RIP NFT
Beeple and Madonna partner to drive final nail into the NFT coffin
The collab includes CGI nudity. The close-up kind.
NFTs, when not being linked to crypto-fascist trolls, are hemorrhaging value — an inevitable outcome predicted by many. It feels particularly appropriate that one of the very people who helped usher in the era of NFTs is helping to drive the final nail in the industry’s coffin. Oh, and Madonna is lending a hand, too. Well, lending a lot more than just a hand.
That’s right, dear readers. Beeple and Madonna are doing a collab. And why yes, it does involve graphic CGI nudity — how could you have guessed?
The pair recently announced Mother of Creation, a trio of one-minute videos to be auctioned as NFTs for charity beginning today. Each clip involves renders of a completely naked “Madonna” as she births trees, butterflies, and robotic centipedes while the real Madonna reads Rumi poetry as a voiceover. And yes, of course there are gratuitous closeups of each respective “birth.”
Get it? — “It’s been an amazing journey building this together from an intellectual idea to an emotional story, giving birth to art,” explains Madonna on the Mother of Creation website. “I wanted to investigate the concept of creation, not only the way a child enters the world through a woman’s vagina, but also the way an artist gives birth to creativity.” You know, because both birth and art involve making new things — or did we just blow your mind?
Okay, look. Far be it from me as a man to tell a woman what to do with her own body parts (especially nowadays). Not only that, but far be it from me to do that when at least some of Beeple and Madonna’s auction profits are going to very good charities aiding Ukrainian refugees, global gendered violence victims, and providing bail money to incarcerated BIPOC women. Not only that, but the company providing the NFT infrastructure for these sales is also ponying up another $100K for each charity. That’s more money than I’ll ever be able to raise for these kinds of more-than-worthy causes.
But, as Sarah Rose Sharp at Hyperallergic points out, “Madonna is potentially rich enough to just donate to charity without making literally everyone look at her vagina. Then again, if past is precedent, Madonna likes having people look at and think about her vagina, so I guess good on her, for finding a fresh way to renew interest in the area. Right?”
Right. So, yeah — hopefully this will be one of the last ridiculous bits of NFT coverage we feel compelled to cover. Thanks, Beeple. Thanks, Madonna. Sigh.