The First Massive Sculpture Funded by NFTs
“NFTs stand a great chance of significantly helping many kinds of public goods, especially of the creative variety, at least partially solve their chronic and systemic funding deficiencies. If the conception of legitimacy for NFTs can be pulled in a good direction, there is an opportunity to establish a solid channel of funding to artists,” -Vitalik Buterin, March 22 2021
That arts funding has suffered during the pandemic needs little explanation. Even in the case of our arts collective, Heavy Meta Arts, we had 6 fundraising events planned for 2020. We ended up having to cancel 5 of them due to the pandemic, and having all six go right is not optional for us.
To keep doing what we do, we need to produce 6 nearly sold-out events, year after year, to pay for shop space, materials, electronic components, welding wire, argon, propane, fuel for vehicles, wood, insurance, and much more. The pandemic has been devastating not only to us, but to every artist, musician, and entertainment industry professional who relies on being able to fill a music venue with hundreds or thousands of people.
2021 has presented a unique opportunity, however: the popularity of NFTs has caused many Ethereum observers, investors, artists, and celebrities, to think deeply about what NFTs could do for arts funding: finally, a measure of scarcity, legitimacy, and a huge wave of giving, directly to artists.
The most headline-grabbing news, of course, focuses on celebrity NFTs. Vitalik Buterin, founder of the Ethereum Foundation, warns us of the following: “If NFTs simply become a casino that largely benefits already-wealthy celebrities, that would be a far less interesting outcome.”
We aim to be the world’s first massive sculptural work funded by NFTs. We believe this novel use case, if successful, could be replicable by artist collectives the world over. As we outlined in Return on Community, the impact of giving to a project like ours benefits over 100 people, not just an individual artist, and the impact has reverberations throughout the city and region in which the project is hosted. We hope you will join us on this journey.
Donate Now (fiat or ETH)
FAQ: Aren’t NFTs bad for the environment?
Like most human activities, cryptocurrency transactions have a carbon footprint. How much, exactly? We estimate that the minting and sales of our 10, single-edition NFTs will have a carbon footprint of between 1 and 2 tons of CO2.
This is equivalent to 1 - 2 round trip flights to Tokyo. While not ideal, this is considerably more carbon-efficient than holding a series of fundraiser events where at least one artist or attendee flew to the event.
Nonetheless, we intend to purchase high-quality, CSA Standard-certified Canadian carbon offsets from Less.ca — we chose them because they consistently rank toward the top in terms of “additionality,” meaning: would this program exist, if not for the carbon offset program? In this measure, they are among the best.