the token (which is minted and costs practically nothing — anyone can do it) will be sent from Interpol's address/wallet to yours. Then, whenever someone looks up this particular token via its hash, they'll see it hanging out in your wallet. Or if you show your wallet address to someone, they'll see the token is there. You can then send it along to any other wallet in the blockchain for (practically) free in the case of a sale or if NFTs go the tulip route and become valueless.

And that's it. There's nothing stopping Interpol from minting dozens or thousands of the exact same token later in terms of technicalities.

I know some folks are disappointed in Lynch for being involved with this but I don't really begrudge him at all. It seems more like an Interpol thing than a Lynch thing and if he can make a few bucks from his contribution to it, so be it. I think with the social media tease fans were expecting something more accessible/original which I get but the NFT itself doesn't impact me much either way. Let him make a few bucks off some rich weirdos.

JackwithOneEye wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:00 am wow, he's participating in a grift. that's disappointing.

at least with the TM stuff it's possible to believe he doesn't see it as a grift

Lynch is very genuinely passionate about Transcendental Meditation - does anyone know how much he has made personally from it? I can't imagine that is a major source of any income he has made.

Now that Lynch has thrown his hat into the ring, zero artists I have respect for and follow closely have failed to fall into the NFT racket.

I think at this point it's pretty obvious it's just something a manager or PR rep brings up for an OK and then it happens.

Lynch is a tad naive when it comes to certain matters. I believe he has (or had) little idea of what he's really selling.

Soolsma wrote: ↑Wed Oct 27, 2021 4:31 am Lynch is a tad naive when it comes to certain matters. I believe he has (or had) little idea of what he's really selling.

I've yet to see an artist do NFT without a majority of fan reaction being negative, and it always seems like the fans are upset because they know more about the negatives than the artist.

I think we owe it to everyone to presume they know exactly what they're doing unless proven otherwise. It's not like details we're hidden from him. He knew it was to sell "shares" of a token denoting pretend ownership of a fraction of a music video.

Lynch's lithographic prints can fetch $10000 depending on how many copies were made. All parties are aware of how much the value of this joint-venture will rocket with his blessing.

Whether it is or isn't ethically sound is a seperate issue altogether.

I liked @fatecolossal's take on this:

The language in the David Lynch x Interpol NFT press release seems likely how it was pitched to David -

Sweaty NFT pitchman: these NFTs "will live in the infinite digital realm forever," "in eternity," in "the permanent universe of blockchain"

Lynch: Sure buddy, eternity! Thumbs up

Sure, NFTs are tacky & woeful, but if Lynch wants to make some scratch by having rich people pay for a meaningless digital bauble then more power to him? The only potential harm (as far as I can tell?) is environmental, & fwiw they're claiming the carbon emissions will be offset.

And as I said earlier it seems like Interpol is the instigator here & Lynch just said "okay." (Like, if Lynch really wanted to make money selling NFTs then I doubt that a decade old music video for Interpol would be where he'd start.)

More here: https://twitter.com/fatecolossal/status ... 3987366917

I can understand why others might have a more negative or critical assessment, as evinced by other comments, but I'm reserving judgement myself as just don't know enough about this thing.

Metamorphia wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:10 am I think she just likes being mysterious and colourful.
....

Oops, the first part of your message got moved as well when posts were moved over from the Season 4 thread! For those wondering, Metamorphia was replying to me and Histeria mentioning Sabrina Sutherland's instagram posts of purple flowers and things.

Histeria wrote: ↑Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:21 am I think we owe it to everyone to presume they know exactly what they're doing unless proven otherwise. It's not like details we're hidden from him. He knew it was to sell "shares" of a token denoting pretend ownership of a fraction of a music video.

Lynch's lithographic prints can fetch $10000 depending on how many copies were made. All parties are aware of how much the value of this joint-venture will rocket with his blessing.

Whether it is or isn't ethically sound is a seperate issue altogether.

I don't mean to imply total ignorance--it's more the underlying nature of the thing which fans seem to have an extremely different sense of than those involved, and given that so many industries are predatory and operate with a driving principal of hiding or obscuring externalities or consequence, it seems pretty likely to me Lynch isn't aware of, for instance, the criticism than NFTs are bad for the environment. I think there's a 'pitch' for NFT, as Jonah's post points out, which is different from the reality of what NFT actually does in a material sense.

The other artists I know of who did NFTs got extra flack because they were previously big advocates for environmental concerns. None of them addressed the criticism except for Aphex Twin, who claimed part of his NFT revenue will go toward regreening projects, as much as is needed to offset the carbon costs related. I don't think that's the case for most artists, and it was touted after criticism was directed his way. It seems this is now baked into the PR releases ahead of time, but there's still the problem of how truly neutral the carbon footprint ends up.

NFTs are allegedly becoming more green, there are hopes to reduce the produced carbon by insane 800% amounts, but they aren't close yet. Again, there's a difference there between ideal and current reality. It's similar to the recent disillusionment cryptocurrency has faced--the hype around it and the mythology and hope was that it would be an antidote to certain wealth-hoarding ills--and yet recent studies show that a small group of wealthy elites have the largest share of involvement.

AXX°N N. wrote: ↑Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:53 am Aphex Twin

One of my other GOAT artists and huge source of inspiration (imagine a Lynch/AFX/Chris Cunningham collab) . I'm surprised afx went with it in the first place, though
AFAIK NFT is now largely based on ethereum, there are way, way more environmentally friendly, innovative cryptos out there. So making NFT more green seems certainly possible. Their market share is rather small though but it's quite likely that will change at some point. Elon Musk recently already endorsed eco cryptos, while criticising BTC, causing a huge crypto collapse this year.
I could talk for hours about environmentalism, rudimentary technologies needing replacement and how money and power factor into that, but I guess it'll be bordering on breaking board policy.

Soolsma wrote: ↑Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:30 amOne of my other GOAT artists and huge source of inspiration (imagine a Lynch/AFX/Chris Cunningham collab). I'm surprised afx went with it in the first place, though

Mine too! To my knowledge, AFX has never even referenced Lynch in any way, surprisingly, considering so many of my other favorite artists have.

In AFX's case, it was also a collaborator who was involved--just as it's possible Interpol drove the Lynch decision, it might have been more on Weirdcore's side for AFX, since the NFT was a music video/visualization they made.

And yeah, I should have been more specific--ethereum is what I should have said instead of just NFTs.

Jonah wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:30 am Why do people opt to buy these things then (if they do) - what's the appeal?

Also, I don't really follow the whole "blockchain" thing. I understand NFTs are like a digital currency, right? But I'm out of the loop on the rest of it. I googled it quickly but don't feel much more enlightened.

Never invest in anything you don’t understand!

That advice would be good for Lynch. I guess we're all assuming he doesn't really understand NFTs and is just going along with Interpol - or no?

Looks like Tarantino is joining in. I guess you get something in this case though?
I'd never heard of NFTs before this thread.