Single Pixels NFTs is a schizophrenic artistic research project about pixels and non-fungible token (NFT) art. What started as a satirical comment about the mad NFT hype ended up in a poetic investigation on pixels.
The Madness
Single Pixels NFTs is a collection of digital image files offered for sale on the NFT platform opensea.io. The artworks’ files are just 3 kilobytes in size, and the pixels they contain are many times smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence. They were offered for sale for 1 Etherum (~ 1,500 $) to comment on the current divergence between financial and fundamental valuations. The practical immateriality of the pixels is in absolute contrast to the insane ecological footprint of 125 Kg CO2 caused by minting. Additionally, These sweet little no-things take NFT’s promise of digital authorship ad absurdum: how can one claim ownership of something that has hardly any perceptible properties?
The Poetry
While loading the single pixels into their sales packaging, a digital photo frame key chain, I suddenly remembered my childhood. When I was a kid, I liked to walk so close to the tv until I could only see pixels. I found it totally fascinating how these inherently meaningless pixels could tell the most adventurous stories once they joined for a dance on a screen. Single Pixel NFTs reveals the adaptability and beauty of the omnipresent but rarely noticed building blocks of digitization. A single pixel is barely perceptible. But if you put it on the right screen and get close enough, you can see the world’s smallest sunrise.This sweet little no-thing is able to show everything.
Pixels also serve as a yardstick for the progression of digitization. A pixel has no extension independent of the display that shows it. As our screens evolve, the single pixel is becoming smaller and smaller, until at some point we can no longer perceive it at all – in a metaverse of invisible pixels.
“Single Red and Blue Pixel Edgeways” displayed in Firefox browser.
Preview of “Single Red and Blue Pixel Edgeways” on opensea.io.
Single Pixel Collection on opensea.io
Currently applying for three Guinness World Records for “Smallest Artwork” (Ref.: 210226133634sa), “Smallest Digital Artwork” (Ref.: 210226124532sda) and “Smallest Non-Fungible-Token Artwork” (Ref.: 210226140416sna).