Non-Fungible Tokens of Art: The Negotiation and Translation Processes within Technological Adoption

Abstract

This thesis conducts a qualitative examination of the translation process appearing in a B2C business setting, based on the novel blockchain and NFT-technology within the use case of digital art. It takes outset in the Danish NFT-project, Rebels of Wealth, which strives to distribute the digital artwork of Kristian von Hornsleth as NFTs. The NFT-market reached an all-time high global total sale of over $25 billion in 2021, why many projects, like Rebels of Wealth, launch to exploit the current trend. Nonetheless, the technological composition that an NFT-buyer must overcome to buy an NFT can be rather complex. Since the technologies are still at an infant stage, the technological adaption in society is not very far. This raises challenges for these NFT-projects, insofar that catering to a broader segment is the aim. Through the theoretical lens of Callón’s four moments of translation (1986), this gives way to investigating the socio-technical network unfolding, when a project – as an instigator – attempts to forge and mend the connections needed between humans and technology, while asserting itself in the middle of the two, by its obligatory passage point. The thesis examines this from the questions of how technological adaption and disruption stabilize periodically and how these dynamics affect a business setting within it, by the material semiotics of ANT. Through the moments of problematization, interessement, enrolment, and mobilization, the negotiation and power struggle in the network surrounding Rebels of Wealth plays out. This takes the examination through the Discord-server and the OpenSea marketplace platform, as central arenas of translation. Assertation of boundaries for identities, employing of interessement devices, and constant reconfigurations are some of the main pillars throughout the investigation of how an instigating entity attempts to nudge former conventions and establish new ones. But the establishment is not a deterministic end-state, as both translation processes, as well as technological development, are ongoing processes of constantly changing power struggles.