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All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

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Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#201

Post by brundolf »

codeulike wrote: post #116
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your observation: > I bet someone would buy a preserved notebook of someone semi-famous with 5000 pages of drawings, mostly regardless of contents ...is, I think, kind of what the article author is trying to get at. Beeple is arguably semi-famous not for his art, but for getting a staggering price for these 5000 images. It's as if someone bought a preserved notebook with 5000 pages drawings for tens of millions of do…

Any situation where money meets art doesn't make any sense. Is the original of a Banksy painting any nicer to look at than a copy? Is a rare vinyl pressing of a record any nicer to listen to than an mp3 you can download for free?

The Banksy comparison puts this in an interesting light, actually. Someone like Banksy probably hates the idea of being enshrined in some wealthy person's gallery- in fact, when something he made did go on auction for $1.4m, it was rigged to shred itself afterward.

Beeple's art is similarly satirical (I'm not going to comment on its actual depth, but bear with me). What if Beeple were making a statement against rich-people-art-collection via the entire concept of NFTs? The sale itself is the parody.

I don't think that's what happened here, but it's interesting to think about

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#202

Post by incrudible »

Lazare wrote: post #175
incrudible wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beeple isn't a "complete unknown", pretty much every 3D artist knows him, he's produced and published more digital art than anyone else. He's arguably the Andy Warhol of 3D rendering. It's only now that somehow people found a way to make money from all these 3D renderings that the general public pays attention.

> Beeple isn't a "complete unknown", pretty much every 3D artist knows him, he's produced and published more digital art than anyone else. He's arguably the Andy Warhol of 3D rendering. I cannot stress enough how much of an overstatement that is. He's not the first, the biggest, the best, the most popular, or most prolific artist, he's not very well known in the space, and I think few, if any, professional 3D artists…

He's definitely the most prolific 3D artist, ever. Nobody else even comes close.

As for being "the best" or "the biggest" or "the most popular", these terms don't make sense even in non-digital art. Indeed, he is not any of these things, but neither was Andy Warhol.

It's not a coincidence that he, of all people, managed to sell 69 million dollars worth of cookie-cutter crap. That's what makes him the Andy Warhol of digital art. That's how he earned his place in art history.

As for the "enormous number" of other 3D artists, most of them are busy creating escapist stuff that will never get the attention of the art scene. To that end, skill just doesn't matter.

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#203

Post by freewilly1040 »

Udik wrote: post #37
viraptor wrote: post #9

I'm not sure I get this point of view. We know that famous artists did random rude and badly-satirical drawings for fun. Their dick drawings were contained in some old notebooks and trashed. But I bet someone would buy a preserved notebook of someone semi-famous with 5000 pages of drawings, mostly regardless of contents. This is pretty much the equivalent of that - daily fun which went to the internet bin rather than…

> What is the article author trying to point out there? That the artist is not PC enough, so his art must be valueless and he should probably be cancelled.

> Trump-is-a-Poopy-Head/Cheeto Mussolini genre of art

This and other comments would seem to blow past the fact that the critique also pans the “pc” political commentary (see also the comment on the George Floyd piece).

Ironically it is people in this thread decrying cancel culture that are refusing to engage with anything that might possibly contradict their politics.

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#204

Post by fastball »

acdha wrote: post #170
fastball wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be worth noting that Amy Castor seems to have a pretty strong anti-crypto bias in general, though that of course doesn't necessarily mean what she has written here is counter-factual, but she does seem to have an agenda.

She’s a journalist - that job is supposed to involve critical thinking, not regurgitating press releases. If your criticism is that she’s factually correct but not fawning it sounds like she’s doing her job well.

The problem is that I don't know whether or not she's factually correct in this case, that's kinda the issue with journalism. I can't just check some central database of reality to know if what she is saying is straight up true and accurate or completely false or somewhere in between. Even if you could do that, "facts" can be easily presented in a way that is misleading, as I'm sure you are aware.

What I have seen is that she has a clear anti-crypto agenda (not just "anti-fraud" as she claims, unless you define all crypto as fraud, in which case sure). So since I don't know the facts myself, I am more skeptical of the narrative she presents than I otherwise would be given her personal bias. Is that not reasonable?

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#205

Post by fastball »

joosters wrote: post #91
fastball wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be worth noting that Amy Castor seems to have a pretty strong anti-crypto bias in general, though that of course doesn't necessarily mean what she has written here is counter-factual, but she does seem to have an agenda.

What are you suggesting, that we should ignore facts if they are highlighted by people whose views you don't like? Or that Amy is untrustworthy and lying? If that's the case, please point to some lies that she has told?

You can mislead people without using untruths, that is my main concern.

I generally prefer to consume content that isn't created by someone with a clear agenda pertaining to the topic at hand, because it's not so simple to separate fact from fiction, as you seem to want to believe.

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#206

Post by fastball »

user-the-name wrote: post #117
fastball wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be worth noting that Amy Castor seems to have a pretty strong anti-crypto bias in general, though that of course doesn't necessarily mean what she has written here is counter-factual, but she does seem to have an agenda.

I wouldn't call being against fraud "having an agenda" as much as "being a decent human being".

I would agree with you, but then I didn't say she was "against fraud". I said she was anti-crypto. Sure if you think all crypto is fraud then fair enough, but that's a pretty bold claim (and verifiably untrue).

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#207

Post by jkinudsjknds »

techdragon wrote: post #98
sneak wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't buy the art, they bought an NFT that represents a hash of the file containing all of the art in question. This doesn't convey any property rights to the art's copyright, unless the purchase also included those separately from the NFT, which, of course, happens all of the time without the NFT silliness and doesn't require NFTs at all.

Wait... the only way this NFT stuff made any sense to me was if they were actually selling the copyrights via NFT... this was actually just a $69 million version of calling “dibs” like some kind of schoolchild? WTF!

"Commemorative Coin" would be a better name than NFT, fitting in nicely with the crypto coin nature.

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#208

Post by acdha »

fastball wrote: post #204
acdha wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She’s a journalist - that job is supposed to involve critical thinking, not regurgitating press releases. If your criticism is that she’s factually correct but not fawning it sounds like she’s doing her job well.

The problem is that I don't know whether or not she's factually correct in this case, that's kinda the issue with journalism. I can't just check some central database of reality to know if what she is saying is straight up true and accurate or completely false or somewhere in between. Even if you could do that, "facts" can be easily presented in a way that is misleading, as I'm sure you are aware. What I have seen is…

If you are so bothered by her work, do your homework and critically examine it before posting. You would either find that your dislike is emotion not based in fact or you’d find real problems which you could point to — that’d be far more effective at convincing people.

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#209

Post by codeulike »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #199
codeulike wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why is the original special? Just because people choose to believe that it is.

Sure, there's a real sense in which that's absolutely true. What I think the article was eyebrow-raising at wasn't primarily the digital nature of this transaction as much as the extremely high price paid. An original by Picasso is going to be worth more -- orders of magnitude more -- than an original by, say, Joan Erbe, a painter who was very well known around the Baltimore area and is "notable" enough to have her o…

Oh yeah $69m is silly money, no doubt about it. Part bubble and part demonstrative crypto evangelism on the part of the bidders.

Re: All 5000 Images in Beeple’s $69M Magnum Opus:What I Found Isn’t So Pretty

#210

Post by jayd16 »

Dzugaru wrote: post #95
Kiro wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I made a comment explaining how to check this out yourself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26459621 A Twitter thread explaining how absurd this is: https://twitter.com/jonty/status/1372163423446917122 There's already URL rot going on: https://twitter.com/CheckMyNFT/status/1372253288863825925

I still don't get why this is a scam, there is a SHA-256 hash of the whole image in that token, complete with timestamp and a buyer signature - the buyer can certainly prove he was first (or Nth) to buy this exact thing anytime he wants (if he doesn't lose his private key ofc). Who cares if some URLs included do rot? It's almost the same idea [0] Galileo used 400 years ago to prove he was first to see Saturn rings by…

Its $70M to post "first!" Maybe scam isn't the right word but its certainly strange to me.
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