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Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

InternetApril 6, 2022

No more brass hammers, and other lessons from the Webb’s NFT art auction

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

The auction house’s first attempt to sell NFTs resulted in bad publicity and accusations of ‘cultural vandalism’, all because of a tongue-in-cheek stunt. Dylan Reeve interviews the auction’s creator for IRL.

Earlier this year, Auckland auction house Webb’s dipped its toes into the cyber-waters with its first NFT auction. It was the first local auction house to do it, and the people behind it were hoping to grab attention with the sale of two NFTs of century-old photographs of New Zealand painter CF Goldie.

They certainly did grab attention, but perhaps not quite how they imagined.

Some described the Webb’s auction as “cultural vandalism”. It wasn’t the NFTs themselves that were the problem, but a decision the company made about what to package alongside the digital collectables.

“Look, put it this way, if I had known that it would have resulted in you, Dylan, from The Spinoff, contacting me like this, I wouldn’t have done it,” Charles Ninow, Webb’s director of art, told me as we sat together in the company’s meeting room surrounded by impressive art and collectables.

The “it” in question was the not-entirely-explicit suggestion that the 100-year-old glass negatives included in the sale should be destroyed by the winning bidder. It was an implication made by Webb’s opting to include a small brass hammer in the auction – exactly the sort you might use to smash a century-old glass photographic plate.

The photographs of Goldie (Photos: Webb’s; additional design: Archi Banal)

Ninow did himself no favours when, in a Newshub interview, he addressed the hammer by saying, “Perhaps you might like to make it permanently digital.” Newshub reporter Simon Shepherd went straight for the unspoken implication: “Smash it?”

“Smash it,” said Ninow, with a wry smile and a shrug.

This caused outrage among a select group of art fans online, and even attracted international attention. It was that reaction that got me interested in the auction, and led me to be sitting down with Ninow. 

Webb’s historic NFT sale was a hybrid offering, mixing the digital and physical in a single auction. There were two lots on offer, each consisting of an NFT of a black-and-white photograph of acclaimed New Zealand painter C. F. Goldie at work in his studio, along with a high-quality framed print of the same image, and the original glass negative. The negatives were, perhaps, especially significant as they were physical artefacts that had been present more than a century earlier in the camera that took the historically significant photographs. 

And there was, of course, the hammer.

Looking back on it, a short while after the two NFTs (and associated physical manifestations) sold to a single bidder for an expectation-defying $127,500, Ninow seemed slightly regretful about what he suggested was supposed to be a playful nod to the emerging digital future. “It didn’t rely on the hammer. It didn’t need to be there.”

Indeed, the hammer wasn’t actually there in the end. It was quietly removed from each lot in the listing, and no hammers were included among the final sold items. 

Christie’s sold an NFT of artist Beeple’s ‘Everydays: the First 5000 Days’ for 69 million USD. (Image: Beeple)

Ninow and I spent more than an hour discussing NFTs and the esoteric nature of art when I visited the Webb’s showroom. He’s an enthusiastic believer in the potential of crypto technology to deliver for artists and collectors and, being anchored mostly among the world of physical art, he is excited about finding ways to merge the digital and physical.

For many people, the first time they heard the term “NFT” was in global news coverage about a record-breaking digital art sale that saw famed auction house Christie’s sell an NFT of ‘Everydays: the First 5000 Days’ by prolific digital artist Beeple for a staggering US$69 million almost exactly a year ago.

NFTs are a well-established concept in the mainstream now, with stories appearing regularly about new ventures, big sales, scams and strange parties. The inbox of any journalist who writes about technology is routinely filled with PR-company pitches for new NFT and crypto products. Companies promoting new NFT offerings have to do something to stand out; somehow make their new cyber-offering unique and special. For Webb’s, that was a number of things: the hybrid nature of the auction, the historic nature of the images. 

And the hammer.

“I’ve spoken a lot to people about NFTs in relation to the age of mechanical reproduction, and so it was only meant to further illustrate those ideas,” Ninow tried to explain. 

“So it was a metaphorical hammer?” I queried.

“Yes, yeah, well, no,” Ninow paused. “Look, maybe the idea was just overcooked.”

While the NFTs sold by Webb’s went for well above the listed estimates, the final numbers involved weren’t enough to pull in the attention of the world’s media. Unlike Christie’s massive Beeple sale, which allowed bidding in various cryptocurrencies, the Webb’s auction terms are a little more traditional, requiring payment in NZD by direct transfer, EFTPOS or credit card – although Ninow says the company was negotiable on the matter. “If the buyer had wanted to pay in crypto, we would have accepted crypto,” he said.

For Ninow, the opportunity to merge the worlds of digital and traditional art is what’s most appealing at the moment. At a time when talk of NFTs so frequently revolves around procedurally-generated pictures of apes and 3D rabbits, Ninow wants to find ways to tie the online and physical words together. 

Despite attracting some online rage, Webb’s first foray into the world of NFTs was a success, according to Ninow, and it definitely won’t be the last. “I can’t say yet what they are, but I’ve got lots of very interesting plans,” Ninow said confidently. “The most important thing for us is that we want to do things that are culturally meaningful and, I think, mean things for the future.”

“But absolutely no more brass hammers,” he added resolutely, having clearly taken on board at least that key lesson from NFT auction number one.

Keep going!
Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

Pet WeekMarch 30, 2022

I tried to track my cat’s movements with GPS. It didn’t go well

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

Pet tech is on the rise, meaning you can use a GoPro or GPS tracker to keep an eye on your fluffy friend’s secret movements. In theory, anyway. For IRL, Dylan Reeve realises it’s harder than it looks. 

We’re celebrating our shaggy, slithering, slobbering pets all week on The Spinoff. Click here for more Pet Week content.

Moriarty is seven now, but has displayed a fiercely independent streak since he was very young. He comes and goes as he pleases and refuses to abide by any rules. 

He certainly isn’t a lap cat.

Every time I get up from the lounge to quiet his incessant meowing by opening the back door – despite there being a cat door he is entirely capable of using – I ask the same question: “Where the hell have you been?”

Moriarty in his natural habitat. (Photo: Dylan Reeve)

During daylight hours, Moriarty can almost always be found asleep somewhere in the house. His preferred spot changes, but 90% of the day he’s somewhere inside. At night, well, that’s a different story. As the household is winding down for the evening, he’s getting ready to head out. 

I have never had the remotest idea where he goes. I can’t ever find him outside, and I’ve never seen him away from our house. It’s a mystery. So when The Spinoff called for Pet Week stories, I knew immediately what to pitch: let me track my cat!

I did not consult Moriarty about this.

When Eric from Petrek a specialist sub-brand from New Zealand GPS-tracking company Lintek dropped off the Petrek 3G tracking device, I knew immediately that it was going to be a challenge. The unit isn’t big, exactly, but it’s also not small. The tracking unit is about 5cm by 4cm, and about 2cm deep; a little bigger than a pack of TicTacs. And it weighs about 30 grams — not heavy, but also not light for a cat. 

Moriarty was certainly going to have some thoughts.

The technology involved is pretty straightforward: the small device contains a GPS receiver and a small cellular transmitter. It periodically calculates current GPS coordinates, then uses the cellphone network to transmit the details to a server where you can see the most recent position data using a mobile app. It’s like Find Your Friends, but for your cat. (Or dog, or maybe rabbit?)

As I suspected, Moriarty was not on board with my plan to track him. My fault, I hadn’t briefed him. He also hadn’t worn a collar for a couple of years, and was apparently pretty fond of that sweet free-neck feeling.

After what we could call some “heated discussion”, I had scratched hands and Moriarty was wearing a collar. He then burrowed under a couch where he spent a while trying to remove this impediment to his liberties. 

The Petrek 3G tracking device in action. (Photo: Dylan Reeve)

It wasn’t the Petrek 3G’s fault. Eric had warned me that it was best to slowly acclimatise the pet to having a larger item on their collar, but I thought my cat was different. I thought he was special. I thought he’d understand my need for his co-operation – for journalism.

He did not.

My teenage children on the other hand, they understood what I needed. And they could be bribed. So I formed a new plan, and went to make peace with Moriarty by removing the cursed collar. He appreciated my assistance (read: scratched me more) and disappeared outside – I have no idea where, exactly because of, you know, the whole lack of tracking thing.

With a bar of chocolate on offer, the teenagers were willing to be my cat proxies for testing. I tucked the small tracking unit into a school bag the next day, and watched from the comfort of my desk as I received an update every few minutes of the child’s movements.

The device did exactly as it promised: told me where my cat (child) was. The technology is great; the problem was the pet. Or, if I’m being honest, the owner.

The tracking app, available for iOS and Android, is well-designed and intuitive. It will show your pet’s location on a familiar Google map, along with guidance about the accuracy of a given location reading. It also stores a daily history of all movements, ready to be reviewed at will, and provide the option of creating a “geofence” which will alert you if your pet travels outside the defined area.

But why would anyone need to track their pet anyway? Well, “need” is a strong word – if there’s one thing we should know about technology now, it’s often not about need. You don’t need to be able to turn lights off with your voice, but many of us can. That said, Eric related the story of a stolen dog recently located with the aid of his tracking collar. And obviously there’s us curious cat owners, who just want to know exactly what Fluffybum is up to around the neighbourhood – does he spend all day being doted on by the Joneses over the back fence? 

The Petrek 3G being modelled by a more cooperative cat than Moriarty. (Photo: Petrek)

There are some specific use cases, too. “A lot of customers want to track their pet when moving to a new house,” Eric explained. “They get the tracker a little while before moving house, and then use it at the new address in case their pet tries to head back to the old house, or just gets lost in a new area.”

As with all technology, there are compromises and limitations. The Petrek 3G is reliant on both GPS and cellular networks to provide location information, meaning it doesn’t work as well when it’s indoors or in otherwise heavily obstructed areas as it struggles to receive GPS signals. If your pet happens to wander into a cellular dead zone, it will not be able to communicate the location back to you. 

As with every gadget we rely on, battery life can be a challenge at times. Depending on update frequency, and variables like signal strength, the battery might need charging as often as every day. Eric’s tip: once you’ve used the tracker for a while to get a good sense of your pet’s territory, you can reduce the update frequency in order to prolong battery life. If you urgently need to know the pet’s location, you can change the settings in the app to get more frequent updates.

With the technology in hand, I’m confident I can finally know where my cat goes when not lounging at home. I just need to take the time now to convince my cat to participate in my experiment; a process I’m told could take a couple of weeks. 

As has happened so often before, my attempt to solve a problem by throwing technology at it was foiled by factors that have nothing to do with technology.

But I will persist, and eventually I will know where Moirarty lurks in the dark shadows. 

Pet Week is proudly presented by our friends at Animates. For more Pet Week content keep an eye on The Spinoff and watch The Project, 7pm weeknights on Three.

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