In our current, image saturated reality, the value and presence of digital imagery is in flux. We live in an age where an original digital image can be copied, modified, and re-shared a million times over. From satirical memes to viral reels and deep-fake videos, we are constantly recontextualizing the meaning of digital art, making it seem impossible to protect its unique existence or value.
This problem is really a new chapter in an old story. In 1935, The philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote about how the invention of the printing press and photography destroyed the ‘aura’ of the original art object. To him, every reproduction lost the singular identity and lived history of the original piece. Benjamin argued that the value rooted in that originality was lost entirely in the process of mechanical reproduction.
Today, digital artists are facing this same battle against endless reproducibility, prompting the question: How do we establish provable provenance for something so intangible and fluid?
In this article, we’ll unpack why NFTs failed most working artists, what “Unique Digital Objects” really are, and a practical four‑pillar framework you can use to protect your digital works’ provenance, viewing experience, and long‑term value—using tools you can implement on your own portfolio site today.
Highlights:
- NFTs attempted to restore scarcity in digital art but failed as a sustainable way for most digital artists to protect or monetize their work.
- The real long‑term value of digital art comes from its cultural context, verifiable history, and controlled viewing experience.
- You can create “Unique Digital Objects” (U.D.Os) by focusing on the four pillars of provenance: controlled viewing, verifiable history, high‑quality display, and a strong artist identity.
- A well‑structured portfolio site can serve as your stable infrastructure for provenance, presentation, and sales. Create your free trial on Format to get started.
From Benjamin’s Aura to the Digital Mirage
Theorist Walter Benjamin wrote about the destruction of the ‘aura’ of the original art object in the wake of the industrial revolution. The invention of the printing press and photography effectively de-railed the undeniable origin of an object’s singular identity spanning from its creation to its current state.
To Benjamin, the reproduction of an object was no longer that object at all, but a new container for meaning created in the moment of its conception. A photograph couldn’t possibly contain the lived history of the object. It was one step removed from the original through its replication, a representation of the original placed in a new context and open to new meaning. Benjamin argued that the value placed in the originality of the object–its ‘aura’–was lost entirely in this process of reproduction.
In our digital age, we have become extremely familiar with the process of recontextualizing the meaning of an image through reproduction. Anyone can grab an image or video off the internet, modify it with AI prompts or editing software and disseminate it into the streams of public viewing as satirical memes, reels, deep-fake videos, and politicized propaganda. Each of these re-imaginings become their own unique ‘object’, shooting off in an array of directions from their original source.
It has become seemingly impossible to protect an ‘original digital image’ from this high speed process of dissociation. Artists working in coded or digitally created visuals have been battling to assert the unique existence and value of their artworks; often subjected to pirating and the devaluing of their work by authenticity purists who rally against endless reproducibility, as well as their elusive immaterial quality.
Yes, works may be editioned, but they still exist in a nebulous abstract form that could be reproduced. From an investment-based collector’s perspective, how does one place solid value on something so intangible and fluid? Again, we seem to fall back on the claim that singularity determines value.
The Rise and Fall of NFTs: Why They Fell Short for Most Digital Artists
Then along came Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs). They promised the re-establishment of provable and traceable uniqueness that had been eluding new media artwork after the digital boom. A digital object could now claim its status as a one-true-original or a limited collection. At the outset, certain graphic designers and digital rendering artists such as BEEPLE (Mike Winkelmann) and the ubiquitous artist persona Pak began selling their works for millions of dollars. The NFT structure instilled scarcity to drive market value and demand, which exploded through a frenzy of hype and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) fuelled by celebrities and the ultra wealthy. I don’t think you need me to tell you about the quick turnaround from NFT’s glorious promise to their market bust.
The NFT game was never constructed to benefit the everyday artist in the long-term. To mint an NFT is expensive and costs exorbitant amounts of natural resources and energy. The average artist in late 2021 who thought, ‘maybe I should give this NFT-thing a try’, was always going to come out at a loss; spending hundreds of dollars to sell for a fraction of the creation cost, if at all. Those who did manage to ride the crest of the boom were the ones who exploited the craze.
Pak’s works, rotating minimalist orbs, conical shapes, and other geometric formations in grey scale against black backgrounds were hardly groundbreaking, or even interesting, and were backed by even less context than the content the works provided. Pak’s work wasn’t really about the pieces he was generating but about the NFT structure of dissemination itself.
Winkelmann (aka BEEPLE), even self-describes his work as ‘piles of ***t’ and affirms that he is ‘crap’ at what he does. Though obviously part of a facetious, self-demeaning persona, it is clear that Winkelmann does not believe that his work is valueless. The blatantly perceivable or self-perpetuated highlighting of the conceptual or curatorial emptiness of Pak and Winkelmann’s work smacks of Banksy’s satirical manipulation of the art-market when he shredded his painting at auction, sky-rocketing its value into his record sale.
The sweeping uptake of artists jumping on the band wagon trying to spin their artworks into NFT gold saturated the market with quickly produced artworks, often generated by computer algorithms, with little to no conceptual or creative meaning, equivalent to low-quality trinkets. One leading trend was PFP NFTs, unique and collectible avatars used as profile pictures on various platforms, one example being the infamous CryptoPunks.
CryptoPunks (Matt Hall and John Watkinson) created a generative algorithm to produce 10,000 unique characters inspired by punk culture, all 24 x 24 pixels in size. According to their own website, the largest sale of a single avatar was $23.74 million in 2022, and the lifetime value of all sales being $3.89 billion. If anything, the NFT promise was a cutting-edge digital market exercise in demonstrating how well scarcity and hype can drive a craze in the short term.
The NFT dream fell short when it became clear that the purchased ledger that gives the buyer the right to access or use the work did not protect it from being easily saved off the internet like any other meme with a simple ‘right-click’. The flooding of the NFT market with these collections of vapid generated images with little cultural value didn’t help either.
The take away is that uniqueness alone does not intrinsically infuse something with long-term value. Even if you do hold the digital certificate that affirms your CryptoPunk is the one-and-only like it, what does that matter when the hype dies down and its market value plummets? Arguably an artworks value is not solely grounded in its status as a unique image or object, or the amount one paid for it, but in the longevity of its cultural significance and the context of its creation.
What Makes a Digital Artwork Truly “Unique”?
When referring to a “Unique Digital Object” (U.D.O), it means any digital artwork—video, code, installation, performance—that has a specific viewing context, technical configuration, and cultural meaning that can’t be reduced to a simple file or JPEG.
The Shift to Code, Video, and Fine Art Digital Assets: Defining the Unique Digital Object
Outside of content-less PFPs and digital rendered jpegs, there does still exist a world of contemporary artists working in Unique Digital Objects (U.D.Os), pushing the boundaries of new media artworks through the consideration of ‘how’ works are installed and experienced.
These artists have been developing their practices in conversation with complex conceptual themes, using immersive 3D installations, high-resolution video, and generative or code-based art to address significant cultural and moral questions. Artists such as Skawennati, most well-known for videos focusing on Indigenous avatars and world-building using rendering softwares, and Mario Klingemann, whose piece “Circuit Training” (2020) learns and creates in real-time using an AI neural network fed on the scanned faces of willing participants. The experience of these projects is greatly enriched by the consideration of their cultural and viewing context alongside a base knowledge of the artist’s oeuvre and research interests as a whole.
Many new media artworks may have special requirements for their proper viewing and installation. For example, David Gardener’s “This Rented Shell”, presented at The Society for Arts and Technology in Montreal, combines video with live performance exhibited in an iMax, immersive environment. In contrast to PFPs, these artists’ works are upheld by a complex scaffolding of experiential and curatorial context. Their requirements for screen-based or interactive, real-time viewing as part of a larger installation or performance instill in them a renewed uniqueness, but one that remains difficult to document, disseminate, or sell in traditional gallery spaces.
Digital artists remain faced with needing a stable method for preserving and presenting their work. NFTs may have dropped the ball, but the protective framework they promised can be configured in other formats.
There are four main pillars that can help build this framework to support the U.D.O:
- Controlled Viewing
- Verifiable History
- High Quality Display
- Building the Artists Unique Identity
The Commercial Solution: How to Catalog and Preserve Your Unique Digital Art (U.D.O)
The Four Pillars of a U.D.O Portfolio
Pillar 1: Controlled Viewing
Your online catalogue functions as a space where the unique experience of your work can be preserved. Password protected viewing rooms offer similar draws as the exclusivity of unique ownership or viewing rights promised by NFTs. Exclusivity can help vet serious collectors, similar to VIP exhibition catalog releases or the brick-and-mortar gallery’s back room.
On your portfolio website, gallery or site pages can be password protected, creating the need for direct outreach by the collector to the artist, or of the offer of exclusivity from the artist to the collector through invited private showings.
Pillar 2: Verifiable History
An artist’s professional history is the main means of assuring their audience of the social and market value of their work. Serious collectors and institutions place weight on an artist’s career, being able to contain the ‘history’ of your artwork, its exhibitions (virtual and physical), accolades, and previous sales, ensures interested parties that your work is valued on a wider cultural scale. It’s a means of reinstating the ‘authenticity’ or ‘aura’ of your pieces.
For collectors, being able to offer a certified history of your artwork’s minting information and technical specifications (file type, resolution, viewing requirements) acts as a detailed certificate of authenticity.
What to document for each U.D.O:
- Title, year, medium, and technical specs (file type, resolution, duration).
- Exhibition history, if applicable (venues, dates, curators).
- Sales history or edition numbers.
- Installation notes and viewing requirements.
Pillar 3: High-Quality Display
The need for impeccable online display is a necessity for digital artworks. Your portfolio may be the first experience a collector or curator is having with your work, and if the work doesn’t load, lags or is pixelated when it isn’t supposed to be, their trust in the quality of the piece, and their willingness to spend money on it, will diminish. High-fidelity image quality, fast-loading embedded video, and flexible page design are therefore a ‘must’ in order to let your work speak for itself.
In need of some inspiration? Check out these 10 Compelling Film-based Portfolios for fresh ideas on incorporating video and still imagery into your own website.
Pillar 4: Building the Artists Unique Identity
The value of a U.D.O is intrinsically linked to the value of the artist’s career and professional presentation. An online portfolio is a means of cohesively manifesting the identity that the artist has painstakingly created through their unique artwork and career achievements. If designed with intention, the artist’s website can let them maintain control over the quality of all aspects of their practice; the personality of the web design and portfolio; the viewing space and experience; and a functional archive containing the truth surrounding the origins and history of their artworks.
In contrast to the Wild West volatility of the cryptomarket, and after the disappointment in the failure of NFT’s ‘digital certificate of authenticity’, the curated and controlled portfolio website is emerging as a stable alternative. A tried and true method that is modifying itself to better suit the needs of U.D.O artists.
What’s your next step? You need a portfolio platform that supports all four of these pillars out of the box. This is where Format, a portfolio builder designed for artists and creatives, becomes especially relevant.
Why Format is Ideal for U.D.O Portfolios
Controlled Viewing (Pillar 1): With options for password protected galleries within the Platform Security and Access Control, you can control the exclusive viewing of your work by selecting which pages are publicly accessible and those that are private, password-access only. There is even the option for your entire site to be password accessible only—although as a best practice I’d recommend at least a landing page and a bio with your CV to establish and maintain your online presence.
Verifiable History (Pillar 2): The E-Commerce/Portfolio Customization allows you to include custom fields within your e-commerce portfolio containing the crucial, in-depth information supporting your U.D.Os verifiable history (its minting details, display specifications, exhibition history, etc); essentially a receipt of its truthful provenance.
High‑Quality Display (Pillar 3): The gallery Media Optimization takes the necessity for quality video and image display seriously, with the ability to adjust settings for the highest quality, uncompressed version of digital files.
Artist Identity (Pillar 4): Format specializes in portfolio websites for artists and creatives, catering to their need to capture the specificity of their individual practices. In addition to the extensive library of site templates you can choose from, Flex Block allows for extreme flexibility in your page designs, including embedded video. The following highly customizable features on their platform will also help you integrate the ‘Four Pillars’ of U.D.Os. for a strong online portfolio presence.
Also worth mentioning; Format’s e-commerce structure allows artists control over their integrated online store transactions and the transfer of files purchased. There are no additional fees or commissions taken on sales by the platform, and there is the option for a product category called “Digital Downloads” that supports the sale and transfer of digital files to collectors.
It is clear that online platforms are updating their functionality to better suit a generation of U.D.O artists who need a structure to securely showcase and sell their work. In the space left behind by NFT’s empty promises of exclusivity and value stabilization, the solution might actually be right in front of us. The ‘Four Pillars’ of creating a framework for successfully presenting your U.D.O are a valuable method of taking control over how your work exists in the world and asserting its cultural and market value.
How to Get Started with Your U.D.O Portfolio (In 5 Steps)
- List your digital works that you consider U.D.Os (code-based, video, installations, performances).
- Document key details (technical specs, exhibition history, editioning, installation notes) for each in a simple spreadsheet.
- Choose a portfolio platform that supports private viewing, custom fields, and high‑quality media (e.g., Format).
- Build a dedicated U.D.O section with password-protected pages for collectors and curated public pages for general audiences.
- Update your portfolio regularly with new exhibitions, sales, and documentation to keep your provenance current.
Start a free Format trial and set up your first controlled viewing room in minutes.
Contributor
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Tiffany April is a visual artist using painting, assemblage, and digital-based installations to capture the transitory and mutually affective relationship between human and more-than-human beings, both digital and (im)material. Informed by research into the interrelations between human and non-human biology, morphology, evolution and ecology, April considers the human body as a continuum between the ecological and digital to question categorizations of “Otherness”; an exploration rooted in her embodied experience as a queer and neurodiverse individual. April uses sensuality and simplicity of forms woven in space to decenter identifiers of the human and place the sensing body on the same plane as the technological and the organic. She completed her MFA at the University of Ottawa, and her BFA in Studio Arts at Concordia University.
