Making a Statement About NFTs Through a Kickstarter Campaign

Can a crowdfunding campaign be art? Let’s find out.

My latest art project / Kickstarter campaign rolled into one

Yes, there are a bajillion articles about NFTs now, as they’re the hot new thing that is poorly understood, often mischaracterized, and completely oversaturated right now.

As an artist who works both digitally as well as traditionally, I think that NFT’s are super interesting, yet was also concerned at the huge energy costs associated with them and Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies (ie. Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) in general.

I wanted the campaign itself to be the art piece.

So I created a Kickstarter campaign that hawks NFTs — but physical ones. In the past, I’ve made monster-themed enamel pins, but for this campaign I wanted the campaign itself to be the art piece. In this case I’m selling a series of limited-edition, numbered, sustainably-produced wooden pins (think enamel pins, but texture-less and printed on wood), as well as Certificates of Authenticity signed by “Blockchain” (a person, not a piece of technology), and one-of-a-kind, hand-embellished versions of the main pin design.

An example of a one-of-a-kind NFT pin — mocking performative activism

Sure, if funded, I will actually produce physical pins and everything else I’m promising in the campaign, but I thought that it would be interesting to see if I could create a crowdfunding campaign that was sort of a piece of art in itself.

I know there’s a lot of definitions of art floating around out there, but I prefer to think of art as something that moves a person — whether through thought or feeling. So I hope that this fleeting, time-sensitive campaign (engineered this way to drive scarcity — just like the allure of digital blockchain NFTs are) can say something by itself about the way that we think about the purchasing, sale, and consumption of art. Whether it makes you laugh, feel angry, or encourages you to do a deeper dive into the understanding of digital NFTs, blockchain technology, and/or cryptocurrency, if the campaign has moved you in some way, then I guess a crowdfunding campaign can be a work of art on itself.