Some of you may know that I'm an art and film critic in addition to my blogging. My thoughts on gallery shows and movie screens can be read in publications like Art in America, White Hot Magazine of Contemporary Art and more. You can find a ton of my links here.
I've been following the rise of NFT art from the sale of rare Pepes to the rise of Beeple, and one of the missing ingredients in this exciting art space is a critical conversation about the aesthetics of NFT art, the trends that are already established, and the next phase of evolution for the form. Contemporary art criticism is primarily concerned with creating context, and I hope these words can help to frame the conversation around this art we hang on invisible walls on the other side of our screens. With all this in mind I'm going to use this space to talk about the work we can find right here on our Hive blockchain 
The primary quality of eye-catching NFT art is that it reflects the potential of its digital medium. I'm rarely interested in an analog drawing that's scanned into a .jpg and minted for auction. The IRL qualities that make an amazingly life-life graphite drawing compelling are lost when you can't see the texture of the paper, the tones of the various marks and lines. On the other hand, even a very simple digital work that utilizes animation and a nuanced digital palette can burst with delight. "Insert Coin" by 
The work is a pixel art GIF that emulates old-school video arcade graphics to introduce an Asteroid/Space Invaders type game called Hive Jets. The GIF is a perfect medium for a video game intro scroll including and it's fun to see the the titular "Insert Coin" command shuffling across the screen. I wish the scene of the actual video game was longer and made me want to play this made-up quarter muncher, but this piece is beautiful to look at and weirdly hypnotic to watch. It pushes all the retro digital art buttons and delivers a big shot of nostalgia for former arcade rats like me.
As we've all seen, anything goes in the Niftyscape right now. But art that celebrates, innovates, and integrates the particular capacities of digital media is the stuff to make and to collect.
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