How to frame your NFT

Mengxin Li / The Verge

Let's say you purchased an NFT. It isn't because you want to make a bunch of money and you're just going to flip it, and it isn't because you didn't buy an NFT so much as a link. Maybe this is the first piece you have ever bought. You didn't buy it to be used or sold. You paid for it to look at it. It's time to hang it up in your house.

On the other hand, there are a lot of ways to get your art seen. It is just a photo. You could just print it and hang it. You can always see it on your phone even if you don't have a screen. It won't do justice to the piece.

As NFT art gets more valuable, and as artists start to care more about how their digital art is displayed in the real world, the question of how to display your digital collection has become more complicated. Digital art galleries are having to rethink how they light their gallery and how people move through it in order to promote their work. Artists used to keep the shape of their work the same, but now have to think about both digital and physical versions. There are a lot of new decisions to be made when it comes to displaying art. You thought NFTs were hard to understand.

Scott Gralnick has been pondering about the displays. He is the co- founder of Lago, a company that builds a $9,000 NFT frame for high-end collectors, but he has been in Web3 for a decade. The same thing kept coming up when he talked to his peers. They said they had to retrofit a multimillion-dollar collection to a TV. How can I get this into my home when I don't want to show it on my computer?

Gralnick and his co-founders set out to build something for those people, but also something that might appeal to traditional art buyers, who might not mind the idea of phone-bound art at all. Gralnick said that he had friends who were doing dinners with Christie's and were given NFTs. It came down to one question, how do I like this at home?

The $9,000 frame was called a tool for mass consumption by Gralnick. The team wanted to make sure you couldn't confuse the frame for a TV, so they chose a 33 inch display. Artists can use both the optional camera and the optional soundbar to enhance their pieces. Gralnick explained that they might build something that is unlocked. It can be unlocked if I do the right gesture sequence. Maybe I throw it to the other frame. The frame Lago can be used to display one NFT or the companion mobile app can be used to cycle through your entire collection. You could present a set of pieces that werecurated by NFT. These come with clear indications about which pieces you do and don't own, so you can't pretend that ape is yours. The frame can be used for both a display and a distribution channel.

The entire stock was sold in pre-order. The dedicated NFT screen is in high demand. The displays range from 10 to 55 inches. The digital photo frame business has been turned into an NFT one by Netgear. Canvia did the same thing. Most startups are still in the hype and pre-order phase, but they all have the same promises about their luxury art displays. If you want to build your own NFT screen, you can use the tokencast protocol and the pi.

The space has come and gone quickly because you don't have to have a high-end display in order to work in it. The first run of frames that could access the owner's own collection and a whole gallery of Qonos-curated artwork sold out in the first year of operation. There isn't a single sign of Qonos other than a private website. The founder of Quonos didn't reply to the request.

Joe Saavedra thinks it's a bit much. He says a lot of companies make TVs that do less than a television. It doesn't matter if you paid $10,000 for an Airdrop or not, they're all right next to each other in the gallery. You are just using your fingers. He wanted to build the least interactive, least gadgety thing he could make when he was building an NFT frame.

Infinite objects got its start by printing video, which means putting a display inside a frame, setting a single video to run on a loop, and sending it to you. Saveedra says that when you take it out of the box it will turn on. There isn't an interface or buttons. The result is much closer to a painting than it is to a piece of furniture.

Saveedra is doing the same things. Infinite objects worked with Beeple to make and ship physical versions of NFT Winkelmann's products. The official frame of NBA Top Shots is also worked with. The cost to get your NFT printed is around 120 dollars. You can buy frames from 6.4 to 11 feet tall. Saveedra thinks that the very existence of a durable physical object is the most important thing. He says he can flip it if it's on a TV. Next, alright.

Steve Sacks is the founder of bitforms gallery, which has been presenting digital art for 20 years. He says you don't want to turn on your $100,000 piece of art when you're watching the NBA playoffs. It takes away a lot of things.

Sacks said that some artists care about the screen they end up on. Even the size at which their piece should be displayed will be dictated by them. Others will create an object for their work to be shown. The artist is giving us a sculpture. The object that comes with the art is not the only thing that makes it art. Many of the things bitforms shows and sells are unframed works, in which the file is sold and the buyer can display it they want.

Things are different at theQuantus Gallery. When the team was getting set up for the first NFT exhibition, they tested six or seven different TVs. The frames line the walls, some vertically and some horizontally. It is similar to an actual print. They're pretty good. Sandhu wants to build a wall of retro TVs, run a virtual reality exhibition, and figure out holograms, but for now TVs are the way to go.

NFT art is displayed in a way that makes it stand out. It is not a question of graphical fidelity but a purpose. Do you purchase an NFT so you can look at the picture all the time? Is an NFT about your relationship with the artist with other people? Who gets to make a decision? Most of these decisions are made when the art is made, and as it changes hands it becomes impossible to control. Artists can know who created their work, and people can know who created their work, with the use of NFTs. Who is the artist of it?

I did not speak to anyone who knew the answer. That is part of the fun according to almost all of them. NFTs can be used one definite way. They are a claim of ownership and authenticity that has never been done before. The technology is being appreciated by artists. For the ridiculous sums of money they make. The art crowd is starting to figure out how the digital and physical art worlds interact as prices and enthusiasm drop. What is the resolution that is required?