Nameless—The Anon Platform.
What is Nameless? Read all about the new platform specifically designed for artists coming soon - in the works.
What is Nameless?
On December 18, I tweeted out this which gained a lot of traction regarding an anonymous platform —
A platform with no data about the artists and no origin for the artworks before purchase.
Why is this needed?
The biggest platforms that are frequently talked about and known in the current community are:
NiftyGateway
KnownOrigin
MakersPlace
SuperRare
Rarible
ASyncArt
An anonymous platform will differentiate from these platforms already due to the factor of anonymity. This platform has so much interest from artists / collectors as a problem in the current Crypto Art space is lack of sales due to the fame of the artist & takes away the culture aspect of buying art for the art—this has been highlighted many times and this platform would allow collectors to purchase art based on the ART; then contact the artist after purchase.
Dilemmas
This platform will face a lot of different issues and I've highlighted some here:
What about the context of the artwork?
Collectors would look for a visual identity and buy the artwork due to this.
Fake art / in the style of other famous artists & artists promoting their art.
The context of an artwork is an important thing in the art world as art is not just about how it looks but rather the story behind the piece or the artist(s) that created it — an example which was mentioned is Malevich's black square.
Collectors can take advantage of this anonymous platform by getting artworks from artists with recognizable styles.
Art will be disguised (or) copied in the style of a famous artists' style to attract collectors in the hopes of them buying another person's work. Stolen art from Google will be submitted. Artists will promote their anonymous art on social platforms to collectors.
How can we tackle these issues?
Context of an artwork will always be important as it's larger then one art piece and an unknown artist — this platform will be suited for a discover platform. Collectors can explore and find artworks which when purchased will allow you to find these artists resulting in a connection between (collector x artist), this won't be the only reason why collectors would pursue to purchase art as a lot of collectors won't buy art based on the context alone.
Collectors can take advantage of the platform and purchase artworks based on a visible style and this can also lead to artists faking artworks to take advantage of these collectors. However, this is a market issue which we can reduce the possibility for the artists' faking artworks with a verification process for each artwork.
Fake art and artists promoting their art on social platforms to collectors will be an issue to tackle as well as the above dilemma, I believe a verification platform would allow the possibility of this to be reduced. The intention of artists' and collectors should not be for this reason so it won't be the biggest issue that will come up as its based on the market — a unique UI that will be based on artworks & hidden to artists too until purchase.
Verification & UI
Accessibility will be a game-changer for this platform, how do we balance this to give artists the power they want in their art?
My concept is a custom verification process:
This verification process would allow artists to submit their application for a specific artwork* with links to their socials, information about the artwork, price range they would like to sell their art for & extra details. We would need a team to manually check these applications for stolen art, blatant art in the style of famous artists & accept them.
I still believe we will encounter small issues with this and how far we want the community to agree with this as a project runs on the market / community — this can be changed.
This is a short explanation of what is to come and the roadmap / public funding will be announced soon, stay followed on the twitter for frequent updates as the platform gets built!