tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/damien-hirst-11960/articlesDamien Hirst – The Conversation2023-08-22T05:49:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2118302023-08-22T05:49:38Z2023-08-22T05:49:38ZWhy do we make violent art – and what does it say about the artist?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543887/original/file-20230822-29-rk91ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C310%2C2544%2C1571&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">El Tres de Mayo by Francisco de Goya</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The sensationalised media coverage of the recent suspected mushroom poisonings in regional Victoria expanded last week, to include children’s scribblings on a wall. </p>
<p>The pictures, which comprised stick figures, rudimentary drawings and text that referenced death and dying, were removed last year from the former home of the woman who cooked the lunch. Drawn by her primary-school-aged children, and photographed long ago by the tradesman who cleaned the wall, they included tombstones, swords and the words “I am dead” and “You don’t long to live”. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/death-wall-inside-mushroom-chefs-house/news-story/a879b2505a32b22dc16214201659dab4">news story</a> revealing the pictures quoted another tradesperson who saw the wall, saying the drawings were not what you’d “typically expect” from children of that age. “You’d think they’d be drawing flowers and unicorns, not gravestones and death.”</p>
<p>It was implied that these “eerie”, “scary” depictions of violence indicate something troubling. But art history doesn’t bear this out, whether we’re talking about children’s capacity for gruesome drawings, or indeed the tradition of modern artworks by fully fledged artists whose work deliberately explores troubling themes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/violence-is-here-to-stay-we-need-to-understand-it-31411">Violence is here to stay – we need to understand it</a>
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<h2>Ethical concerns and the human condition</h2>
<p>In fact, the history of modern art suggests depictions of violence are often tied to deep ethical concerns and explorations of the human condition. The idea that violent art must be the expression of a violent individual is simply not true.</p>
<p>In the wake of Freudian theories about the monster lurking inside “civilised man”, early 20th-century modernist explorations of violence were often a means of accessing unconscious human desires and fears. </p>
<p>Much <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-surrealism-52487">surrealist</a> and expressionist art sought to reveal deeper truths, beyond what was sanctioned in bourgeois society. </p>
<p>Man Ray’s 1921 <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/man-ray-cadeau-t07883">Gift</a> (or, <em>Cadeau</em>), a sculpture of a domestic iron studded with tacks, acknowledges the violent drives that unconsciously propel much human behaviour. And Andre Masson’s delicate <a href="https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/massacre">line-renderings of massacres</a> (1930-34) confront the viewer with the violence of war.</p>
<p>Such work was often motivated by the desire to outrage polite society and compel it to confront its hypocrisy, particularly in the wake of the horrors unleashed by the ruling classes during the first world war.</p>
<p>A modernist impulse to shock and an attraction to the darker side of the human psyche are still common in art and popular culture. It’s partly about asserting freedom from social norms. But it’s also about highlighting the breadth of human experience – and the social and personal harm that can result when that complexity is denied. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/y/young-british-artists-ybas">Young British Artists</a>, who began to exhibit together after a 1988 exhibition organised by Damien Hirst (perhaps their most notorious member), made a very successful brand of it. </p>
<p>Their work included <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/feb/21/marcus-harvey-margaret-thatcher">Marcus Harvey’s Myra</a> (1995), a portrait of a child serial killer, rendered in children’s handprints. Harvey’s work intends to shock us out of our assumptions about who serial killers are and their motivations, but also to force us to see that our society has produced people capable of such heinous acts.</p>
<p>Another strain of modern art represents violence as a means of holding perpetrators to account. Proto-realist painters such as <a href="https://www.parkwestgallery.com/francisco-goya-disasters-of-war/">Francisco Goya</a> depicted the atrocities of war in early 19th-century Spain in graphic detail as protest. </p>
<p>His contemporary Honoré Daumier was jailed for <a href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/honore-daumier/gargantua-1831">Gargantua</a> (1831), a caricature of King Louis Phillipe. It was one of a series of engravings illustrating the brutality of the French administration’s class warfare. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543883/original/file-20230822-18-xeifp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Honoré Daumier’s caricature of King Louis Phillipe, Gargantua, had him jailed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<h2>Documentary and protest</h2>
<p>The legacy of such artists lives on in documentary photography and film. There, the violence of political and historical events is made widely visible, with the aim of influencing public opinion and forcing governments to act. </p>
<p>Nick Ut’s photograph of “napalm girl” (1972), since identified as nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc, photographed naked while fleeing a napalm attack, is an iconic example. It <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-11/nick-ut-kim-phuc-napalm-girl-photo-50-years-later/101139364">arguably helped end</a> the war whose horrors it captured.</p>
<p>And recent exposés about the horrors of factory farming – such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12185108/">Hogwood</a> (2020), a documentary focused on a UK pig farm that features undercover footage – compel us to confront the normalised violence embedded on our dinner plates. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-after-napalm-girl-myths-distort-the-reality-behind-a-horrific-photo-of-the-vietnam-war-and-exaggerate-its-impact-183291">50 years after ‘Napalm Girl,’ myths distort the reality behind a horrific photo of the Vietnam War and exaggerate its impact</a>
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<h2>Violence using the artist’s body</h2>
<p>Violence enacted on the artist’s own body has been a powerful means to explore the limits of the human condition, but also to make literal the violence of social and political repression. </p>
<p>In her early performance work, <a href="https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/yoko-ono-cut-piece-1964/">Cut Piece</a> (1964), Yoko Ono sits impassively onstage, a pair of scissors before her, awaiting the audience’s response to the invitation to cut off a little snippet of her clothing to take with them. </p>
<p>The audience’s latent gendered violence is gradually manifested, without a word being said by the artist: men take to her clothes with escalating bravado, until Ono is left in tatters.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EWczMBtPa04?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece revealed the audience’s gendered violence.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In her <a href="https://www.lissongallery.com/about/confession">Rhythm</a> series of performances (1973-74), <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mystical-stillness-of-marina-abramovic-in-sydney-43640">Marina Abramovic</a> variously stabbed a knife between her splayed fingers, lay at the centre of a burning five-point star, and offered her prone body as an object for the audience to interact with, using a selection of objects that included a gun, a scalpel and a saw. </p>
<p>By subjecting herself to violence, Abramovic tests her physical and psychological limits – and by extension, our own. And she demonstrates the violent tendencies that are normalised and affirmed in patriarchal systems when, during Rhythm 0, her body is repeatedly assaulted by members of the public.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Select footage from Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm performances.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In 2002, Australian artist Mike Parr sewed his lips shut and nailed his arm to a wall in his endurance performance <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/flinch-art-20020612-gduail.html">Close the Concentration Camps</a>. It was an act of solidarity and empathy with those in detention centres – and a protest against Australia’s inhumane refugee policy. </p>
<p>Acts of violent destruction can be central to the very artworks themselves, as acts of political commentary. </p>
<p>Ai Weiwei’s <a href="https://theartling.com/en/artzine/artling-exclusive-ai-weiweis-dropping-han-dynasty-urn/">Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn</a> (1995) dramatically focused on how little we value the past. And Michael Landy destroyed all his personal possessions in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160713-michael-landy-the-man-who-destroyed-all-his-belongings">Break Down</a> (2001), in an anti-consumerist gesture. </p>
<p>The history of modern art shows compelling grounds for creating images of violence, including to reflect the complexities of human behaviour and to hold perpetrators accountable. </p>
<p>It tells us there is no clear causation between creating violent images and committing violent acts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqueline Millner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s often implied that violent art means something sinister about its creator – most recently, in news stories about ‘scary’ kids’ drawings of death. But the history of modern art suggests otherwise.Jacqueline Millner, Professor in Visual Arts, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1744622022-01-13T01:33:24Z2022-01-13T01:33:24ZNFTs, an overblown speculative bubble inflated by pop culture and crypto mania<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439935/original/file-20220110-26-xvs5yd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C720%2C4500%2C2270&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Comedian Robin Williams once called cocaine “God’s way of telling you you are making too much money”. This role may now have been overtaken by non-fungible tokens, the blockchain-based means to claim unique ownership of easily copied digital assets.</p>
<p>The latest NFT mania involves fantastic amounts of money being paid for “Bored Apes”, 10,000 avatars featuring variants of a bored-looking cartoon ape. Last month rapper Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers) <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/01/03/eminem-nft-bored-ape-yacht-club/">paid about US$450,000</a> in Ethereum cryptocurrency to acquire Bored Ape No. 9055 – nicknamed EminApe, because its khaki and gold chain resembles what Eminem wears. It purportedly joins <a href="https://news.bitcoin.com/eminem-purchases-bored-ape-yacht-club-9055-for-452k-shadys-portfolio-holds-166-nfts/">more than 160 other NFTs</a> in the rapper’s collection. </p>
<p>The Bored Ape character seems derivative of the drawings of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2017/nov/07/gorillaz-oxfam-and-a-tarot-fool-art-by-jamie-hewlett-in-pictures">Jamie Hewlett</a>, the artist who drew Tank Girl and virtual band <a href="https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/9975/gorillaz/">Gorillaz</a>. According to the creators, each variant is “generated from over 170 possible traits, including expression, headwear, clothing, and more”. They say every ape is unique “<a href="https://boredapeyachtclub.com">but some are rarer than others</a>”.</p>
<p>So what does Eminem now own? He has an electronic version of an image, which he is using for his <a href="https://twitter.com/Eminem?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter profile</a>. But then so does anyone who copies it from the internet. The only difference is that he has a record in a blockchain that shows he bought it. He also gets to be a member of the “<a href="https://boredapeyachtclub.com/#/">Bored Ape Yacht Club</a>” a members-only online space whose benefits and purpose beyond being a marketing gimmick are unclear.</p>
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<img alt="Eminem's Bored Ape avatar on his Twitter profile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440389/original/file-20220112-21-4mllrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440389/original/file-20220112-21-4mllrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440389/original/file-20220112-21-4mllrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440389/original/file-20220112-21-4mllrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440389/original/file-20220112-21-4mllrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440389/original/file-20220112-21-4mllrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440389/original/file-20220112-21-4mllrq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Eminem’s ‘Bored Ape’ avatar on his Twitter profile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>That’s about it. The intellectual property (such as it is) remains with the creators. He is not entitled to any share of merchandising revenue from the character. He can only profit from his purchase if he can find a “<a href="https://www.scienceabc.com/social-science/greater-fool-theory-bitcoin-definition-examples.html">greater fool</a>” willing to pay even more for the NFT. </p>
<p>Which is unlikely. While publicity given to the rapper’s purchase certainly seems to have boosted demand, the average price paid for Bored Ape NFTs so far in 2022 is about <a href="https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub?tab=activity">83 Ether</a> (currently about US$280,000). Eminem may have been prepared to pay much more for the one that looked more like him; but would anyone else?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="'Bored Ape' sales activity from NFT marketplace OpenSea. Prices are in 'ether', the currency unit of the Ethereum blockchain platfrom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440564/original/file-20220113-27-1oyr3wc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">‘Bored Ape’ sales activity from NFT marketplace OpenSea. Prices are in ‘ether’, the currency unit of the Ethereum blockchain platfrom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub">OpenSea</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>NFTs are a highly speculative purchase. The basis of the market is proof of unique ownership, which only really matters for bragging rights and the prospect of selling the NFT in the future. NFT mania arguably combines the most tawdry and avaricious aspects of collectibles and blockchain markets with celebrity culture. </p>
<h2>The rise of the celebrity influencer</h2>
<p>Eminem’s monster payment in particular has lent credibility to the idea these NFTs have value. But he is not the only celebrity who has helped attract attention to the Bored Ape NFTs. </p>
<p>Others to <a href="https://nftnow.com/lists/celebrities-who-have-bored-ape-yacht-club-nfts/">buy into the hype</a> include basketball stars Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry, billionaire Mark Cuban, electronic dance music DJ Steve Aoki, YouTuber Logan Paul and late-night television host Jimmy Fallon.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Jimmy Fallon's tweet about his Bored Ape purchase." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440568/original/file-20220113-25-dgvi0t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jimmy Fallon’s tweet about his Bored Ape purchase.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/jimmyfallon/status/1459164143626424321?lang=en">Twitter</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>These well-publicised purchasers effectively act as a form of celebrity endorsement – a tried and true marketing tactic. It is a graphic example of the power of media culture to stoke “irrational exuberance” in financial markets.</p>
<p>There has been a shift away from traditional investments and sources of investment advice. With prices disconnected from any future cash flows, there is less interest in forecasts from technical experts. Instead people turn to social media and “doing their own research”. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.fool.com/research/gen-z-millennial-investors-tools/">survey</a> in mid-2021 (polling 1,400 investors aged 18 to 40) suggested about a third of Gen Z investors regard <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@cannolicrypto/video/6844644996675554566?u_code=d2h683mke5abmh&preview_pb=0&language=en&_d=dd5ggij5mh8mi8&share_item_id=6844644996675554566&timestamp=1594017582&utm_campaign=client_share&app=musically&utm_medium=ios&user_id=6612763001102696454&tt_from=sms&utm_source=sms&source=h5_m">TikTok videos</a> as a source of trustworthy investment advice. </p>
<p>This has opened up the field for celebrity influencers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fintok-and-finfluencers-are-on-the-rise-3-tips-to-assess-if-their-advice-has-value-161406">FinTok and 'finfluencers' are on the rise: 3 tips to assess if their advice has value</a>
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<h2>A lot like Ponzi schemes</h2>
<p>While not illegal, many NFT marketing ventures have some <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/83a14261-598d-4601-87fc-5dde528b33d0">similarities</a> with <a href="https://moneysmart.gov.au/investment-warnings/ponzi-schemes">Ponzi schemes</a>, such as that operated by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/14/bernie-madoff-dies-prison-ponzi-scheme">Bernie Madoff</a> (who sustained his fraud for decades by paying high “dividends” from the deposits of new investors). </p>
<p>Cryptocurrency markets work in essentially the same manner. For existing investors to profit, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/26283f09-c3df-4c7e-814c-65083b063d8a">new buyers</a> have to be drawn into the market. So too NFTs, with something illusory attached to the digital assets.</p>
<p>Some light on the worth of this attachment compared to the economics of NFTs themselves may come from the interesting (and also highly profitable) experiment by the (now not so) “young British artist” Damien Hirst – himself a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-market-not-a-pretty-picture-41822">master self-promoter</a>.</p>
<p>Hirst’s well-publicised “The Currency” project has involved selling NFTs for 10,000 similar but unique dot paintings. The twist is that at the end of a 12-month period those who have bought the NFT must decide if they want the digital token or the physical artwork. If they keep the NFT the artwork will be destroyed.</p>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These two Damien Hirst ‘Currency’ works sold within a hour of each other. ‘5083. Yeah, come on for a ride’, left, sold for US$45,966. ‘6307. We shall bring our own children’, right, sold for US$26,285.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://currency.nft.heni.com/stats">HENI</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/damien-hirsts-dotty-currency-art-makes-as-much-sense-as-bitcoin-166958">Damien Hirst's dotty 'currency' art makes as much sense as Bitcoin</a>
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<h2>No fundamental value</h2>
<p>There’s virtually nothing humans can’t turn into a market. But increasingly there are speculative bubbles in things with absolutely no fundamental value. NFTs have joined Bitcoin and celebrity meme-based cryptocurrencies such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-gamestop-the-rise-of-dogecoin-shows-us-how-memes-can-move-markets-154470">Dogecoin</a> and <a href="https://www.fxempire.com/education/article/what-is-shiba-inu-the-meme-coin-designed-to-kill-dogecoin-804989">Shiba Inu</a> as examples of tokens with no intrinsic worth, which speculators just buy in the hope the price will keep rising. </p>
<p>Even <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-gamestop-the-rise-of-dogecoin-shows-us-how-memes-can-move-markets-154470">Dogecoin</a>, started as a satire on these excesses, is now valued at <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dogecoin/">US$20 billion</a> and promoted in <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/025ea33f-7351-4d86-a1ca-b6c268f5b042">Ponzi-like ways</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-bitcoins-fundamental-value-thats-a-good-question-171387">What is Bitcoin's fundamental value? That's a good question</a>
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<p>Some studies have suggested <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2782236">tweets</a> or <a href="https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1544612318301326?token=59D9447B0D87B50CD42DB7D10454D35453B594ED7F6B115547A4424AD48FF2CB1603C8F7A408882E39EE81B837C6AE47&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20220106032009">Facebook posts</a> can now drive stock prices. <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/5/18/22441831/elon-musk-bitcoin-dogecoin-crypto-prices-tesla">Elon Musk’s tweets</a> certainly seem to have a large impact on cryptocurrency prices. </p>
<p>We now appear to be in the monster of all speculative bubbles. The creators of assets like NFTs will do well. It is not so clear about the holders.</p>
<p>Nor will the impact of NFT crashes be restricted just to the NFT market. Speculators, particularly if they have borrowed heavily, may need to liquidate other assets as well. This is all likely to make all financial markets more volatile. </p>
<p>The larger the bubble becomes, the wider the contagion when it bursts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is part of a series on financial and economic literacy funded by Ecstra Foundation.</span></em></p>The craze among celebrities for Bored Ape NFTs suggests speculation has become completely detached from any idea of fundamental value.John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1669582021-08-31T02:13:03Z2021-08-31T02:13:03ZDamien Hirst’s dotty ‘currency’ art makes as much sense as Bitcoin<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418351/original/file-20210830-27-hhs2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4493%2C2297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/search?searchTerm=%22art+of+making+money%22&search=Find+book">The Art of Making Money</a>” is the sort of book title you might see in an airport bookshop. But the (now not so) “<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/y/young-british-artists-ybas">Young British Artist</a>” Damien Hirst has taken it rather literally. </p>
<p>Hirst’s latest art project, called <a href="https://www.heni.com/">The Currency</a>, comprises 10,000 A4 sized pieces of handmade paper covered in very similar but not identical coloured spots. The back of each is numbered and signed by the artist with an arty title. Like actual contemporary bank notes, each also has a watermark, a microdot and a hologram to make it hard to forge. </p>
<p>The interesting twist is that Hirst has made this into an interesting experiment in the highly irrational economics of collectibles and blockchain technology.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-token-sale-christies-to-auction-its-first-blockchain-backed-digital-only-artwork-155738">A token sale: Christie's to auction its first blockchain-backed digital-only artwork</a>
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<p>Each painting has a digital certificate of ownership — a so-called non-fungible token (NFT). In fact, the buyers of each work have paid US$2,000 for the electronic token only. If they want the physical artwork, they must choose by July 21 2022 to trade in their token. If they do so the token will be destroyed. If they decide to keep the token, the artwork will be destroyed. They cannot have both. </p>
<p>Adding to the fun is the secondary trade in the NFTs — highlighting just how much of the art market is driven by money rather than love. The sale of all 10,000 works is worth $US20 million. But over the past month, since the artworks went on sale, there have been more than 1,800 resales, for almost US$40 million. The highest price paid so far is US$120,000, for No. 6272, titled “Yes”.</p>
<p>These secondary sales already give us some insight as to whether buyers will treat the artworks as essentially homogenous (or “fungible” in economic jargon). But other questions remain. How many buyers will prefer to have the physical artwork or the digital token? Will this preference differ between art lovers and speculators? Will the buyers wait until the last possible days to decide whether to convert to preserve the “<a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/cost-benefit-analysis-and-the-environment/quasi-option-value_9789264010055-11-en">option value</a>”? </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/damien-hirsts-the-currency-what-well-discover-when-this-nft-art-project-is-over-164724">Damien Hirst's 'The Currency': what we'll discover when this NFT art project is over</a>
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<p>On one question, though, we can be most confident of the answer. Despite the art project’s name, these artworks don’t make very good currency. </p>
<h2>What makes a currency?</h2>
<p>For one thing they are not divisible. It would be hard to buy something worth a lot less than one of the paintings with them. One could rip a a sheet in half but, as with half a bank note, it’s unlikely anyone would consider the value of the two pieces anywhere near the original.</p>
<p>So while Hirst’s works have many of the attributes of actual currency, they still lack attributes critical to work as currency. In this sense they are similar to so-called “cryptocurrencies”. Even the two best-known, Bitcoin and Dogecoin, can barely be used to buy anything, because few merchants accept them. The <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/">thousands</a> of less well-known cryptocurrencies are even more useless for making payments. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vEsVJJy1od4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The market for ‘the currency’</h2>
<p>The original sale of the artworks worked like an initial public offering of shares. Aspiring buyers could register and say how many they wanted (but not nominate which individual work). The offering was over-subscribed, as more than 30,000 people wanted more than 60,000 tokens (that is, three time the available number). </p>
<p>This demand has spilled over into a secondary electronic marketplace (managed by HENI, the company that handled the initial sales). The graph below shows these sales.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Secondary sales of Damien Hirst’s ‘Currency’ art works</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418378/original/file-20210830-15-l9nvxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418378/original/file-20210830-15-l9nvxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418378/original/file-20210830-15-l9nvxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418378/original/file-20210830-15-l9nvxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418378/original/file-20210830-15-l9nvxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418378/original/file-20210830-15-l9nvxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418378/original/file-20210830-15-l9nvxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://currency.nft.heni.com/stats">HENI</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>Almost 500 are currently listed for sale. Most of the recent sales were for about US$50,000, more than 20 times the original asking price. What makes one work worth more than another? That’s hard to say, though titles appear to play a big part. “Yes”, which exchanged hands for US$120,000, for example, is one of the few works with a one-word title.</p>
<h2>Valuing collectables</h2>
<p>Hirst’s experiment already highlights the strange economics of pricing collectables.</p>
<p>In economics the standard valuation technique “discounts” future values. It assumes a bird in the hand is worth more than one in the bush.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418368/original/file-20210830-31-1nz5tu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These two Damien Hirst ‘Currency’ works sold within a hour of each other. ‘5083. Yeah, come on for a ride’, left, sold for US$45,966. ‘6307. We shall bring our own children’, right, sold for US$26,285.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://currency.nft.heni.com/stats">HENI</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>But art works and similar collectables are different. While some buy for love, speculators buy for money — on the assumption the value will be more in the future. The rationale is essentially the “<a href="https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/trading-investing/greater-fool-theory/">greater fool theory</a>” — the hope they can sell to another speculator at a higher price. That buyer in turn must expect someone else will pay even more. And so it goes on. Hirst’s experiment has so far demonstrated this graphically.</p>
<p>This often leads to a speculative bubble, which usually ends in tears. The price may collapse. As Isaac Newton ruefully remarked after after losing £20,000 in the South Sea Bubble of 1720: “I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nfts-hit-the-big-league-but-not-everyone-will-win-from-this-new-sports-craze-158762">NFTs hit the big league, but not everyone will win from this new sports craze</a>
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<p>By coincidence, Hirst’s artworks are currently trading around the same price as one Bitcoin. </p>
<p>I think the paintings are at least pretty. And there’s the option at least to swap the NFT into a physical form the owner can hang on their wall. There are enough people who would like to do that to give this artful “currency” some underlying fundamental value. </p>
<p>That can’t be said of cryptocurrencies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Hawkins does not own any of 'the currency'. </span></em></p>Like cryptocurrency, Damien Hirst ‘Currency’ artworks have many of the attributes of actual money.John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1647242021-07-19T13:29:47Z2021-07-19T13:29:47ZDamien Hirst’s ‘The Currency’: what we’ll discover when this NFT art project is over<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411873/original/file-20210719-13-c0koe1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hirst Lord of the Treasury. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/china-chenghai-february-23-2019-damien-1350961955">Marusya Chaika</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>English artist Damien Hirst’s latest project, “<a href="https://hypebeast.com/2021/7/damien-hirst-the-currency-nft-heni">The Currency</a>”, is an artwork in two forms. Its physical form is 10,000 unique hand-painted A4 sheets covered in colourful dots. In the same way as paper money, each sheet includes a holographic image of Hirst, a signature, a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/microdots">microdot</a> and – in place of a serial number – a small individual message. </p>
<p>The second part of the artwork is that each of these hand-painted sheets has a corresponding <a href="https://theconversation.com/nfts-explained-what-they-are-why-rock-stars-are-using-them-and-why-theyre-selling-for-millions-of-dollars-156389">NFT (non-fungible token)</a>. NFTs are digital certificates of ownership which exist on the secure online ledgers that are known as blockchains. </p>
<p>The way that “The Currency” works is that collectors will not be buying the physical artwork immediately. Instead, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-14/damien-hirst-the-currency-artworks-10-000-pieces-for-2-000-each">they will pay</a> US$2,000 (£1,458) for the NFT and then have a year to decide whether they want the digital or the physical version. Once the collector selects one, the other will be destroyed. </p>
<p>So what is going on here, and what does it tell us about art and money? </p>
<h2>What is money?</h2>
<p>Hirst has essentially created a variety of money, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEsVJJy1od4&t=135s">on the rationale</a> that money is primarily a social phenomenon built around faith and trust. In doing so, he touches on an interesting paradox. “Non-fungible” means that a token is a once-off. This is to contrast it with fungible items like dollars, which are all the same and can be traded like-for-like – the same way as many cryptocurrencies such as ether or dogecoin. Fungibility is one of the <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/economic-lowdown-podcast-series/episode-9-functions-of-money#:%7E:text=The%20characteristics%20of%20money%20are,%2C%20limited%20supply%2C%20and%20acceptability.">essential properties</a> of any currency according to traditional economics.</p>
<p>But is it what it seems? By creating 10,000 individual units that mimic real currencies, Hirst is highlighting with the unique markings of each work that even fungible currencies have some non-fungible properties – for example, most currencies will have different serial numbers and issue dates on each note. This helps to underline that money is a concept that becomes ever harder to pin down when you look at it more closely. </p>
<p>The work further contests our sense of what money is by raising questions about another of its essential properties – that of a medium of exchange. A work by a famous artist would rarely be thought of as a medium of exchange. Instead, it would normally be treated as a scarce store of value, like gold. </p>
<p>Hirst is asking if it really has to be this way. By producing 10,000 works in the style of a currency, he is clearly having fun by showing how money is malleable and can shapeshift depending on the context. </p>
<h2>What is art?</h2>
<p>What matters most, physical or digital art? Hirst is not the first to ask this question in the context of NFTs. A few months ago, a company called Injective Protocol <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56335948">bought a 2006 work</a> by Banksy called Morons, which satirises an art auction, for US$95,000. It then burned the piece live on Twitter so that only a digital version survived on an NFT. It then sold the NFT for US$380,000. </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/nft-art-the-bizarre-world-where-burning-a-banksy-can-make-it-more-valuable-156605">previously discussed</a> how the people at Injective had cleverly decided to play on our preference for the physical over the digital. By destroying the physical version and then claiming the NFT signature would stand in for the artwork, it drew attention to the benefit that an NFT cannot be destroyed by vandals such as themselves. </p>
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<p>At a time when there had been an <a href="https://theconversation.com/nfts-are-much-bigger-than-an-art-fad-heres-how-they-could-change-the-world-159563">explosion in demand</a> for NFT art and other collectibles, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-token-sale-christies-to-auction-its-first-blockchain-backed-digital-only-artwork-155738">some trading hands</a> for millions of pounds, this was a comment on the persistent question concerning whether NFTs really imply ownership. For many, the puzzle is why someone would feel that owning a digital version rather than an “actual” artwork constitutes ownership at all.</p>
<p>Clearly, Hirst gets it. He is approaching the question of ownership by distilling it down to its purest economic and commercial form – literally the artwork as money. When people express puzzlement at NFTs, really what they mean is how can you spend money on something so valueless? The idea that digital ownership is equivalent to physical ownership is still unacceptable to the majority of people. </p>
<p>What Hirst is highlighting is how the “puzzle” is easily solved by recognising that there are two communities interested in his artwork: those who value his traditional physical pieces and those who value his NFT pieces. He does this, I think, to show how value never makes sense when it is removed from the cultural community that has ascribed that value to it. Each community is a mystery to the other. Zoom out, however, and they are closer than they imagine, ultimately bonding as fans of Hirst.</p>
<p>For most people, the puzzle is still the NFT community. This culture is populated by passionate blockchain enthusiasts and crypto-natives, young people who grew up with cryptocurrencies. For them, a blockchain wallet stores their value. This can mean fungible currencies like bitcoin or ether, but also, more and more, their art collection. These collections represent their tastes and interests and tell us a little about who they are, and what they value. </p>
<p>A particularly clear-cut example of this would be someone who, after the year has passed, decides to claim the NFT of Hirst’s work and reject the physical version. What better move to signal commitment to a blockchain future? When the year is up and we see how many people chose to keep the NFT, it might even give an interesting indication of to what extent this new digital generation is becoming the dominant one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Dylan-Ennis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Make 10,000 sheets of coloured dots and give them each a corresponding NFT, and what do you have?Paul Dylan-Ennis, Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/305892014-08-19T17:29:11Z2014-08-19T17:29:11ZDamien Hirst’s new town adds a cultural twist to planned utopias<p>A development of 750 new homes in the small town of Ilfracombe on England’s north Devon coast has been <a href="http://www.northdevonjournal.co.uk/Damien-Hirst-backed-plans-Ilfracombe-Southern/story-22017969-detail/story.html">approved by the local council</a>. The news would be unremarkable if it weren’t for the identity of the project’s backer – the artist Damien Hirst.</p>
<p>One wonders if the “artist’s impressions” of the prosaically titled Southern Extension are by the man himself. I suspect not. The new-town’s name is matched by a series of rather sparse, equally prosaic sketch-renders of predictable developer mass housing. The only hint we get at an artist’s vision behind Southern Extension is a statement from the architect: Hirst, <a href="http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Boost-Hirst-Sea-750-homes-plan-clears-hurdle/story-21119655-detail/story.html">we are told</a>, has a “horror of ‘anonymous, lifeless buildings’ and wants ‘the kind of homes he would want to live in’”, and is intent on developing a thoroughly sustainable, wind and solar powered-eco town.</p>
<p>New towns are nothing new. And neither are housing developments led by social and cultural visionaries, and industrialists. From the model villages of mustard-magnates in the early 19th century (Trowse, in Norfolk, was expanded by the Coleman family in 1805); Titus Salt’s Saltaire in Yorkshire (built by the industrialist to replace slum conditions for workers at his mills in 1851); to Tomáš Baťa’s shoe company town in Essex (effectively a communist enclave in south-eastern England, built in 1933), and Prince Charles’ Poundbury (built from 1993 onwards, on the Prince’s Duchy of Cornwall land in Dorset), industrial (and agricultural) endeavour, social ambitions and architectural desires have been the drivers behind the building of villages and towns with utopian aspirations.</p>
<p>What is new, however, is the involvement of artists as the force behind these future imaginings. Southern Extension is to be partially built on land owned by Hirst, adjacent to one of his residencies in the north Devon town, with the development backed by the artist.</p>
<p>In the model villages of old, wealthy, socially minded industrialists wished to provide accommodation for their workers that bettered the social ills that they saw. They established communities around the mills, factories and fields that needed supplies of well-rested, well-fed and reasonably happy workers to generate their wealth. But while they were indeed socially minded, they were very much industrial capitalists at heart. These villages and towns were industrial utopias – work and production were at the core of their ambitions, as well as social well-being.</p>
<p>In 21st century Britain, we no longer work in the traditional industries. Model towns and villages are not built by the Salts and Baťas of our day. But what we most certainly do have is a culture industry. And any artist worth their salt (and certainly those like Hirst) are adept business people. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2012/sep/24/cultural-entrepreneurship-technology-remix-ebook">They are entrepreneurs</a>, and within the culture industry, they can be seen as the industrialists of our time. </p>
<p>But today’s culture industry is markedly different from the industries of the past: the primary commodity is cultural capital, and the most important producers in the chain are not the artists, or even the artist’s assistant’s who produce the works, but the consumers who give the art its value in the first place. The consumer, by endowing the objects of art (and their prints, and coffee-mugs, and dot-painted bins that are associated with Hirst’s art) with cultural capital, produces the value of the art in itself.</p>
<p>Hirst already has a strong, and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523582/Dont-let-Mr-Pickled-Shark-Damien-Hirst-ruin-Ilfracombe.html">controversial</a>, presence in Ilfracombe. He has established a gallery, a restaurant, a café and plans for further businesses in the area. Verity, a 20m tall statue created by Hirst of a naked pregnant woman, looks out over the town’s harbour. So why would an artist build a new town next to his adopted home-town, and use his own capital to drive the development? We can look to the prosaic, un-visionary “artist’s impressions” of Hirstville for our answer.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56714/original/6mtt23h8-1408360360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56714/original/6mtt23h8-1408360360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56714/original/6mtt23h8-1408360360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56714/original/6mtt23h8-1408360360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56714/original/6mtt23h8-1408360360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56714/original/6mtt23h8-1408360360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56714/original/6mtt23h8-1408360360.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nothing to see here?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.northdevonjournal.co.uk/Damien-Hirst-backed-plans-Ilfracombe-Southern/story-22017969-detail/story.html">North Devon Journal</a></span>
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<p>These drawings belie the bottom-line economics at the heart of Hirst’s drive to develop this corner of England. For an artist who operates on shock value, there is little shocking (expect perhaps for the lack of shock) in this vision of a future English town. The imaginings and associated descriptions (“sustainable”, “eco” and the like) and the sparseness of the drawings allow the local council to pass the planning application without undue concern: this town is much like that of any new development – unthreatening, free of any substantial critical vision, and capable of being delivered at high margins, turning a tidy profit for the artist-cum-developer. </p>
<p>Where Hirst’s first stroke of genius comes into play, however, is simply through his own involvement. The Hirst brand will convert this town into more than housing: it will attain cultural capital though association and consumption (and not, judging by the “artist’s impressions”, through any form of design), and therefore command higher prices for the real estate. Economically, the development almost can’t fail to be a success for Hirst – for who wouldn’t want to live in a house that shared the magic of the man who put a shark in a tank of formaldehyde?</p>
<p>But perhaps we can also see faint echoes of the model-village aspirations of yore? For the important point to notice here is the association between the Hirst-ville development and Ilfracombe – or Hirst-on-Sea as it’s become known by some. Like the industrialists of the 19th and 20th centuries, the model village of Southern Extension will provide a steady stream of productive employees in the culture industry, ready to work hard by eating, drinking and buying in the cafes, restaurants, and art galleries of Hirst-on-Sea: the hard graft of productive consumption. </p>
<p>And what better way to secure both your future workforce and consumer base, than by creating the brand convergence between the home (the Hirst-house) and the place of work and play (the Hirst-café/restaurant/gallery)? </p>
<p>With several thousand new residents housed in the latest eco-homes, and imbued with the cultural capital of The World’s Most Famous Living Artist, the business interests (the culture factories) of Hirst’s Ilfracombe are almost guaranteed to remain productive for many years to come, through the dedicated service of those “creatives” to whom the development will no doubt be marketed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ed Wainwright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A development of 750 new homes in the small town of Ilfracombe on England’s north Devon coast has been approved by the local council. The news would be unremarkable if it weren’t for the identity of the…Ed Wainwright, Research Associate, Jetty Project, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.