Inside the bubble
Whenever there’s a speculative bubble going on (or a cultural one, for that matter) life inside the bubble seems rational and normal.
And so artists at Miami:Basel are talking about minting NFTs. Not because they understand them (they don’t) or because they provide actual utility (they don’t) but because that’s what life is like inside of this particular speculative bubble.
And people outside the bubble are supposed to feel left behind, because that’s part of the fuel of life inside the bubble.
When a corporate culture begins to get insular, or a community starts acting like a cult, the same thing happens.
Culture is “the way we do things around here.” The very nature of a bubble is that there’s an inside and an outside, an expanding reality-distortion field that assures people inside the bubble that they’re doing things that are rational and normal.
If you’re confident that the bubble is here for the long-term, perhaps we shouldn’t hesitate to play along.
But when the bubble bursts (and speculative bubbles always do), be prepared for reality to disagree with your assertions.
“Art does not lie down on the bed that is made for it; it runs away as soon as one says its name; it loves to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what it is called.” –Jean Dubuffet