Decrypting the Medium: A Report on the NFT Market

Research Team: Suzanne Stein, Miriam Kramer, Crystal Melville, Amreen Ashraf, Eric Leo Blais 

OCAD University’s Cultural Policy Centre and Super Ordinary Lab have collaborated to develop a report for Canadian Heritage on non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The report, titled “Decrypting the Medium: A Report on the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Market,” is the product of a collaborative and structured approach to research that involved a literature review and strategic foresight methods including a horizon scan and an expert panel workshop with scenario planning. 

Guiding research questions, addressed in the report, included:  

  • How does the NFT art market work?  

  • How do artists, sellers and buyers access the market?  

  • Is the market an extension of an existing art market or something new?  

  • Do artists see NFTs as a new form of artistic creation, a new medium, or a new method to monetize existing artistic practices?  

  • What are the hurdles and advantages for Canadian artists entering the NFT market?  

  • Have other countries regulated in this space and how?  

  • What does the Government of Canada and Canadian Heritage need to consider as they strive to continue to support and protect creatives?  

What are Non-Fungible Tokens? 

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital files that have stirred up considerable interest from investors, artists and governments globally. The underlying technology of NFTs—more specifically cryptocurrency applications—challenge not only how art markets operate but how both the government and the sector provide support and protect creatives.   

This research highlighted that the NFT market is rapidly evolving, and that understanding NFTs, and their overall ecosystem will require ongoing research and study. The following key findings were highlighted:  

  1. NFTs change how the art market works  

  1. Blockchain and smart contracts support more equitable copyright legislation and protect creators  

  1. NFTs create new marketplaces for artists to present their work  

  1. NFTs both create barriers and reduce barriers  

  1. NFTs have the potential to increase diversity and inclusion in the Canadian art market 

The NFT art market poses an opportunity to rethink and reduce the inequities posed by the traditional art market. NFTs allow equity-identifying artists and artists marginalized by location a platform to monetize their work and to survive and advance as an artist. By regulating parts of the underlying NFT technology, Canadian artists are positioned better to securely, and equitably advance and thrive.  

Ongoing research will be critical to track drivers of change, ongoing associative drivers and new market pathways that will guide policy decision-making. Monitoring the media and industry resources for developments regularly will be central as will tracking legislation from countries around the world. 

This research and report were led collaboratively by the Cultural Policy Centre at OCAD University and Super Ordinary Laboratory.  

Cultural Policy Centre at OCAD University (CPC)  

The Cultural Policy Centre is Canada’s first national cultural policy centre working to expand the arts and culture sector’s capacity in policy research, program development and advocacy. Convening academics, industry experts and not for profits from across Canada, the Cultural Policy Centre at OCAD University will provide crucial direction and support for Canada’s arts and culture sector as we adapt to and thrive in the ever-changing environment that characterizes the twenty-first century.  

The Super Ordinary Laboratory  

Super Ordinary Lab at OCAD University looks at emerging technologies to understand their social significance and tracks broad-based trends for the purposes of meaningful innovation in technologies, ethnographic methods and cultures of production as well as potential users of these technologies. 

 

Funded by the Government of Canada.

Sponsor(s): 
A photograph of OCAD U with the report title overlaid in black text
Tuesday, April 5, 2022 - 2:30pm

SSHRC Imagining Canada's Future: Dialogic Design Co-Lab

"In the face of intensified urbanization worldwide, what do we see as the highest impact social and human challenges for Southern Ontario, now through 2030?"

Southern Ontario is witnessing increasing urbanization, and with it a host of changes, challenges and opportunities.  For example, younger people are known as early adopters of new technologies, yet older people are experiencing technologies and their consequences in surprising ways. By 2050, we expect a third of Canadians to be older than 65.  What kinds of services, societies, and care do we envision to support our communities in the face of these changes?  

In an unprecedented study, Canada's research council for social science and humanities, SSHRC, has commissioned six regional panels to understand and imagine possible futures for the country in a global context. Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at OCADUniversity is leading University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Ryerson, Windsor and York universities and our combined intellectual communities.

sLab's participatory action research engages a diverse panel of academics, professionals, and students for a Co-laboratory workshop organized and facilitated according to principles of the Structured Dialogic Design methodology.  Dialogic Design is a multi-technique methodology based on human and computer-facilitated structuring of inquiry for a complex social or civic concern. Democratic by design, SDD produces strong consensus while avoiding cognitive biases, by adopting a series of language structures that conserve participant autonomy, authenticity, and shared commitment while mitigating group cognitive bias, power bias, and content complexity. 

The OCAD U-led project centred on an Expert Panel structured as a Dialogic Design (DD) Co-Laboratory to gather primary data, together with an Online Survey, a Public Workshop, and documentation of these activities on the Web. 

Focusing on urbanization as a key regional and global driver of change, the Expert panel was asked:

In the face of increasing urbanization worldwide, what future challenges
do we anticipate for Southern Ontario, now through 2030?

91 challenges were identified by the Expert Panel. On the Top Ten list are those challenges that are most influential on the other challenges, and highly related to the triggering question:

  1. Advancing a diverse and inclusive society
  2. Enabling equitable access to ICT
  3. Governing ourselves responsively
  4. Designing sustainable cities
  5. Overcoming fear of change
  6. Including indigenous rights in planning
  7. Transitioning to a digital economy
  8. Upgrading transportation systems
  9. Stewarding regional ecosystems
  10. Supporting our aging population

A follow up survey, and a public Design with Dialogue session correlated and expanded on the Expert Panel workshop findings.

In naming and assessing the influence of these future challenges, the expert panel considered both increasing urbanization globally and in Southern Ontario. Though urbanization trends will be most apparent in Canada’s large cities, all cities and communities will be affected by the transitions represented by the challenges.

For more information, please visit http://slab.ocadu.ca/project/sshrc-imagining-canadas-future-dd-co-lab.

 

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

A photograph of Southern Ontario at night taken from the International Space Station
SSHRC Logo
Monday, October 23, 2017 - 10:15am

EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology

EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology
Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 10:00am to Sunday, October 8, 2017 - 6:00pm

Imagine this — a 150,000-square-foot abandoned factory

transformed into an ultramodern world where design, innovation and technology are the solutions to today’s grand challenges.

EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology 
September 28 to October 8, 2017

In partnership with the UnitedNations Development Programme and inspired by its 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development, EDIT will explore the theme of Prosperity For All through an interdisciplinary presentation of design projects from the fields of architecture, healthcare, education and gastronomy.
Many talented artists, designers, students, faculty and alumni from OCAD University will be showing their work at EDIT. Come say hi at OCAD University's booth and prepare to be inspired!

Mickey Mouse's Home of the Future is here in Toronto

Mickey Mouse's home of the future is a fully functional shipping container home inspired by the most beloved Disney character of all time. The project is the result of an OCAD U-wide competition challenging students to envision a sustainable, eco-friendly version of Mickey's future home.

Students Aira Harutyunyan, Rachel McCormick and Sebastiance Ayala are the winners who were given the opportunity to work with Giant Containers on bringing their ambitious ideas to life. Mickey’s new sustainable home will be on-site at EDIT out front of the factory and available for guests to tour. #MickeyMouseinTO
 

See a list of all the exhibitions here

Venue & Address: 
21 Don Roadway, East Harbour (Formerly Unilever Soap Factory)
Website: 
http://editdx.org/visitor-info/hours-directions
Mickey Mouse's House of the Future

ReBlink - extended to April 18, 2018!

Reblink: AGO Exhibition
Thursday, July 6, 2017 - 12:00pm to Wednesday, April 18, 2018 - 12:00pm

Visitors won’t believe their eyes (or they’ll at least do a double-take) this summer as the AGO offers a magical new way to experience art. From Toronto-based digital artist Alex Mayhew comes ReBlink, an innovative augmented reality experience that taps into the power of leading-edge technology to give visitors the chance to see works from the AGO’s Canadian and European Collections in a whole new way. 

Using a custom app for smartphones and tablets, visitors use their device’s camera to unlock Mayhew’s modern twists on historical works of art. Mayhew highlights how much we have — and haven’t — changed over time, inviting visitors to look at paintings such as Evisceration of a Roebuck with a Portrait of a Married Couple, Drawing Lots and Marchesa Casati through his unique 21st century lens. By looking at a selected work using a smartphone or tablet, visitors will see something unexpected – the painting’s subjects coming alive, reflecting a vision of our daily reality in the 21st century.

Venue & Address: 
Art Gallery of Ontario 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 1G4
Website: 
http://www.ago.net/reblink