06122013 Doge Malaysian Artists Earn Freedom To Be Creative With Nfts

Life-sized murals, quirky installations and every colour on the canvas: before the COVID-19 pandemic closed art and performing spaces in March 2020, the art festivals and galleries of the Malaysian cities of Kuala Lumpur and George Town provided a lifeline, and inspiration, to the country’s artists.

But with the disruption of the past 20 months, many have struggled to survive as full-time, “physical” artists, and have been forced to move out of their comfort zones.

Some have ventured into the newly emerging world of non-fungible tokens and crypto.

NFTs are unique digital assets designed to represent ownership of a virtual item: unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, NFTs cannot be exchanged like for like with other NFTs, making them scarce, and driving up their value.

This concept perfectly applies to collecting artworks and has started driving an unprecedented trend of digital consumerism: back in March, American digital artist Mike Winklemann, known as Beeple, sold an NFT of his work Everydays: The First 5000 Days for a staggering $69m through prominent British auction house Christie’s.

In Malaysia, the idea of NFT art incubated as a fun pastime for graduates of design, multimedia, engineering and architecture. It was popularised by Filamen, a Kuala Lumpur-based collective of multidisciplinary digital creatives who launched the Seni Kripto exhibition in April 2021 at their physical space Digital Art Gallery on the campus of the University of Malaya.

The Malaysian art scene quickly picked up on the potential of NFTs, launching the first Crypto Art Week in July, and creating Pentas.io, the first local NFT marketplace. It has already earned some local artists the cryptocurrency equivalent of millions of Malaysian ringgit.