The Future of Street Art in the NFT World

But, as Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith (aka Wolfe Pack) told Freethink, “By scanning a mural and turning it into an NFT, we forever immortalize the art.”

Wolfe here was referencing a project she did with Jet Martinez, Vogue, Joshua Mays, Bud Snow, and Ruff Draft called Murals in the Metaverse, which saw the artists create a massive mural that was scanned, enhanced with AR animations, destroyed a few months later, and resurrected as a metaverse mural sold as an NFT, just one of many examples of innovative street artists creating the medium as they work within it.

Not only does this give new (everlasting) life to street art, but it also gives street artists the kind of control they don’t get in the real world. As Wolfe Pack told Wired, “Buildings can crumble, weather can cause damage, and developments can impede views.” (She forgot to mention that influencers can also impede views.) With NFTs and metaverse placement, artists can control the context in which their art is viewed and potentially gain greater exposure with the audiences that most resonate with their style.

Unlike freelance work, commissions, or other design gigs, NFTs for street artists and muralists can actually help preserve artistic vision and intent, if only by offering a new source of income from original pieces rather than draining time in exchange for resources.

Street artists who are getting into NFTs

Melbourne-based street artist and founder of the meme art movement, lushsux’s witty and thought-provoking murals are viral moments in the making. Creating art that lives in the real world but breathes online, lushsux had an easy time jumping over to NFTs by selling images of his real-life work.

Going one step further, Latvian street artist Kiwie announced last year that he would be releasing 1,001 NFTs featuring geotagged images of real-world graffiti painted by Kiwie.

Bridging the physical and digital, whenever the graffiti related to a specific image is destroyed or painted over, the NFT’s associated image will transform into a ghost — a translucent, halo’d version of the same piece.

Though not an NFT, the 15,000-square-foot Tulsa, Oklahoma mural The Majestic is the perfect example to discuss the creative possibilities of augmented reality. This collaborative mural from Ryan “Yanoe” Sarfati and Eric “Zoueh” Skotnes celebrates local history, landscapes, and traditions — including Tulsa’s rich Art Deco-infused past — while leaning into the future with a QR inviting viewers to experience the mural animated with augmented reality.

Though scanning a QR code and experiencing a taste of AR through one’s phone may sound like a gimmick, those developing the tools and expertise will be rewarded as AR becomes increasingly commonplace and eventually, even quotidian. As Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC recently, “I think AR is a profound technology that will affect everything…we are really going to look back and think about how we once lived without AR.”

For a recent MakersPlace group show curated by Originalplan, he brought on several street art legends, who each brought a different flavor of their work into the digital art translation.

Legendary French street art bandits 123Klan created 2D images in their classic style, simulating the real world with high-definition scans of creased and slightly damaged prints.

And muralist Teddy Kelly recreated his soft palette and geometrical patterns, which can be seen all over Los Angeles.

On the other hand, die-hard vandal Jsie captured her art a moment in time, a photo that feels almost paradoxical as an owned piece: a graffiti tag (inherently impermanent) inside of a train car (always moving) and the masked artist (anonymous and unknowable).

Ben Johnston, master of bizarre typefaces, went to the opposite extreme by creating a piece that can only be experienced digitally: an animated chain of twisted type that passes us by in an infinite loop.

For another MakersPlace drop, Dutch footballer-turned-street artist DOES went well beyond the obvious to translate his work into a digital experience. Instead of selling merely the NFT and a print, DOES released cinematic behind-the-scenes videos demonstrating every step of a piece’s creation. Buyers of these audiovisual art films received a print of the finished piece.

And then there are great artists like Diego Bergia, who may not be throwing up tags anymore but who are still entrenched in street art culture. Bergia, for instance, creates pixelated animations in an early video–game style of street artists tagging buildings and freeway signs.

NFTs that are getting into street art

With the explosion of interest in visual arts and culture that followed the NFT boom, it’s no surprise that the high-priced ever-present pfps of 2021 would begin popping up as graffiti.

Street artist Masnah started taking commissions to reproduce pfps as murals in Brooklyn, and as the earliest ones went viral on Twitter and Instagram, more commissions flooded in until an entire Williamsburg building found itself covered in wrap-around pfps — including, of course, Bored Apes, Cryptopunks, Pudgy Penguins, and more.

Though this might seem like an isolated phenomenon, we’re really only beginning to see the influence that digital-native artists will have on the world’s visual culture at large. I think it’s safe to say that Masnah’s commissions are only the beginning of seeing NFTs on the street.

Outroduction

The metaverse will never be the sole domain of murals and street art — unless something very near apocalyptic happens. The deep emotional response that one feels in the presence of a large-scale mural can be attributed, in large part, to its size and physical presence.

Blockchain technology will become a logical extension of how artists create their digital and physical work, and the patronage of online collectors will be the gas fueling the next generation of innovative artists.

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