Poor images and NFTs. On the preservation of digital heritage through blockchain technology
Abstract
The problems of digital art preservation have been recurrent in the last decades. These have led to justify the under representation of art associated with new technologies in contemporary art museums. The absence of clear protocols in the conservation of digital art and the significant economic and technical effort that it would entail have led to a situation of extreme precariousness of the digital image. The irruption of NFTs and blockchain technology seems to offer an opportunity to remedy the weaknesses associated with the characteristics of new media. The temporality, obsolescence, dynamism and instability of this type of works have called into question their possibility of enduring over time. The aim is to clarify whether the structure of data and metadata associated with transactions in the blockchain solve the challenge of protecting digital images from disappearance. Like this we could be in front of a potential new way of preservation of digital heritage.
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