Cody McGrath 
According to famous NFT artist Beeple, the next phase of NFTs would draw less attention from technological backgrounds to focus on emotional connection and utility.
Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann has had an eventful year. With the sale of a single NFT for $69 million in March 2021, he rocketed into the art world’s stratosphere, becoming the third-most-valuable living artist.
The sale of Beeple’s EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5,000 DAYS was a watershed moment for non-fungible tokens, causing the legacy art world to sit up and take note of non-fungible tokens and the artists that use them.
With the likes of David Hockney and Jeff Koons suddenly among his peers, Beeple was catapulted into the role as the art world’s enfant terrible, becoming the face and voice of the NFT art movement.
Beeple found himself in the enviable situation of having complete creative freedom for his next project after finding himself flush with cash—he wasted no time in converting the crypto from the sale of EVERYDAYS into fiat money.
HUMAN ONE, Beeple’s first digital and real sculpture, is the next project. The sculpture was purchased by Dialectic’s Ryan Zurrer for $29.3 million at a Christie’s evening sale last year, and it has now been added to the collection of one of Italy’s most famous museums, the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin.
It’s on display as part of “Expressions with Fractures,” a group show curated by the institution’s dynamic director Carolyn Chritov-Bakargiev.
Beeple met with Coinscreed in the museum for an in-depth discussion about his work and the future of NFTs.
HUMAN ONE, housed in a 7-foot-tall mahogany frame with four slowly revolving LED panels, depicts a constantly unfolding near-future world in which an anonymous astronaut treks towards an unknown goal.
It speaks not just to the human urge for progress, but also to the social dread of an uncertain future.
“It’s a kind of combination of the digital and physical worlds that I think you’ll see a lot more of moving forward,” Beeple told Coinscreed.
The ever changing future of NFTs
HUMAN ONE currently uses the colors of the Ukrainian flag, but they can and will change. Beeple said that dynamic NFTs will become huge in the art industry.
“I think people will look at them less on the immutable side and more as canvases that can be a live, breathing record that changes over time,” he said.
“This work feels like an ongoing conversation rather than a statement,” he continued. “
A painting is a statement in time; if fresh meaning and understanding can be gleaned from it later, that’s fine—but the person who created the statement hasn’t changed.”
He explained that HUMAN ONE will continue to evolve. “Our chat right now will have an impact on that item.” Someone could say something, something could happen, and it will have an impact on that work,” he explained.
“I believe that’s something you’ll see more and more of with digital art.” That, I believe, speaks to its actual potential.”
Beeple also stated that he is less interested in DeFi notions such as fractionalized NFTs.
“To me, a lot of those things are more about money and speculation, which I don’t find really attractive,” he remarked.
“I’m far more interested in the advances and possibilities that come with being able to do things artistically that you couldn’t do before, rather than getting all deep into DeFi and staking and sh*t like that,” said Beeple.
He believes the NFT sector should learn some lessons from the museum business, which operates on a far longer timeframe due to its emotional and historical connection with art works.
Beeple said; “That’s something I think we could really benefit from in the NFT area, because people are so focused on now, now, now, win, win, blah, blah, blah.”
He sees the NFT space fracturing to the point that it feels less like a singular space, and much more like a set of communities—just like you don’t hear people say, ‘I love web pages, or I hate web pages.’
“There will be more focus on the emotional connection or utility, than, you know, sheer unbridled speculation,” according to Beeple.
Beeple also told Coinscreed that in the future, he anticipates that less attention will be paid to the technology that underpins NFTs. “Who gives a sh*t about technology? What can technology enable us to do?”
Profile picture NFT collections and Time capsules
EVERYDAYS’s headline-grabbing sale spurred a spike of interest in NFT artwork; since then, emphasis has switched to profile picture (PFP) collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, which has divided opinion in the art world.
“I think PFPs are fascinating,” Beeple stated. “I understand a lot of people in the art world don’t like them; they think it’s ruining the space, and it’s hurting people’s sense of, you know, art.
“That’s a “somewhat short-sighted viewpoint,” he says. “I believe we’re still in the early stages of NFT use cases; anything that helps more people understand and accept this technology, I believe, is a positive thing.”
Beeple, for one, is eager to investigate NFTs with greater utility. “There will be some use to having these things in the future, because we’re going to have events and this or that that people will be able to do with these things.”
He was excited by the prospect of manufacturing “time capsule” NFTs inspired by Andy Warhol, which would be opened after his death.
“I’d like to develop a series of videos that are partly time-based—’put this out after 50 years, put this out after 100 years’—and keep these videos hidden, so no one knows what they are.”
Other NFTs may be released in response to changing conditions, he added; “If the world’s temperature reaches this level, play this video; there are a number of various things I could do to continue making remarks after I die.”
Having said that, he doesn’t consider the topic of whether all NFTs should have added value as a “black or white” one.
“I believe you’ll have such a diverse set of use cases that, to me, it’s more about what your own inclination is with these things.”
He stated that critics of NFTs should consider the issue of personal taste.
“If it’s something that doesn’t appeal to you, you can either laugh at it or ignore it,” he explained.
“Not everything has to be for or against you. I believe there is a mindset that says, ‘Well, it’s not for me, it’s fucking against me.’ And it’s like, “Jesus Christ, you people.”