NFT Prices Soar Double
Art, Computer Science, Electronic Music Master's and PhD
Digital Work Since 2000s
"Back Then, It Wasn't Even Considered Art"
The Meaning of Signature Work 'Lost'
What Is Seen When Not Visible Is Real
Guides to Recall Original Form
New Series Released on US Platform
[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] "When Marcel Duchamp (1887?1968) first exhibited a urinal in 1917, conceptual art emerged, expanding the boundaries of art. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) represent the next stage. It’s not just a new technology; the paradigm has completely shifted. Now, the existing concept of art will be redefined."
The First Interactive NFT Artwork in Korea to Be Released
This is the assessment of artist Jeon Byung-sam (44, pictured) regarding NFTs, the hottest topic in the global art market this year. Jeon is a contemporary Korean artist who has held about 120 exhibitions internationally in the media art genre over the past 20 years in countries such as the United States, France, and Russia. He is one of the few domestic artists who actively works with both physical and NFT artworks. In the second half of this year alone, he has consecutively released NFT works in collaboration with Kakao, K Auction, MCM, and others. We recently met him at his studio located in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Jeon is currently busy preparing to unveil Korea’s first ‘interactive NFT’ artwork. Until now, NFT artworks released in the art market have been fixed forms where the audience passively receives images or videos created by the artist. However, the interactive NFT Jeon is planning allows the audience to create the artwork themselves. Jeon explained, "Within a month, I plan to release 1,000 interactive NFT artworks under the series name ‘Spin.’ It’s a kind of digital canvas where anyone can clearly recognize it as a Jeon Byung-sam piece, and the audience directly draws the artwork, which is then minted as an NFT."
He also plans to grant collectors who purchase the interactive NFTs the commercial reuse rights of the artworks. For example, a collector who buys an NFT from the Spin series can print the artwork and hold their own exhibition. They can also produce and sell T-shirts printed with the artwork. Jeon said, "I will create a community for interactive NFT collectors to communicate directly with them. I want to set a good precedent for the way artists and collectors interact through NFTs."
Why He Was Recognized as an NFT Blue-Chip Artist in a Short Time
When the NFT trend first began to blow through the art market, many artists and critics dismissed it. The common reaction was skepticism about whether NFTs, which are just digital replicas, could surpass the aura of physical originals. However, as NFTs started selling for prices several times higher than physical artworks, perceptions completely changed. Now, among young artists, not engaging with NFTs is seen as falling behind the times. Even renowned veteran artists are rushing into NFTs.
One of Jeon Byung-sam's non-fungible token (NFT) works from the 'Lost' series, the national flag of South Korea reborn as a digital video.
Did anyone predict such a world would come? Looking at Jeon’s career path, it’s no exaggeration to say he has followed a trajectory optimized for NFTs. After graduating from the Sculpture Department at Hongik University, Jeon moved to the United States, earning a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine). He also completed doctoral coursework in Electronic Arts and Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Rather than just broadening his artistic spectrum, he early on acquired the technical skills to realize his work in the digital world.
"The digital media art that is gaining attention recently due to the NFT boom is actually something I have been working on since the mid-2000s. I already have thousands of works stored on external hard drives from back then. I could just bring them out as they are. At that time, such works were not even considered art in the fine arts field; they were regarded as computer graphics or animation. But with the combination of blockchain technology, digital works have gained authenticity and can be directly traded, changing perceptions. Now, everything stored digitally is becoming art."
"Only When the Object Disappears Do We Approach the Essence"… The Artistic World of Jeon Byung-sam
Jeon’s representative work is the ‘LOST series.’ He pursues art that subverts the essence of art as ‘representation of objects.’ His unique sculptural language is a paradox that approaches the essence more closely by making the object disappear.
Jeon said, "People didn’t pay much attention to Sungnyemun Gate until it burned down in 2008. Only then did they start thinking about how the stone walls looked, what the pillars and entrance were like. Often, we encounter the real thing more when it’s gone than when it’s right in front of us."
Jeon Byung-sam collaborated with Kakao to present the non-fungible token (NFT) 'Lost in Tallllllllllk,' featuring KakaoTalk emoticon Ryan. The 'Ryan' piece was sold for 38 million KRW on the NFT trading platform 'Klip Drops.'
Looking at Jeon’s new NFT work ‘Lost in Tallllllllllk,’ released in collaboration with Kakao last September, he disassembled KakaoTalk emoticons such as ‘Ryan,’ ‘Apeach,’ and ‘Chunsik’ into pixel units and recombined them, making the familiar characters disappear. Instead, only straight lines, planes, and colors remain. Through the disassembled and rearranged images, viewers are encouraged to recall what the original forms were. ‘Ryan’ and ‘Chunsik’ were sold for 38 million KRW each on Kakao’s NFT trading platform ‘Clippedrops.’
As Jeon’s NFT works have gained word-of-mouth popularity, requests to exhibit his works are pouring in from NFT platforms both domestically and internationally. Jeon plans to soon release a new series called ‘Signal’ on the U.S. NFT trading platform SuperRare. He is also collaborating with overseas luxury brands. Jeon said, "I plan to release various series through NFTs in the future. If I can interact with people and deliver messages to the world through this, it would be the best for me as an artist."
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