In 2020, Covid-19 forced art markets and galleries worldwide to halt their traditional business models. The lockdowns gave rise to the use of digital media, which pushed thousands of artists to conduct their business online, disrupting the art market on a global level. This turn of events sparked my curiosity to explore more about the digitalization of the art market and its globalization.
In the current digital landscape, social media has proven to be a powerful tool to promote and give visibility to artists worldwide, regardless of background and experience. However, changes in the social media industry have affected artists, forcing them to find new ways to advertise their craft. The “Influencer” economy has allowed millions to thrive off their creative careers. Still, contemporary emerging artists who want to enter the market face difficulties adapting to new trends and algorithms that favour well-established artists. It is increasingly difficult for newer artists to find their niche; for this reason, I wanted to understand the causes and the possible solutions I could propose to solve this issue. That is why this thesis has a strong focus on finding ways to help unserved creative communities gain visibility and economic value.
Based on the Human-Centred Design process, I applied the double diamond structured approach to tackle the design challenge for this project.
Double Diamond Diagram provided by Dan Nessler
Before defining my area of interest for this project, I considered three possible problem areas:
<aside> 💡 Visibility of Artists
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One of the main questions for this thesis is to identify the barriers artists face to selling their work. One common concern for artists is not knowing how to sell their work. This problem area substitutes a strong focus for this thesis.
<aside> 🐵 What are NFTs?
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Google searches for NFTs soared after the widely reported auction of an NFT art piece made by the digital artist Beeple, which sold for $69 Million. According to the British auction house Christie's, this positioned Beeple “among the top three most valuable living artists,” according to. the British auction house: Christie’s. Ever since the news became viral, artists have seized the opportunity to create NFTs in the hopes of achieving commercial success. However, there is little understanding of the technology, and many artists feel divided by the implications and impact of this new trend. For this reason, researching the viability of NFTs to support artists is touched upon in this thesis.
<aside> 📺 Metaverse
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According to Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, the metaverse is a new digital trend defined as “an immersive, shared virtual environment that converges multiple realities,” whether augmented, virtual or physical. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the creation of a social technology company called Meta, which introduced the metaverse concept to the general public. Interestingly, Facebook’s metaverse will support non-fungible tokens (NFT), which will boost the digital collectible format. The metaverse proves to be an exciting future business opportunity for artists, but it is a relatively new and developing concept.