CONTACT CAROLINE
facebook
rss
tumblr
twitter
goodreads
youtube

  • Home
  • Write Away Blog
  • Books
    • Books
    • Trompe l’Oeil
    • Heart Land
    • Gothic Spring
    • Ballet Noir
    • Book Excerpts
  • Video Interviews
  • Press
    • News
    • Print Interviews
    • Plays
    • Ballet Noir in the Press
    • Trompe l’Oeil In The Press
    • Gothic Spring In The Press
    • Heart Land Reviews
  • Contact
  • About
  • Resources
    • Writer Resources
    • Favorite Blogs
    • Favorite Artists



Still Analog In A Digital Age

Jun 17, 2021
by Caroline Miller
electronic ledger, Grimes, Kodak, NFTs, Olivia Hosken, picture frames, volatility in the stock market
2 Comments

Courtesy of wikipedia.com

A young woman on my Facebook page sent up a cheer for the Kodak company recently which puzzled me. The latest news on Kodak was that the  New York attorney general was filing papers to charge the company with insider trading.  As I write this blog, the stock is selling below $9 per share. In the past, it sold as high as  $60.

Founded in the late 1800s, Kodak has had a checkered history, beginning with a near-monopoly in photographic film and equipment and ending in bankruptcy. As a youngster, I remember owning a box camera.  I earned it by collecting cereal cartons. Today, the company has graduated to techie stuff like 3-D printers.

Whatever the business, owning stock is risky. Wall Street fortunes rise and fall each day without the predictability of a tide chart. I never count my money safe until it rests quietly in a savings account.  Given today’s interest rates, however, savings accounts won’t increase earnings.  For that, a person has to take some chances.

Non-fungible tokens (NFT) are all the rage as an investment tool at the moment.  These are digital images created for a digital world, artworks or collectibles that people buy on the internet, and the transfer of ownership gets recorded on an electronic ledger.  Types of NFTs vary. All NFT owners can view their purchases online, but some artists refuse to allow those images to be printed and turned into hard copies. Says writer Olivia Hosken, the prohibition allows the artwork “to mature with technology.” (The Collector’s Lament,” by Olivia Hosken, Town&Country, Summer 2021, pg. 38.)

NFTs are mumbo-jumbo to me. Owning one may be a good investment, but I can’t see much joy in possessing a jpeg I can’t hang on a wall.  Where’s the satisfaction for collectors who love art for itself?

Modern minds have begun to grapple with that question. One answer is the electronic screen, coming soon to a living room or an iPad near you. (Ibid, pg. 38.) One day, they might even appear on refrigerator doors. Grimes, an artist who can’t be bothered with a second name, sells her NFTs for millions of dollars.  I doubt she cares where her images reside.  A shower wall might do.

Given the trend, a person has to worry about the fate of picture framers.  Will their craft one day become a dead art?

Thank heavens for grandparents! They will always demand a frame for their grandchild’s first tree painting. What’s more, that tree will hang in a place of honor, maybe for decades, or until its pigments fade.

Frankly, NFTs are too otherworldly for me.  Too fleeting.  Too ephemeral. I’ve yet to put my trust in ATMs or smartphones. When it comes to owning artwork, give me something I can dust.

 

Social Share
2 Comments
  1. Pam G June 17, 2021 at 8:39 am Reply
    Thank you for this thought-provoking piece, Carolline! I've been dimly aware of the NFT phenomenon, which makes no sense to me despite your description of how it works. Can Grimes (I do hope she's opted out of a first name, rather than a second) convert her millions in bitcoin payments into rent or food? Or does her vast wealth stay permanently frozen in time/space/fisc with her un-dustable image, invoice and bit-pay? Also, while these transactions are being covered by the press, can any journalist claim truthfully to have seen such an image? Is any critic attempting to describe one or place it in the cavalcade of world art? (Has anyone seen the emperor's new pants?)
    • Caroline Miller June 17, 2021 at 9:19 am Reply
      You ask some wonderful questions here for which I have no answers. The primary one is can imaginary coinage buy more than imaginary objects? Perhaps I make a fool of myself by asking the question, but I'd still like to know.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Buy This Book on Amazon


“Heart Land: A Place Called Ockley Green” is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The novel is also available as an eBook (Kindle and Nook.


Or buy directly from the publisher by clicking on the “Buy Now” button below.

Heart Land




Image of author Caroline Miller


Interview: Caroline Miller on Back Page with Jody Seay

Banner art “The Receptive” by Charlie White of Charlie White Studio

Web Admin: ThinPATH Systems, Inc
support@tp-sys.com

Subscribe to Caroline's Blog


 

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Sitemap | Privacy Notice

AUDIO & VIDEO VAULT

View archives of Caroline’s audio and videos interviews.


Copyright © Books by Caroline Miller